I believe I can fly............. above the City of Lion!!!

It's a long weekend, since the 27th October is the Deepavali day, a public holiday in Singapore and Malaysia for our fellow Indians to celebrate the light festival.

Having a boring weekend at home? Of course not! Mama has got the long weeekend all planned out a long time ago - grandaunt (mama's mama's sister) and her family will be visiting us in Singapore, all the way from the Cameron Highland (where Mama lived for her first 7-8 years of life!). Mama, Baba and I were proudly to be the host, and tried to make their visit to Singapore as enjoyable as possible.

And so we embarked on the Great Singapore Tour, especially catered from the Poon [Yi-Po, Yi-Gong, 2 Yi-yi (CS and CW), 1 Xiao Jiu-jiu (CT), 1 Jie-jie (jiu-jiu's gf, SA)], the Seng (Gonggong, Popo and Jiu-Jiu), and the Kam (papa, mama and I) families!!! Oopss, don't know if Mama should consider herself as the Seng or Kam family?!?!?!!! Can it be half-half :-)

Day 1 - 25th October 2008 (Saturday)

The Poon family arrived near the noon time. We picked up CT and SA from the train station at JB, while Jiu-jiu picked up the rest from the Changi Airport. All of us met up at the Bugis Junction, where our tour began.

One thing Mama has to mention here is the 25th October 2008 marks the day when baby Hao Re took the MRT for the very first time. He got very excited! Very playful during the ride, not only playing with us, but he tried to engage other passagers to play with him also, and kept looking around (for beautiful girl?). Stranger anxiety? Haha, that still hasn't happened on Hao Re so far! As it's a long journey (from Yew Tee to Bugis), we could barely keep him entertained..... luckily we arrived the destination before he got really bored (wanted to crawl on the floor!).

After having lunch, we proceeded to the famous "Kuan-Yin" temple. After making the offering, we continued to China Town, as there is really nothing much to see/to do (not that I know of) in Bugis, except shopping, which was not of our interest.

First went to the "Wan Fo" temple, the newest temple in town. It's interesting to see the glamorous of it, esp with the all gold buddha with gold flooring guarded 24 hours by the police, and the roof top garden is pretty nice, grandma loved the orchid! Walked around the China Town (again, really nothing much to see), made a quick stop at the Indian temple, and we were ready for dinner. Went to the "Lan Zhou" noodle house for their "la mian", really not bad, and some "xiao long bao", etc. Hope the Poons enjoyed it.

As this was the first day, shouldn't make them too tired. So we called it a day! It's the first time their visit our new home, Baba, Mama and Hao Re were happy that they have visitors for the very first time! The 2 Jiu-jiu went to play basketball for >1 hour! These 2 Jiu-jiu were good childhood friends due to their close age gap, and it's been a long time since they last met and to play basketball together. The rest just rested at home, watching tv, chatting, etc.

Oh, how about baby Hao Re? Hao Re behaves extremely well thoroughout the whole day. Really. If you don't see it, you won't believe what a good boy he is! He just followed wherever we went, air-con or without air-con, hot or cold, crowded or quiet, never got cranky, happy to play with anyone, happy to be carried with anyone, ate/drank whenever it's his feeding time, when we were eating, we gave him a little bit of our food for him to try, he happily ate it, and let us have our meal peacefully. Of course, except that he was a bit over-excited, with so many people to play with, and so many new things to see, his eyes rolled here and there non-stop! He was smiling/laughing the whole day. When reached home, he was still very excited, continued to play, and only went to bed at about 10.30pm (by the way, he went to bed later than his usual 9pm since grandparents were here last week.......). I think he really enjoyed the day a lot. Mama really proud of you!

Day 2 - 26th October 2008 (Sunday)

Everyone was behaving well. No need to rush them to wake up. All woke up "automatically" before 8.30am (the two jiu-jiu being the latest to wake up.......). Hao Re woke up at his usual 7.30am, Baba bathed him and we were ready for our 2nd day of adventure!

First for the day was a walk at part of the Orchard Road, from the Somerset to the Orchard station. Don't think the Orchard Road is interesting to the elderly, but because it's so famous as a tourist destination, we have to bring them there, just to have a browse through to see what Orchard is all about (though I was not sure if this is the right way to show Orchard Road). Had lunch at the Food Republic at the Wisma Atria, mainly for the very nice fried Hokkien prawn noodle. Yummy!

The afternoon program was to go on a Singapore River tour. Got on at Clarke Quay, and got off at the Merlion Park. Took photos with the Merlion, as usual, as this is the most iconic feature of the Republic of Singapore. We couldn't miss this, could we?

Then, went back to have a rest. As we have night program - the Night Safari! We are very brave parents, to bring a 9 months old baby to Night Safari :-) We chose Night Safari rather than the Zoo, because for the former, there is a nice tram ride, with very good tour guide, to go round to park. This way, the elderly don't have to walk. And for Yi-Po and Yi-Gong who are living at Cameron Highlands, don't think they would like to go under the hot sun! Plus that animals are more active at night, than those sleepy ones in the Zoo. Saw the Night Creature Show, not impressive at all, a lot of talking, very little action from the animals (just like to show in the zoo, had gone from good to bad, see previous entry http://babyhaore.blogspot.com/2008/09/two-first-this-weekend-cinema-zoo.html#links).

