Tuesday 28 October 2014

ZY is four months old!

Ok I'm a day late in posting this :p

I was looking at some photos from a few months back and goodness, my dear little boy has grown so much!

He can now grab his pacifier and remove it - then cries cos he cannot put it back no matter how he pokes his face *.*


So sometimes he has this I'm-going-to-cry face, or tears are already rolling in his eyes :(


I was trying to capture him napping on me but at that moment, he stirred and was unhappy *.*


But he has happy times too cos he's a happy baby!


Yes, he's our happy baby!


He's in onesies most of the time. Otherwise, he'll pull his shirt way up, yes, showing more belly than this one.


So we gave him a full haircut last Tuesday - what are you doing to my nice hair?!


See my botak baby :)


He loves being bounced on my belly. I love looking at him from lying down :)


And when burping..


I thought he looks like he was carrying a backpack or parachuting in this shot:


My little tiger-horse baby who decides to watch us eat:


He really enjoys being pampered! The lady behind is Lucy who is very nice to ZY and ZK before him.


What's with that look, baby?!


So I showed ZK a photo of himself in the above clothes and he told me that was didi ^_^

Scaredy cat? Or beginning to understand he has, gasp, hands?!


And legs!


We have been having sleep issues lately. Must have jinxed it anyway with a previous post :( At first it was gas - he would struggle and suddenly poooooo! Then he was calm. Lately, he has been sweeping his head and even babbling like mad in the middle of the night. I just realised this time, it could be due to him wanting to explore with his hands and to talk. Even in the day, today, he didn't manage to go to sleep peacefully on his own with just a pacifier; I had to intervene by letting him grip a finger or gently holding down his hands.. I hope it gets better soon...

We think and hope he likes reading...


So as you can see, he can hold his head upright now :) If I tilt him forward, he may still have problem supporting his head, but he's getting there. Next up, flipping over!

Monday 27 October 2014

ZK's first concert!

Since we heard that the school was organising a concert by the kids, we were all very excited. The day finally came last Saturday!

He brought his costume home on Friday - some traditional Chinese costume, which I will reuse for racial harmony day for ZY two years later hoho!


We dropped ZK off with the teachers to prepare backstage and looked at the photos on display outside the ACJC auditorium. They were taken on rehearsal day on Thursday. We bought some eight or 10 5R pictures of ZK at $2.50 each. Not too ex but the school was very smart lor.. Playgroup kids must be accompanied by adults for the rehearsal, and I was so glad I sent Y - duration was too long not to pump/nurse - cos they only needed guidance for the bus journey as the adults were not allowed into the auditorium!

We also bought a photo book compiled by a parent volunteer who took the photos around Children's Day. It's $25 for one shot of ZK but it's one full page.. Yes, we're such suckers. Anyway, the proceeds go to MILK so, ok la.

The programme - it's the school's first concert as well:


ZK is in PGB! :)


He came back from rehearsal on Thursday with his hands on his head, saying "rabbit". So we thought he would be a rabbit in 拔萝卜 as we were thought his class was preparing for this song. But I heard from his teacher before the show started that the kids couldn't move to that song so they changed it to 小兔子乖乖 - more rabbits then hoho!

Even ZK woke to watch his brother perform ^_^


The teachers were standing in front of the stage at the aisles of the seats to dance with the kids and remind them of the steps. The older kids were able to dance to the songs. The younger kids, well, it depends! There were a few memorable ones - the stationary lions, the one with a fist in her mouth the whole time looking like she was thinking and doing nothing else much less dancing, and those who shouted out MUMMY when they spotted their most important woman! They were so cute!

But nothing could compare when my ZK appeared on stage :) He was so easy to spot cos of his big and happy movements! Can you see him? :))))


And the full video! The action starts from 0:24:


His teacher told me that during rehearsal, he walked right out when the curtains opened so I was a bit apprehensive but he did so well! :) We noticed a few things - ZK loves the stage for one! Haha! So enthusiastic and happy :) He loves jumping in particular. And he took note that he should stay behind the line on the floor! He checked where he was after jumping. At one point, he was looking out for us in the audience, but he never forgot his steps!

