Blessings from Above

strikes... AGAIN. I've come to realise the pattern - I stir in my sleep because #2 is stirring (he kicks, he stretches, he grunts). I get up and offer him milk (and gets rejected). the orchestra in the bedroom keeps me awake and my mind starts working over time again. Too much to do, too little (me) time to do. I get out of bed, enter the study room and boot up my laptop once again.

Inspired by my friend who runs a blog shop  (pls support her!), i wiped the dust off my sewing machine (wedding gift from my mom, probably last used to sew for #1 when she was born) and set out to make a security blanket & pillow cases for #2 (to be fair to both of them). here's the final product (with some help from my mom)... not good enough to start taking orders for sure (and don't intend to - i do want to make some as gifts though) but i'm mighty pleased with the result and since i bought plenty of ribbons, i also made a adjustable nursing cover clip for myself to use if i need to nurse #2 which can also be used to convert napkins into bibs when dining out with #1. what do you think? by the way, its obvious that the layout looks different now - am trying a new look by creating my own blog skin... not very successful yet (afterall, I've not been coding for years now) but will keep trying!

saw this in our local daily today.... well, lady if you need OFFICIAL reports to tell you NOT to leave your child unattended... here it is! how appropriate... :P if u need to read the article, email me - i have it in PDF.

I am a product of the "much-debated" bilingual policy of this country but before I go on, let me first clarify - I HATED mandarin classes. ok, maybe HATE is too strong a word but I really had no affinity with the language nor the teachers that taught it. the methods used still leave a bitter taste in my mouth because I have such a goldfish memory (no '听写' & '墨写' for me pls!). I practically slept through all the classes then - I can still vividly see my teachers shaking their heads vigorously at me because of my learning attitude towards the language. in the end though, I still got a distinction for the subject. Coming from a supposedly '华校' (or chinese school) where taking higher chinese is the norm, rather than the exception and many even taking an additional foreign language for the 'o' levels, I have to say that this 'exposure' to the language is something I am proud of. Up till today, I can still read, write and speak fluent...

I finally lost all the weight that i've gained since having 2 kids - lest you all think I've been on a diet... I did not! I eat more than the stipulated 3 meals a day PLUS decadent indulgences like this (though I do restrict myself NOT to finish the entire packet at one sitting)... and carrying my children and going for walks are the only exercises that I have time for... so how did I do it? LACTATE! Truly, bfing is the best way to lose weight! I lost abt 12kg so far (put on 7kg for this pregnancy) but alas, still far from the ' Heidi Klum league '! next target? pre-marriage weight!

we visited kids explorer @ downtown east y'day, together with mummy D & jesse. half way through our playtime, i noticed a familiar face... he was running amok all by himself at the indoor playground for a good half hour and we are talking about a toddler here, who has yet turn 4. i'm appalled that there was no adult around AT ALL to supervise him. at first, i thought it was his play school that brought him there and was wondering which irresponsible school would leave a toddler to play all by himself but found out today, that it was actually his MOTHER who left him alone to play there (while she went to get lunch). granted, there are other adults around but seriously who would be bothered with another person's kid if they have their own kid(s) to mind, until the accident (if any) happens? of course, you may say that the indoor playground is relatively safe but ACCIDENTS do happen, otherwise why are they called ACCIDENTS and why would the playground have a 'no liabi...

our beloved fur-kid left us for a better place last evening and i've created a blog to remember him forever.... http://chewyourbeloved.blogspot.com

warning: graphic post i've always thought that bfing gets easier (& better) with subsequent children - because you are supposed to know what to do already! unfortunately though, i am still dodged by the same problems 2nd time round... its largely because my li'l prince decides that night feeds are not important & me, being the 'lazy' one, choosing sleep over clearing the milk ducts... now i'm in so much pain that i'm close to shouting out my entire vocabulary of expletives at the top of my voice! doesn't help that dh doesn't appreciate nor empathise with me! and oh, that's milk tinged with blood by the way & not strawberry milk! i had to use needles to poke and try to find the blocked ducts - that's the reason for the blood. no fun at all... i gave up after 15 mins w/o finding all the spots.