It's a long day. Reached home at about 10.30pm.

Notes on Hao Re - again, very very well behave today! Nap very little, but hey, that didn't bother anyone as he never got cranky! As long as Hao Re has enough energy to play/explore/see/laugh/babble...... really doesn't matter if he skipped 1 nap or 2 :-) Total napping time for the whole was about 1.5 hours. Eating as usual, but he became very interested in adult food.

Day 3 - 27th October 2008 (Monday)

It's an exciting day! We were going to FLY!!! Today, the whole bunch of people, including Hao Re, woke up a little bit later, haha, getting tired already...... And Jiu-Jiu was down with fever, and so couldn't join us. CS Yi-yi also has vomitted many times last night (due to food poisoning?), but luckily she recovered and continued the tour with us.

Reached to the Singapore Flyer at 11am. I would say it's pretty impressive, even at the ground floor and surrondings, there are lots of greens, and it's clean, and I felt very comfortable, though it's a bit quite. And we were ready for the fly! Well, I would say it's a pretty good experience, and it's worth a try. There are 2 drawbacks, in my eyes - it's not a scenic "flight", esp with the IR construction around, and since I "flew" on the London Eye before, I must say the London experience is much more favorable with many nice buildings around; and the second drawback was that those service crews were not very pleasant, compared to those at the Night Safari. To me, it's very important to have a warm welcome to visitors if you are going to make the place of interest a successful one.

After the "flight", we went to Suntec. To our dissappointment, the Fountain of Wealth is closed for maintenance. It's a big dissappointment esp to Yi-Po and Yi-Gong :-( Had lunch at the "Fei Chui Xiao Chu", made a mistake by ordering the 10-persons set lunch, the portion is far too huge, making it not that mouth-watering, though the taste was okay, as we struggle to finish it off (of course we couldn't no matter how hard we tried)....... should have ordered from the a-la-carte instead. But well, good thing was we have plenty to pack for our dinner :-) Their mango pudding was nice though, so that made a good closing for the big lunch!

Proceeded to Vivo City/Sentosa. When we reached to Sentosa, weather turned bad, started to drizzled. Visited the Images of Singapore (not too bad, but not very good either), and then the Merlion (this one is worse, nothing to see, just went up, took picture and came down, pretty meaningless.....). Went back home after that.

Asked hubby to pack the "Holland Village XO fish noodle" for the Poon family to try, as it's a pretty unique Singapore dish that couldn't be found in Malaysia. Have this with the leftover lunch dishes. I think somehow they enjoyed it, plus the comfy of having the meal at home :-)

Hao Re's behavious today? As you would have guessed, he was again very good boy. Just like the previous 2 days. But think he was a bit tired and didn't manage to stay up late. He knocked off at 9.30pm, together with Baba, who was also exhausted after driving and taking care of the 4 elderly the whole day, poor Baba!

Day 4 - 28th October 2008 (Tuesday)

It's the day to say bye-bye :-(

Baba didn't apply for leave and so went to work as usual. Jiu-jiu was still recovering from the fever so was on MC. Mama took leave so that could send the Poon family to the airport, and to accompany Hao Re at home for a day. Mama thought Hao Re might get over-excited over the 3 days and would be very difficult for his teachers to handle. So Mama stayed at home for 1 day to help Hao Re to "cool down", before returning to his routine.

Sent the Poon family to airport and they left Singapore on the 11.30am flight! Goodbye, and Hao Re will see them again next year, during the Chinese New Year.

When Mama was not at home, Hao Re was willing to "cooperate" with grandma, and willingly to eat/drink/sleep, without any fuss. BUT, when Mama arrived home from the airport, this baby was so smart, he knows how to get Mama attention - he refused to be fed by grandma, and only wanted Mama to pat him to sleep! What a clever boy!

Think Hao Re now understands grandma is someone he can trust, after grandma staying with us for 1 week. And now I am more relax, as I know Baba and grandma will be able to handle Hao Re when Mama was away for the business trip about 2 weeks later.

Hao Re is such an easy-to-take care baby - play/eat/sleep anywhere, anytime, with anyone, anyhow, doesn't cry, doesn't get cranky....... We are really blessed to have baby Hao Re. Hao Re, you are such a good and lovely boy, Mama and Baba are very proud of you!

Why the topic?

Because - mummy failed to breastfeed Hao Re.

It was, initially, very heartbreaking and difficult for mummy to accept this failure, as mummy worried that baby might not get enough nutrients that Hao Re needs to grow up with. But when we see Hao Re grows up happily and heathily everyday with his EnfaA+ milk, mama feels much relief and don't blame myself for not able to breastfeed no more.

In my the one and only experience, breastfeeding is a tough business! Not easy, especially the initial stage (but there are friends of mine who started off breastfeeding so easily, just like turning on the tap and milk flows, so guess it's depending on each individual).

