A Singaporean In Australia

He wasn't born bigger than his sister but he soon ballooned to a "good size", that would be how the locals would describe him. Every time Jen came back from the child health nurse, she would inform me that Pui Pui was in the 85% percentile of local babies in terms of weight. Indeed, my boy felt heavy and looked twice the size of babies around his age. As Pat would always say during Albany's earlier age, "They need these stored food to grow." He wasn't wrong. Albany, a pui pui herself in her earlier years, is looking considerably less chubby by now. Though she isn't pencil thin like some of her peers around this age, she look healthy and really cute. Well, every parent thinks his or her child is the cutest out there (that's why all of them are wrong). That is just the way it is.

Pui Pui himself is a cute baby. After a month or two being a grouchy looking baby, he learnt how to smile all of a sudden. Every time I came back from work and peered into his cot, he would take 5 seconds for his face recognition app to activate and would began to smile and look really pleased. I reckon he likes me. We should have a good few years ahead, at least until he becomes a smart mouth we start pissing each other off that is.

After observing how Albany retained a lot of her personality traits I saw in her when she was a baby, Pui Pui will grow up to be quite a different character if the trend continues. He will be softer and less expressive yet as cheeky as his sister, if not more. Like Albany, he seems to have inherited much of Jen's character traits. It is too early to say for sure but the signs are looking good. I predict my kids will not turn out that bad after all. All I need to do from now on is to keep my bad influence on them to the minimal.

I was asked about Pui Pui's nationality umpteenth times before. Since Australia offered his a citizenship, I believe I should leave it as that. I've heard countless accounts of problems with people holding dual-citizenships, especially when one of the countries involved were insecure enough to force these specimens to give up his citizenship in order to retain the other. To avoid potential anguish, let's just keep things simple. I am busy enough tracking the validity of my own Exit Permits.

I dread the day when Pui Pui comes home and greets me with a "Hi-mite." I hope he kicks round balls instead of awkward oval shaped ones so that I can join him for a kick about before my legs cannot support my fat ass anymore. To be honest, I spent very little time over meaningless speculations like that. To some extent, it is underwhelming being a 2nd time parent. The problems with having more kids can be exponential. The notion of easier parenting due to economy of scale is a fat blatant lie. Try explaining to me how economy of scale works for child care, for a start. Parents also do not grow 2 extra arms and another set of eyes after the birth of each child.

Still we will somehow survive. I don't know how. I had none of the answers when I migrated to Perth with Jen and I still don't. I guess it isn't about finding answers after all. What if life is the question all along and the answer is simply, live?