New Kid On The Blog

29-Jan-2010:

I got home and Saimun was sitting at the front porch with our renovation contractor (Wai San's husband). He said that Emily was sleeping in the room and told me to check on her. When I got to the room, Em was awake and lying on her stomach. Surprised and curious I asked Saimun if he put her to sleep on her stomach. He said no.

Me: So she rolled over on her own?
Him: (nod)
Me: Today?
Him: Few days already.
Me: Really? You didn't tell me?
Him: (did the very famous shoulder shrug)

MIL would have updated me the moment it happened.

25-JAN-2010:

3-month-old Emily weighs 4.5kg as of yesterday and her platelet count is 117 - still on the low but at least it has been increasing steadily without any treatment.

My 3-month-old is extremely responsive and it's very easy to make her smile and laugh. Most of the time, all I needed to do was to put my face in front of hers and grin. She imitates me. When I smile, she smiles. When I laugh, she laughs too. When I talk to her, she coos back, and she enjoys this very much. It was hilarious to see her talking to herself when I held up a mirror in front of her.

According to Dominic, "the baby is very, very cute". I said to him, "you're very, very cute too" and he replied, "my teacher said so too!". (More on Dominic later. Seriously, he is very, very cute).

Emily is still drinking the same amount of milk, i.e. approximately 125ml three times a day in my absence and every 3-4 hours when I'm around. Physically, she is not as strong as Dominic at the same age. By this age, Dominic could already do mini push-ups while lying on his stomach but Emily can barely lift up her head. She can hold her head steady while in a sitting position though.

3-month-old Emily has great suckling needs, particularly when she wants to sleep. We gave her the pacifier shortly after she turned 1 month old but she has learnt to suck her thumb instead. She can now find her thumb and put it inside her mouth, therefore when she awakes during the night, she puts herself back to sleep, which is good. I have mixed feelings between the pacifier and the thumb. Personally, I feel that I will have more control over her if she uses the pacifier, i.e. I can control how often she uses it, it's easier to make sure the pacifier is clean as compare to her hands, especially when she starts crawling/walking and I think it's easier to wean her off the pacifier as compared to her thumb as I can't throw her thumb away. Anyway, I don't think I have much of a choice right now. Many times, she spit out the pacifier and stuck her thumb in her mouth instead.

I forgot to mention that her height (or length) is currently 61cm. Many have told me that Emily will be tall (from her long limbs and fingers), however Dominic was taller at her age. Of course, Dom was much heavier and chubbier at her age too. Em's height is at the 50th percentile in the growth chart and I believe so was Dom. I used to be quite tall myself too when I was small but at a certain age, I stopped growing while my peers overtook me. I hope that's not the case with Em. :-)

Everywhere we went, we hear the same comments about Em, i.e. (1) Her eyes are so huge! and (2) She has so much hair! `

Last Friday, I witnessed for the first time Saimun giving Em a bath and I can now understand my MIL's fear. Haha! Em wasn't bothered at all, by the way, so I guess it's mother's thing. I told myself that there's just one more week to go (Saimun goes back to UK).

19-JAN-2010:

This year, we enrolled Dominic into a different kindy - the one we wanted to enrol him into last year but the kindy wouldn't accept any new students towards the end of the year. We also enrolled him for after school programme, therefore he only comes home at 3pm. The after school includes lunch, activities such as arts & crafts, science, play and "private tuition" (i.e. helping the kid with his homework). The total fee is RM4800 per semester (6 months).

It has been 2 weeks now and I think he's enjoying himself. I, on the other hand, prefers the holidays. School starts at 8am and he has to leave the house at 7:40am, which means I have to wake up at 7:10am (including 10 mins of snoozing, alarm rings at 7am). He bathes, brushes his teeth, gets dressed, eats breakfast and his grandad sends him to school together with Wing Sern. I then have one hour to get ready for work. Meanwhile, Saimun and Emily will be snoring.

Dominic has been a good boy thus far. If I were to give him a star for each morning that he behaves well, he would have gotten a star every single day. Since starting school, he doesn't take afternoon naps anymore and goes to bed at 9pm.

Dominic is with the 5-year-old class and this year, he got a real school bag for the first time. He also received school books for the first time. It's going to be tough for him learning Mandarin, Malay and English at the same time but I think he will cope. He is now talking like a true Malaysian - I personally don't like it but the influence from other kids is stronger than anything.

Photo: Dominic putting on his shoes, getting ready for school.