I wanted to write down my journey of breastfeeding, before I forgetting about it. It's going to be a long story...... will take me a long time to write......... and a long time for you to read........

Both mummy and daddy attended classes conducted at TMC, telling us what to expect and what to do as new parents. Breastfeeding topics were definitely covered as TMC projects itself as a pro-breastfeeding hospital. Mrs W told us tons of stories about successful breastfeeding and kept telling us how easy it is to breastfeed. And she kept saying stick to 100% breastfeeding, total breastfeeding, don't let baby suck on teat as it will lead to nipple confusion etc, total breastfeeding IS the only way to go...... and on and on...... she is truly an breastfeeding advocate, and I respect her for that.

And so, being a first time parents, we were made to believe breastfeeding is easy and there is no reason you would fail if you try hard enough (unless you have medical constraint), and you have to total breastfeed your baby. That's the message I took home after attending the classes.

Hao Re arrived to this world on the 4th January 2008 (reminded me of haven't written down anything on the labour day). When we settled down in our room:-

Nurse asked: "So, are you going to breastfeed your baby?"
I proudly said: "YES, OF COURSE!"
And the nurse continued: "Okay. Do you want us to supplement him with formula or water at night, or you want us to bring him to your room and nurse him?"
Again, I said proudly: "I want to nurse him for every feed, even during midnight."
The nurse said: "Okay, meaning you want to total breastfeed your baby. I will put a sticker to indicate that."
And I, again, said proudly: " YES, I want to TOTAL BREASTFEED my baby!"

And so the breastfeeding journey started.

Nurse brought baby to our room. Oh, he is such a darling. With cheeky red face and sleepy eyes, so cute, and didn't make loud cry. My first task after delivery was to feed my baby, since can't do anything else as the epidural effect was still there. A nurse came in to supposedly "teach" me how to latch baby on, but she was not good, she just stood there and look only, didn't really show me the way to do it. She said, and so I believed, I did pretty good but need more practices. And baby seemed to be sucking. And that was a money-cannot-buy satisfaction, a very pround mummy!

Later there was one auntie (probably in her 60s?) came in to the room. She is weird. She moaned a lot..... and she said, oh, you are not supposed to do total breastfeeding, you know, baby NEEDS to be supplemented, you are not doing the right thing to choose total breastfeed your baby..... blar blar blar...... well, we thought she has seen so many babies and mummies, and she has been working for so long, so it's normal for an old auntie to moan sometime. We just ignored what she said and just knocking our head, without answering to any of her comment (but she did came back again a couple of times, to moan about the same thing, which eventually did upset me......).
All went well. Nurse brought baby to our room every 2-3 hours, and I nursed Hao Re. He sucked, and able to sleep after nursing. And he pee and poo several time a day (though I know this lot of pee and poo for the first few days of his life would have been the "storage" he kept while still in my tummy and not necessary from the milk he drank). And I was actually very confidence that I would be able to successfully breastfeed Hao Re, as at about week 36-37 during my pregnancy term, my breast had already started to produce colostrum, and so I thought, I have 2 very "productive" breast and could be one of those when baby sucks, milk flows like tap type. Over-confidence, I was :-(

Dr WK Tan came to check on me, and did mention that I need to work harder to get the milk supply up. She said the milk flow hasn't come in yet. I took note of her comment.

Dr Keoy came to check on baby. Hao Re was diagnosed with G6PD deficiency. Dr Keoy Hao Re looked very well. Though he has a bit of jaundice on the day of discharged, but the level was not high so we went home on the 3rd day.

So I thought, although there wasn't a lot of milk, but Hao Re seemed to be sucking and sleeping and peeing and pooing. I should continue total breastfeeding for the goodness of the wonderful breast milk. And that's what we decided to do.

Mum and dad arrived on the same day we were discharged. Mum came to help with my confinement month. Mum did comment that baby seemed to cry a lot, maybe he is still hungry? I was very stubborn. And I said to mum: "NO, mum, the Mrs W said we should total breastfeed baby, and if baby is sucking, sleeping, peeing and pooing, meaning I am doing it RIGHT!". I was stubborn, I didn't listen to mum's experience (but mum didn't breastfeed any 4 of us..... so I thought I know more than mum.......). And so I stubbornly insisted on total breastfeed, didn't supplement any water or formula to Hao Re. How can new parents know how much a new born should be crying? How much to drink? How long to sleep? Why new parents didn't listen to experience mum?

Just the day before we went back to Dr Keoy's clinic for the 1st time checkup, we noticed Hao Re's pee was in darker yellow color, and a bit of pinkish. Now I think back, Hao Re was not very alert on that day, very tired/sleepy look whole day long. Actually hubby and I started to get worried that day.

My heart was like beaten hard by something when we brought Hao Re to TMC for the checkup. As soon as Dr Keoy saw Hao Re, he said, your son had very SEVERE jaundice and it's true, proven by the test result. Very very high! And the main reason being - Hao Re was BADLY dehydrated! Dr Keoy arranged for him to be hospitalised to get the drip (for dehydration) and the photo therapy (for jaundice). Hao Re was on 4-way photo lights (according to the Sister, this was the record of the clinic so far, as previously most serious case needed 3-way photo lights).

