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Tonight, I feel this sense of loss and grief: - When the last meal, the last conversation with each of my parents will be - Thinking back to the last time nursing J in the middle of the night - distinctly remembering saying to myself that these times were limited, since I was planning to wean - and indeed that was the last time he ever fell asleep on me, full and satisfied - Scrambling through my phone and finding few pictures of L - he’s grown so much in 3 months but I’ve scarcely bothered to document any of it - Thinking that L might be my last child. We never really discussed or closed this off resolutely. But I remember feeling that overwhelm, that overwhelm of having two young children, disliking it and yearning for my life back many times... and feeling guilt because I’m also not ready to wish these days away - Returning to the hospital today and remembering everything. The anxiety over J’s early birth, the difficulty of being pregnant with L- and also the sheer triumph and monstrous rawness of giving life to them, without pain medication, somehow in both encounters drawing deep into that part of me that just knew I could do it. And I did - How much time wasted on stupid things that break our hearts and spoil our minds - unappreciative people, dumb job woes, yearning for the approval of others - Crying over this post - https://sandwichparenting.com/2021/07/26/redefining-failure/ - finally understanding why I so frequently end up in doomsday spirals, thinking that a piece of work / effort spent / an excursion / any number of things were FAILURES... the familiar feeling of overwhelm and discomfort when something goes wrong, so closely linked to scenes from childhood when my parents would melt down over what now seems to be the tiniest of issues

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Watching him sleep makes me want to fight for a better world, a better future for him and his friends.

Some things that have struck me in the past month... but I lack discipline and time to really write and reflect. So just a few words for each of them so I remember: Breastfeeding - ambivalent feelings about this. I think we were fortunate in that it worked out but it was definitely very difficult in the beginning. Ironically, now that it is easier, I half wish to give it up and yet I’m also not prepared to. I question how much of this is because I’ve been influenced to think that this is one of the key duties of a mother if she is able to provide. On the science - my take is that the claimed benefits to public health and immunity are exaggerated or disingenuous (this is worth another post of its own on what ‘public health’ is and how ‘immunity’ works), particularly in an industrialised country with good sanitation. But I acknowledge that we do not understand a lot about the compounds within, so there may be longer-term benefits to the child that we have not yet discovered. I am more cognisant of the costs of breastfeeding -- namely my time and commitment, since you can never really stop even when you are away from baby. I do not feel that breastfeeding necessarily confers a stronger bond between mother and child, and am in full agreement Janet Lansbury’s perspective (https://www.janetlansbury.com/2010/04/beyond-bottles-and-breasts-the-key-to-whole-baby-nourishment/) that the connection in whatever we do is what is most important. Ecclesiastes - everything is vanity, indeed. I will be under no delusions that anything I do lasts. Or even life itself.

Fairness, compassion etc. - something I want for J’s world. Something which COVID has revealed the world to be in shortage of. Something I want to fight for. Knowledge. All knowledge on this earth is mediated and incomplete, because we need explanations, and such are the powers of science, narratives, mathematics. It is like what the husband says, Moses and Paul knew, because they knew. God did not have to provide them with reason. One day when we see God we will just know, we will see why things are. I think this is what Paul means when he says we see through a glass darkly for now. Minimalism - a useful exercise. Science - incredibly important. After 3 years of living with one of the most intelligent and sensitive scientists and now having the time to explore... I feel I finally have a vague inkling of what the discipline is and what its claims to knowledge are (and are not). If I only I understood this when I was younger. Sleep - a very delicate topic, especially as it relates to parenting. But so essential in all aspects of our lives. We do not take it seriously enough. I feel it is more essential than food, and I am sure that one day the science will come to prove it. Sleep should be prescribed as medication is, and it should be guaranteed as a right. Even that, though, is no use when we have little respect for its powers. Our culture does not prize rest and we ourselves do not know how to put ourselves to rest. It is unfortunate.

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. -- 1 Timothy 6 Ruminating over these verses + praying about them makes me cry. Perhaps because I value comfort and security and “optimising” my possessions a lot more than I would admit. I think about the kind of person that I would like J to be -- resilient, resourceful, content with what he has -- and I am confronted with that I myself am not. The truth is, by no virtue of his own, J has been born with many advantages - to be able-bodied, to married and educated parents with stable employment, in a country with good sanitation and government. When the time comes to eat, his parents will introduce him to a variety of nutritious things. He will not have to work for a good many years and his childhood will be designed by us, rather than circumstances of poverty. All this is power, that can and must translate into a love for others and a desire to see His will done on earth as it is on heaven. I am 28 years older than him. As Paul says, the appointed time has grown very short. In considering these things I want again so much to make my life count.

