How time flies! I've been a parent for a year, imagine that. I now totally appreciate and love MY mum on a whole new level and regret every single harsh word I've thrown at her. Because, seriously, you can not begin to imagine the sacrifices that a woman makes for her child until you've been through it yourself. Especially in these times when a woman not only has to keep house but bring home the bacon as well.

Tyler's birthday was on Sunday. We had a quiet celebration - just family members - at Peach Garden. I picked the place, which is a, um, rather upmarket Chinese restaurant because I wanted to give my in-laws and my parents a fantastic treat for being so super. The meal was excellent and I'm still trying my best not to think about the hefty bill that was toted up at the end of it. Highlights: shark cartilage soup, wasabi prawn, deep-fried perch with plum sauce, pulut hitam (black glutinous rice dessert) served in cocounut. We hardly had space left for Tyler's gorgeous birthday cupcakes from the marvellous Cupcake Momma. ( I wish I had half her cupcake-making skills. )

This morning, I realised that I haven't taken a photo of my little man since Chinese New Year in February. So I became all indulgent-parent-like and began snapping away.

( Here be photos of my bb. )

He's kind of couch-potato-y and not doing anything in the photos. But if I were to take pictures of his real-life activities - and I can assure you, extremely active he is - he'll just appear as a blur in the photos.

That's right, ladies and gentleman, it's time again for my monthly update! *fanfare*

Where to begin? Hmmm. When I had the baby, I said my life's turned upside-down, blah blah blah. How was I to know that it gets worse when you go back to work? On the surface, it looks as if I have it easy. I leave Tyler at my mum-in-law's (20-min drive from our place) on weekdays and we have domestic help. BUT! I'm breastfeeding and determined not to give my baby food from a tin, and that takes a lot of time on my part.

My daily schedule on work days: wake up, pump milk, eat breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, pump milk, work, pump milk, go to MIL's to see baby and deliver milk, eat dinner, feed baby, go home.

I work unpredictable hours in a job that uses brainpower (not that I have a lot to begin with), so sometimes I reach MIL's at about 9-10pm, hungry and mentally drained. And when I reach home, I'm too tired to do anything meaningful on the internets. (I do read my Friends page though, as hypermagic can attest.)

My surfing habits have changed. I'm reading up on ways to increase my milk supply and searching for toys instead of reading up on the latest bands and searching for mp3s, photos and videos. My lifestyle has changed. I hang out at Mothercare and Kiddy Palace instead of HMV and Kinokuniya. It's been ages since I stepped into a cinema or bought anything for myself. When my co-worker saw me going to pay the maid levy, she commented how things are so different from when I was so "anti-establishment". Yes, I told her. I've always been indie (for want of a better word) but I feel so fucking bourgeois now.

I miss my old lifestyle terribly, but when Tyler gives me one of his big-ass grins and makes his little coo-ing noises, I know I wouldn't give this one up for the world*.


*Although I'll probably regret saying this when he turns out to be an obnoxious spoilt brat. ;)

UGH. I swear Symantec's online tech support is manned by a bot. I emailed them about an error message caused by Norton Internet Security. They replied and I followed the steps they suggested. Which did NOT work. Then they sent a follow-up email asking if the "issue" (read: really sucky programming) was resolved. I replied that it hasn't, and I just got their reply. It begins promisingly enough.

I understand from your message that you are still receiving following error message,when you try to open Internet Explorer:

AND THEN THE REST OF IT IS THE EXACT EMAIL THEY SENT THE FIRST TIME ROUND. WTF? SRSLY.

I'm going to reply: Are you a bot or just really good at cut and paste?

In other news, the past few days have been a little weird (not in a bad way) because I've never felt so *~*~grown-up~*~* in my life. We employed a domestic worker because when I go back to work in 10 days, we'll be leaving Tyler with my mother-in-law, who wants a maid to help her. So, even though I've always been resistant to the idea of hiring a domestic helper, I guess we don't really have a choice. Infantcare is really expensive and how dare I incur the wrath of my MIL by leaving her first grandson in the care of total strangers. I feel weird instructing someone else to do things. But one good thing has come good out of it. I've always been a control freak who HAS to do things a certain way. But I've learnt to be more tolerant to the fact that everyone does things differently. I do find myself rearranging the hand towels though.

My life as I knew it has been turned topsy-turvy by the arrival of one Baby Tyler on June 3. Good grief. Has it been almost two weeks already? Long story short. I had baby Tyler via C-section on June 3 after 12 hours of labour brought on by a failed induction attempt. Baby was too big for my pelvis apparently. Which is weird coz I've always complained about my wide hips. But yeah, he's quite big at 3.865 kg (about 8.5 pounds). I was awake throughout the procedure, which was really surreal coz I could feel people touching me and pulling the baby out -- without the pain, thank goodness.

My life now revolves around breastfeeding, diaper changing and doing laundry. It doesn't sound that time-consuming but consider this: He feeds (and thereafter, poops) every two to three hours and has no concept of night or day. Which leads to one very sleep-deprived mama. In fact, I'm pretty much in a zombified state as I type this. When I was in the operating theatre, I was still joking with the medical staff about being able to watch World Cup matches, which come on between 9pm and 3am here. Was I wrong. The boy has no fixed sleeping pattern at all. So I try to catch some ZZZZZ's whenever I can. Except now, when I'm updating my LJ. I don't even know if I'm making sense, hahaha.

( Pictures! )

In other news, I'm shocked... shocked that franzferdinand.org is no more and that ex-fan Graham Searle feels let down by FF. Even the forum is gone, wtf? Geez, I must have been away longer than I thought.

Great. Baby's crying. So long for now, internets. Real life (and hopefully, 40 winks) beckons.