That was another long story to that. For breastfeeding story..... while Hao Re being hospitalised and treated for dehydration and jaundice, I still stubbornly wanted to continue of breastfeeding. But only did it once, and I gave up. As I saw a very weak baby, it's really asking too much from him to continue sucking hard for those very little milk from my breast. We resorted to the bottle. Formula for that month was NAN, and so Hao Re survived on NAN formula milk for 3 days 2 nights.

Supposedly, I should be working hard at home and did the pumping business instead. But how would I manage to have a let-down, if I was so sad thinking of my baby who was suffering at the hospital? Whenever I thought of him, my tears flow.... not my milk. And so I gave up on pumping also, though managed to pump a few oz....... that's the best I managed to :-(
When finally baby recovered and came home, this time round, I made myself forgetting whatever Mrs W taught/said to us. I didn't want to remember anything. I wanted to listen to my mum only, because, at least, I know that she is a great mother, and she brought up the four of us healthily, and I should only listen and learn from her.

And so it changed from total breastfeeding to supplemented breastfeeding (see, I am still stubbornly wanted to continue breastfeeding......). Since my brilliant nephew, Zhi Jie, was drinking EnfaProA+, I introduced the same to Hao Re. And so, EnfaA+ range formula becomes Hao Re's main source of nutrients for his first few years of life.

The first few days, I still tried to nurse Hao Re as often as I can managed, and to pump as often as I have time to. But still not sucessful. No let-down. There was a couple of days that I had pretty good supply, managed to pump about 4-5 oz within 10 min or so. But with my fear that Hao Re might not get enough milk and hence might be dehydrated again (though he pee and poo), we resorted to more and more on formula. And so, my milk supply became less and less...... I was sad, but I wanted so desperately for nothing to happen on Hao Re again!

And when Hao Re was about 6 weeks old, I stop breastfeeding. No milk at all! Factory closed down! Not a successful business! No demand hence no supply! **sob sob**

During the breast-to-formula transition period, until the total formula feeding period, I thought a lot, I gave myself a lot of excuses..... to make myself not to feel bad for not breastfeeding...... Below are some of the points I came out with (though I must stress, no matter what, I still believe breast milk is the best food for baby, and nothing replace that!):

1. I total breastfed for the 1st week - so I believe Hao Re had drunk enough of the colostrum, which was the source of money-cannot-buy-very-important antibodies. I believe Hao Re has got a lot of antibodies from me to keep him healthy for at least the first few months.

2. I asked hubby many many many times - and he was very sure he didn't angry with me at all, for not able to breastfeed. This is very important to me, as baby Hao Re is the "product" of the two of us, not just me alone.

3. Formula nowadays is actually mimicking all the goodness of breast milk, except that it's artificial and withouth the antibodies - so I know Hao Re gets enough nutrient for his mental and physical development.

4. All 4 of my siblings growing up without even 1 drop of breast milk - and all 4 of us growing up healthily, and exceled in our study. So, formula really couldn't be that bad, and for the pass 30-40 years, I am sure the formula must have been improved a lot since.

5. Supplement - when I supplemented Hao Re with formula during breastfeeding, Hao Re had never had any nipple confusion. This really is depending on each of the babies, and don't have to worry so much, if they confuse, they confuse, if they don't, they don't. My experience told me this - SUPPLEMENT might, just might be, help in successful breastfeeding, esp in the early stage. Because you are sure baby has something to drink, and so will be more relax when coming to breastfeeding.

And so it was. End of the breastfeeding story.

And the beginning of the formula feeding story - the wonderful (second to breast milk) EnfaA+!

Here what's Hao Re main source of food - EnfalacA+ from 0 to 6 months, and subsequently EnfaproA+ from 7 months till now.


As I said many times, Hao Re is growing happily and healthily. He is drinking the milk well. Never refused milk (except times when he was not well). And gaining weight steadily. Very good growth indeed.

If I ever have no.2 Kam Junior, I am very sure I would try breastfeeding again, without any doubt. Hopefully with this round of experience, the "factory" will operate for longer, and more productive!

For the Pneumococcal jab and 9-10 months assessment

In order to fit in to hubby's shedule (there was a side story for this, only hubby and I know.......), we brought Hao Re for the 3rd Pneumococcal jab yesterday evening at 7pm.

I went to fetch Hao Re from his school after work as usual. Then went home to fetch parents so they can accompany me, as driving to TMC is quite a distance. Initially Hao Re was okay playing with mum at the back of the car. But after about 5 minutes driving, he started to make noise. Didn't manage to calm him down so have to let him carried by my dad who was sitting at the side passenger seat. Even that, he was still cranky and kept wanting me to carry him. Luckily there was a long wait for the traffic light, so I was able to carry and pat him for a short while. After that, dad was playing with him with a lot of CDs, and made funny sounds for him. Hao Re was just able to sit still until the minute we reached to Thomson. Thanks goodness!

