chinese new year redux
30 Jan 09 - Friday - 11:01 a.m.
Our first Chinese New Year with Peanut was pretty good. We visited far less people than we did last year for some reason or other, which worked out well because it could be somewhat inconvenient trying to nurse Peanut every 2 hours while out and about.
We did the usual 3 reunion dinners save that instead of heading out to a restaurant with Mother In Law, we did a small steamboat, complete with Wagyu beef, at our place instead, before heading off to our second dinner at First Aunt's and then steamboat supper at Father In Law's.
Everyone seems incredibly taken with Peanut. She kept getting passed around and cuddled. My strange nephews were taking turns carrying her and taking photos of each other, last night I was at another relative's place where they were also taking turns carrying her and taking photos of each other. Maybe it's the full head of hair, or maybe its her really black eyes and funny faces. Whichever is the case, she was thankfully rather good natured about everything, sleeping through most of it, and getting through the rest with her eyes wide open and with her winsome smile. [She did try to kick and punch a few people though. It's her new trick when she's upset or uncomfortable. Luckily people were more amused than upset even though she kicks pretty hard.]
She is now lying on the floor in her bassinet at my feet cooing and signing to herself while staring out at the cats sunning on the balcony and her little clothes hanging out to dry, her eyes slowly closing as she loses her fight against sleep.
I return to work on Monday, working only three days a week till the later part of the year. So starts getting up at the crack of dawn to get her to my parents' place before heading off to work.
I will really miss this period of staying at home with only her and me and the cats, the trips to the supermarket in the mornings to pick up salad greens for lunch and stuff for dinner, the quiet afternoons when we nap together after feeds, talking to her and singing nonsense songs loudly to her to make her laugh and waiting for Daddy to come home in the evenings.
We went to the gynae yesterday afternoon for my yearly checks and the girls handed me a CD full of all the ultrasound pictures of Peanut taken over the 40 weeks of my pregnancy, from when she was still peanut-sized, all the way till 4 days before her birth.
I went through the CD when we got home. I remember each of those visits and each of those pictures, and yet it all felt quite alien. I looked up at her lying in her bassinet sleeping and realised, with a large amount of bittersweetness, that I am beginning to forget what it felt like when she was still inside of me, going everywhere and sharing everything with me for 40 whole weeks.
