Working From Home

I wonder how many of you have tried to join the platform that offers you handsome rewards just by working from home (or wherever you take your laptop with you, for that matter). And I wonder how many of you have been conned by the platform that offers you handsome rewards.

The deceptive idea of wanting to earn money without having to do much work is the very sentiment that these scam platforms prey on.

To be honest, I was one of them before.

Having skills but no outlet to put it to use, being stuck at home day in day out without something different to do other than housework and being overeager in signing up to something that seems credible enough.

Suffice to say that soon after I paid for my registration fee, I heard nothing from the platform administrators and received no reply to my countless emails asking for more information on how to start working on the projects they promised me. After a week, I got the idea that I was conned.

This was almost two years ago.

After what happened to me, I didn’t even bother reading or finding out about other “seemingly credible” work-from-home platforms. For me, they all have the same scripted advertisement and promise the same thing. “Pay $50 for registration fee but you will get $5000 per week. Join now or be sorry that you miss out on this opportunity,” are just one of the many things they say.

Then I chance upon Cristian Mihai’s blog.

He is an awesome writer and I look up to him as a blogger because I’ve always had this romantic idea where my blogs are followed by thousands of people, I have bustling activities going on in my blog and I can write something everyday. He wrote a post about how to be a good blogger and make the best of your blog in Rules, rules, rules. From his blog too I learnt that there are several trusted platforms that pay you to write articles for them.

Trusting him to know what he’s talking about, here are the few that I’ve signed up to and yes, this time around, I wasn’t conned.

• Helium – This platform is open to everyone around the world (some of the platforms only allow US citizens to sign up). There is no registration fee. To write an article for them, you simply need to choose a category you like best or know most about and select a job. Some articles are $1 and some cost more. If Helium purchased your article, then they will credit the money to your Helium account. If they didn’t purchase it, they will still feature your article under that category. You can cash out your earnings after you reach $25 or more
• Elance – I have just started with Elance for about a week but I have received several jobs and received the payment. Elance uses bidding system, where you need to bid for a job with other freelancers. If a client chooses your proposal, then you are awarded the job and will receive the payment after you deliver. For this, you will need English writing skills as most of the jobs require you to write reviews or academic papers for them.  After you have received your payment, you can transfer your earnings into your PayPal account for withdrawal. This is also open to everyone.
• JobDiRumah – This is for Malaysian citizens only. The concept is the same as Elance’s.

These are just a few that I share because there are more on Cristian Mihai’s post. I’m trying to search for the post but at the moment I can’t seem to find it because he does have a lot of posts written and I can’t really remember the exact keyword for me to look up that post. However, once I’ve got it (and I remember that he wrote about platforms that are only open for US citizens), I will post it here so you can read more on other work-from-home platforms that are trusted.

If you are still dubious about this, here’s a photo of what I received from Elance 2 days after I joined.

You should at least check them out. Who knows you can really after all earn while working from home (or wherever you take your laptop with you, for that matter!)

Starry Night

I went out for a short walk tonight after getting some groceries because the night was so beautiful.

I was walking home when I looked up to the sky and saw a starry night with a crescent moon. The sky was so clear and the lights of the stars were so sharp they looked almost surreal.

Then I remembered the times when Mohen and I used to work together in the same office. And after our dinner, we would hang outside the building for a smoke. I would always look up to the sky while he sat beside me and talked and I listened to his voice. And sometimes the sky looked exactly the way it did tonight.

I realized how much I miss spending time Mohen doing the simplest things together.

Just the two of us.

Just Us

We will be 5 years together this May. Or at least 5 years in a full committed relationship.

I think I knew Mohen close to 7 years now. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s 7 years. It’s amazing how things turned out for the both of us.

Our first photo together during our office annual dinner.
We weren’t even each other’s date that night but somehow we ended up hanging out with each other a lot that night!

When we met, we never thought we would be where we are right now; in a relationship serious enough to have 3 kids out of. Although there were several pretty rough patch that we went through, I would say that I’m having an amazing time with him.

