New Kid On The Blog

29 June 2010:

Here's a quick update on my baby Emily. She is 8 1/2 months old now and I've observed the following:

1. Hates being left alone. Can't be left alone and will cry her head off the moment I (or her daddy) walk away.
2. Still cries before going to bed but for only about 5 minutes or less. Doesn't cry as loud now.
3. Doesn't use a tub for bath time now (although MIL still uses it). Instead, when I bathe her, she sits on a stool and we use the shower. Doesn't like it when I shower her hair.
4. Eats lunch and dinner. Can handle small pieces of fish and meat. Can also handle whole pieces of fruits.
5. Understands no. Sometimes cries when we say no to something that she wants.
6. Able to climb out of her carrier car seat, if not strapped on.
7. Able to climb up the stairs.
8. Might start to walk before she hits 1.
9. Anxious about strangers. Will cry when strangers stick their faces into her pram. Can somehow able to differentiate friends of her parents and will allow them to hold her.
10. Doesn't suck her thumb anymore. Uses a pacifier instead.

# posted by Skye @ 4:33 am 0 comments

22-June-2010:

After two nights of sleeping in her own room, Emily has almost lost her voice from crying. On both nights, she woke up twice between 9pm and 6am. On the 3rd night, there was improvement. For the first time, she fell asleep on her own (after much crying admittedly but nevertheless she didn't need any of us to be in the room with her). At 5am, I jerked awake, heart thumping, afraid and wondering why hadn't she woke up the whole night since going to bed at 9pm. Not even to cry. I went into her room and she was fast asleep. At 6am, she was still sleeping but I had to wake her up for a feed because we'll be leaving the house at 7am.

Dom had a breakthrough too. He didn't end up in our bed last night. But he still wouldn't go to bed alone. I think his daddy worked on the laptop in his room until he fell asleep.

Yesterday evening worked out quite well too but I've got something to mention. I reached the in laws' place at 6:30pm, had dinner and fed Emily. The plan was to leave the place by 8pm. In reality, I had plenty of time to eat, feed and pack. But the MIL was rushing me so much that I felt like I was being chased out of the house. She kept helping me to pack things up while I was having dinner and told me to leave the dishes and that she'll wash them. I know she meant well because in her mind late = traffic jam, but in actual fact late = traffic cleared. Anyway, we left at 7:45pm because Dom wanted to finish watching a show on TV. We reached home just before 8pm.

Actually, the thing I wanted to mention was that my MIL bundled up the kids' dirty clothes (which were wet) and told me launder them at home. I don't mind doing my kids' laundry but I just wonder why she would wash all of my SIL's kids' clothes but not mine? Maybe she has her reasons but I felt that she was very biased. Never mind. In a way, I like having full control over my children's affairs. :-)

Back at home, there was a lot to do. I had to bathe Emily (not necessay coz she's already bathed in the afternoon but I think she sleeps better if I bathe her) and put her to bed. Then I had to clean all the bottles, lunch and breakfast tupperwares, Dom's water bottle and prepare Em's meal for the next day. There was no TV in the house to entertain Dom but he was an angel (as usual) and didn't give me any trouble. The troublesome person was Emily but I just let her cry herself to sleep in the room, checking on her occassionally. I think she cried for about 45 mins or 1 hour last night. I think she might have cried less if I hadn't gone in to check on her. Everytime I went in, she cried louder and tried to climb out of the cot (not that she could). When I said "no", she screamed even louder. Let's see what happens tonight.

Saimun came home at around 8:30pm and had dinner (which I ta pau from the in laws'). After everything was done, I managed to read a book and went to bed at around 10:30pm. Not bad at all, I'd say.

# posted by Skye @ 10:32 pm 0 comments

21 June 2010:

Wow ... I feel like I haven't been blogging for ages! What happened was the busy schedule at work. Seriously, I'm so used to being free and having nothing to do at work, I actually found myself having difficulty adjusting to the work load! Plus it was the school term break and I took 2 days off to spend time with Dom, which made my work pile up even more. Anyway, I'm glad that there hasn't been any late nights. In fact, everyone knows that I leave at 6pm sharp and the boss and colleagues don't seem to mind. Or perhaps they're talking behind my back now on Facebook! :p

Over the past 2 weeks, two major events had happened. (1) Emily got baptised at St. Paul's Anglican church on 13 June 2010. Dom was there, attending Sunday school while the baptism took place. Saimun was there too. My brother and his family were also there. Ellen flew back from the UK to be the God parent (thank you, Ellen!) and Grace came with baby Esther.

(2) We moved in to the new house just 2 days ago (i.e. last Saturday). We cooked our first meal at our new home on Saturday night. Dom slept in his own room for the first time since we moved back from London, and Em slept without me, in her own room for the first time. And how did it all go? Firstly, the dinner - I sent Saimun out with a shopping list to get rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, some vegetables, fish and garlic - the basic stuffs. He came back with (i) the biggest cheapest bottle of oil he could find - must have been 20 litres there, (ii) rice that must have been cheap too because the grains were broken and (iii) soy sauce that didn't taste good even though I wrote "Lee Kum Kee" on my shopping list. I think he felt that he should be really thrifty after spending so much money on the house. On Sunday, I had to make another trip to the supermarket to get more stuffs because his parents were coming over for dinner. It was the first time I went grocery shopping on a weekend (normally I do it on a Friday afternoon during lunch) and I'll never do it again. It took forever to look for a parking, then had to fight my way to get a shopping trolley or even a hand basket. It also seemed like most things were sold out (it was around 4pm) and then I got in the queue for the cashier with the rest of the people who filled their trolleys up to the brink.