Hubby arrived at Dr Keoy's clinic earlier than us. He already got the 'Q' number, 118 (good number indeed, should buy 4D :-)), while Dr Keoy was serving no. 107, quite a long queue. Waited for about half an hour for our turn. Initially I wanted to have a longer chat with Dr Keoy so to have a more thorough assessment of Hao Re's development, but seeing that there was still a long queue with a lot of sick babies/kids (with 1 parents who looked so worried, think the mum just cried......), I thought I really shouldn't take up too much of Dr Keoy's precious time, as I didn't have any pressing questions/issues to ask.

So we got Hao Re's business done in <5 minutes! Dr Keoy did a quick check of his eyes, mouth, teeth, limbs, body etc. I showed Dr Keoy the growth chart that I marked on for Hao Re's development. He commented Hao Re is growing up well, very proportioniate with weight and height, both weight and height are above average, about 75th percentile. Dr Keoy asked about if Hao Re can crawl, cruise, stand, pincer gripe for small object, responding to his name, etc.

Out of all the questions, only 1 thing that Hao Re still hasn't done well, i.e., responding to his name, and the reason being we have been calling him with so many different names, we call him 皓日(in mandarin), 日日(in cantonese)，小皓子('created' by his teacher), 招财猫(also by his teachers, as he always waved his hands like the招财猫), 小胖子(mandarin)，肥日(cantonese), etc etc.......

Then, it's the jab time. I carried Hao Re while hubby played with him by offering him a toy in the clinic. Dr Keoy poked him, he "eh" "eh", and that's it. Done! See, such a brave boy! The next time we visit Dr Keoy will be in Jan 2009, when Hao Re is due for the Hepatitis A jab.

Gave him milk while waiting for the car to be retrieved from the basement carpark. Only after a few minutes in the car, he already fell asleep. We stopped for dinner, Hao Re still in deep sleep, so we let him continue his sleep in his stoller. Finished our dinner, continued our journey home, and Hao Re was sleeping all the way, till the next morning :-)

When I went through the many tick boxes in the Health Book, I realised out of the so many physical development we need to monitor, Hao Re still didn't show or can't do 2 things:

1. stranger anxiety - he didn't show this at all since birth till now. Didn't get the chance to ask Dr Keoy what's the impact of this. I am guessing this shouldn't be doing any harm.

2. mimicking the sound from adult - while Hao Re is amused by all the sound we make, he is still not capable of mimicking. This will take time for him to learn, and there are still 2 weeks before Hao Re reaches 10 months.

I am really really very happy with Hao Re's development. He is growing up so well. He is a happy baby. A healthy baby. An easy-to-take-care-of baby. A well-behave baby. A brave baby. An "explorer" baby. A playful baby. An active baby. A very loveable baby. A cute baby. A baby who attracts a lot of attention....... I couldn' t have asked for more, you are all I wish for, my dear little darling. Thanks for bringing joys to our life!

For about 1.5 months!

After a long wait (for mummy especially), grandma and grandpa are finally here on Saturday, 18th Oct, in Singapore staying with Hao Re! With mum and dad staying with us, Hao Re will have 2 more "playmates" to play with him. The way mum and dad interact with Hao Re is quite different from the way we interact with him. I think it will certainly be good for Hao Re to pick up something new/different from mum and dad. Welcome to Hao Re's play house, mum and dad!

Hubby and I are generally happy with 2 extra pairs of hands (oh well, strictly speaking, just 1, as dad really is not the patient type who can play with Hao Re for more than 5 min each time) to help up taking care of Hao Re. And what's more, we can have mum's delicious homecook food for the next 1.5 months, wah, just thinking of this, I am already so happy, as I am already so sick of outside food. And the main reason we asked mum and dad to travel the long journey is to prepare for my 1 week business trip to Germany in mid Nov. Since hubby is busy with work, and he definitely needs help to meet Hao Re's needs, mum is here to help, esp for that 1 week. Hope they can cope well.

Speaking about that, yesterday night, I put Hao Re to sleep at 8pm (a bit early as he was very tired playing the whole day), and hubby and I went downstairs for a quick coffee to chile out. Thinking that mum was there if Hao Re did wake up from his sleep. And it DID happen. Hao Re woke up right after we stepped out of the house according to mum, and when he realised it's not mummy who pat him back to sleep, he let out a loud and pitiful cry.... he cried so hard for quiet some time, even more pitiful than when he fell on the floor and knocked his head. Finally his Jiu Jiu managed to calm him down. And he couldn't sleep after that. When we returned home, Hao Re let out a big cry again when he saw us! Poor baby! Mummy and daddy gave him a big warm hug and kiss. When I put him to bed, he fell asleep immediately, but still holding tight to my hands.

Since day 1 till now, I am the only person who put Hao Re to bed every night. When I am away for 1 week, I am sure Hao Re will not have any problem during day time, as it's weekdays, so he will be attending the infant care centre anyway. But when come to night time, I really don't know how hubby and/or mum can manage to put him to bed. Probably start training him now with me around? Or they will just have to let Hao Re cry until he is exhausted then fall asleeps?

