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MY JOURNEY AS A NEW MOM
Friday, 29 May 2020
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.
I am a new mom, relatively, My identical twin girls are turning 1 at the end of May, and the past 2 months of being both a working (from home) mom as well as a stay-at-home mom has made my first year of being a mother nothing but inspiring 🙂
Pre-covid, I walked the tightrope of new mom guilt while balancing the need to hit the work grounds running post-maternity leave. Barely 3 months into that, we experienced the first case of Covid-19 during CNY and before you know it, we were in Circuit Breaker mode. As the Chief Worm at TAG who had built the space ground up from nothing (but faith and lots of goodwill from all the artists who believed in us and took those baby steps with us from day 1) for the past 3 years, I find myself in uncharted territories and am grateful for the trust and openness of my TAG team who all stepped up to plug these new gaps in our programmes and found new ways to reach our audience. And for this, I have been immensely thankful for the opportunity to grow professionally alongside my colleagues, and to be able to say ‘I do not know the answer to that’ in this unprecedented time without judgement from my team.
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On the new stay-at-home-mom front, I count my blessings for the opportunity to be with my girls on a daily basis (and with their daddy in the room co-parenting as well).
We get to come out for a quick hug and sing them songs in-between Zoom meetings, watch them attempt to crawl, stand, pull themselves up and climb during our lunch breaks, and most importantly, hear them babble and vocalise (and get excited when those babbling noises sound like them calling us mama and dada). Sometimes during a Zoom meeting, I am interrupted by one of the twins who need a hug or just sit on my lap, and I am greeted by some ‘awwws’ and ‘oohs’ from the 10 other people in the video conference.
And in that moment, I am no longer apologetic of having to be both a working professional and a mom, and I slowly ease into this blurring of my dual roles more comfortably. I stopped apologising for MIA-ing during the 6pm – 8pm window as I try to squeeze in their bath and bedtime routine.
Tonight, Aaleyah is feeling a little more ‘manja’ and wanted me to carry her for a little while more than usual before succumbing into slumber. She is still a little restless so I am typing this in the room while she is sleeping on our bed, thankful for the white noise of the lullaby playing from my Spotify premium with no ads, masking the tap tap tapping of my keyboard. I know I will transfer her back to her bed later to join her sister, but for now, I will watch her sleep maybe just a little while longer.
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I have learnt about my husband’s and my parenting styles and preferences more in the past 2 months than we could ever have had in the ‘old normal’, and am grateful for this time to set the foundation for our family. While we transition into the ‘new normal’, we look forward to the clarity that should/would come out from the blurring of work-life balance for the past few months. For all working and stay-at-home moms, I hope the ‘new normal’ will allow us the opportunity and voice to carve out our new ‘job scope’ as we continue to decide for ourselves the kind of person, mother, daughter, employee/employer we would like to be and brush away the old normals that have stopped working decades ago. And for the society to stand by us, social distanced or not.
Gesundheit.
PS: Was inspired to write my first blog-esque entry to share how we are managing after the encouragement from all these other mommies and friends who frequent and supported TAG from our Giving.sg video last weekend 🙂 Thank you for the love, it really does take a village! 😅
The Artground is committed to providing positive arts experiences for children and their families, and endeavours to provide development opportunities for local artists to co-create meaningful arts experiences with the young audience.
However, due to the current situation with school closures and families practising safe distancing, it has been extremely challenging for us to continue to maintain our space.
With a small donation of $10 a month for the next 6 months, your contribution will help us with overheads such as utilities and cleaning expenses, and most importantly, help us continue to support our local artists in breathing life and creativity into our space with the aim of engaging our children in reflection, questioning, exploration and creation through the arts.
Every donation dollar will be matched 1-for-1 through the Cultural Matching Fund.
Youtube Vid
The Artground is committed to providing positive arts experiences for children and their families, and endeavours to provide development opportunities for local artists to co-create meaningful arts experiences with the young audience.
However, due to the current situation with school closures and families practising safe distancing, it has been extremely challenging for us to continue to maintain our space.
With a small donation of $10 a month for the next 6 months, your contribution will help us with overheads such as utilities and cleaning expenses, and most importantly, help us continue to support our local artists in breathing life and creativity into our space with the aim of engaging our children in reflection, questioning, exploration and creation through the arts.
Every donation dollar will be matched 1-for-1 through the Cultural Matching Fund.