#keepingmarriagealive #lovingyourspouse #teachingmysontolove #6.5months

“The best thing I can do for my baby is to love his mother” – Pips

When becoming parents for the first time, the second time and the times thereafter, it is so very much a natural part of us to love our baby fiercely, and to place our child’s needs before everyone else’s, including our own. He’s just a defenseless, itty bitty baby so dependent on us, we reason, and we are right. We need to love him and care for him because he can’t, and we are right. We will love him and put his needs above all else, and this time, we are wrong. Deadly wrong, because the best thing we can do for our baby is to love our spouses.

 

It’s been 6 months since Ray has destroyed our night sleep and weekend sleep-ins, forced us to shove food down our throats and finish our meals in World Record time, and thrown our once predictable, cushy lives into complete disarray. Those OMG moments are aplenty and I’ll allow you a sneak preview of parental life:

“HOLY CRAP (no pun intended), MAJOR POOPFEST while changing diapers! ARGH. NO SHIT, his hands touched his poop, DEAR, COME HERE NOW!”

“OMG, he just barfed up his milk and I just changed the bedsheets! No Rayray, stop playing with the barfed milk! You don’t smear the milk on mummy’s dresse and your face darling…”

“Finally he’s asleep. Better catch a nap.” 10 mins later as my eyes have powered down, his are bright and alert. NOOOOOOOOOOOO………

Those moments are pretty common, sighs. (Thankfully, less so now. Phew!) But we still love him like crazy, and in this crazy love for a cherubic bub, it’s easy to get carried away as our parental instincts kick in.

And then there are moments like these, when love is just bursting at the seams…

 

We neglect our friends (not entirely our fault. Much as it’s hard to imagine, we parents do like a life once in a while, but it’s tough. It should be officially filed as cruel to subject another adult to a li’l baby who has just learnt the meaning of separation anxiety), neglect our spouses, and centre our lives around our babes. And in this whirlwind tornado called parenthood, we tend to forget the meaning of our marriage and our love, the very foundation where babies pop out from in the first place!

I feel sad when I see husbands and wives quarrel. The top 3 reasons for quarreling (according to Jastheory) is (1) Finances, (2) Parenting styles and (3) Family matters (essentially MIL-DIL problems most times hahah). These 3 factors, while tricky to navigate, can be helped by a very simple thing known as communication.

In this fast-paced world where things are go-go-go, we get caught up with the speed of things and as a result, don’t communicate enough with our partners. Just this entire week so far, Pips has been working late till midnight (or thereabouts) daily, while Ray and I are already fast asleep. We hardly had a chance to speak for nearly the entire week so far.

One of my favourite pics from our prewedding photoshoot in Bali. Brings back lovely memories 😀

Given such a schedule, we might as well have been tenants, sharing the same bed, in the same room, and the same house, if not for the sole fact that we believe in one thing, and that is communication. I cherish the 15minutes of shared journey commuting to work each morning, where we’d talk about anything under the sun. Our thoughts, our feelings, our days. Just the two of us, back to our dating days. These moments, though seemingly tiny and insignificant, reconnect us and align our souls until they’re on the same plane once again, never allowing the passing of time to drift us apart.

Don’t get me wrong here though. I don’t regret having Ray, and absolutely love every single moment (ok, that’s a lie. I don’t like some moments like when I have poop on my hands), but other than loving my baby, in fact, ahead of loving my baby, the best thing I can do for him is to love his father.

The man I fell in love with and married

 

Because loving his father gives him a loving set of parents that will form the rock of stability in his life.

Because loving his father teaches him how to love and be loved, unconditionally.

Because loving his father helps him to see for himself the great man that his father is, the man that I love, dated and am married to.

And that’s what I want to teach my son, and more. That the world is full of beauty and love, if only you open your eyes and your heart. I opened my heart to a young man when I was 22, and my world now has never been more colourful.

