Being a Mummy means...

Being a Mummy means...

You no longer have any privacy. Whatever you do in the bathroom (and I really mean whatever...), you have to do it with the door slightly open, with one ear open to listen out whether your baby needs you. And when your baby needs you, he needs you NOW!

You eat in a rush...or you don't eat at all. Babies don't understand when Mummy needs to eat. And they're timing usually means they'll demand your attention at times when you're in the middle of something else. This includes eating. Now that we're in the month of Ramadhan, the first few days didn't affect me much because I didn't fast and I would only just accompany Eddie at the table. But once I've started fasting, we had to make sure we'd changed his diaper, fed, burped and put him to sleep before we can even begin thinking of our breaking of fast. But this just means that we still need to be on alert when we have our food. And don't even dream of continuing your food should your baby wake up or cry when you're eating.

Suddenly being super health conscious. You have sanitizers on the ready to offer to anyone who thinks of touching your baby, you immediately think of germs when you hear or see someone sneeze near your baby and you try to avoid people kissing your baby. I don't understand why some people (especially those 'Aunty's' who think just because they know you) think they can just pick up my baby and kiss them on their face. Hello? Germs! I don't kiss your child on his face or near his nose and mouth...what makes you think you can kiss mine? Sheesh.

Being superly over-protective. You want to make sure your baby is safe and warm and fed and happy. And you especially want to make sure that no one hurts him - physically, mentally or emotionally. And there's this need to defend and protect my baby from anybody who even dares to think toxic thoughts about my child. Not only do they have me to answer to, they have his very tall and superly over-protective Baba to answer to as well.

Your whole life revolves around your baby. It begins from the moment you fall pregnant - or realise/confirm that you're pregnant. You can't eat whatever you want anymore because most likely, you can't even stand the smell or taste of it without vomiting it back out. And it's not even up to you when the baby wants to be welcomed to the world - unless you're one of "those" people. Your baby may want to be born at a convenient time of day, or he may choose to come out in the middle of the night. When your baby is finally out, everything depends on your baby. You have to tiptoe around him so he doesn't wake up. You sleep when he sleeps. You stay awake when he's awake - even if he decides to wake up at 3am just to play. And if you're breastfeeding, you watch what you eat so it doesn't affect your baby. To this day, I still cannot eat jamu because my body gets so heaty that it makes my baby really uncomfortable and he goes red and screams whenever he feeds.

Talking non-stop about your baby. From the moment you know you're becoming a Mummy, or when you actually become a Mummy, you will never get bored talking about your baby. People who don't have children may not understand and say that we've got no lives, but those who are also Mummies get it. You feel so proud and so much love for your little guy that you can gush all day long to whoever is willing to listen.

You constantly want to take his photo. Even if it means you take the same picture over and over again at different angles. Before I became a Mummy, I would see pictures my friends would put of their babies. Sometimes it looks like the same picture except in the next one, the baby moved his hand slightly. I used to wonder why they would post almost 200 pictures which all look so similar. Now that I've become a Mummy, I realised that I would constantly take my baby's photo - the same one in different angles :)

Doing everything you can to make him smile and laugh. Even at only a month old, whenever your baby smile and laughs, you feel so much joy that you would do whatever you can think of at the moment to make him smile and laugh again. Most of the time, he would just look at you as though you've lost your mind.

All you want to do is kiss and cuddle your baby. Seeing your baby awkwardly move his hands and legs while making spontaneous noises make you want to continuously kiss him while holding back the urge to squeeze him. Even though we've agreed never to let our baby sleep in our bed with us, there have been once or twice where either one of us would break the rules and put him between us. And we would fight over who gets to cuddle more of him :)

Having your heart outside of your body. The feeling of having a child is incredible. Only those who have children too understand. It's not the same if you try to imagine it. Once your baby is born and you hear his first cry, you immediately feel this rush of love and need to protect this little thing that you created out of love. No matter how tired, grumpy or cranky you are, or how inconvenient a child can be at times...as a parent, you would do whatever you can to keep your baby happy, healthy and always smiling. If you don't, what else is there to live for?