Oh, my cry baby!

My brother and his wife dearest were so excited about Hong Kong's Disneyland opening its doors this week, that they decided they should attend its opening cermony. Well, not exactly the real reason but it's boring to say they went Hong Kong for a vacation.

So Joey, my 18-month old niece came and stayed at my place for the first half of this week.

As far as I could remember, I have not slept in my house with another human under the age of 24 months. The experience of living with babies was a memory as distant as my Primary 6 form teacher.

Joey is a lively girl. Too lively, in my opinion, for a girl.

Any items within grasp of her tiny hands are worthy of at most 10 seconds of attention before uncermoniously flung. Yeah. Flung. And you think only boys are 粗鲁?

She knows no fear of the dark and unknown - she enters every room in the house, lighted or not; opens every cupboard and door that she can.

She doesn't care that her legs are shorter than the distance from the bed to the floor; never stopped her from walking off the bed.

Spirit of adventure? Or just foolhardy without wisdom? Who knows? Why judge?

The past few nights has been a gentle awakening for me, to appreciate and respect all who have bravely and boldly stepped into the realms of parenthood.

Babies cry. Most of them do. And babies can cry really loud.

They cry because they are hungry, scared, sick, pissed or whatever reason that made them want to cry. And most of the time, we want to calm a crying baby. Feed her if hungry, hug her if scared, treat her if sick.

Joey was crying the past 3 nights. With almost clockwork regularity, at midnight. But I was absolutely clueless what's ailing her. My mom and dad knew no better.

As an engineer trained to solve problems, this crying baby may be the hardest yet. In the world of nuts and bolts, I can examine, inspect, probe, analyse, test, whatever. But in the face of a crying Joey, I never felt more useless and helpless.

Was she hungry? Was she in pain? Was she scared from unfamiliar surroundings? We have no bloody idea. All my mom could do was to carry her, coaxing and joslting gently, motherly love mode turned to the max.

Joey would gradually quiet down and just when I thought peace has returned, she resumed with unfaltered fervour.

The night passed slowly with cyclic bouts of cries and silence, intermixed with my mom's cooing.

Without being a parent myself, I can now appreciate what it meant when my colleagues told a new dad at office: 'Welcome to the Panda Club!'

Watching my mom pacing the bedroom, coaxing and patting the wailing Joey, I couldn't helped wondering if I was ever a difficult baby for her.

Dear mom and dad, I am sorry if I had ever made you lose sleep in my baby years. Even though that was like eons ago, I still thank you for not giving up on me.

To all other mom's and dad's, I salute your courage for taking the plunge into parenthood, planned or otherwise. May your unfeltering love for your child be reciprocated in the years to come.

And to all children out there, myself included, say 'Thank you' to your mom and dad today!

And to Joey dearest, tonight is the last night liow. 乖乖呵...don't cry and sleep nice nice till morning hor!