7.30pm - 6.00am

Every good and perfect gift is from above. I don’t take this for granted. May this experience give us the resilience and grit to tackle all difficulties in the future.

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In the hazy first month of J’s arrival, I told YK that I found the story of Abraham’s sacrifice all the more absurd and unfair. Many theologians and preachers have tried to rationalise how God asked him to give up his only beloved son — that God was good and therefore he would never have followed through with the kill, and we know this because of the lamb that was provided etc. But I’ve found this explanation problematic because doing something so drastic to test a man is cruel in the extreme. And after all, aren’t we the same people who believe that Abraham did not merit favour from God because of his works? Others say it was to grow Abraham’s faith. I think if that were the case, Abraham would have every right to feel cheated and manipulated when the trial was over. In any case we aren’t told what he felt. We only understand he was called to trust God and believe his promises, that he would be the father of many nations. Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham believed that God was one who could raise the dead.

Then again perhaps what I’m feeling is not wrong. Perhaps we are to feel outrage, to feel deep moral confusion over the story, and we cannot rationalise these emotions away. It becomes clearer when I think about J. The hard thing to accept is that J is not really ours even though he occupies so much of our affection, resources and time. We are given this gift for a short while only. At any time we may be called to return him to God, whether his physical life itself or what he chooses to do. Though we pray of course that he may follow the Lord Jesus, the truth is that following Him will entail suffering that I would not want to see.

I have recurrent dreams and flashbacks of the very first gynae appointment that we attended at around 6.5 weeks. We knew about J even before I left for the UK, a trip that I made reluctantly because I was afraid something bad should happen away from home. I was nervous the entire trip even as I pretended to be well and happy before all the people that I met, and ended up crying to sleep every single night. When I came down with a high fever and chills the second day of the conference I was certain that the worst was here and I prayed the hardest I ever had in my life. The entire flight home was filled with tears as I tried to sleep away the cramps. A few days later we saw him on the screen - a blur bean of only 2mm. At that time I promised everybody and nobody that even if he were sick or disabled or difficult, I would still love him. It is funny how this keeps coming back to me again and again, as every day I discover more of his separateness and his individuality. How little I can really control, how little I can really shield him from. How much I have to yield to God, how immeasurable it all is.

Grace and peace are the exclusive gifts of the Christian. Man enjoys many other common gifts, regardless of belief or faith. But specifically, these two are for the Christian alone:

Grace - to enjoy what we do not deserve, and to escape from what we do deserve, viz a secure identity and eternal inheritance that will never perish or fade, and the separation from God and correspondingly all things good because of our sin;

Peace - with God, to be reconciled and on the same table, when we should have been eternally separated. And with this brings hope of peace with fellow men, even when the chasm is too large.

I read these old notes earlier today, which I scribbled from an earlier sermon (or book?). Paul always greets the Christians with these blessings, and yet I don’t pray enough for these. It is too easy to overlook and forgo what we do have, in exchange for all the material blessings that the world can give.

Day six

He is lovely, he is competent, he is capable. I used to think of babies and helpless and needy but I see what it means now when they say you should see them as “dependent” but not helpless. He understands more than I can imagine even though he does not communicate in our language yet. Day after day he surprises me with what he can do — then again, was it because I expected too little from the start?

Day five - note to self

He can do it. I’ve seen it and I’ve been surprised. He is indeed more intelligent than I give him credit for. It is our job to set up the space, to provide comfort and security, and to assure that we will always be there for him. It is his to grow and master new skills. There are days where things go wrong and there are many tears. But this is the process of learning.

In 2020

I would like to learn to love the church again. Of course, like they say, love is not a feeling, it is a commitment and a decision.

Sometimes I feel silly because we get into so many altercations with the church: offenses, hurt, misunderstandings... yet time and again it gives abundantly to us what we physically and spiritually need.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” — John 13:34-35

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https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/16/baby-advice-books-industry-attachment-parenting

This is the best article on bringing up a baby that I’ve read. The rational part of me knows that despite the theories and the different trial-and-errors we have been doing, A most certainly does not lead to B. Rather the baby’s temperament and his caprice are the key determinants of how the day(s and nights) turns out. Frequently it defies all expectations and reason. But in the haze of sleep deprivation one grasps at any form of counsel that we are on the right track. In some way I think this is a reflection of the culture we live in, our yearning go to be proven right as long as we have done the right things. Yet how deep the trench is once we revert to law-based thinking.

