When we were at Tanjong Jara for a brief vacation recently, the hubby sweetly offered to mind Gavin on his own for an hour while I went off for a massage. 

Gavin had been showing increased clinginess towards me since the previous few days and during the entire time we were at Tanjong Jara, he only wanted me to carry him.  Daddy could only carry him if I was not in sight, or only for brief periods of time.  He only wanted me to hold his hand and he always wanted me to come with him whenever he wanted to explore something new.

Despite the increased clinginess over the past few days, I figured it would be okay to go since the hubby had been rather successful at getting Gavin to fall asleep without me recently.  Just to be on the safe side, I chose the shortest package they had to offer - which was a 50 minute long Malay massage. 

When it came time for me to head for my massage appointment, Gavin decided he didn’t want Mummy to go anywhere without him.  I tried to get him to fall asleep unsuccessfully until I had to go.  Hubby took Gavin and told him I was going to the toilet and I snuck out of our room (in retrospect, I probably should have just told Gavin where I was going and walked out with him knowing where I was going and that I would be coming back).  He would have still been mad but at least it wouldn’t have seemed so much like I had abandoned him.  Well, hindsight is 20-20 vision.

Anyway, I went off for the massage feeling rather uneasy the entire time.  When I finished my massage, I saw hubby carrying a calm Gavin in his arms and walking towards me.  Thinking everything went well, I waved at them.  Gavin, who normally waves back enthusiastically when he sees me, did not respond at all.  Feeling a little nervous, I waited until they were nearer before attempting to greet Gavin again.  Still no response. 

Gavin stared at me with dead eyes - it was a look that clearly said, “How could you abandon me?”  It was so accusatory - not in an angry way but a sad, defeated way, which made it even worse.  Tentatively, I reached out my arms to him and he didn’t respond.

“Do you want Mummy to carry you?”  I asked.

No response.

Considering that he had only wanted me to carry him since we arrived at Tanjong Jara, this was very unusual behaviour and it made me feel extremely nervous.  After repeatedly asking him if he wanted me to carry him, he finally reached his arms out to me but he was still silent.  I took him into my arms and immediately he began to wail.  He didn’t just cry - he howled with the kind of distress normally associated with intense misery and I couldn’t calm him down.

When Daddy asked Gavin if he wanted Daddy to carry him, he immediately reached out for Daddy.  It was like another slap on the face because he would previously refuse Daddy at every request to be carried.  I felt like the worst mother in the world for abandoning her child just so I could enjoy 50 minutes of toddler-free massage.

Finally Gavin allowed me to carry him again, but he was so solemn and silent that it was unnerving.  He wouldn’t talk to me and he wouldn’t look at me, although he did let me carry him so it was a minor improvement.  We tried to entice him to go swimming - something he really loves - but he refused to get into the water.  We finally took him back to the room and gave him a bath and he slowly came back to his old self.

Although I promised that I would never leave him like that again - at least until I am certain he is okay with it - I did wonder what suddenly sparked the increased clinginess at 16 months.  After he got over his 1 year old clinginess, he had been so independent and confident that I thought the clingy phase was completely over.  So it came as a surprise to me to see him regressing - or so it seemed.

I started researching 16 month clinginess and discovered that it is actually a normal phase of child development.  I also discovered why Gavin so easily launches into a tantrum of late.  A lot of it has to do with your child’s increasing desires and inability to express their wills due to limitations in their language.  So how do you manage your child at this stage?

Well, since the clinginess is a normal part of development, just manage it like you have always done - be there for your child and eventually he will regain his independence again. 

As for the tantrums, Moxie recommends taking into consideration the age of your child, your child’s personality and what you want to accomplish.  Generally, she believes that for toddlers under two years of age, it is important to be there for your child and comfort them to help them get through the tantrum.  Once your child can express himself well enough, you can ask him if he prefers you to hug him or leave him alone.

Although Gavin has learned to sign, so far the only requests he makes are for milk and juice.  Also he signs other words, he does not use them to express a desire - or if he does, I clearly haven’t understood what he wants me to do.  For instance, sometimes he keeps signing “shoe” and I suspect there is something wrong with his shoe, but I don’t know what he wants me to do about it.  If I take them off, he wants them on, if I put them back on, he wants them off.