Yes, we are so very proud of him :)

Everyone came out for the finale. While waiting for the rest to fall in, he started looking for us and cried when he couldn't see us :( I could hear him go "mummeeee..." :( We kept waving and shouting his name. I knew he saw us when he blew kisses back at me :)


He was happy when Sito fetched him from the stage. Relaxing finally...


Back to the stage with Papa!


Photographer spotted us on our way out - what a nice picture!

Source: Global Tots Facebook

That night when we went to bed, ZK kept singing the rabbit song. He went "tok tok tok" at the jumping part, and repeated the song once before going "the door close [sic]" - super cute!

Monday 20 October 2014

Smelling my babies

I just got back from milk milk time with ZY. When I was burping him, I sank my nose into his two inches of standing baby hair - ahhh, heaven :)

Ok, so it was J&J baby shampoo but it was my baby :)

I love smelling ZY.

In the day, I'll smell his hair too but it'll be missing the shampoo smell. It just smells oily due to the remaining cradle cap on his front fontanelle. But I love it.

There are days when he is madly shedding ear wax and he smells like ear wax. But I love it, especially when his ears are a little damp from accidental sprays during bath time.

And there are times when he has green snot so he smells like snot. I'll rub noses with him so that I can smell more of his snotty smell.

And then, there are his clammy hands which smell sour from sweat and more recently, saliva. I don't know why but I love sniffing his little hands.

I also smelled his breath the other day. It's like baby, so sweet :) And so is his skin, so...baby :)

The past couple of weeks, I have been rubbing ruyi oil on him at almost every diaper change (instead of upon waking and after bathing) as he;s been gassy. Every so often, the smell floats into my nose even when I'm not actively putting my nose on my baby. When I smell it, I blow raspberries at his belly and take in more of it.

Heck, I'd even smell his butt when he poops! In part to confirm the poop, in part cos his poop is infinitely nicer smelling than his brother's!

How can this baby not smell nice??


On the other hand....

ZK typically smells like (1) sweat, (2) snot, (3) saliva, (4) pee and (5) poop.

Throw in a sixth one - whatever he's eating.


(That used to be a butter cookie..)

But after a shower, ZK smells really nice, like J&J and fresh linen. But when he snuggles up to me as he falls asleep, he still smells like the first baby I know, and that's one lovely scent :)

Friday 17 October 2014

Foood!

Thought this is a good thing to break the series of posts on the Sito babies :p

So ever since our first date night in a long time on 21 Feb 2014, we've had other date nights:

There's the western food at the Chang Cheng kopitiam on 25 April:


Omakase on 9 May - super yummy burgers that should have been twice as large for more shiokness!


Ma Maison on 13 June cos Ikea happened to have an event and was too crowded for us to dig into meatballs... This is my burger, with cheese on top:


And Sito's burger grill:


Dessert on 20 June where we ordered a pop rock cake...


... and a yummy waffle from 2 am downstairs:


There were a few other date nights as well - went for ramen, hor fun etc.

This was earlier this year when we managed to get seats at Tim Ho Wan at Plaza Sing pretty fast on a weekday. We weren't impressed. The char siew polo buns were good but the rest were rather bland - I had to use chilli on my dim sum for the first time ever!


Used a coupon at Yoshimaru in ZY's early days - without ZY! Some sesame sauce ramen, rather salty...


Sito got them when he returned from Jakarta on Wednesday :) Today, I offered the cute Halloween one to ZK who only liked the chocolate bits *.*


These are other food I had - on my own or with non-Sito :p

I had a lot of bah chor mee when pregnant with ZY - I couldn't drink water so I drank loads of pork soup! Auntie kindly gave me a big bowl of soup and even gave me a big bowl of noodles at no extra charge! I found out only when I went with a colleague and compared... I thanked her and said no need extra so she gave me her usual portion of noodles but always topped up with more ingredients. So nice right?