sorry i've been so slack in posting entries - can't really find the time to do anything else amidst caring for 2 kids and getting enough sleep. i shall attempt to complete these back entries (not in chronological order) over the weekend... so check on back later! - Chace's full month parties - swimming playdate - Jvel's birthday party - polliwog playdate - swimming playdate @ the club

Are you very different from your other siblings? My two babies are as different as chalk and cheese! Both in appearance and in behavior… but why? from the same factory leh... They may look identical but Claire is fair skinned, petite & lightweight whereas Chace is rather dark skinned at this point, tall, stout & heavyweight. In fact, Chace’s face is now almost as big as Claire’s (He is 6kg+ now @ 2 months’ old). As DH aptly put it – lucky the girl is thin and the boy is fat and not the other way around. We do want to marry Claire off some day! Claire used to wake up every hour or so for milk in the initial months, thus totally disrupting my sleeping schedule. She is a ‘small-eater’ as she takes sips of milk each time she nurses whereas Chace tanks up each time he does. As a result, he is (almost) sleeping through the night from as early as a month ago, waking up only once or twice and its not even to feed – he won’t even open his mouth when I offer him milk – he just wants ...

The last two months was probably very trying for Claire as she adjusts to the addition of a new family member – heck, I think it was trying even for us! Once the only child, she is now an elder sister. She has shown clear affection for her little brother – fussing over him (“mummy, didi is crying”), giving him heaps of hugs & kisses and even helping us take care of him (bringing wipes & diapers when he needs a change, drying his hair after his bath, etc) but having to share our attention ‘so suddenly’ is probably something she never really expected even though we made an effort to prepare her right from the start. As a result of this ‘shared attention’ or maybe to her - ‘a lack of attention’, she suddenly turned into this annoying, attention seeking little gal who cries and whines over every little thing. We have lost our tempers at her numerous times because of this behavior and when that happens, I sometimes wonder if we expect too much from her? She is after all, just a li...

many years ago, a little girl got bitten on the face because she disturbed her sister's poodle... NO PHOTOS AVAILABLE twenty four years later... her daughter gets bitten on the face because she disturbed the family shih-tzu... immediately after being bitten (slightly bruised on the cheek) two days later (visible teeth marks - bruised cheeks) yes, the little girl was me... moral of the story, never disturb dogs (no matter what breed)! don't call animal control, the human was at fault. fortunately, Chewy didn't bite down hard and Claire didn't bleed. dh is of the opinion that Chewy should be castrated because of his recent aggressive behavior but I'm not so sure...

can you tell which baby is Claire and which is Chace?

our group of mummy friends finally managed another meet up after a REALLY long time - our 'excuse' this time? to celebrate mid-autumn festival together again (its another week away actually). our li'l ones have grown tremendously since last year & its great to see everyone again... and some of our families have grown larger too! let's hope we can continue to do this many more years! last year this year spotted any difference? went through my old entries (and photos) and realised that i didn't write about this last year (neither did i take any pictures!) - wonder why?? anyway, we had a pot-luck session like last year and everyone contributed yummy food - unfortunately, the satay/otah/muffins did not make their 'appearance' coz two families didn't turn up!  

we were off to sentosa this afternoon to celebrate Jvel's 1st birthday - mummy T obviously put in a lot of effort planning the party - from choosing the venue, to preparing the goody bags for the kids, down to dressing up (herself & her babe) and not forgetting, (trying) to co-ordinate the ice-cream orders for the guests (tough job i know!). i believe that it was a special & memorable afternoon for all, as we celebrate Jvel turning one... hope the birthday gal enjoyed all the attention and the presents showered on her & thanks for inviting us - we had fun! above photos 'borrowed' from mummy T's faceboook photo album

li'l J loves 'splashy' and we love having mummy D and li'l J over! most of our li'l friends have started school (or playgroup) or stay too far away to join us so that leaves just the four (now 5!) of us for playdates most of the time! i do wish the others can join us some time... today marks the first time Chace is joining us but since he's too 'young' to swim, all I did was dip his feet into the pool water but the minute his feet touched the water, he started screaming and crying - he hates bathtime too, just like when Claire was his age; must be an infant thing! so he spent the rest of the time lounging by the pool side with me!

