I wanted to laugh at the name part when I read this old entry for Eric’s baby journal, originally posted on 19 December 2001.

Mommy & Daddy Found Out

Mommy did her testing almost every other day right after Mommy and Daddy got married. Finally, on this day, at 7:30 pm, Mommy tested again. Finally :o)

At this time, Mommy already had a name picked out for me — Dana Lynn if I’m a girl, William if I’m a boy. Mommy loves The X-Files so much that she wanted me to be named after the character!

I was browsing through Eric’s old online journal, and thought it would be interesting to add the time line during my pregnancy with Eric into this blog.

(From baby’s POV)

• 19 December 2000 - Mommy & Daddy found out! Already Mommy had a name picked out for me.
• 30 December 2000 - Mommy had her first morning sickness!
• 8 March 2001 - Mommy said she could feel me moving inside her around this time. She said that it felt like bowel movement.
• 17 April 2001 - Mommy & Daddy’s first visit to the OB-gynae doctor. I had my first photograph taken!
• 4 May 2001 - Gynae doctor told Mommy & Daddy I’m a girl!
• 10 June 2001 - Mommy & Daddy shopped for my clothes!
• 24 June 2001 - Mommy & Daddy finally agreed to name me Clarissa.
• 5 July 2001 - I’m a s/he? Read Mommy’s journal during her 4th monthly check-up.
• 10 July 2001 - If I’m a boy, Mommy and Daddy’s gonna name me Dixon, which is Daddy’s confirmation name.
• 19 July 2001 - Since it’s finally confirmed that I’m a boy, Daddy’s decided to change my name again — to Eric! Bye-bye, Clarissa.
• 9 August 2001 - Mommy takes her maternity leave from work starting today.
• 20 August 2001 - I am born on this day, on the dot just like his LMP date. Yay!

Eric, Joel and myself were in the car on our way back from Tuaran to Kota Kinabalu today, while rain was pouring down hard. While I was driving, I told Eric about tomorrow being an election day and that we’ll be going out very early to be at our polling station so that we can vote early and go home right away to avoid a huge crowd.

My 7-year old Eric looked out and answered, “I read the newspaper just now and it said it’s going to rain today.” A little surprised that he’d paid attention to the papers, I asked a matter-of-factly, “Oh, you did?” At the same time, I realized that it would be a good idea to check on tomorrow’s weather, and whether it’s better to go voting in the morning or the afternoon. I found out a minute ago that the weather reports predicted cloudy skies in the morning, and probably heavy rain in the afternoon.

Wherever you are in Malaysia, remember to check the weather tomorrow if you plan to go voting tomorrow.

I found this article from BabyCenter.com, one of the web sites I frequently visit for tips on parenting and child care. Basically the seven fears listed in the article were:

1. Security fears
2. Performance fears
3. Paternity fears
4. Mortality fears
5. Fear for your spouse’s or child’s health
6. Relationship fears — Quote: “Men often fear that their wife will love the baby more than anyone on earth — and exclude them from that intimate relationship.”
7. Fears of “women’s medicine”

I find that relationship fears are especially true and no less an uncommon occurrence that fathers faced. I personally think that more often than not, the wives may exclude their husbands on purpose from getting close with the babies, as a way of “punishing” the husband.

During the earlier years when I had Eric, I would look at my husband and feel remorse that he can still get away with doing what he had always been doing before we got married, such as going out for badminton games in the evening, or spending time with his friends and cousins during the weekends (even spending the nights there), while I was stuck, always at home having to bear my son’s wailing and having more than the usual house work to do after a tiring day at work. So yeah, there were times when my husband would want to play with our son and I simply stopped him and say, “Stop disturbing him, or he’ll get cranky and I’ll have to deal with him crying again.” The good thing is that I have learned to let go of my bitterness over those time, and accept the fact that things aren’t the same for me as a wife and mother, that there are things that I simply can’t do anymore. It’s a matter of accepting the changes in my life, however frustrating it may be, and focus more on the positive and how I can benefit on what’s good around me.

This is a post I made in the old blog on Tuesday, 13 February 2007 at 01:30 AM.

Joel went for his first follow-up vaccination last Saturday. At 2-months old, it does sound a little late for vaccination, but we decided to follow our PD’s recommendation that instead of having his Hep-B shot at 1 month old and T-Antigen + Hib at 2 months old, Joel will get all his shot at one time, thus saving on the doc’s fees. It’s great, of course, for those of us who know the high cost of caring for our babies during their first years.

It’s been two weeks since Joel started attending daycare at Sunshine Nursery Penampang, Eric’s alma mater. And just as I expected, he got a cold soon after. With so many kids around the nursery, it’s almost unavoidable. Nevertheless, through past experiences with then-little Eric, I knew just what to do. My husband was pretty concerned, though, so just to be safe, we mentioned about Joel’s cold to our PD, and he prescribed us a couple of medicine. I’ve learned throughout the years that Dony has very good instinct when it comes to our kids’ health, so I never took for granted whenever he thinks we should bring them to the doctor. Anyways, Joel checks out OK and his growth chart shows that he’s growing well, even better if I compared him to Eric when Eric was just 2 months old.