I've always thought it silly to order instant noodles outside but I did it once when I wanted some spicy soup...


Some nights, I made it myself - topped with a slice of cheese!


This is post-ZY when I was out running errands one day - Nam Nam:


Quite recently, tea at Provence downstairs:


And of course, Children's Day ice cream! For free from Swensen's cos of their weekday special! Was with LS at the airport - nice to have Children's Day ice cream again, and with a friend!


Just a bit of fuzzy history about Children's Day ice cream... The idea started back in secondary school, when we were given ice cream for Youth Day one year. One year in JC, I can't remember which now, I remembered about that Youth Day ice cream near Children's Day, I think, and that was it - Children's Day ice cream was born!

Just last week, with Mum at Curry Times at Westgate. I love the decor! Others give peanuts; they give little gems. In fact, we can take them ourselves from a big container at the payment counter. I had fish cutlet while Mum had dry laksa (not in picture). And dessert was bor bor cha cha! Omg, when was the last time I had that?! I remember Ah Yee used to make it some Sundays when we were younger and could consume all those calories on a fairly regular basis..


And then there were relatively massive cooking, i.e. more work than instant mee, like muffins!


Chicken pie and omelette with spinach and cheese when CW and family were here:


I made at least three banana cakes (link updated) this year as we kept having over-ripe bananas for a while. This one was cooked in the rice cooker - very easy!


Hmmm, I should really update my cooking blog (link updated)...

And the latest - 100 旺仔小馒头!They tasted quite different from the commercial ones though. Will put up recipe on my cooking blog later as well...


Hope to post more non-kid stuff! After all, "mama" is my most important title but it's just one of my many titles :)

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Comparing our babies

I know I'm not supposed to... But this is harmless! :)



(Hadn't decided on ZY's name when creating the above)

They look kind of similar but ZY is much thinner. At 2.97kg, a mere 300g lighter than ZK at birth, ZY looked a lot more fragile, especially during bath time in the early days - I felt like carrying a chicken *.* We put it down to my pregnancy diets - I had beef and milk for ZK and chicken and soy milk for ZY...

ZY's skin was flaking everywhere! We don't remember ZK flaking like this. We concluded it must be the coconut water - I had loads for ZK but managed only two coconuts for ZY the day before he was born. ZY has less hair on his head but he's dropping a lot of hair now. He used to be super hairy on his back though. Now it's all gone.

Input, i.e. breastfeeding

Milk seemed to come in earlier this time. And I knew what to do! Or so I thought.. With a different baby, we both needed to learn from the top. He used to keep shaking his head as he latched on; there were times when he managed to latch on immediately, but there were also more times than I care for when we tried 20 over times to latch on properly. I was so worried cos that meant it would be very difficult to nurse him outside, but I wanted to go out during my leave! Thankfully, we soon started to latch on more quickly. Now, he sometimes moved a bit to find the nipple.

I figure that ZY is not as hungry as baby as ZK who used to nurse 45 min at a time with 15 minutes in between sessions sometimes! The way ZK chomped down on my poor girls was also absent this time. By bottle, ZK took 175 ml of milk at 4.5 weeks whereas ZY was satisfied with just 100 ml. But ZY's appetite seems to be increasing. Last weekend, he cried a little when he was done with his 100 ml. Today, he had 120 ml and cried a little when he was done too.

I also felt something else this round: I was chatting with Sito one day in the earlier days when I suddenly felt engorgement pain. But I wasn't engorged! My boobs were soft. So I took a peek under the bra pads and found myself leaking milk! I also leaked on one side when feeding on the other - could feel it more until this past month when the sensation reduced. Also sprayed some all over ZY's face a couple of times when trying to latch on. Hope this points to a good supply and that I can pump more to last him longer!

