Reminiscing the time we fell in love

Reading Daddy Darren's blog post, I teared up a few times - all happy tears. No one can beat him in this - having me cry buckets and buckets of tears.

I remember throughout the years that we dated since 2003, I cried a lot. I cried over his tone on the phone when I called, I cried when he didn't reply a phone message after a long while. I cried when he got upset on my lateness and stomped off. I cried when we quarreled during our wedding preparations. I cried when he got upset during our overseas trips. But then our babies came and I find myself becoming a stronger woman and cried much lesser. I guess it's largely because we improved on our communication and his threshold for my behavior & bad habits has increased.

So Valentine's Day is in 2 days time, and I already know there won't be a date to a fancy restaurant, no beautiful bouquet and no surprise gift. Those treats are reserved for random, spur-of-the-moment days. But I am not complaining as these are not what I would trade for time with Daddy Darren & our two kids.

Nowadays, it is a luxury for Daddy Darren & me to dine out and spend alone time together. But it is important to remember that our love provides the foundation for our family, and to always show appreciation for each other. Looking at how happy Aiden is, I think it reflects the love that we have!

Since we went out in 2003, these 11 years have not been always smooth sailing for us. Despite our differences, our unwavering love for each other & trust that we would work things out together helped us come this far. Here's what Daddy Darren have always been for me, and I am so happy & lucky to have him as my life partner.

A supportive partner
He has always supported me in my decisions but challenging me all the time to achieve greater things. He helps me believe in my capabilities, be it in my career, in my passion, as a mum and in our own business. I may be stubborn and indecisive at times so having his opinions as a balance and check against my own helps me make better decisions. He motivates me to achieve bigger things than I think I can.

Our life planner
In our relationship, Daddy Darren is definitely the planner and I am really glad for that. He sets his mind to working towards a better life for both of us and now for our family of four. I never would have thought we would be where we are currently, but I don't think any of these are left entirely to chance. The cars, our homes, home designs etc. All carefully planned by him!

My happy pill
He has always been able to cheer me up whenever I feel down, stressed and depressed. He makes any good day even better as I feel good sharing the joy with him. His sense of humor and not-shy antics are what I need to get through any tough periods or a dull day.

Our Daddy Darren
The times I see him feeling down when our boy hurt his feelings, I know he really loves Aiden to bits. It also helped me see that our own relationship mattered a lot to him. You will only feel agitated when something means a lot to you, right? The twinkle in his eye and excitement as he held our second child, she is as precious to him, daddy's little girl for sure (though he would argue that he will treat both of our kids the same). I think fatherly instincts kicked in later for Daddy Darren (though his parenting views formed even before I met him!), but I could see how much love he has for our kids and how he wants to shape them to be happy people who try their best and be tougher in preparation for the challenging future they have ahead of them. His role as daddy to our kids complement mine, and though we do not agree on several parenting ways, we work out what's best for each situation, for ourselves and our kids. This helps strengthen our relationship with each other too.

Thank you for taking this journey with me. We have many great years ahead, which I am sure will be filled with many more memorable moments, trips, experiences together and yes, more happy tears. You complete me and I would choose to say 'Oui' again and relive the moment with you!