Arriving at 10.45 on a bright Thursday morning on the 22nd day of the first lunar month of this Rabbit year, my little girl sparked a deep rush of euphoria in me. Her arrival marked the culmination of a long-drawn-out “baby project” which I had planned from the time I started wooing her mother.
And so on Feb 24 this year, I became a dad, just nine days shy of my 34th birthday. My first feeling was that of great emotional release. For the preceding nine months, the thing that had worried me most was not the preparations for the arrival of my angel, but the risks associated with my wife’s pregnancy and labour process, and the baby’s health and “appearance.”
Thus it was with great relief that I saw Yuyu, healthy and looking good. The next thing I felt was immense gratitude to my wife. And then I froze as this thought hit me: I now had three “mums” to abide by – my mother-in-law, my wife and Yuyu’s godmother.
When the trio – and these are perfectionist “tiger” mums – gang up on me where Yuyu’s upbringing is concerned, I had to dig deep into my ICs (intelligence circuits) for “ammunition.” Already a pentheraphobic (having a fear of mother-in-law) when I married my wife in November 2009, I had to rack my brains to win over her mother during our courting days. And now, I am heavily tested again in my fatherhood days.
Being left-brained is no help as “a man of science” (I studied electronics engineering and am now a project manager with a telematics company in Kuala Lumpur) lacks that artistic knack possessed by their right-brained counterparts; by that I mean the “art of appeasing mum-in-law”!
Furthermore, I belong to that school of thought where babies should be left to nature to nurture which, naturally, runs counter to the “gang of three” who are bent on adhering to their “book of bringing up baby.”
Take, for instance, teaching baby to talk. My mother-in-law coaches Yuyu in Mandarin, my wife speaks to Yuyu in Cantonese while the godmother reads to Yuyu in English. As they deem I speak “broken English and Mandarin,” I am not allowed to speak to Yuyu in either. So when it is feeding time, mum-in-law goes “nian nian,” mummy “nai nai”, godma “milk milk” and I go “mum mum” (Cantonese for food).
If that’s not multilingual enough, my father-in-law speaks only Hakka to Yuyu and, being musically-inclined, he makes enticing sounds which I know not how to transcribe here.
Another area where the gang of three look askance at me is Yuyu’s “good looks”. Up till she was six months old, Yuyu was the spitting image of me. My baby photo could easily pass off as hers (though I had more hair than her when I was that age).
For the past month, the trio have been lightening up as Yuyu takes after her mum in the most beautiful way.
Yuyu is at her most angelic when she is sleeping after her feed and this is a trait I share with my daughter. I too require restful snoozes, especially to work off the jetlag from my on-the-job travels. And I do this best with Yuyu curled up on my chest. However, my languid form is frowned upon by the gang of three, just as it is with my eating form. It is perfectly fine if baby is guzzling her milk and sleeping overtime as baby is growing up. But when daddy does it, it is being a poor role model as daddy is growing sideways.
When she gets up after a good sleep, she is at her most jolly, quite like me. And she loves climbing up my chest and “feeling” my face, making musical sounds like her goong goong (grandfather). She is at her most shrill when she is hungry, quite like me, too.
My wife always says Yuyu is an impatient girl. But, to me, she is behaving really well for her age. I would bawl my eyes out too if my mum took as long to prepare my milk!
Now that she knows how to interact with people, my wily girl has us wrapped around her little finger. She is indeed a far cry from the sleeping baby at birth.
As a new father, I am mesmerised by her every move. She is learning fast and able to imitate us. And even if the first words she utters are por por (grandmother) or maa maa, and not paa paa, I am perfectly okay with it. So long as it pleases my three ma’ams.
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