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!

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 :)

Duracell Bunny on Speed

DN attended Jovann's birthday party on Sunday. We also attended J's first birthday party last year, and I must say, the Teos really know how to throw a party. It was a "Thomas The Tank Engine Party" so there were Thomas mylar balloons, a Thomas tablecloth, a Thomas phwoarh-phwoarh cake, Thomas goodie bags for all the kids and even Thomas The Tank Engine was playing on the TV while we were there!

WP, I want to be your child!

During the party, DN was playing with all the toys and feasting on fried noodles, cookies, hard-boiled egg dipped in mee siam gravy, chocolate fudge cake and ribena. We also had fun with a "special" Thomas Story Telling session (details akan datang... next post!) and a Happy Helium session. Remember DN's birthday wishes last year? Well, there were 40 helium balloons on the ceiling this time, just waiting to be ingested. It was inevitable. Come to mama!

After laughing ourselves silly (the kiddos weren't very amused though), we decided to do the cultural thing and went downstairs to Ti Deng Long because it was Mid-Autumn Day. WP included a child-safe little lantern (with a little red LED light instead of a candle) in all the goodie bags so everyone was properly equipped. This also meant we could turn off the electric dinosaur lantern with the spinning belly (don't ask) that was belting out "Ai-yee-ai-yee-ai! I'm a little butterfly!" at supersonic speed, and (sadly) sound frequency. Die dinosaur, DIEEEEE!

So that was our Sunday. Until 10pm. -_-

DN was so stimulated that night, he didn't sleep until midnight! He was like a Duracell bunny on speed and 20 cups of coffee. His usual bedtime is 830-9pm, so 12am is insane for him. When we turned the lights off and put him in bed, he got out and started walking around the room and talking to himself. I even tried to be a good role model and lay down on the bed and went, "SNORRRE!" (for real actually, I fell asleep) but to no avail. DN was unstoppable. Until now, I have no idea what time he eventually fell asleep. But I do know what time he woke up. 6am! I know because the first thing he said when he woke up was, "CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE!" For 5 minutes. -_-

Talk about overstimulation! There IS such a thing as "too much fun".

The 3 tots on a lantern jaunt. Can you see the "ai-yee-ai-yee-ai" dinosaur lantern in the background?



The CAKE!

Bedtime Routine

DN's bedtime routine has been the same since he was about 3 months old.

1. Either a bath or a wipe-down... it depends on his "stinkiness".
2. Then PF, DN and I hang out in DN's room and play with his puppets, soft toys & puzzles.
3. Next, storytime. If he's really tired, one book. If not, DN usually wants to read about five to ten books. Sometimes, it gets to a stage where we're saying, "Okay, only one more book DN. Last one. No more. All gone. Time for BED!" I'm glad he likes his books. :)
4. After the last book, it's a kiss for PF and me, and then I cuddle him to sleep.
5. Zzzzz...

For the past two nights, I wasn't around to put DN into bed. On Wednesday it was a school event at Jubilee Hall, and yesterday, I decided to go to the gym after work (my first time in two years, so I'm walking like C-P30 today). It felt nice to do it again tonight (putting DN into bed, not the gym!).

DN has a few favourite books. He likes...

• Goodnight Moon
• Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me and
• the set of three Thomas The Tank Engine books we picked up in Perth

One of the books I used to read to him when he was really little was Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. My mom gave me the book and I teared when I read it to DN for the first time when he was about 3-4 months old. When he became more mobile and thus restless, I stopped reading that to him because he'd want to flip the pages every 2 seconds so I couldn't read the story at all.

This is how it starts...

"A mother held her new baby and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she held him, she sang:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."

The story goes on to describe how the little baby grew into a toddler, boy and teenager, and how, every night, the mother would sneak into his room when he's fast asleep, pick him up, cradle him and sing:

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."

The teenager became a grown up and moved out. Sometimes, his mother would drive to his house, sneak into his room and sing the song to him as he lay fast asleep. Until one day she called him up and asked him to come and see her.

"When he came in the door she tried to sing the song. She sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always...
But she couldn't finish because she was too old and sick."

"The son went to his mother. He picked her up and rocked her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And he sang this song:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my Mommy you'll be."

The story ends with the son going home and standing on the steps for a long time, thinking. Then he walks into his baby daughter's room, picks her up from her cot, cradles her and sings:

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."

(If you're not crying or at least tearing by now, you've either just kicked your little toe against a cupboard, or you're a man. -_- )

This week, I tried reading "Love You Forever" to DN again, and he sat through the entire book. He stared hard at the illustrations as I read the story and when I reached the last page, he still hadn't moved. Not a peep, not a wriggle.

I think he understood.

Sleeping through the night...

NOT.

DN is 1 year, 2 months and 10 days old and he is still not sleeping through the night. Those of you with kids are probably going, "What?!" (as in, "I'd better start being kind to animals to earn good karma so it doesn't happen to me next time.") Those of you without kids are also probably going, "What?!" (as in, "What's the big deal?")

Oh childless ones, let me initiate you into the mutually exclusive worlds of babies and YOUR sleep. In the famous words of JK Rowling, "neither can live while the other survives." In other words, as long as you have a baby, you can kiss sleep goodbye. If you want to sleep for 8 hours at a stretch, DON'T HAVE A BABY. Get a hamster.

Just before I gave birth, a good friend told me, "Sleep as much as you can now." "Bah!" I thought. And I continued reading until 1am, watching midnight movies, surfing the internet at midnight... tsk tsk... sheer folly! In the wise words of my grandmother, "Can sleep, don't want to sleep. Silly girl."

Since DN's birth (1 yr, 2 mths & 10 days ago), I have had less than 10 nights of uninterrupted sleep. You don't know just how much I miss sleeping like a normal human being, from 11pm to 7am.

This is what DN's sleeping pattern looks like now...

8.30 pm --> Sleep.
10.30 pm --> Fuss. Pacifier has fallen out.
12.30 am --> Cry. Needs to nurse before can fall asleep.
4.30 am --> Cry. Needs to nurse before can fall asleep.
7.00am --> Wake up!

Because there are chores to complete and sometimes marking, I don't usually sleep until I've nursed DN at 12.30am. Then I wake up at 4.30am to nurse him one more time and then I'm up for the day at 7.00am. It's been like this for over a year and I can now pass off as China's national animal quite easily.

I am so not suited for this.

When I was young, my mother used to say that earthquakes cannot wake me up!
In secondary school, I used to sleep until 1pm on weekends!
Sometimes when DN cries, I manage to convince myself that it's a dream (or nightmare actually) and go back to sleep!

I don't know why it's happening to me. I'm a good person! I am kind to animals (squashing ants doesn't count right?) , I donate to the Community Chest monthly (running away from the donation-tin-wielding students along Orchard Road doesn't count right?) and I keep the house clean without a helper (washing the curtains only before Chinese New Year is okay right?).

We tried the cry-it-out method, but I gave up after 2 nights. It wasn't that we couldn't sleep through DN's crying, because we did. Like babies! Wait, I want to know who coined that so I can hammer the bugger. I think he meant baby SLOTHS. I just couldn't go through with the cry-it-out method and let DN cry for hours because I just felt sooo guilty.

We tried tiring him out during the day. Sometimes it worked, most times it didn't.

Many have suggested tanking him up on formula milk but DN cannot drink normal FM because he's allergic to cow's & goat's milk. He can only drink soya-based FM and he hates that. So he's still on 100% breastmilk which is easier to digest. That's probably why he gets hungry so quickly.

It's tiring being DN's "Meals-on-Wheels"!