Technically, there is no such thing as a Chinese New Year gift. Not in that Christmas or birthday sense of the word. These days, I consider the smallest gestures a gift. Like when someone offers to hold Mila for five minutes. Because they can tell that I am an overwhelmed new mother.

In other Chinese New Year news, I had a unique encounter at Golden House restaurant where this picture is taken. The proprietor is from 福州 (Fuzhou), and I bonded with her (in my crap Mandarin) over how my grandparents were also 福州人 (people from Fuzhou). Then I told her I was from Singapore, to which she said, “从新加坡来得？你的普通话为什么讲的这么好？” (Translation: You’re from Singapore? How come you speak so well?)

Any real Mandarin speaker who has had the painful pleasure of conversing with me would find this statement pretty amusing.

Mila and I watch her pops play tennis with Royann. His first time getting all fit since her birth. I fondly remember giving him death glares when he asked if he could resume his weekly Saturday tennis sesh when Mila was two weeks old. It’s actually the first time I’ve seen him play ever. Not too shabby. Mila was curious for about 10 minutes, and then promptly fell asleep after snacking. She’s hard to impress.

Meels squints and shields her eyes whenever there is a little sun. So I thought shades would be a good idea for her sensitive baby eyes. And I figured a hat would be a good idea. The result? Hunter S. Thompson reincarnated! Thanks to Yin for this photo. She uses real film and an old Olympus.

Yes, she fell asleep to Biggie. I couldn’t resist trying some Tupac. California Love totally knocked her out as well. These 90s dead gangstas are a total snooze fest for my three-month-old. I learned from my sister that babies feel calm when they hear familiar sounds. Perhaps music that mum was listening to while pregnant. I swear on my underwear that I was not sneaking out to grown-and-sexy clubs while sporting a bump.

Davidson emails me links when he’s at work. This one amused and intrigued me, and I wanted to see if playing “Hypnotize” by Notorious B.I.G. would calm my baby down. So Mila hadn’t cried much in the last few weeks, but she did fight napping through the day. I put on the song and she was out by the first verse. Incredulous, I tried it again a few hours later. She was zonked before the girl sang about Biggie hypnotizing her. So I played this tune whenever I wanted her to nap these past couple of days, but was getting a little sick of it. Maybe another one of his hits? This morning, I played “Juicy” and she fell right asleep while I was enthusiastically saying “endo for weeks!” to myself.

I mean that with all due respect. Meaning I was a restless teen and young adult, always wanting to be “my own woman” and not looking back when I left Singapore. And now that’s really changed. Having this little dumpling has really showed me what mums have to do, and given me a new level of appreciation for mine.

It’s been about two weeks since she left. And I’m not the only one who misses her.

Googled the phrase “sleeping like a baby” to see who coined it. No luck, but my money’s on a childless man. Because now I have said baby, and I’ve struggled for 11 weeks to get her to sleep.

That phrase really bothers me as this baby jerks awake to random sounds. Not to mention the screaming, crying and lurching when she’s tired and needs to go down. I was about to start despairing when a friend passed me a book about sleep-training. It explained that babies needed naps, and that eventually they should be trained to sleep independently by the controversial “crying it out” method. Yikes, I balked at that idea.

I did find the part about napping helpful. Not knowing that Mila needed naps—or what a tired baby looked like—novice mum over here was over-stimulating poor baby. That sleep-training book helped me with spotting tired signs, and now I can mostly get her to nap four times a day if she’s worn in a sling. My style of getting her to sleep is a very loose interpretation—and some may say deviation—from the book’s instruction. Which I found rather rigid and too numbery. I’ve never been much of a clock-watcher or number-cruncher, so I couldn’t really get into the spirit of it.

So now Mila naps more. And is not as grumpypants when her dad gets home. I still have a long way to go before I can stop waking to feed three times a night. I can’t say night-feeding completely sucks, because I get a cute little wriggle and grin every time I stumble over to pick her up.