Like Claire, Chace had more than one full month party - only because both of them are blessed with so many people who love them. At our place, we hosted our friends & (my extended) family in one session (as opposed to two when we had Claire) because its just too tiring to be entertaining for such a long stretch of time. At my in-law's place, we had another session to host hb's side of the family. When the crowd started streaming into the function room, we were able to take photos with some of our guests but once it got too crowded (and busy), we totally neglected the photo-taking so thousand apologises to those who came but did not manage to get a photo with us! Its funny how I got so busy the whole morning (cooking for the children as I couldn't find any caterer that would also provide food for my little guests) that I forgot to get my helper to collect the party balloons - the lady boss was frantically calling and trying to reach me the whole afternoon. I didn'...

4 weeks have gone by in a flash! look forward to partying the whole weekend! what have we been up to?? adjusting mostly - trying to fit one child's schedule into the other. not easy... will blog when we finally settle in with our new schedules...

i armed myself with 3 confinement cook books (+ bookmarked a couple of websites with confinement receipes) this time round since i anticipated no help whatsoever but until now, i have not really had the chance to use them. i've had someone bring me food (almost) every day. i feel really pampered and blessed to have so many who care for me (and my stomach). interestingly though, i do not really feel hungry even though i am nursing two. nevertheless, i enjoy slurping the soups (though they makes me perspire profusely each time) & yummy food that have been lovingly prepared by my mom (actually her helper), my mil (actually also the helper) and even my sis' mil (herself)! other than that, i am so thankful that my parents willingly looked after #1 for me every morning last week (dh was then on half day leave) and having my mil pop by every morning this week to entertain #1 for a couple of hours, which gave me some time to breathe (& rest). going forward though, i will ne...

without a doubt, my life has changed drastically - from the mom of a 2 yr+ toddler to a mom with a newborn & a 2 yr+ toddler. i have to work on my daily schedule from scratch - fitting in the newborn's feeding & sleeping timing with #1's schedule. fortunately, #2 has been good so far - he feeds well (bfing seems easier with subsequent children) and sleeps well - hopefully, it stays this way. i'm tandem nursing the 2 children - even though it feels slightly weird to be nursing #1 coz of her size. overnight, she just seem to have 'grown up' - she now lies on my lap awkwardly but nevertheless, i still enjoy the bonding time and her sweet smile when she detaches and say 'mmm... i love mommy's milk - so yummy!'... with her, i don't need to be a slave to the pump because she helps to relieve my engorgement & clear the milk ducts - this allows me to have abundance of milk for both of them - evident from the weight that #2 is clearly putting o...

or rather 2! it was really nice to have company after being 'confined' for the past couple of days... yes, I didn't stay in all the time (went grocery shopping, went over to my mom's place, etc etc) but it is nice to have some decent adult conversation (although it revolved around our children) while being stuck at home. thanks for visiting and I'd love to have more company anytime!

With God's grace & blessings, we welcome #2 to our family on 10 Aug 09 (lunar birthday: 20th day of the 6th month) - 0501hrs. Chace (meaning: Hunter) weighed 3680gm and measured 54cm at birth. see how happy Claire is, with her new sibling! The Birth Story I started feeling contractions around 2am on the morning on 10 Aug 09 - not knowing how regular or frequent the contractions should be, I decided to log onto the Internet to find out. I found a useful contraction timer online and used it to monitor my contractions for an hour. At 3am, I decided that I was indeed already in active labor and proceeded to wake dh up. fortunately, it was a public holiday and dh's mom was able to come over to watch Claire till morning while we headed for the hospital. by the time we reached the hospital, it was just past 3.30am. The nurse on duty did a VE for me and determined that I was 4cm dilated while dh saw to the hospital admission. Not knowing how long more I have to go and decidin...

happy birthday to me... :) another year has gone by in a flash... hopefully i've also become another year wiser... july has always been my fav. month in a year since both our birthdays (dh & i) and our ROM anniversary fall in this month... with another few more days to go, we might just have another reason to love July... i.e. if #2 decides to come early. although we both would prefer not since we still have uncompleted work to do. sweet DH got me the dSLR that i wanted as a pressie this year and we spent the morning having fun, taking photos as a family. its so nice to have crisp & clear photos as compared to what you get with a PNS camera - there's just no denying that u get better quality photos with a dSLR and here's the photo evidence! as you can see, even our pets got into the (photo) action... i did macro shots of our fishes and it has been a while since chewy has nice clear photos (since he's such a bundle of energy and we only get blur ...

