The Chair Series (1 year 4 months old)

DS is now 16 months old and her favourite word is...

NO!

Usually, when DS objects to something (like if you want to take away the pen she's been chewing on), this really loud and really shrill scream erupts from her and we all have to take a step back and rethink our move. She's that scary. Brrrrr...

This week however, she has started using "no" to express her, erm, discontent. It's actually quite cute because she takes her time to say "no" and it always comes out like this, "noooooooo..." and the best thing? There's no  exclamation mark at the end! So I'll take this over the loud, shrill scream any day.

Although, we do realise that we soon have to stop giggling and hugging her whenever she says "noooooooo...". It's quite counterproductive!

Here are the other words DS can say. Take note though, that we are the only ones who can understand her!


Bye, Elle, Hi, Mama, More, Papa (only when she's really desperate and there's still no response from my lifeless, sleeping body after calling me for half an hour), Sit, Shoes, There, Yes... and a few more but for the life of me, I can't remember them now!

Hello again!

I feel really really rotten for ignoring this blog for half a year. When I started it in 2006, I chronicled DN's every major milestone and you can really see him growing up on this blog. So I feel terrible that DS doesn't have the same thing. Sorry Mei Mei! :(

But it's hard trying to juggle work and two kids. Something's got to give right?

But I'm not going to let this blog die just like that! I'm going to keep it simple but I promise to post SOMETHING at least once a week. (God help me!) I hope I can stick to this plan. It's been pretty pretty crazy at work.

First up, a DS update. My little girl is now 1 year and 3 months old. Can you believe it? I blinked and 15 months flew past. She's a spicy one, this one, and had us all deceived the first few months of her life. Compared to DN, she slept better (so WE slept better), sat in the pram better, sat in the car seat better (no possessed baby type of screaming like you-know-who) and basically let you do anything to / with her, no complaints. Biggest plus point? She never needed a pacifier! An amiable and pleasant baby.

Well done June, I told myself (*pat on back*), good thing you kept up with the Community Chest donations!

Fast forward to now and why I say she deceived us all. She's spicy! If she's unhappy with something, she will Make. It. Known. And the neighbours will know it too. She doesn't give her brother face at all and if she's unhappy with him, trust me, he will know about it. Once, it cost him some hair on his head. Which then caused me to lose mine because I had 2 screaming monkeys on my hands for half an hour.

What else? Well last week, she screamed at her doctor when he vaccinated her. First, the screams were screams of shock. Then it was pain. But that didn't last long because they soon morphed into screams of anger. We could tell because she wasn't crying (no tears) and to put it simply, she looked pissed off! Her face was red, she was staring at poor Dr Keoy and shouting at him in her baby language. Dr Keoy kept muttering, "She's tough. She's tough. She's tough."

So he gave her a biscuit and all was peaceful again. Easily bribed, just like her brother!

So yes, Mei Mei is a spicy one. Don't let that smile fool you!

Next up... a DN update. Stay tuned. ;)

The Chair Series (6 months old)

Yes, I am alive. Sorry for falling off the face of the planet, but I'm really struggling with "not-crashing-when-lying-down-next-to-DN-at-bedtime". I usually do all my blogging at night, while waiting for my last pump at 12.30am (ish). But for the past two weeks, I've been going to bed at 9.30pm and waking up with a horrible start at 1am because I haven't brushed my teeth / haven't finished that thing for work / missed American Idol / am due for a pump (usually it's all of the above... *big sigh!*) Every night at 9.30pm, I chant to myself, "Iwillnotsleep.Iwillnotsleep.Iwillnotsleep." Of course, come 10pm, the roof could collapse on me and I wouldn't know. Then I wake up at 1am with a mini heart attack, panicking and cursing myself. I then do all the necessary - pump, harvest my potatoes on FB (LOL!) and read the newspaper headlines (I am a sad being) - before catching up with my beauty sleep (lost cause, I know). I'm so sorry. Blogging is not a "necessary"!

But today tonight this morning (yes, it's 2.35am now), I have bumped "blogging" up the "necessary" list and will post this post that's WAY overdue. :( I actually started it two weeks ago, but curses to the zzz-monster! It's his fault that this is so late! Not mine.

At 6 months old, I think we can make pretty good guesses about what kind of little girl DS is. Her character is showing through and she's turning out to be a real sweetheart. She's pretty calm most of the time and quite independent too. By that I mean she doesn't need 24/7 carrying. More like 18/7, haha. If she's had a good feed and a good nap, she's content with lying down in her play pen, kicking her cot piano (thanks Carla!) or chewing on her toy/blanket/romper for a while. Of course, she'll start complaining after 15 minutes, but hey, you would too.

