5 years into Our Parenting Journey

I've heard it said that becoming a parent might be easy enough, but being a parent is probably the hardest job in the world.

Even as we celebrated Noey's 5th birthday two weeks ago, the husband and I marked a milestone of our own -- our 5th year of parenthood. Sometimes, I can't believe it's only been 5 years. I look at my two children and I feel like I've known them forever. And yet, I know we have come a long way these 5 years.

I still remember how on Noey's first night back home from the hospital, he woke up in the middle of the night and cried and fussed for more than an hour for no apparent reason, and totally freaked out his newbie parents. Over time we learnt to deal with it all. The breastfeeding, the sleep training (or lack thereof), and the handling a tot that just wasn't that interested in his food. The tantrums and the bouts of separation anxiety. The "whys" and now, the "why nots". We even threw another baby into the mix and had to learn a totally different way to parent.

To say that it's been challenging is an understatement that only another parent would understand.

And yet, if I could choose and re-live my life, I would choose them, my children, again and again.

So it was kind of apt that we marked this 5 year milestone by appearing in a couple of parenthood ads that are currently being screened on TV.

You might have seen us in our almost three-seconds of fame -- I've certainly gotten a few queries from friends with sharp eyes! Yes, that is me and my kids at 0:27-0:29 in the above clip, which features a Dad's parenting journey.

We didn't know what to expect of the final outcome since we only knew of our own segments, and I can tell you that my heart was in my mouth when I was given an unexpected preview of the ads at an informal discussion group that I attended. In front of some friends and a whole bunch of other people I didn't know, no less! But my fears were unfounded -- the ads were beautifully shot, capturing moments that every parent would be able to identify with. After all, we know that parenthood is not only made up of happy smiles and moments, but also the tears and the difficult moments. My favourite scenes in the ad above - aside from the one in which we appear, naturally - are the clips that show a boy crying while being made to do homework, and the other of a Dad juggling a fretful baby that he's trying to feed in one hand, using his chin to prop up the bottle while reaching for something else with the other hand. The first is an occurrence that still happens today, and the second, well, that really brought back memories.

There's also a different version that features the parenting journey from a Mum's perspective. We appear at 0:29-0:31 of this clip.

(We even appear on the thumbnail in this version, with narration.)

If you're wondering "Where's DD?", his hand is the one whipping off the blanket at the start of our scene.

It was certainly an interesting experience being involved in this shoot. The director (Royston Tan) and the crew were all extremely professional and friendly, and as an added bonus, I even bumped into an old church friend, who was the makeup artist for the day. We got changed - those were all our own clothes - and Mummy got some light makeup before the director called us aside to show us a short clip of what was expected. After that, we were up!

Our scene was simple: Noey, Meips and I were to hide under a blanket, DD would pull it away and we would all laugh. It was only 3 seconds. Shouldn't be difficult, no? Especially since the kids love peekaboo. To help get the kids chuckling, the crew provided DD with a whole bunch of different disguises and headgear, which he would swop for each take to surprise the kids. I actually expected Noey to give me some issues because he is my less accommodating child, but instead, it was he who really got into it. "Oh, this is going to be bad!" he giggled excitedly as we hid under the covers. And every time we whipped off the covers, there was no need to direct him -- he was always laughing away. 

Not so Meips. After we did it the first time, she frowned, gave her trademark "No!" followed by "It's not funny!" Oh dear. So, I was forced to tickle her. Yup, that was part of the movie magic! It still didn't go down so well with her but thankfully, we got a couple of takes that were good enough.

So there, that's the summary of what went on behind the scenes of our first-ever TV appearance. And you know what? I'm glad we got to do it as a family.

5 years of being a parent down, and many more to go. The challenges, they keep changing, with every age and with every child. At least, I know that we can do it, together, DD and I, by the grace of God. And we sure are going to try our best to enjoy, well, probably not every moment, but as much of it as we can. Being a Mummy has been a gift. Thank you my babies, for being mine.