At bed time, Em had to be patted to sleep, which was not so bad because at least she didn't cry to be breastfed. Saimun had to sleep in Dom's room until he fell asleep. I felt like all my efforts of training him to sleep separately from us (which he had done great before this) were wasted. At 10:30pm, my head hit the pillow. At 12am, Em cried for her milk (she was fed at around 8pm before going to bed). She went back to sleep immediately after feeding. At 4am, Em woke up to cry. Saimun fed her water and she went back to sleep. At 5am, Dom was sobbing outside our room and eventually got himself into our bed. At 6am, Em woke up again. It was time to feed her anyway because in about an hour's time I gotta get ready to go to church. The next night, the same thing repeated ... roughly. The end result was that Dom ended up in our bed again and I had to get up about 3 times during the night.

Today is the first day of school after the holidays. I had to get Dom to the in laws' place by 7:30am. After he left for school at around 7:45am, I had plenty of time before I had to leave for work. In the end, I was very early at the office. I wonder if I can shift my working hours by 30 mins so that I leave earlier in the evening too.

More updates coming on how this evening goes.

Next, a short update on Emily. She's 8 months old now and very, very mobile. She's crawling very quickly, climbing on steps and cruising along furnitures. She likes to pull herself up whenever possible, holding on to the chairs, the fridge, oven, boxes, someone's lap, etc, etc. She has very strong separation anxiety, to the point where she can't be left alone in an empty room for even a minute. She's taking 6 feeds of milk a day, plus lunch and dinner. I have substituted 3 of the feeds with formula and the rest are still breast milk. She usually has either rice porridge or oatmeal for lunch and dinner. She's taking a variety of vegetables now, fish, and a little bit of chicken and pork. She can handle whole pieces of fruits such as apples and oranges. Very often, she cries in the middle of feeding and I don't know why. She'll be alright after I distract her with some objects. I think she can recognize a few songs because she laughs when those songs are sung. Reading a book to her is challenging because she keeps grabbing the book and putting it in her mouth. She doesn't use a tub for bathing anymore and uses the shower instead. She hates it when water gets into her eyes while washing her hair. She loves swimming though and has learnt to kick and splash with her arms. She cries her lungs out in the changing room everytime. Perhaps there's something in the room that scares her.

Finally, a short update on Dom. He had his "exams" before the school holidays. I haven't seen the results yet but according to him it was "very easy". He also received a toy iPhone from the school because he "got all correct in exam". I asked him for which subject and he said "all of them". A few weeks before the exam, parents were given notice and a list of sample questions that the children will be tested on. They seemed to me quite difficult for a 5-year-old (in Dom's case, he was barely 4.5). They did addition and substraction for maths, among other things such as counting, comparing, etc. They did recognizing words and the sounds, spelling, etc for english and malay. For Chinese, they learnt words that even I didn't know. Although very academic, I like this school because Dom enjoys it thoroughly and he has learnt a lot. He's very popular among the teachers because of his talkativeness. I knew long ago that he was going to be a teacher's pet. Dom also has a lot of questions and sometimes the questions that he asked made him sound very naive for his age. He asked if babies can be boys too (I think it's because both the babies at home are girls). If they grow up will they have a "ku ku jiao"? If they don't, how do they wee-wee? Why do girls have breast? This one is good. I said if mummies don't have breasts, how do the babies drink milk? He said, how about milk powder? He also asked if he cried a lot when he was a baby. Was he cute when he was baby? Is he still cute or not? When we moved to the new house and unpacked the stuffs that we haven't seen for almost a year, he asked if this pan is from London? Is this the London microwave? I'm very surprised at how good his memory is. Last Sunday, for the first time we drove to church from the new house using a new way, he said "This is the way to my old school", which we used to take last year. He recognizes all the roads, even the way to the zoo, which he has only been once. Last Sunday was Father's Day and the kids sang a song in church. Dom hogged the microphone and got a round of applause. He sang the loudest of all. I'll try to download the song and upload it for all the fathers out there.

# posted by Skye @ 11:26 pm 0 comments

2-JUNE-2010:

This is really way overdue. Mother's Day was on May 9, 2010, which was almost one month ago, but seriously, I've been very busy both at work and at home. In fact, as I'm typing this (at work), I've got a lot of things still incomplete on my plate but will do to take a break.

This year, Dom made two Mother's Day crafts at school and he hung it on the knobs of our chest of drawers in the room. I saw it when I came home on Friday and he was having dinner in the kitchen. When he saw me, he said to me, come, mummy, come, I have something to show you (he didn't know I've already seen the thing he wanted to show me). When we reached the door to our room, he said, wait here, mummy, don't come in, it's a surprise. He then retrieved his crafts from the room, hid them behind his back and then he shouted 'Surprise!!!' and showed them to me. :-) Of course, I pretended to be surprised.

He made Mother's Day craft at Sunday school too, which is a necklace. The kids learnt to sing a song which they performed in front of everyone on that Sunday. Basically, I was one of the mums who actually sang louder than the kids and we were quite happy singing for ourselves. Haha! Dominic on the other hand got stage fright, was teary and couldn't open his mouth on stage, whereby during rehearsal he was singing at the top of his lungs.

# posted by Skye @ 4:17 am 0 comments