This month, DS stopped sucking her thumbs, fingers and toes (phew!).  Okay, maybe "stopped" is a little inaccurate. Once in a while I catch her doing a Cirque du Soleil and she's folded in half with her toe(s) in her mouth. Let's just say it used to be "main attraction" status. Now, it's just "opening act" status. Her thumbs and fingers? Prrtht! Been there, done that! 

She can lean back against you unceremoniously sit assisted, but because she looks like this a lot, I'm not sure I want to classify that as "sitting". "Languishing" perhaps? As for sitting unassisted, she definitely can't do that. Not even for a second. Hopefully next month, I'll be able to share some sitting photos like DN's. Hee!

At her 6 month check-up, DS weighed 7.16kg and was 66.5cm tall. According to her PD, she's just slightly below average for weight but above average for height. I can't help but compare here, but DN only hit 67cm at 9 months! PF of course, is happily accepting credit for this while at the same time pointing accusing fingers at me for DN's, erm, petite size. GOOD THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES OKAY! Ooops, was I shouting?

DS can now recognise people and I don't mean to gloat, but I'm going to anyway, haha - I'm her favourite person on earth right now! I will ignore the pertinent fact that I'm her main source of nutrition. When I get home from work, she's really pleased to see dinner me, and always bursts into a big smile and then starts hopping and jumping in the arms of whoever's carrying her. It's really quite funny to watch. After I say "hi" to her, I'll go wash my hands and she will start yelping in protest! And when she's fussy, tired, overstimulated, etc... she will ALWAYS calm down once I carry her. It's nice to be loved. :) Sadly though, DS is afraid of old people. It's really really odd. She cries when her great-grandmothers (she has three, and one great-great-grandmother, I'm serious!) carry her. I hope she outgrows this soon.

  

See what I mean about languishing?

 

The Chair Series (5 months old)

Do you know that towards the end of every month, I'm literally counting down the days to the 29th just so I can take a pic of DS in our rocking chair? I have all these photos stored in my phone so when I have nothing else better to do (actually that's a lie because I ALWAYS have something else I should be doing instead - i.e. WORK), I just scroll through the pictures with this goofy smile on my face. Sometimes I even go, "awww, mei mei!". *proud mother hen*

So what has Little Miss Ong been up to this month? Well, you know how I was so worried about her forming an unhealthy relationship with her thumb? Well, guess what? I don't have to now! Now, I have to worry about that relationship with her big toe. *groan* Every chance she gets, she'll reach for her toe and stuff it into her mouth. The first few times I was in awe because she literally folds herself into half by doing that. Pretty amazing stuff. I mean, if I tried munching on my own big toe, I'd probably get it halfway up my body before my back snaps.

Miss Ong is also laughing a lot more now. And the only person who can make her laugh ALL the time is DN. Sometimes, he doesn't even have to do anything. She's just content with watching him jump up and down. And up and down. And up and down. Why do babies love other little children? It's really very endearing to watch. And me? I love watching toddlers laughing at babies watching them laugh. Haha!

I went back to work full-time this month so that means DS has been on the bottle pretty much full-time too. She has five milk feeds a day and I only get to latch her on twice. Once in the morning and once more before she goes to bed. Thankfully and luckily, transitioning to the bottle and back has not been an issue at all. In fact, I think even transitioning to other bottled drinks will not be a problem too because she's been trying to snatch Yakult bottles away from us!

At the beginning of her 5th month, she wasn't doing full flips yet, just a lot of rocking half-flips. You know, she tries to swing her leg over then ends up rocking back and forth and back and forth until she lands on her back again. By the end of the first week, she finally does her first proper flip (with one hand still stuck underneath though). This caused problems at night. She would shuffle and flip in her sleep until she's on her chest and then wide awake! For a few nights, I had to flip her back because she was stuck on her chest, tired and crying! Right now our little missy has not mastered flipping back onto her back, but this week, she started pulling her other hand out from under her. :)

We brought her to the PD last week for a general check-up and guess what? She's probably allergic to milk too. ARGH! You see, on about five occasions, I've noticed a little streak of blood in DS's poo. It's not much at all, just a little bit, and because she seemed generally well and happy, we just left it at that. When we asked her PD, he said it's possibly an allergic reaction to my breastmilk. There's something in there that's triggering a bursting of blood vessels in her gut, and it's most probably dairy, the most common allergen. So now, I'm not allowed any dairy at all. (PF is secretly very pleased because I become very (ahem) gassy when I have too much milk or yoghurt. Hey, better out than in I say!)

And at the fifth month PD visit, DS weighs 6.6kg and is 64cm tall long. :)

The Chair Series (4 months old)

DS is 4 months old today and that only means ONE thing... my maternity leave is over! I know this sounds really cliche, but gosh, time does fly doesn't it?

Same time last year, DS was just a bunch of cells and DN + PF had just joined me in the UK.

Nine months ago, we'd just returned to SG and were stuffing our faces (okay, MY face) with local food.