I met Mohen when I wasn’t looking for anything serious. In fact I wasn’t looking for anything at all. We just happened to meet at the smoking area of our previous office and, well, as cliche as this may sound, there rest is just history.

People always say familiarity breeds contempt.

I don’t really know what that means. I mean, I know what it means. But I don’t think I really know what it implies. I suppose when you’re too familiar with a person and you’ve let your guards down or, in the words of Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting – we get to choose who we let into our weird little worlds. His imperfections are just apart of him that I accepted and my eccentricities are probably part of my charm.

We’ve sort of drifted apart these few weeks. Nothing serious but we both know it’s because we have another baby and that keeps me busy and occupied a large part of my time and he’s as always occupied with work. We still talk and laugh and poke fun at each other but we can tell it’s a little different from what we usually have.

It’s not hard being young parents with small kids. There’s just so much that we need to learn and get used to that sometimes we feel as though we have nothing in common anymore. The parenting duties in our household sometimes seems to be so distinctly divided – him working and me doing pretty much everything else at home. Mohen does help around a lot during weekends and even though that eases my job a little as a mom, I would like to have more time with him the way I used to.

We used to go out a lot before we are seriously attached.

I believe in date nights and thank God, so does Mohen.

We’re overdue for our date night for months now. To be honest, I can’t even remember the last time we went out just the two of us. That’s how long ago it was!

I know we’re so in love and are still crazy about each other. I just hope things get settled pretty soon because I can’t wait to go dancing with him again.

Wait, I Didn’t Sign Up For This

I’ve been so tied up with so many things like you wouldn’t believe.

Okay, perhaps that was stretching the truth a little. Or perhaps not.

But what I know is one thing and it is this – There was more than once where I thought I didn’t sign up for this to have gone through this every.single.day.

I know that nobody really sign up for parenthood, unless the ones who really want to be parents and have kids. I’m not saying that I regret having kids because they literally are the best thing that happened to me. But for someone who never really wanted to be in a relationship let alone a serious one with kids at that, I sometimes feel like I’m not cut out for it.

Maybe it’s just my preconceived notion of me being a bad mother, or maybe it’s just me looking for an easy way out to explain my incompetence as a parent.

Eros with Damien

What I know is also, I feel suffocated almost all the time. It’s been 3 months since we’re home and everything sometimes run smooth but most of the time they don’t. Mohen kept telling me that it doesn’t last forever and I know he’s right. And for the millionth time he kept assuring me that I’m doing a great job otherwise our kids will be sick or starving or anything worse than that.

But I constantly feel that I need to do more. That I need to be better.

I wake up every morning with the determination not to scold or yell or lose my temper but 3 hours into the job, already I’m screaming at something.

Damien Emil Mohen

Damien is very attached to me.

He will comfort nurse most of the time. And if I were to unlatch him before he’s done, he’ll throw a tantrum and almost as though he resets his clock back to 00:00 and I’m stuck to nursing him for another 2 hours. All the while I’m nursing him, I kept running in my mind the list of things that I could’ve done if he wasn’t nursing this long.

Because of this also, Eros and Sophia are taking the brunt of my resentment.

I felt like I’ve paid less attention to them now. I feel that I kept scolding them for being kids because I have no control over the house anymore. Everything is in a mess and nothing gets done. By the time everyone is really sleeping for the day, it’d be midnight and when I’m done with all the housework, it’s almost 2am. And then Damien wakes up again for nursing. I’m fine with him waking up at 3am onward because I get to sleep while breastfeeding him. But I knew that if he hadn’t nursed so much in the afternoon, I could’ve gone to bed much earlier.

I do not resent breastfeeding. I’m loving it because now it has come easy and naturally, unlike our first 3 weeks after Damien was born. But I just really wish that he would give up comfort nursing. I tried giving him a dummy but he hates it. He would prefer me as a binky to fall asleep. I mean, I know I’m his mother but sometimes I wish he wouldn’t use me as a pacifier as much.