The long read: Every baffled new parent goes searching for answers in baby manuals. But what they really offer is the reassuring fantasy tha

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3040824/out-90-seconds-female-urinals-will-halve-peeing?

Bookmarking this for my reference. It completely ignores the >25% probability that a woman could be menstruating or postpartum; or the physiological reality that sitting/squatting or otherwise, peeing takes longer for women than men; or that women are at higher risk of urinary tract infections than men because of anatomy. But all that aside, the atrocity is that in *public policy* the solution should never be to make one gender behave like another.

The Hong Kong Toilet Association says urinals, rather than new cubicles, are the answer to cutting the perennially long queues outside women

on marriage

就算在一起70年，我还嫌不够。

more. morE. moRE. mORE. MORE. As I approach the third anniversary, I find myself more discontent, more hungry. The stakes are higher now, of course. And I should fear loss, disease, pain, maybe dare I say death, more than I have.

But I feel this most: what I have is simply not enough. It’s not enough for me to just have experienced or tasted something good. God, I want more of all that is good.

Tim Keller recently posted on his Facebook that the only person who dares to disturb the king at 3am for a glass of water is a child, and that we have the same kind of access. Yes, we do, and because of this, I dare to ask.

Hey Jude,

Pain is temporary. There is no glory in undertaking it for its own sake. If people choose to do things a particular way because of personal challenge or for martyrdom, they will never stay the course. But strong anticipation of an end goal, as well as conviction of its achievability, is the foundation for finishing any race.

This is true of work, relationships, and most of all the Christian life. You helped me to see this more clearly. I pray we can model this to you a little better every day.

parenthood

This challenge - the hospital, the sleepless nights, the inconvenience, frustration, anxiety, cost... if I knew all this would be in the works, would I do it again? If I knew about the lack of sleep (we did...), the physical pain, the psychological hurdles, that we would blow close to $20,000 in a month (sure hope the insurance offsets some..), would I do it?

I suspect how most parents would respond would give the answer to one of the biggest apologetics questions of all time - why God created human beings if he knew it was going to be bad.

Take a sad song, and make it betterrrrr...

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The last thing I spoke to the doctor about, before being discharged at the hospital, was Tofu’s weight. The doctor mentioned he was at a good 2.2kg — but I feared that if he were to make his way out that week, he would be too small. What I got was that “he was right for his gestational age” and that the weight did not determine the maturity of his lungs. “Weight and size are not everything,” he said, because there were those who came out at term and needed the NICU; and there were those who came out early and didn’t.

There are as many good anecdotes of babies who have come out around this time, as there are medical articles and stories of lower development, growth and progress in the longer term. It does make me feel better that we are closer to 37w, the number where they are so-called considered relatively ready. But ultimately there is no knowing how things are, there is no knowing how things can be. And so I rest in God, because the only truth through it all is that He cares for him.

One of the odd and more illogical things* I started fretting over many weeks ago was our lack of a car. A considered and logical decision given that the husband can’t drive and I am not fond of it either. But a simple question on “how will you manage without a car?” from a dual-working couple was enough to send me into a whole spiral of doomsday thoughts.

How are we going to get to work/church on time? What carrier to use for Tofu? Is there even a portable car seat? Why is public transport so sucky? Why didn’t we think about this earlier? Is it less safe to cab around? And we don’t have dedicated caregivers for him? Many parents I know without cars don’t work? Are we penny wise and pound foolish? I reminded myself that we are both fortunate to not have to worry about money and I could spend time uselessly fretting about first world possibilities.

People talk about relying on God for big things but I’ve found that it is in these smaller matters I’ve had to consciously remind myself that property and human solutions will not save us. If I don’t focus on what is trustworthy and true ie God’s providential care it will be easy to turn into a kiasu parent. And what lessons would I be sending to Tofu or those around about asking God for what we need?

*there are others (some hopefully less illogical than others), in no particular order, eg. infantcare, relationship with parents, our small fridge compared to many of those in our friends’ homes, the lack of a ceiling fan in Tofu’s room, allergies, future job, boredom during extended leave, mental health, our marriage, insurance, how to pray, dengue fever... the list goes on.

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