I guess we’re just going to have to persevere a little more through the “chicken and duck talk” phase a little longer.

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Ever since we discovered Gavin’s tendency to get jealous very easily, even with inanimate objects, the hubby and my in laws have found it amusing to tease Gavin and test his patience as they carried objects and other babies with feigned extreme care and love.  It was all fun and games and we even jokingly consoled Gavin by smacking the watermelon until my MIL commented that we had better be careful less Gavin adopt the practice and start smacking other children.  Coming to my senses, I noticed Gavin heartily beating the watermelon to a pulp (okay, I exaggerate a little, but he was giving that watermelon a pretty good belting for hands so small).

Since the hubby and I do plan to have baby number two, I have pledged to mend the error of our ways less Gavin thinks it’s okay to whack his future sibbling silly…  Though I have never dared to carry another baby or child since Gavin started demonstrating a tendency to be jealous, I now focus on reassuring him of his position in the hearts of all his primary caregivers.  I want Gavin to grow up to be happy and confident, not timid and insecure, so this tactic benefits not only his future sibbling but Gavin as well…

I’m very sorry Gavin - you’re really cute when you get jealous, but Mummy promises not to toy with your feelings like that again.

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There’s a Chinese belief that pregnant women are very fragile and cannot be upset by things like watching horror movies and hearing bad news. Being the skeptic that I am, I didn’t really care too much for all these superstitions. My friend C, who shares my sentiments, said she watched horror movies all the way through her pregnancy with J and everything was fine.

So the other night, I went to watch Eragon with the hubby at GSC. How bad could that be? It is based on a children’s book, after all. There was nothing particularly scary or even gory about the movie. In fact I think some of the Chinese flicks I’ve seen over the last few months were far more gory.

After we got home, I received a call from my brother. He seemed rather distraught because he’d just received some news that a friend’s brother passed away. His friend’s brother was only 34 and at the prime of his life. He was a medical doctor whose career was soaring and it seemed like nothing could be going better for him. On Christmas day he suffered terrible headaches and vomitted before passing out. His family rushed him to the hospital but he never woke up. That was it - no other warning signs. Just the headaches and the vomitting and he was gone. The cause of death was a ruptured aneurysm in his brain.

The shock of it must have devastated his family. I can’t imagine how his two sisters must be feeling right now to have lost a beloved brother. If he had been their elderly grandfather, they would be sad, but at least it would have been expected. Somehow it’s different when someone young dies before “their time”. It doesn’t seem right. Like my mother says - the hardest thing for a parent to do is to watch their child die before them because the natural order of life dictates that the parents should pass on first.

At the time my brother called, I was speechless. I didn’t what to say, but I didn’t feel like I was affected by the news. After talking to me, my brother spoke to his girlfriend who told him off for sharing such sad news with his pregnant sister. I received an SMS from my brother apologising for calling me. I told him off for being silly, of course.

Later that night, I had a dream. Or shall I call it a nightmare because it was the first time I can remember waking up with a little scream? In my dream, I had two brothers and a sister. My sister was married. In one scene, I watched my sister and her husband as if I was part of the audience watching a movie. In that scene, her husband murdered her. Then he was running towards another woman - his wife’s sister, which was really supposed to be me but I was watching myself in the third person. He told her a terrible accident had happened and his wife was dead. Even though I was watching everything from the third person’s point of view, I knew I was the sister. As he ran off to inform the rest of the family, I dropped to my knees sobbing uncontrollably until I heard myself utter a cry which woke me up from the dream.

I felt hubby patting my shoulder but I’m not sure if my cry had woken him up or if it was an instinctive action in he performed in his sleep. I felt a bit silly with the whole thing. I can’t say it was an upsetting dream because I can write about it as if I were writing a story I had made up.

The hubby gets worried when I am upset because he feels my negative emotions can be felt by the baby which indirectly upsets the baby and has the potential to cause emotional harm to the baby. At least, that is the theory.

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