And I feel crappy for feeling such way.

I mean, I am his mother, for God’s sake right? I need to be there for him at all times, I need to love and care for him the way he needs me, I need to attend to his every need until he is old enough to be more independent than he is now.

But I also need to look after Eros and Sophia who needs more attention and understand more about hurt and feeling deserted. And right now, I literally feel I am hurting and deserting them.

The only thing that kept me going is the thought and hope one day Damien will outgrow his attachment once he can roll over or sit up or crawl because he will have more things to explore than just being with me.

In the meantime, I would have to really learn to be a better parent and not be spiteful toward myself.

Because when I’m spiteful and resenting how I am handling the situation when I know I can and should do better, I lash it out on my kids.

And they deserve so much more than that.

With Sophia

Because I am their mother. And I did sign up for this when I decided to have them.

Time Out, Mommy!

Things have gone from bad to worse since my last post.

Then it went from bad to a little better and good and then bad and then worse.

I’m really confused with the things that I have to do at home with the kids. For one, I can’t seem to know what to do first. Then even if I do know, I don’t get to do it because everything else happens at the same time at the wrong places. Just the other day, I literally feel suffocated.

Damien is going to be 3 months soon (that quick, huh?) and he has seemed to get day and night mixed up. He would be all sleepy in the morning right up to late evening. Then after his evening bath, he would be wide awake until 2am sometimes. I mean, what’s that about? I’m really glad that he sleeps in the afternoon because that’s when I get to do all the housework and looking after Eros and Sophia.

But by nighttime, I’m spent and I felt like crawling to my bed. And that’s when Damien will be wide awake. It’s okay if he just lies on the bed and roll around entertaining himself but nooooo. I have to pick him up and play with him. It was fun for like the first 30 minutes but when my eyelids get heavy, he seems to be wanting more. I can’t put him down next to me either. He likes to sit up and look around. I mean, I can’t blame him for being curious but at 3-freaking-am?

I feel like I seriously need a break.

Because now, I feel like doing what I do has become obligatory and it’s no longer something that I enjoy doing or something that I get satisfaction from. I feel like I have to do it and I hate that. I don’t want to feel as though I have to look after my kids, I hate to feel like I have to cook for the family. I mean, I know I have to because no one else would but feeling forced into doing it is just, well, sucks.

Oh, well.

Breathe

It’s 7.45pm now and I think I can safely say that it was a good day today.

Amazingly, everything went smoothly today.

I’m so used to things being crazy and hectic that right now I’m perplexed as to whether this is really happening or is there some mishap that is waiting to happen. LOL. I know I don’t want to jinx it by thinking that way but then again, I never truly believe in jinxing anything just by talking about it.

Ever since morning, I was able to do the things I do before – bathe the kids on time in the morning, made them breakfast, nursed Damien for his morning feed, bathed him and put him to sleep. Then I managed to make lunch on time, nursed Damien for his afternoon feed and fed Eros and Sophia their lunch. I even managed to spring-clean my book cabinet that I’ve been wanting to clear out since like forever!

Now Eros and Sophia has bathed for bed and I’m going to feed them dinner in a minute while I wait for Damien to wake up for his evening feed.

I can’t believe things went so well that I actually wait for them to happen rather than running around like a headless chicken wondering why everything is happening at once.

I guess not everyday will be as mad and hectic as it was a few days ago. I hope this will be a prelude to how easy things will get in the future.

And for the first time ever since I’ve had 3 kids, I feel awesome!

Too Many Too Little

I’ve had at least 4 things planned as my blog post.

But I haven’t had enough time to sit and commit to writing them that all I can do was scribble the ideas and thoughts and points in my notebook.

Eros and Sophia are down with fever this week and soon after Damien got it too. Then I got it as well because I’ve been staying up late to sponge-bath them and clean up after they’ve thrown up and all. On top of that I think I got food poisoning or at least a very bad diarrhea from something I must’ve eaten.