Dressing and monkeying around for my friend, Boo’s birthday. Love between a married couple doesn’t have to be stale and boring. Check out Pips’ cool curly hair! (He permed it for me awww… cuz I thought it’d be cute on him! hahah. It invited comments from his colleagues like, “Dude, no shit, are you stressed?” “Wei shen me xiang bu kai?” haha)

 

Our first wedding anniversary spent in KL when I was early in my pregnancy with Ray 🙂

 

And keeping this love alive and burning between Pips and I will be the most important thing I will do for Ray (and myself) in my lifetime. And that is why, ladies and gentlemen, I booked a 3 days 2 nights staycation at M hotel for our wedding anniversary. A stress free weekend (not really for Pips, who walked back to his office yesterday to work LOL. Poor Pips) spent in comfort, and a photoshoot for our young family to commemorate our 2nd wedding anniversary (Once the pics are out, will let you guys see some of the pics taken by the fab photographer at Hugemouth Photography! Just saw some great pics, really excited. For you readers, keep a lookout on our fbpage and blogsite for Hugemouth Photography will be running a promotional giveaway, which I will announce once the pics are out!).

As I lay flat on my hotel bed, (we are away on a 3 day 2 night staycation for our wedding anniversary!) and finish up the rest of this short post, Pips is playing with his son and trying to teach Ray to attack me with his toothless gums. LOL.

“Go, attack mama!”
“Nono, don’t attack papa! Mama is there. Aiya… papa needs to wipe your face now, saliva all over…” #maxfail haha.

Can life get more perfect and blissful than this?

The two men in my life spending a quiet moment together while I finish up my post (^__^)

Time is money, and undoubtedly, we will forever chase time and money in our quest for a better life. I won’t say that we should give this chase up, because I am certainly not (and not willing to). However, what is the point of chasing money and getting caught in the rat race, mired in the mundane and the ordinary, forgetting the magic in these special moments that appear every now and then in our lives? We don’t celebrate an occasion, we celebrate the meaning behind it, and the love in the years to come.

Another prewedding pic. <3

 

On this special day, I want to honour Pips for being the same person I dated all those years ago, for always trying his best to give our young family the best that he can give, and the best that he knows how. It isn’t easy being a husband in modern society, to straddle between the old mentality of bringing home the bacon, and new ideals of sharing the household workload with the wife. And we have yet to talk about the responsibilities involved in being a dad!

And to you my readers, I implore all of you to take a long, hard look at your spouse. Look at the work weariness embedded deeply in the crinkles around his eyes and remember that those work-beaten eyes were once bright and alive, holding your gaze lovingly. Look at those hands laying idly by the television remote control, eyes staring straight at the TV, and don’t feel resentment that he’d rather spend time sacked out at the couch. Instead, remember that those hands once held and enveloped your hands in a warm, snug fit.

Most of all, remember this.

Love is not tit for tat. Love is not about giving 80% and getting 80% in return because if you believe in that, your love will always be a theory and never a reality.

Love is the million tiny moments you spend together, yawns and all. And having each other’s back, always and forever.
Start doing the small little things for your spouses today, be it making breakfast with burnt toast and expired orange juice, or buying your spouse a spa package and start seeing the eyes in your loved one becoming alive once again.

Let your love that you have always wished for become a reality, for only you have the power to make your own dreams come true.

As for me, I am living out my dream, and even though there are shitty moments here and there, the sad and angry moments are what makes us appreciate the fragility and beauty in joy and happiness.

Happy 2nd year anniversary deardear, I love you, mwacks!

XOX

Jasmine

if you like this article and would like to be kept updated on my other posts, as well as other interesting and useful parenting articles and information to engage your babies, do follow/like me at www.facebook.com/jashuatbaby or click on the Facebook icon at this website!  Do keep a lookout on our fb and blogsite as Hugemouth Photography will be running a promotional giveaway! Meanwhile, have a loving time with your spouse! 

Wishing you a blissful love. Show some loving to your spouses today, and see the surprise and tenderness in their eyes. It’s worth it, I promise! Signing off now!

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By projectjasmine

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