Since the birth of Baby F, or maybe even during my pregnancy… I have thought and talked about him some ‘only child’ experiences, because he has never been one. And also make sure each child gets quality time alone with their parents, by maybe having specific days or weekends, where each child spends time with one or both parents. A bit like the concept of a “date night” for parents, but between parents and their kids.

We decided to experiment with that while I’m recovering from dental surgery. Because I need to be calm and well rested to optimise recovery and bone regrowth, I concluded it would be best to be child-free during the initial recovery phase (~2 weeks, but I’m getting. ~10 days, which is good enough). But given this will be quite long without the kids, and I think that each kid is actually super sweet and super manageable on their own, I decided to take Baby F on his own a couple of days this week, and Big Boy O on his own one day next week.

Today was my first day with Baby F alone. I picked him up from school and brought him home. Despite my best intentions, I ended up having some urgent work right after pick up and before dinner (doesn’t it always happen like that?!), so I was a bit distracted during his violin practice. But then it was better. And it was a relatively calm evening – despite Baby F’s constant stream of chatter. Dinner was also a calmer affair since I’m only catering to one child and there was no fighting over relative food portions etc. For dinner, we had blended spinach with congee (which looks like a green goop), steamed egg, and steamed salmon. I mentioned to Baby F that this has been my staple diet for the past few days, more or less. He said: “That’s not good for health to keep eating the same. You don’t get different vitamins.” which was super sweet. So I said that it’s actually a pretty balanced meal because spinach has a lots of vitamins, egg is almost a complete food, and fish is protein, but I vary the fish I have a bit. 

It’s actually super nice and relaxing to have Baby F on his own. He’s such a sweetheart, and so easygoing and accommodating. Although he does chatter up a storm (like I used to as a kid)… which I often don’t entirely understand. His context setting, pronunciation, articulation, and English language in general, isn’t the best on the planet.