Output, i.e. poop

Unlike his brother, ZY had textbook poops. I remember reading about the amount of poop for breastfed babies - the size of a US quarter coin. ZK's diapers were full whenever he had a poop lor! In fact, he leaked poop all the time - up his back and from the side gathers. ZY just pooped all the time, especially right after a diaper change *.* At least he's not a 小臭臭!

But lately, ZY has been consolidating his poops. It used to be upon wake-up for a while. Now it's in the mid afternoon. Some days, he doesn't poop but poops lots the day after. And these days, he's been having gas so he can fart quite a bit in the day but suffer from some difficulty at night, sighs... I caved in and gave him gripe water since last week. I think it helps. Though he seldom does six-hour stretches of sleep this past week, he also doesn't wake every hour anymore. I can deal with three-hourly wakings.

Changing diapers was a breeze so far. Unlike ZK who resisted - and sometimes still resists! - diaper changing, ZY was quite happy to lie at the changing mat and be cleaned. In fact, at night, he can fall asleep there!

Update 16 Oct 2014
Well, we just met with an amazing poop accident yesterday morning... Was nursing ZY when he stopped and smiled at me ever so sweetly :) Then he made grunting sounds and I became fearful, cos he didn't poop the day before. And true enough, two looong farts came out of the boy - how could the small body contain that much gas?! And then I heard poop. And then I FELT poop. And worst, I SAW poop on my thighs flowing down my calves!!

Naps and sleep

ZK and ZY are so different here! Let me not jinx it :p

Bathing

Sito recalled that the nurse at the parent craft class we attended in hospital after ZK was born said that babies loved bathing. That was utter nonsense for ZK - there were very few occasions when he was happy taking a bath in his first few months.

But ZY loves it! He may fuss a little before bathing but once he enters the warm water, you can see his face light up or simply relax :) Similarly for baby spa, he loves it! Of course if he's already crying to begin with, the water can't make him happy! That happened at one bath time - one! And for baby spa, his more predictable routine allows us to choose the best time for the activity so there was just this once when I mis-judged his happy period.

Pattern

ZY gives us a rather different feeling from ZK.

Yes, the brothers look alike. As ZY is wearing ZK's clothes, sometimes I'd look at him and hey, it's Zk all over again! Even ZK looks at his own baby photos and thinks he's looking at didi! But there are significant differences. First of all, ZK was chunkier than ZY at every stage so far. And - this is the key difference - ZY is a lot more smiley than ZK! In fact, I think their sleeping and smiling faces look most alike cos at rest, ZK was pretty much a stern baby while ZY has 柔和的眼神 :)

Yes, we think our two boys have quite different temperaments. And as we look at them both, we thought we're lucky to have ZK first - good training! Imagine having an easy baby first and then be faced with the bouncy ZK *.* We also attribute that to pregnancy diets :p

But I think they complement each other. I can imagine ZK standing up for his little brother next time. And I can also imagine ZY soothing his older brother when he gets mad! I hope they will grow up to be great friends :)

Wednesday 8 October 2014

ZK is almost 27 months

First of all, a little recap - remember 熊熊 aka XX and 虎虎 aka HH?


From New style, new look

Well, I took them out last week. ZY loves XX - more on that later. When ZY saw XX, he wanted it so I showed him HH and he preferred that - and I took the opportunity to rename HH correctly as 小豹豹!! 豹豹 alone is too confusing with him saying 抱抱 all the time..

On Monday, he placed 小豹豹 aka XBB on the dining table during his breakfast and suddenly said, "小豹豹,我爱你!“ with no prompting! I was so jealous I asked him to say that to me too :p

But yesterday, he received a little lion from his teacher for Children's Day and today when I asked him if he still wanted XBB, he said no :( So fickle that I didn't even manage to snap a shot of the reunion between him and XBB! *.*

Here's Lion, which he mistook for a dog at first..



So what has this little imp been up to? Trying to be a little baby again!



