Can't believe I'm a mother of TWO

If you had told me 17 years ago (that's when I first met PF) that I would be married to PF and we'd have 2 children, I would have been terribly upset because then, I really wanted to marry Harrison Ford. Oh well. PF ain't too bad I suppose. Ha! He's going to kill me!

So yup, fast forward 17 years and now we have two kids! Two kids! Two! I am officially a "mother of TWO"! Gosh, it makes me sound so grown-up. And responsible. And... old. I guess I'm still in denial about my age. But honestly, I really don't feel like I'm already 25 years old.

(Haha, got you! Bet you started mentally subtracting 17 from 25! I'm WAY over 25.)

Anyway, life really changes once you have kids huh? Gone are the marathon shopping trips, 2-hour gym sessions, holidays to places that might give you diarrhoea and/or rabies and parking 10 minutes away from the shopping centre just because there's free parking there after 5pm. Our lives now involve lots of rushed shopping trips to kid-friendly malls, holidays where we do research on where the nearest hospitals are and of course, actually parking IN shopping centres in Orchard Road.

Sometimes I miss those child-free days, but most times I'm loving it. Yup yup. Even though my body has surrendered to gravity and my belly gets jiggy with it (against my wishes) when I'm in a moving vehicle, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love these two little munchkins so much! When DN was first plonked into my arms after birth, I felt this HUGE rush of love come flooding in even though he looked like a wet rat. Now, when DS is quietly kicking and cooing away on her playmat, I feel like I'm going to explode with joy. I used to make fun of people who wrote about this kind of mushy crap. I'm now one of them! Ack.

But honestly, I will step in front of a moving bus for these two.

I love this photo.

Caught DN and DS staring at each other on the playmat one morning.

Almost gave myself an aneurism running for the camera.

8 weeks and counting...

At exactly this time 8 weeks ago, I had just finished pushing my baby out and was presented with a slippery little thing that looked more worm-like than human. Sorry DS, mummy loves you, but it's true. You looked like a puffy worm! Well, that puffy worm is now 8 weeks old and, I'm happy to report, does not look like the hungry caterpillar anymore. (Although she still wriggles like one.)

This time round, I tossed my Gina Ford book aside and just let my baby set the pace, instead of some white English lady I'd never met before. When I was pregnant with DN, someone told me about Gina Ford and how she was a God in the baby-rearing world, so I bought the book and was quickly converted. I mean, this lady promised that your baby would sleep from 7pm to 7am! Yeah sure I'll have some of that!

But I soon found out that Gina Ford = Chairman Mao. I don't know about her dental habits, but her objectives sounded ideal, her practices made sense, she promised heaven... and it didn't work. Smells Marxist to me!

Okay okay, I'm being a bit harsh and unfair here. I'm sure it worked for tons of babies out there, DN just wasn't one of them. Bugger that! He still wasn't sleeping through the night when he was one and a half. But I think I've paid my dues because recently, DS has been waking up around 1-ish and then again at 5-ish to feed. Which, at 8 weeks, is WAY better than DN at 1 year 2 months. But, knowing my rotten luck, I've probably JUST jinxed that and she's going to want to do the macarena all night tonight.

Hmmm, so what else has DS been up to these past 8 weeks?

Jaundice : By her 1st month party, she was still looking rather unattractively orange. Her PD said it would take up to 2 months to clear because she's on total breastmilk so I had to be patient. Even though I knew that, it was still rather unnerving staring at a carrot in the cot. Thankfully, the yellowness disappeared about a week ago and she's looking like a normal baby now!

Baby Acne : With DN, I had never heard of baby acne so when his cheeks started getting pimply, my computer almost exploded with all that googling. This time, I was the epitome of calmness. It was my mother-in-law who flew into a panic and I had to calm her down. Just call me cucumber already!

Cooing : Okay, this is a first for us. DN was always the strong, silent type. This one? She's a pigeon! In week 5-6 she started cooing in response to what we were saying. So I became a pigeon too! Although we have nothing much in common, I still love talking to her. Coo coo gurgle gurgle...

Growing : The picture below says it all!

From L to R:

What she wore home from the hospital, Her sleepsuit from week 2-5, Her sleepsuit now :)

Say cheese!

Disclaimer : DN did not learn this from us. I repeat, DN did NOT learn this from us.

I thought I'd better put that up there first, lest you think PF and I pose like camwhoring teenage girls named Apple and Prada who shout "Kawai-ne!" at each other in encouragement.

Recently, DN has been brandishing the V-sign whenever we take photographs of him. Very amusing. Sometimes his V-signs look like rabbit ears...

 

... sometimes it looks like he's pressing a pimple...

... sometimes he gets others in on the act...

... sometimes it looks like he's making a bad sign - in New York...

... and London...

... but almost all of the time, his fingers are pressed right next to his temple and, if I may biasedly say, he looks rather cute! 

 Everyone, meet Gucci Ong.

Stop moving already!

Honestly, I don't have that many pictures of DS. It's just so depressing and frustrating taking picture after picture, only to have them all turn out looking like these. In the wise words of LY, "machiam The Ring."

Take one!

Take two!

Take three!