I really miss being able to write every night before I go to bed but right now even as I write this, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.

Damien is in his 6th week now and going through his second growth spurt so he’s cluster feeding at night. I’m thankful that it’s at night because at least I get to sleep while he nurses away. But it drains so much of my energy that I don’t have much left for the next day.

I know that once they’re older and when we’re back home and I’ve establish a routine or a schedule for all 3 of them, I will be able to blog and write as often as I did or at least more frequent than what I’m doing now.

Now I’m off to bed as I need to sleep before Damien wakes up for his marathon feed.

Coping Prelude

So we’re back to our own house for the weekend.

Mohen gets 2 days off from work this week so he brought us home. I jumped at the idea because one, I miss my house, second, I want to see what’s like to be doing all the housework without any help from my mother and sisters.  I want to acclimatize myself before I return for good end of this month.

Six hours into the job I thought I’m losing my mind.

First thing I did was to clean up the kitchen and get it ready for me to work  in during these 4 days. Although Mohen didn’t keep the kitchen the way I did, I was really glad that it was clean and in proper order enough without me having to do much. I love how he keeps the rest of the house spotless too.

After I’ve put away the luggage and the groceries, it was time for the kids’ dinner. I thought I was doing okay because I managed to get everything done in time before the kids get hungry. Then I heard Damien’s cry.

I forgot that now I have 3 kids to look after and one is just a wee baby of 5 weeks.

Even with Mohen’s help, I still feel like I was suffocating. I thought I was going crazy trying to meet each of my kid’s need. And all of a sudden they seem to want something different at the same time. Had it not been for Mohen’s being around, I would’ve call my mother to come and pick us up to go back to her place.

It’s going to be day 3 tomorrow.

I hope I will fair better.

Tested

It’s day 22 and I think I’m about to have a mental breakdown.

Last week, I found out there is a small tear on my cesarean scar. Before that one corner of the incision hurt really bad that I doubled over each time I tried to get out of bed. It felt like someone was punching my sides whenever I moved in a wrong angle.

Then after a few days, I felt something wet at my scar and when I touched it, I yowled in pain for it felt as though my skin was tearing. When I looked at my fingers, there were some blood and pus. Of course I went straight to the doctor when I found out it was bleeding because I knew it was a sign of cesarean scar infection and I didn’t want it to get worse.

Then the fever started and I wasn’t able to get out of bed much. The doctor asked me to lie down as long as I can to avoid further tearing of the scar. She gave me antibiotics to stop the infection. Slowly the pain faded and there was lesser and lesser bleeding or pus coming out of the scar.

But because of that, my milk supply took a dive.

I have no idea why. It was safe for me to breastfeed Damien even though I was on antibiotics and I did breastfeed him during the time I had the fever. It was just somehow my body was making less milk. Due to that, Damien was constantly crying and fussing at my breasts because of the slow flow of my breastmilk.

Finally my mother said he needs to be supplemented with formula.

Everyone knew how hard I tried to not let Damien have any formula and I fought tooth and nail the first few weeks to get through all the engorged breasts and cracked nipples just so I could exclusively breastfeed Damien.

Mohen looked at me when my mother said that he knew I wanted to say no. But I also knew that there is no way I could make Damien full with the condition I was in.

So, finally I gave in.

And now, even after a week and I’ve recovered from the fever although not the muscle pain of the incision (infection’s gone away though, thank God), my supply is still low.

I’ve drank like a whole tank of water, I tried herbal remedies to increase milk supply, I drink fenugreek tea because it is believed to help boost milk supply, I try to relax and rest as much as I can but my milk is still so slow it comes out in trickles. Every time Damien nurses now, he tugs at my nipple and fusses because he can’t get the milk out fast enough to make him full.

I cry each time I had to supplement him with formula. It was like every gulp he drinks from the formula is killing me and I feel terribly guilty. Even with pumping, I can only squeeze out a few ounces.