He refused to look at the camera:

His school bag and books:

Somebody is still sleepy in the morning. :p

15-Jan-2010:

We got the keys to the "new" house last weekend and we went to take a look since I didn't really remember how it looked like exactly. At the moment it is totally empy and very dusty. We intend to do some very basic renovation just make it comfortable. Here are some pictures of the bare unit.

Here is Saimun standing in front of our soon-to-be new home:

The front door:

The hall:

The kitchen:

First floor landing:

First floor master bedroom:

The kids' rooms:

Second floor bedroom:

Second floor landing:

7-JAN-2010:

I set ONE goal for the year 2009 and that was to expand my family. With God's blessings, I have achieved that goal. This year, we start out our journey as new parents all over again with baby Emily.

Other than that, I also began 2009 with TWO resolutions, i.e.

1. "To let daddy take on most of the basic care for Dom".

Not only have I achieved this, I have passed on the entire responsibility to Saimun. He can now proudly claim to be a competent father and babysitter.

2. To eat healthy and sleep early.

This is pretty subjective but I think I do alright. I now go to bed together with the kids, which is at 9pm. I have 3 meals a day without fail - breakfast, lunch and dinner. I either eat oats porridge or breakfast cereals with milk for breakfast (except Sundays), a balanced lunch (always home cooked) and dinner (also home cooked, even on weekends, except occassionally).

For the year 2010, I wish for nothing except for the status quo. I thank the Lord for my wonderful family and for fitting all the pieces of our lives nicely for us.

However, one must not be too complacent and should always look forward with new goals. I've thought about it and my goal this year is to:

1. Take a course. Be it a cooking course or singing lessons, I will take a course.

Fingers crossed.

26-Dec-2009:

It was boxing day and I took the kids out for lunch where we met some of my old classmates and their kids. I had so much fun and I'm sure the kids did too!

Here's Kyle getting acquainted with Dominic. I've never seen a child eat lunch as quickly as Kyle. Immediately after that, he said "Dominic, let's play!", and because of that Dom only had a few pieces of sausages.

Whatever show they were watching managed to draw in some attention from others.

And here's Zac trying to get acquainted with the sleeping beauty (Emily).

Here are the kids with the "female Santa Claus". I have to say Lan was very good with the kids. Thanks for serving Dominic food (while I eat, hehe) and thanks for the Christmas presents too. Emily's dress is lovely and Dom didn't manage to fit even 2 pieces of the puzzles together. :-D I think I'll have to do it one day after we move to our new place and have more space.

After lunch, the kids had doughnuts.

And finally, it was chilling out time.

4-JAN-2010

My 32-year-old, going on 28 is the father of my two children who is currently more involved with the kids than any of my friends' husbands. It has been 3 weeks since he assumed the role of a full time father and husband. Before I go on any further, I have to let you know something. For mothers out there who have been a full time mother at least during the first two months of your baby's life, I'm sure you know how physically tiring it is taking care of a baby, what more another older child. So when your husband suggests that you swap roles, it does sound like a cool idea since you'll sitting on your ass all day long in the office. I don't know about you, but it sounds like a great vacation to me. :p

However, I think I've been scammed. When I used to be a full time mother while he was the bread winner, I did everything from feeding, bathing to cooking and cleaning. His role as a father was to come home and play with the kids. Now, I find that as soon as I step through the door in the evening (after a hard day's work *wink*), I have to do a mother's role, which is not to play with the kids but to feed them, clean them, fold up their clothes and what not. If the baby does a poo as soon as I get home, why is it not the "full time father's" role to clean her up? Don't get me wrong yeah, because I'm not complaining. I'm just telling you mothers out there to think it over and negotiate your "terms" if your husband ever suggests that you swap roles. :-)

Anyway, 3 weeks ... I think my 32-year-old has done a pretty good job (by my expectation of him). I actually have no idea what he does the whole day but at least he gave Dominic a wonderful day on his birthday by taking him and his cousins (without the baby I presume) to the Starship play gym.

Every morning, I'd feed Emily before leaving the house. I'd load the washing machine so that he can hang the laundry out to dry when he wakes up. At least this is what I expect him to do but I suspect that very often my MIL does it for him because according to her, he often sleeps till past 10am with the kids. I also suspect he's been reading parenting articles/books because he tells me the baby should be doing this and that.

Well, overall a job well done except for some minor things such as traces of poo still found on baby's buttocks. :p

Photo: My 32-year-old baby sitting the 2-month-old.