we are less than 3 weeks' from the arrival of #2 - in fact, our OB 'predicts' that i will go into labor next week based on the fact that #2 is already 60% engaged - i am totally not ready since i still have plenty to do at work. on homefront, we are more or less ready - the baby cot was set up for C's use so that she will not roll over didi at night - and she has been co-operating by sleeping into the cot since it was up last weekend. i also spent some time sewing pillow cases for my 2 little babies last weekend - need to find more blue cloth though! we also bought a pack of newborn diapers to standby - anyone who has had a baby will know how much diapers they use in the initial months! it has become increasing difficult for me to move around, no thanks to the bulge... even turning from one side to another on the bed is a chore! not to mention the numerous times i have to wake up each night to pee with the bb constantly pressing on my bladder. 38" is (hopef...

another 4am and i'm up again - this time, awaken by the dog's sudden barking... C has been exhibiting terrible behavior the past few days - whining and crying excessively for attention and refusing to co-operate at all! where has my li'l angel gone to? Coupled with my overloaded schedule & pressure to clear my production before i pop, i lost it too many times - screaming and caning her when she refuses to stop! i'm a BAD mother!! *sigh*... she is clearly testing our patience - is this the 'terrible twos stage' that so many talk about or is it because we are nearing the arrival of #2? i had the afternoon off today to think through the events of the past few days. Her behavior is clearly attention seeking and us losing our temper definitely doesn't help at all! i refuse to end our day last night the same way we did the past few nights so we made that extra effort not to scold and speak gently to her at bedtime - it is evident that the gentle approach...

Its 4am and I'm up again... I simply cannot understand why I have to keep waking up at unearthly hours - had a full day of training in the office today (my brain cells were ALL killed in the process) and by the time dh came around to pick me up, I was practically a walking zombie! We went to bed slightly after 10pm so that means I've only had 6 hours of sleep... *sigh* I'm glad that my activities today will revolve only around C and not work... that would give my brain cells some time to recover! The upside of waking up at unearthly hours is that I usually find quiet time to clear some of the things that I need/want to do - today, I finally managed to sort out the (printed) photos from C's 2nd birthday party - a large # to be discarded as they are either duplicated or of 'unpleasant' angles. I want to continue working on the scrapbook but these printed photos are of the 'wrong size' so I will need to 'get them' to be of size that I want! As f...

C's daddy, i.e. this is the 3rd year that C is celebrating with her daddy - as for me, well - we've known each other since 1997 or so... so i can safely say, more than 10 times? hmm... next year this time, there will be four of us. :) we are not that into big celebrations - usually its just dinner together as a family (and another two with the extended families) and we haven't even had a cake in years (dh is not a big fan of cakes)! thanks to a dear friend though, we have a cake this year! :P so here's our feast for today - the in(famous) Sin Huat Crab Bee-Hoon (Lor 35 Geylang) with garlic prawns & some healthy vegg... yum yum! close up of garlic prawns dh's slice of mango cake (excuse C's messy hair - she just took her bath!) some may argue that it is different when you do takeaways - maybe its the lack of ambience (of a dirty coffeeshop or waiting hours to order/get your food) or not being ripped off (the ave. bill per head drops to S$50 or...

i seriously need to stop waking up at unearthly hour like 2, 3am in the mornings - i mean, i will probably to do lots of that when #2 is out but for now, what i really need is good sleep. i've been running on overdrive the past few weeks - first, with the two darlings at home falling sick, then with me realising that i am seriously running out of time to clear my work for the year. i end each day exhausted - either because 1) i've been training the maid 2) i've been spending heaps of time with #1 (and in my current state, it just totally tires me out) or 3) i've been seeing clients/running to the office to sort out my admin work. i collapse on the bed and just zone out in front of the tv, doze off and get woken up abruptly (either because i need to pee real badly or due to dh's snoring) at approximately the same time (almost) every night - 2am to 3am. then i am unable to fall back asleep - talking about vicious cycles! you would probably suggest that i nap when ...

