Good times and bad

We just spent 8 days in the hospital with a 2-hit combo of lung infections (Kirsten + Theo) and I feel like I’ve finally stepped out of a super weird time warp. That’s the longest we’ve spent holed up in a hospital room with sick babies. After day 3, my time space continuum got all kinds of messed up.

Every morning, I’d be all hopeful and ask the paediatrician if this was the day my babies could finally go home and she’d try to let me down gently, like “the oxygen levels are still not looking good, I think we’ll have to keep them here a little longer.”

Pause…Rewind…Reset…Play…

And thus my time warp would start all over again.

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It started with Kirsten getting really ill on the first day of Chinese New Year and day 4 into her stay at KK hospital, baby Theo decided to join in the sick baby party.

Clearly misery loves company, especially if your company comes with cheeks this juicy.

On the bright side, I got to spend some alone time with my sick babies, who happen to be extra cuddly when they’re not feeling so good.

Theo would just want to rest his chubby baby head on my chest while I sang Old Macdonald several hundred times all day. It’s not so bad when you have every species of animal to get through for some variety. When I’d get to “on this farm he had a…”, Theo would yell out random animals like, “HIPPO! GIRAFFE! LIZARD! ANT!! DINOSAUR!!!” and we would make the corresponding animal sound.

Think of it as less of a farm and more of an ark and this dude is basically Noah, which makes it a bible lesson and a science lesson and a music lesson all in one.

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We got to spend Valentine’s day at the hospital this year. The experts say it’s important to do something new and different to spice things up, so I guess we nailed that.

After 8 years of marriage, we’ll take what we’ve got.

Kirsten was all “daddy should get you flowers!” and I thought of explaining to her that flowers don’t really do it for me because they’re so exhausting. I have to pretend to like them and then put them in water for a few days until they die and smell really bad and then I’d have to clean all that up.

But then I said, “you know what’s better than flowers?” Having a guy who makes you smile after a week in the hospital, who tags you to watch the sick babies, and tags you to watch the non-sick babies, who goes on late night runs to buy your favourite mango dessert and still finds the time to massage your feet at night.” And to really gross her out, we went in for a full on smooch and she was like “EWW EEEWWW EEEEWWWWWW MAKE IT STOP!!”

What I mean to say is that it was actually a very decent Valentine’s day. My favourite part of the day was having a cup of soya bean milk and a nice walk with the one person whose company I enjoy the most.

Good times, bad times, valentimes…any time I get to spend with this man is always a good time.