He had placed MM on his brother when he saw that he had dozed off on the sofa - awww... I took a quick shot when he wanted it back with him in the bassinet..



Took the bus to Clementi last Saturday as we haven't been on the bus for ages though ZK loves it! Last I recalled was our trip to KAP.



Looking like he was reading but he was only flipping...



Monday was a public holiday and we were out and about - had lunch at Jem and checked out the playground.

Cheeky ZK!



After a nap at Mum's place, we left for the Punggol Settlement. It was very far away... As we entered Punggol from TPE, an amazing sight greeted us - many many MANY cranes lined the horizon in front of us! I was too stunned to take a picture and then we were right in Punggol..

It was very hazy that day so we skipped the original plan to walk the park and headed straight for the Settlement.

There were tortoises - ZK said "no!" to them as they crawled up.



Reminded me of this :p

There was a horse stable but we couldn't see the horses very well from outside the gates.

Had dinner at Punggol Seafood (Old Hock Kee). Realised that we are back to the days of me carrying baby and Sito feeding me :p Except that this time, there's a toddler sitting across from us, thankfully (that's thanks from us) flanked by his grandparents.

Focused on transferring crackers..



This morning, I woke at about 3.30 am to nurse ZY. He had some gas problem so I only settled him down after 5 am. Then I decided to pump. While at it, ZK woke. I shooed him into our room as Sito went back to shower - early flight today - while I finished up pumping. But before long, I heard Sito as he stepped out of the shower - no, ZK, no! And this is why *.*



Whacked his hand when I got to him. Hope he gets it like he gets that he isn't supposed to climb onto the TV bench and disturb the PS3 camera.

Love this big boy look:



And this big boy, after all these months of fiddling with his buttons, he succeeded in buttoning one of his shirt buttons on Saturday morning! So proud of him. Still working on his "good" hand gesture though - he can only point his index finger now :)

My son, you need to work on your motor skills before you can help me with cooking! I tried to have him sift flour on Monday but it was impossible! Thought of having him roll the dough but it turned out quite dry and difficult to manage. Shall try cooking with him again - he seems to like it and has been "making" a variety of food for us using empty vitamin bottles, e.g. mooncake and blu-blueberries.

In terms of his speech, well, he's saying a lot now though sometimes I couldn't understand.

1)
"Why like this?" And when he tried to press the home button when my phone was in guided access mode, "why cannot?" :p

With that, he knows three W's. The fourth is harder though I'm trying to teach him time - and patience! - by matching the real thing with a toy clock, the minute hand of which was broken upon first introduction *.* And I heard him say 因为 once - forgot context. Then I asked him why ZY could drink my milk milk..

mf: 因为弟弟没有?
ZK: 牙牙牙齿!

2)
This morning when he woke, "Bobo... Bobo.. Where is bobo?" in super cute tone. Whatever bobo is!

3)
Monday evening, he looked like he was thinking about something and then he suddenly went, "oooorh!" Nope, I never figured out what he figured out..

4)
He says "not for you" sometimes. The other day, he told ZY, "not for ZY", and just now he was telling me that something was "not for Hannah", his classmate :)

5)
He can sing a lot now. We stopped watching Thomas for a long time but now when we watch it, he can sing a word or two here and there - he remembers!

There is, however, one thing that doesn't seem to be improving - his tantrums. The slightest thing sets him off, e.g. if he doesn't get the bottle cover whenever he wants milk. Sometimes, we don't even know what sets him off! And he'll be on the floor howling.

Just this evening, I took out two butter cookies - one for you and one for me, right? No! I let him choose first and he took one. I started to bite into the other, and when he saw that, he stuffed his into his mouth and cried for mine! When he saw that it was half eaten, he started crying - with one whole cookie in his mouth. Um, not a pretty sight..

I whined to him, saying that he took my butter cookie and now I had none. He smiled! *.* When I asked him where my butter cookie was, he pointed to his mouth and said "inside"! Greedy boy, it was mine!! MINE!