It was a big battle for myself when I decided to go for this conference in Germany. It's really a very useful conference for me. But on the other hand, it's very hard for me to leave Hao Re and hubby at home. Oh well, now I have already registered, hotel booked and air ticket confirmed, I can't look backward, but to look ahead and hope everything goes well. I need to be so hard hearted to not to feel miserable but to make the full use of the 1 week to learn as much as I can. Will miss them very very much. And if Hao Re has to cry a lot that week, we will just have to accept and let it happen.

I just wanna massage my gum by 'eating' anything I can reach for. Bring it on, mum!

While mummy was doing packing, Hao re was so excited by the meters long of rope..... yummy!



New unopened toy - first thing sure explore with mouth......

Only happens once in a blue moon......

Hao Re was in very good mood that night, I supposed. We came back from having dinner downstairs. He had half of the banana just 30 minutes ago. But obviously that didn't feel his stomach at all. He asked for milk at about 8pm. Prepared milk for him.

Initially I sat beside him, and he was willing to hold his milk bottle. After that, I quietly moved away, using a cushion to replace the support from me. Amazingly, he didn't "complained" and still finished the whole 7oz of milk, by sitting on the sofa and holding the milk bottle, all by his own.

Recently, he is more willing to hold his milk bottle, to at least finish half of the bottle. Wonder when he would wean off from his milk bottle. By the way, he likes very much to drink from our cup! I bought a Thomas cup for him a couple of month back, but he doesn't fancy this cup of his, he likes our mug more. A baby who can't wait to grow up!

Oh boy, my little bundle of joy is growing so fast...... so he wouldn't want mummy to carry him already probably soon after he can walk unassisted :-) and :-(

For better or worse?

Finally, moved in to our new home on the 11th Oct.

The whole house is still in a mess! We didn't realise we have so much stuff accummulated just over the past 2 years! And Hao Re's belongings contributed quite a fair bit to this big pile. When I asked the uncle who owned the 24ft covered lorry and helped us with the moving that is ours considered normal of heavy load moving when compared to others? Uncle said no, you don't have a lot of stuff, BUT you have super super lot of stuff, tons of stuff :-) True enough, ended up we filled up 1 full load of the lorry, and that's considering we didn't have any furniture or electrical items to be moved. Really don't know how could we managed to pile up so much stuff???

Since we were busy with the moving, we have no choice but to send Hao Re to the Infant Care on Saturday from 7.30am to 2pm. It is actually not too bad to send him there, so that we know he is with good hands, and also freed up our hands to be more efficient with the moving. And usually only a handful of babies/kids attend Saturday class. So ended up Hao Re got a lot of attention from the teacher, and being further spoilt/pampered.

When we picked him at 2pm, and introduced to him our new home, full of stuff on the floor with no furniture, he actually looked very excited. Touched this and that, crawled here and there...... didn't seem to be bothered by the new environment. Hubby fixed up his cot and Hao Re managed to take a good nap at his new home!

For the whole Saturday and Sunday, we were busy with the unpacking and cleaning...... and it seems never ending (still have many unopened boxes and loose/unsorted pieces here and there as of now, especially that we can't use our kitchen as we are going to change a new set of cabinet). Not much time to interact with Hao Re. We just let him to explore the new place at his own pace. The first night sleep at the new house was pretty "normal", i.e., woke up once for night feed. He is really such a good boy, no fuss at all!

All the furniture being delivered on Sunday. Oh boy, Hao Re got very excited! Now we have more pieces of furniture and he can hold on to the furniture and cruise. One minute cruising along the coffee table, the next minute "eating" the TV console, the next minute adding his saliva onto the sofa....... even chased around his Jiu Jiu along the coffee table. He is accommodating fast, and we are very glad with this.

Went to Ikea on Sunday evening to get some more stuff. It's very funny throughout our stay at Ikea, Hao Re "spoke" non-stop. He kept babbling a lot of "ta", "car", "ka"....... but only once in a blue moon he would said "ma" and "ba". Real funny, hope one day soon, he will hug me and say, mama, I love you :-)

This week is going to be continuing with the house tidying..... and us adults also need to take time to adjust to the new environment. This house is just next to the MRT station, and construction is going on next door (thanks goodness the construction will be ending soon), so it's kind of big change for us too to adapt to the busy environment.

A nice warm home is on the way!

最近刚刚接触了facebook。
刚开始是为了VG， 因为她随老公去了中国，那儿不能用multiply，为了要看她宝宝的近照，逼不得以就搞了一个facebook的户口。
孰知竟然带来了那么多的惊喜！
最近这一个月才在facebook开始活跃起来。
竟联络上了一些已经有好几年，甚至十多年没见的老朋友。
崇华的。。。
马大的。。。
剑桥的。。。
真的蛮开心的。
虽然不能面对面的谈个痛快，至少能知道对方的一点点进况，也就够了。
如果不是因为facebook，有一些朋友倒真的可能一辈子也不会再见了。
惜缘。
也希望会在facebook遇见越来越多的朋友。
尤其是一些失去联络很久而我又很想联络上的朋友。
特别是在马大共渡美好四年的知己好友
有时不经意的想起这些朋友，不禁会在心里问一声“朋友，你好吗？”
真的得惜缘呀！

