Lunch at Petrus

I’m listening to a conversation on the Cantonese radio station my cabbie is tuned in to, on my way to lunch at Petrus in the Shangri-La hotel.  It’s not every day I get a treat in such a swanky restaurant with an old girlfriend so I actually planned what to wear today. From dropping Rockstar off after playgroup (an activity I absolutely refuse to miss every Mon-Fri morning, having missed so many precious months while I still worked), and a quick change and freshening up of makeup that has been thru a 28-degree Celsius toddler walk outdoors (sans stroller – Rockstar has dismissed strollers and baby chairs as being, well, for toddlers and babies) to the play activity center plus the actual playgroup session, I have to be Petrus-ready in 10 minutes, because that is all the waiting cabbie will give me. This is Hong Kong, where time is money, and more than 10 minutes with the meter running is almost more than the base fee if I hop into a fresh cab so no cabbie will believe I’m coming back after 10 minutes’ waiting time, when it would be cheaper for me to run off without paying and get a fresh cab (yes, a rare polite cabbie on a previous occasion had pointed this out – he nonetheless insisted on being paid the HKD 18 (about USD 2.30) first before I dropped Rockstar off “just in case”.)

Having googled the restaurant dress code the previous day I’m in the same black cargos from Victoriassecret.com that I wore to playgroup, but instead of a t-shirt and flats I now have on a cream jeweled top from some contemporary designer (Kara wore the same in teal during one of the American Idol 2010 vetting days) and gold snakeskin Prada heels bought years ago from Space, the Prada outlet store in Ap Lei Chau. (I occasionally decompressed from higher-stress mornings of yore in the Hong Kong stock market by scarfing a lunchtime sandwich in the back of a cab during the 20-minute ride from the dealing room where I worked in the International Finance Center in Central to the outlet stores.  I would have time to try on just one or two items before heading back to work – needless to say my mild success at outlet shopping is more a function of the many days I needed decompressing at work.)

So here I am in the cab, 9 minutes after arriving back at our apartment, a costume and identity change later, pretending to be a lady-who-lunches who secretly counts as her biggest achievement for the morning her 28-month old nicely settled to his favorite Wheels on the Bus dvd (didn’t they say no tv before 24 months? Hah!), baked fillet of sole breaded with cornflakes, served on rice with broccoli, baby corn and mushrooms, watched by our helper.  He will soon nap for 2-3 hours, waking conveniently around when I get back

From when he was younger, but the sentiment remains the same – Yippee!

I am lady-who-lunches. I am Glam Mum off some tabloid, effortlessly seeing to my Asian child’s needs while looking fabulous in her gold Prada. Where are the paparazzi when you need them? They should make the little trophies with the gold men on them for mums. But have gold babies of course.  In my acceptance speech I would thank Rockstar – I wouldn’t be here without him today (tiny tear). “Mum” is born when baby is born – without him I wouldn’t even be Mum (misting up).  Just Sometimes-Glam.

Savor the moment… he’s in a good mood…

If he didn’t spare me a tantrum I wouldn’t be able to swan back into my waiting cab (aka Glam Mum-mobile) and be Glam-Mum Who Pretends at Petrus while idly tuning in to Cantonese DJ telling her listeners about a married couple who broke up because of a mum in-law and thinking “I would never be that mum inlaw!” (appropriate fanfare music please).  Does SPACE (that’s what they call the Prada warehouse) stock big capes with giant “GM”s on them? After all they did have turbans.  Do capes fit the Petrus’ “smart casual at lunchtime” dresscode

I drink from the keg of glory in this moment because it is so rare – yet it is the rarity and difficulty in achieving such things that make them so much more valuable.  Rockstar is very much NOT an easygoing child – here’s what we had to work with:

The pediatrician:  “That’s a very grumpy baby” (at 2.30am, after our 2nd panicked drive to the Hong Kong Sanatorium); “there’s nothing wrong with him except that temper.  If you don’t fix that he will be unbearable as he grows older.” Rockstar was not quite 3 months old at the time.

A confinement nanny with 6-month waiting list:  “May I have a piece of jade?  I’ve tried everything else.” (Apparently this stems from the belief jade will protect the baby from and scare away evil spirits. We didn’t oblige).

His playgroup teacher (the first day he was dropped off):  “He screamed for an hour.” (Wuss. Ok fine, it was a 90 minute class. At home his personal best as an infant was almost 5 hours with very short breaks in between, before he finally passed out from exhaustion.  I sobbed by his bedside with my fingernails digging into the edge of his crib just so I wouldn’t cave and pick him up. He slept quietly for like, a day. Then he resumed his scream schedule like nothing happened. Strike off Cry It Out method, there was no way I was going thru that ever again.)

School supervisor (whose office is nowhere near his class):  “Oh, you’re his mum. Healthy set of lungs, I must say.”

Shock! Horror! Had Hong Kong Sanatorium switched babies on us?

It was after all the end of the Pig year – many parents wanted children born this year because of the old saying that Pigs will never go hungry, so the hospital staff were horrendously swamped with caterwauling newborns – the baby ward was like an audition for American Idol minus the crazy costumes (something we hadn’t thought of before God blessed us with our own little pig sans any clever planning on our part – I got pregnant after 5 years on the pill and what was meant as a detox/ pep-up period because I was so run-down from work I had barely 100lbs on my just under 5ft 7inch frame.)

Both sets of grandparents have declared neither parent was “such a difficult baby” thereby implying certain personality traits are from (uppity sniff) “other” genes.

Smug look shortly after he discovered walking, jumping, smug looks.

I’m Sometimes-GlaMum because it makes me feel good about myself. And that makes me work harder at raising Rockstar. It gets my game on. When he spits out on a nice clean white shirt for the umpteenth time GlaMum doesn’t lose it – she thinks of a clever way to get him eating again. Especially his vegetables.