For our very first edition of The Chill Mompreneur Series, I am proud to present Zesi She, a hands-on mompreneur from Singapore. I found Zesi through Mums At Work, and sent her an email asking if she would be willing to be interviewed for this series. Not only did she replied straightaway, she also offered to write the entire post herself! Here is Zesi’s take on being a mommy.
Hey there! I am given this great opportunity to do a guest post for Michelle and share with fellow or expectant mummies on all about being a mummy.
So who am I? I am a full time working mummy to a 13 month old awesome and energetic boy JJ, wife of a husband who listens to my many complains 95% of the time (other 5% is when I listen to his complains, hopefully), founder of an online children clothing shop, BabyJayz and have an incredible love for scrapbooking and crafty works.
I did not start out being a mummy on a wonderful note. No one told me that having a baby means you will not be able to have impromptu movie date nights, unable to hang out with your girlfriends when you feel like to, looking perpetually like a panda from the local zoo due to the constant lack of sleep and having your boobs mutilated by your kids. I was not prepared to give up my freedom and sleep just yet, hence for the first month of JJ’s life I was still trying to accept the fact that I am in fact a mummy now.
But with all sacrifices there will be rewards. I took care of JJ all on my own during my maternity leave because I wanted to be a hands-on mummy and bond with him. I was an impatient lady and JJ taught me how to be a patient mummy when comes to rocking him to sleep and feeding him milk (he used to take 40 minutes to finish his bottle of milk at 2 months old). JJ used to cry and wail a good 15 minutes before going to bed, which I came to realize later on it’s his way of complaining to me that he is really tired with no idea on how to doze off and singing to him “twinkle twinkle little stars” will help calm his nerves. JJ was a boy that hardly sleeps at night for the first 2 months of his life and it took me a good 13 months and constant waking at 4am to tell him that having milk feeds at that time are actually no good for him and mummy. (I am keeping my fingers crossed on this one still; it has been 3 weeks since JJ wakes up at 4am to ask for milk.)
The constant lack of sleep made breast feeding hard for both of us as I could not generate as much milk as I would love to. Hence I had to give up breast feeding after 2 months since my supply hardly meets his demand.
JJ inspired me to do a lot of things in life that I never thought I would do and be awesome at multi-tasking. One greatest thing that came out of him was the setup of my online children clothing store, BabyJayz. I started coining the idea when I was looking for suitable clothes to fit the theme of his one year old party and I found none in the market. Hence I designed and made a “car” themed shirt myself. And from there I start to bring in more designs and made other children clothing aiming to provide parents like me beautiful handmade clothes with love.
So with kids, taking numerous photos is a must as part of their growing up. I started to do more art work and scrapbooking using JJ’s photos to capture wonderful memories of him. I even started a blog to document memories of him so that when he grows old we can both look back and see how far we have come.
Indeed at times it is tough and frustrating being a working mother, as there was a period of time where JJ constantly fell sick (he caught UTI at 5 months and 2 months later had false measles). For those 3 months I had to battle the constant lack of sleep, nursing a sick baby to health, issues with work and having a constant worry on this health. But all the sacrifices made and worries are worth it as I watched JJ grew from a wailing newborn with wrinkled skin to a wobbly toddler who can do karate kicks that can easily send a grown man in total pain for almost a minute.
And no matter how busy or tired I am, I always make it a point to dress him for bed time, read him bed time stories and feed him his last night feed before putting him to bed. This is my favourite routine every single day as we get a full 30 minutes of mummy-JJ time and JJ will give me smiles (sometimes lots of giggles), stare at me lovingly and even clap for me after I sing him lullabies. Nothing beats this after a hard day’s work, and watching JJ sleep peacefully in my arms, all the tiredness and frustrations I have are easily forgotten. This is something that I hope all mummies and expectant mummies should enjoy as when children grow up all these moments will be greatly missed. Well for me at least. So, this is me all about being a mummy.
xoxo
Thank you, Zesi! Fellow mamas, how has motherhood changed you? What surprised you most about motherhood? I would love to hear… If you’ve enjoyed this post, check out Zesi’s blog at http://allaboutbeingamummy.org/ to show her some love.
PS: Alicia Cho who owns an online business specialises in princess costume rental and affordable children products.