Taking pictures of a constantly vibrating baby was clearly not challenging enough for me, so I decided to up the ante (oh, just a little) and try taking pictures of said vibrating baby AND her 10-poses-a-second brother who by the way also tormented me by vibrating non-stop when he was a baby.

Take one!

Take two!

Take three!

I love challenges.

NOT!

(DS looks lecherous in the last picture. Grrr... I give up!)

It's MY birthday! Not yours!

DN's actual birthday (2 Sept) was also a school day and because it's his SPECIAL day, I insisted on celebrating with him in school even though I was 4 days into confinement. It wasn't easy getting out of the house, trust me. Thank goodness there was not a cloud in the sky. If it were raining, that would be the end of my escapade (or escape?) because the rain here is absolutely lethal for postpartum mothers.

You didn't know?

Uh-huh. Just a drop on your skin and you will MELT, because, as all of us SHOULD know, our rain is different from the rain in other ang moh countries. That's why we have to serve confinement and they don't. You see, our rain contains cyanide, hydrochloric acid, the Nipah virus, sour milk and a flesh-eating bacteria that favours mothers who have just given birth because they are exceptionally weak, 'windy' and thus, tasty.

Betcha didn't know that.

So it didn't rain, I was safe from the rain-borne Nipah virus and wasn't going to morph into a crazy pig. Yay!

Anyway.

We wished DN a happy birthday that morning and in the car on the way to school, he told PF, "It's not Carina's birthday. It's not Daniel's birthday. It's MY birthday today!" After PF told me that, I was glad I was as stubborn as a mule by insisting on going out during confinement.

We had a really simple celebration in DN's school. We brought a dairy-free chocolate cake and some cookies for his classmates. No goodie bags for anyone because that was the school rule. A pretty good one too, I might add. Goodie bags were banned because the children would ask, "Where's my goodie bag?" when parents did NOT provide them.

We got there just before tea time and the teachers had already hung the birthday bunting in the classroom. All we did was take the cake out of the box and pop the candle on. Then DN had his birthday song moment. :)


Here's DN cutting his cake. (Can you see my greasy confinement hair???)


Happy Birthday DN!

Making Mooncakes

DN made mooncakes in school last week. He was SO pleased to bring them home and share them with everyone. Except mei mei because, according to DN, "She has no teeth!" His teacher sent me this picture.

He made red bean paste mooncakes. They were really quite nice!

Hope you had a great evening admiring the moon and the lady (or rabbit?) on it. :)

I'm sure we'll get better at this... right?!??

Our confidence highly bolstered by this successful trip, we brought both kiddos out the next day. Nothing too ambitious. Just two stops. One, to a friend's to pick up some homemade yoghurt muffins. Two, to VivoCity for lunch with my mum. You know how being a 2nd time mum makes you wiser and more experienced in the ways of the child, and more adept at getting them ready and bringing them out?

This WASN'T one of those times.

We started getting ready at 9.30am but finally left at 11.30am. Two hours to get the whole family ready? Goodness, what nonsense is this!?

At 9.30am, I sent a text saying we'll pick the muffins up at 10.15am.

At 10am, DN was all nicely decked out in jeans and a t-shirt. Even his socks were on. He was the only one dressed. I sent another text - 10.45am.

At 10.15am, PF was still in his boxers replying to some work emails. The baby was also dressed but had just pooped. Argh, and now she wants to feed. Never mind, send another text - 11am.

At 10.45am, the diaper bag was finally packed, the adults were all dressed, but the toddler was now only in his underwear because he had taken off his wet jeans. Hold on, wet jeans? Yes, wet jeans. DN was secretly playing with water as I fed the baby and as PF was working at the computer. Okay. Keep calm. Keep calm. Don't lose the plot. Re-dress toddler and let's go! Er, no. WE FORGOT TO SET UP THE CAR SEAT! Send another text - 11.30am.

At 11.15am, you'd think we would have left by now right? No. Let's just say after the whole rigmarole of putting the car seat together (the fabric bits and bobs were just washed and still hanging on the line) and then setting it up in the car, my sweat-drenched, toiling husband had to take a shower.

Sigh.

We left at 11.30am.

The Taste of Freedom

As you already know, my confinement ended last Tuesday. WOOT! Being cooped up at home for a whole month did wonders for my sanity, looks (my eyebrows now look like this) and body (no exercise + 3 heavy meals daily = this). So the day I received my "get out of jail" card, I got the hell out of there faster than you can say, "And this is what I really think about confinement!" *insert rude sign*

What do you think I did on my first trip out?

Eat?

Shop?

Massage?

Pedicure?

Trim eyebrows?

The answer of course, is EAT! We went to our favourite haunt - Shimbashi Soba and I had my usual "dessert and tea" set. Ah... absence makes the heart go fonder and the dessert tastier! And this, my dear friends, is what freedom looks like. :)

(clockwise from top)
vanilla ice cream, fried soba chips (partially hidden), mochi with peanut powder,
cheesecake crepe with orange sauce, rice mochi with red bean paste

As it was our first trip out with DS, we made it a quick one. Remembering our very first trip out with DN and how we used NOTHING in the diaper bag, we refused to learn our lesson and again left the house with a bag that was heavier than the baby. Well at least we were prepared. For 3 months in a bomb shelter.

Of course, DS was a little dream. Except for a little bit of fussing, PF and I had a pretty relaxing tea. :)