The only comfort I have now is that Damien has the chance to breastfeed when he wakes up for his midnight feed. Since he sleeps for a few long hours at night, my milk has a chance to store up a little and it’s flowing quite fast for him to nurse and fall asleep on breastmilk alone. I know that some breastmilk is better than none (related article: Partial Breastfeeding) but it kills me to know that I can’t breastfeed him exclusively anymore.

I remembered how my milk supply was high during Eros and Sophia’s time but I wasn’t completely resolved to fully breastfeed them. I had no health issues that caused my milk supply to dwindle but I didn’t fully take advantage of the situation. And now, when I’m determined, things turned out differently.

I will try to stay positive so that my milk won’t go away completely. I know that I will give Damien as much chance to breastfeed as possible and will not resort to formula all the time to supplement him.

It’s frustrating that I’ve tried, I’ve bled, I’ve cried so much that first few weeks only to let up now.

But I will try to keep at it for as long as I am able.

I Thought I Was

It’s day 14 today.

I don’t feel any better about breastfeeding. I think there might be something wrong with my milk supply. I remembered distinctly when I was breastfeeding Sophia past year that my supply was a lot more than what it is right now for Damien. I have a feeling I have a low milk supply.

I remembered the time when Sophia was sleeping, my milk would “restock” itself and when I tried to squeeze it out, it would sometimes came out in spurts. This time around, when I squeeze my breasts, only a slow trickle will flow. I am so afraid because I really want to breastfeed Damien and I do not want to resort to formula just so he’ll have enough to eat.

I don’t even have much milk letdown this time. If I were to nurse Damien on one breast, I will only have a small amount of letdown on the other breast. I used to soak my nursing pad the last time I nursed Sophia.

I have no idea why this time around my milk supply is low. It seems to be so much when my milk came in last week and I was happy because I thought I’m the type blessed with abundant milk supply, the way I was with Eros and Sophia.

My mother said because I’m worried about my family and how Mohen needs to cope with all the family financial. Of course I can’t help but worry. I can’t make myself not to think about it. I know how hard it is for him to make ends meet so I can’t stop thinking about our situation. As much as I try to put the thought away while I breastfeed, it’s still hard to pretend like nothing is wrong.

I’ve been trying to correctly latch Damien for days. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong because I think I’ve read and seen videos on correct latch like a million times but still I can’t get him to properly suckle on my breasts. Instead I can feel him gumming my nipples and it’s so painful when he starts to nurse that sometimes I’m terrified when he’s awake for a feed.

My friends all tell me that both of us are learning and I shouldn’t beat myself up too hard over it.

But I can’t help but want to get it right because one, it’s mighty painful when he nurses and second, I feel like a complete failure for not being able to get it right even after 2 weeks and third, each time it hurts during nursing, I entertain the thought of feeding him with formula (yes, as much as I am resolved to not offer him any).

And it’s been two days now I feel pain on my cesarean incision.

It’s just at the beginning of the incision where there’s like a knot or something but it’s burning and feels like little electric shock pulses whenever I move in the wrong direction. I have to make sure that I press the spot and move in a right angle so the pain won’t send me reeling back onto bed.

I know the incision is not ripped or open because it’s absolutely clean and there’s no weird stuff coming out of it but I hate the pain because it limits my movement so much.

The thing is, I know I need to rest but with a 4 year old toddler and a 1 year old who is still in diapers, it’s hard to get as much rest as I needed.

I still have to look after them when my mom is occupied with something and sometimes I need bathe them and change Sophia’s diapers. I know that I’m not supposed to lift anything heavier than my newborn but it’s just crazy not to look after them when there’s no one else to help you.

I knew I was very apprehensive when we conceived Damien because I was afraid that I might not be able to cope.

I know that I can do this once the pain is over and my cesarean scar heals or when Damien finally knows how to latch.

But until then, I feel like a total failure.