Six months ago, DS was still growing in my belly and DN had just started school.

Three months ago, DS was one month old and I was finally liberated from confinement.

And look at us now. 2009 is over and before you know it, DS will be one and DN will be four!

So what is little DS up to now? At four months, she's still not rolling over. Well, not "professionally" anyway, haha. She does make those turns to her side, but it's "not pro" because her entire upper torso is close to flipping over but her (Beyonce) butt is still firmly on the mattress. This is really all my fault because I keep forgetting to give her her daily dose of tummy time. :p She doesn't abhor it as much as her brother did, so I really have no excuse for skiving. It's just that I've recently discovered the joys of virtual farming (on Facebook) so the minute she sleeps, I'm plowing land and harvesting pumpkins!

At four months, she's finally sleeping through the night. And this is not "baby" sleeping through the night either. We're talking "real adult" sleeping through the night. I usually give her her last feed around 830-9pm and she sleeps until about 730-8am the next day. Oh. Em. Gee. YESSSSS! *pump fist* Want to know the other wonderful thing about this baby? She can sleep on her own! By this I mean, I don't have to rock her or pat her before putting her down in her cot. After burping her and holding her upright for a couple of minutes, I then put her down, kiss her cheek and say goodnight. She'll then lie there contemplating life for a while before falling asleep. *pump fist even more* Either my sleep training worked or it's payback time for what DN did to me. But, who cares?!

At four months, she's drooling big time. I took the bibs out about 2 weeks ago because by noon, our little missy always has a wet chest. (In another context, that would sound really skanky!) Could she be teething? I don't really know because prying babies' mouths open is not really my thing. But I don't think so because she's generally in a good mood all the time and she's sleeping well at night. DN however, might be, that whiny cranky tot!

At four months, she has started to bring things to her mouth for a good chomp. Usually, it's her thumb. -__-" I am now seriously thinking if I should introduce the pacifier because you can throw away the pacifier but you can't throw away the thumb. Looks like I am destined to fight battles with thumbs and pacifiers. *sigh* But that said, I think subconsciously I'm hesitating because I think she looks really cute sucking her thumb! But then I remember how my mother tried weaning me off my thumb (there was chilli and lots of threatening involved) and it doesn't look that cute anymore.

At four months, she's still talking a lot. Oooh, this is love. DN was never a chatty baby. In fact, I don't remember him gurgling or babbling AT ALL as a baby. We were always purring and cooing at him but, no dice. This one however, is SO fun to talk to. She usually coos, but when she's excited, she squeals! I actually have tons of videos of her cooing. I just haven't uploaded them here because they are videos that only a mother will love. Just a baby making unintelligible sounds. Horribly boring if it's not your child!

At four months, she's starting to bald. It's not as bad as her brother when he was four months, but she's starting to drop hair at the back of her head. Right now, there is a ring of scalp round the back because of all the rubbing she's doing on her pillow! Honestly, I don't know why I just spent $40 on baby hair clips. -__-

I really love DS the baby. She's such a darling. I love snuggling and sniffing her. I love brushing her soft cheek and squeezing her. I love patting her Tintin hair (more about that soon) and thinking of all the pigtails I can tie in two years' time. I love seeing her do her leg lifts and when she head-bangs because of her slightly wobbly head. I lovelovelove her!

I wish I could have DS the baby forever, but it's okay that I can't because otherwise, I won't have DS the toddler, DS the primary schooler, DS the teenager or DS the working adult who will bring her mother out for high teas in fancy hotels!

The Chair Series (3 months old)

Making It Lovely is one of the blogs I started following this year. When she started posting monthly pictures of her baby girl sitting in her Eames rocker, I thought, "THAT IS SUCH A BRILLIANT IDEA! I'm SO going to copy that!" You see, PF and I decided to splurge a little and got a gorgeous rocking chair (for me to nurse DS) from Lorgan's and upholstered it in a wonderful retro print. Deee-licious! And just perfect for doing my own chair series for DS!

So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the first and second instalment of The Chair Series! :)

DS is now three months old, and that means two things. One, time flies and two, my maternity leave is ending. Ack!

I know I will be an embarrassing wibbling mess on the first day of work because I'm really enjoying this baby. You know how you're not supposed to say good things about babies because you might just jinx it? I won't go to the extent of naming my baby xiao fei zhu (little fat pig), but I will say this...

DS is such a "terrible, terrible" baby. She is "impossible" to placate and cries "non-stop, all the time". I'm always "at my wits' end" on how to handle her because she is just so "difficult". She "hasn't slept through the night once" (nudge nudge!) and still wakes up "five times a night", the little "devil" (wink wink WINK!). Of course, this causes her mother "great great grief". Sigh!

I think I just beat the system. *smug face* I will now have the most intelligent and well-behaved baby in the worrrrrlddddd, woot!

Whoops, think I just jinxed it.