I’ve always enjoyed writing – it serves as an outlet for me to express my thoughts and more importantly to record my memories; very important if you have a goldfish memory like me. I’m one of those who have cluttered thoughts almost all the time – too many random thoughts and by writing them down, I somehow get organized. This also applies to my work – I have to write down the things that I have to do all the time, otherwise they just get ‘forgotten’ amongst the clutter in my brain. Yes, I am a product of the multi-tasking generation… Of late though, I find myself suffering from writer’s block – I just don’t know where to start. It doesn’t help that there’s not a lot going on in my life – with the latest H1N1 virus going around (& school holiday crowd everywhere), we’ve been staying home most of the time. At my present state, I fall into the ‘high-risk’ category, together with dd, and really, it is the last thing that we want to get infected with. At the same time, my two b...

we have been getting this a lot lately - li'l gal just refuses to sleep (whether its naptime or bedtime); she will happily battle with the 'zzz' monster until she can fight him no more and then conk out. that would be fine except that on some occasions, she is so exhausted that she will just whine and cry on and on... unable to fall asleep! it happened again today - her normal nap time if we stay home is around 11am but she requested early in the morning to go over to my parents' place and i obliged her... and over there, her 'normal' nap time is closer to 1pm (since her cousins go to school at 12plus). however, up to 3pm today, she was still not willing to lie down for her nap (both her cousins were home since it was school holidays) so i did the next logical thing - i brought her home. she played by herself for a while, while i sorted out my emails and correspondence... and she came to me asking to watch telly - in order to get some peace (to complete my wor...

if i've been quiet the past couple of weeks, its largely because i dun have time to post - the hired help is hardly any help - you can't imagine how glad i am that today will be her last day with us. i really pray and hope that the next one will be a genuine help instead of a burden like this one! some of her nonsense that i had to put up for the past few weeks: - her 'attempts to get lost' - she was day-dreaming and did not get off the train when i did. i had to get the help of the station control staff to locate her (i was late for my meeting as a result!). they sent a message to all the stations to look out for her and fortunately, we found her! apparently, it did not scare her at all as she happily 'shopped' when i shopped - she was busy looking at the items on display and price tags instead of following me closely at the crowded malls. in a similar incident, she took an hour to get home from my mom's place when it should only take 30 mins max because...

our cheeky li'l boy covered his face the whole time during scanning and this was the only time he 'removed' his hands from his face... so we'll have to wait for the next visit to try the 4D scan! for the record, i've put on about 5kg+ to date and based on estimate, our li'l one weighs in at 1916g - i'm very glad that most of the weight gain goes to him, instead of me!

some of u will probably think i'm very elitist for writing such an entry... i apologise... but i can't help it. to me, people like my current domestic helper (imbeciles, i'd call them), are total waste of space, air, water, food and whatever else you can think of (resources, if i have to choose one word). seriously, why do such people exist in the world to compete with the rest of us with the limited resources that's available? like a robot, she moves (i'd hardly consider her working) non-stop, from the moment she wakes till the time she goes to sleep at night. to the average person, she would appear to be very hardworking, cleaning all the time but is she really? my floors - still sticky after she finishes mopping... the crockery in the kitchen - still stained and dirty after she washes them... there is still dust in my room after she has finished sweeping and mopping! i seriously feel that she is wasting my water and detergent since she is unable to perform h...

warning: extremely long entry I bought the local papers this afternoon and read the article "My Maids of Horror – The New Paper” with great interest as it was definitely a topic that I can relate to (while mine is not as dramatic as the story reported). It has been two years since we employed our first domestic helper and we are already on our search for the fourth one. Before you ‘accuse’ us of being fastidious employers, please read on. The Job Scope for our domestic helper: - Cleaning/up-keeping our slightly-bigger-than-1,000 sq ft apartment - minimal cooking (mainly for herself) - caring for our 2 year old when we are busy (i.e. a couple of hours per day when I am at work); feeding, changing diapers/toileting and playing with her. - caring for our small house dog (walking him once a day, ensuring he has his meals & water and bathing him twice a week) - laundry and ironing - washing the car once or twice a week (depending on her workload for the week) She...