终于下载了中文WP。
好久都没写中文了。现在用打字的还好， 有时偶尔需要用写的，就会发现很多字都忘了。读和说都还好，就是会忘了怎样去拼那个字。
唉，身在江湖，身不由己啊！
工作完全没机会用中文， 自己又没争取时间去看多一点书，写多一点中文。
(p/s: 才打了这几行字，就发现原来打字也不容易呀)
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皓日已经9个月了。一直以来我们都是用华语来和他沟通。
反而觉得用华语来沟通不是问题，问题是在于要常常提醒自己千万不要用半华语、半英语， 而更重要的是得避免用那所谓的singlish！
但是如何能做到呢？在这个环境，还真的很难哩。连我自己 (也包括老公) 都已经被‘训练’得一口很流利的singlish了。
最令我吃惊的是我UM的教授 (我最尊敬的偶像教授) 也竟然在短短的一年被‘污染’了，真难以置信！
如果让皓日在本地学校上课，100%肯定将来皓日的其中一个强项就是singlish。
但又能怎样？送他去国际学校吗？没钱。有必要吗？四年后再来烦恼吧。
也不是说singlish不好 (希望Singaporean读这个blog不会生气)。
只是说要嘛就说准确的英语，用对的语法。
在新加坡，当你说准确的英语时，有些人还会眼睛大大地看着你，以为你在用第三语言。
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也别想那么多了。随缘吧。

And he was climbing up the stair for the first time this morning

When picking up Hao Re yesterday, his teacher said sorry, Hao Re was bitten by one of his classmates :-( when the two of them fighting to play with the slide. I asked who was it (just to know, not to blame him/her), teacher said they are not supposed to tell parents. So I tell Hao Re - "baby, mummy is going to blog it down to let you know you were bitten for the very first time, but since mummy won't know who he/she is, you have to remember him/her yourself, and later if you want to do something to the person, you have to do it yourself". Teacher laughed and said I am an evil mummy, teaches baby how to take revenge at this young age! Haha.... of course not to take revenge, but you know, this is just to tell my baby, mummy and daddy can't be there all the time to protect him, so whenever we are not around, he has to be strong enough to protect himself! Anyway, it's not very serious, it left with a bite mark (think from 2 teeth) and a little bit of bruise. Teacher has applied Zambuk for him.

This morning, while I was packing his bag to get ready to go, he crawled so quickily to the stair, gave me a smile, and then he climbed up the stair so quickily!!! He made it to 4 staircases before I brought him down. All the while, he has been interested in the stair, but not to climb it, is to play with the railing. I knew for sure one day he would attempt climbing the stair, and how true it is, he did it today! I am so relieved that we are going to move out this or next week, I don't have to get a gate to block him from stair. This is one of the main reasons I don't encourage hubby to buy the mansionnate, as it's dangerous for baby/toddler or even young children, and it's very tired to carry a 10kg baby up and down the stair a few times everyday. Bye bye stair, see you no more!

Children nowadays.........

Was reading an article in the "Young Parents" magazine, about tuition class. It made me think a lot, or rather, to be honest, made me started to get worry - how would Hao Re be brought up in this competetive society?

The article was describing in Singapore nowadays, for many parents, sending their kids to tuition class is not for their children to catch up with the class, but it's more for the "kiasu-ness". There was one mother committed her kid to additional 3 more tuition classes (didn't mention how many he was already attending) just because her kid, who was always no. 1 of the class, being beaten by his peer by 0.5 mark and became no.2 in class. I was totally shock to read this, is this a joke or what? Is this the right parenthooding? Is this the way to show you love? Is it really so important that your kid has to be no. 1 in his class? Is this what we should expect from our kid? What is love? What is care? What is parenthood? What is childhood?........... So many questions flied through my mind......

Both me and hubby were grown up in "kampung", we are 100% kampung boy and girl. Now that we live in the city, and Hao Re is and will be brought up in this city and its environment. I am not sure how well we could pass on the value we believing in to Hao Re, and how much he would accept it. We will try, we will certainly try our best.

To me, no, to be the top of the class is not everything, and in fact, it shows nothing. What's more important to me, is my kid has to grow up happily, as what my parents had provided me for - lots of loving care, the right guidance. This is what I believe - each child should be given his own space to grow as each and every of them has his/her own potential in certain things, and his/her limitation is other things, to grow at the pace that he wants, and to do the things that he likes. As parents, our duty is to provide the environment, to provide the right guidance, to be the observer, and to lead him to the right path whenever he is lost. I don't need my son to be graduating from top school, he can skip university if he likes, as long as he has to find his appropriate meaning of life, and to be a "useful" person. And I certainly believe that home education is far more important than school education. If anything goes wrong, I will blame myself (or hubby) to start with and not the teacher.

Parenthood for us has just started, it will be a long way to go. For now, I can't help but to thank my parents for being such a wonderful parents for the 4 of us, thank you baba and mama!

on the 4th October 2008

Baby Hao Re hit his 9th month on Saturday. And he was ill that day. Didn't do anything special nor bought him any toy. Just want to update on his development.

• 9.73kg, 7xcm tall.
• Has 6 teeths (4 top, 2 bottom). Wants to bite on anything, esp mummy's fingers, and it hurts!
• Crawls very well and fast (yes, very fast!)
• Stands and cruises a lot of the time. Cruised the whole living room by holding onto the wall or furniture, or whatever he can get hold of.
• Walks, only with the walkers. Able to get a good balance and know how to make use of the walker. He is ready to make his first step anytime from now.
• Eat every 2-3 hourly at school, or every 3-4 hourly at home. Alternate with milk (6-7 oz) and solid (porridge, cereal, puree, or mixture of the above).
• Can hold and drink from sippy mug on his own. The same for milk bottle. Can hold and drink milk on his own.
• Started with lumpy food and finger food. Okay with this, but sometime will puke out if he didn't manage to mash and swallow big pieces of food.
• Sleeps about 2-3 hours during the day, and 10-11 hours at night.
• Still can't sleep through the night. But able to sleep through a stretch of 6 hours, so kind of sleep through the night, theorectically speaking.
• Less "sticky" to mummy at night. Can be either playing by himself or with daddy or Jiu Jiu, don't have to be mummy anymore. For mummy, it's :-) and :-(
• Plays a lot. Can be anything. Not necessary with his toys. And he can be very indepedent. Love to play hide-and-seek.
• Babbles A LOT! A lot of "words" coming out from Hao Re, but only he himself understands what he wants to say. Still not saying baba or mama.
• Knows how to wave bye-bye and give a "hi-fi" and do the "gong-xi" gesture.
• No sign of showing stranger anxiety yet. Separation anxiety seems to be disappearing also.

In short, Hao Re is developing very well, happy and healthily (some illness though is unpreventable). And he is a truly wonderful baby to have!

Good shoot of showing his teeth (though the 2 small upper ones can't be seen):


A different smile showing teeth......


An late afternoon spent in the park with mummy and daddy:




Sick baby happily exploring the park:

While Daddy and Mummy were busy with the new house

Last week was not an easy week, but we made it, very well, in fact.

Hao Re started with a cough on the Saturday before the last. Just a few cough. We thought nothing serious. Still brought him for a swim on Sunday before the last. Careless parents..... shouldn't have done it. The cough got worser on Monday, so brought him to see Dr Keoy on Monday night. Dr Keoy said it's just common flu, nothing to worry, and may take up to a week to recover. True enough, only yesterday, after 1 week, saw that Hao Re is on the road to recovery, so relieve now!!!

This is the 3rd time he has a cough, but the first time to have runny nose, and he gets very upset with the runny nose, poor baby.



For the last week that he was sick - the up points are he is still very active and playful, and still sleeps well during the day and night (though putting him to sleep could be a challenge sometimes). The down points are he coughs very very badly, think because a lot of phlegm blocking his airway and he wants to cough it out. He coughs so badly that he would vomit food/milk. But sometime it's really a big patch of thick phlegm being coughed out. Also, he has reduced his appetite. Sometime skipped a meal, or sometime take in very little milk/food. And he developed fever (we were very worried), which subsided after 2 days, phew!

On the same week, we have got the key to our first home from HDB on the 30th September 2008. We are going to have our own first home! Though it's not our dream home, but oh well, we are at Singapore, the little island, what else could we hope for, it's either a unit in HDB flat or a unit in the condominium. Either one we have to live above ground, can't afford to have a big house with a big compound like we have back in hometown. But never mind, we can still make it a warm home for our family to live in, couldn't we?

We couldn't delay the painting and cleaning, as our rental will lapse on the 20th Oct, so we have to move out by then. So the work started on 1st Oct. Finished it by Saturday noon. All on schedule, in fact, a little faster than scheduled. So all is well. Oh by the way, we didn't engage contractor to do renovation, it's all DIY. We don't want to spend money on renovation. Since the flooring is still in top condition, we make do as what it is, just change to toilet set to a new one, and hopefully the kitchen as well. Next week will be moving. Thank godness we don't have a lot to move, but still need a lot of time to pack and unpack.

Because we were busy with the new house, we have no choice but to send baby Hao Re to infant care. Really have to say a big thank you to his teachers. I am very sure they would take good care of Hao Re, and it's true. Hao Re slept and ate better at school than at home, even the medicine, teachers were able to administer the medicine better. I do believe that babies are very smart people, they know who they can "bully", who they can't.

Though, I felt a bit guilty (don't know if daddy felt the same) to have to send Hao Re to school that he is sick and we were on leave :-( And what made me felt even more guilty was that hubby and I actually enjoyed the couple time (though didn't do anything special), without Hao Re around. It's like a breather for us to have a meal without any "disturbance" at all (of course we are thinking of baby Hao Re all the time). For us, we have no help at all, except the infant care, as we don't have any families here, and we don't have friends who can help with baby. My mum is going to stay with us for about 1.5 months by mid of October, and I am so looking forward to that!

Baby Hao Re, hope you recover soon and daddy and mummy love you lots!