The Son was ill, He loves biting Daddy

They are not related, but SunshineKitten was ill on Thursday and Friday, and he also gets high from chewing on Daddy's finger.

The little boy had been coughing on and off for a few days and could not sleep on Thursday night. Daddy and Mummy (mostly Mummy) had to carry him in their arms before he was comfortable enough to doze off. He kept crying all the time because he was not able to breathe properly through his blocked nose. We took leave on Friday morning with the intention of bringing him to the paediatrician, but he appeared to have more or less recovered. What symptoms are there for the doc to see? Then he threw up a lot of phlegm just before I was about to go off to work. A frightening amount of phlegm. What's a little infant like him doing with so much phlegm in his tiny body?! We went to work anyway, trusting that he is able to breathe much better now.

Colleagues advised to bring him to the PD anyway, citing how infants his age develop bronchitis and asthma very easily. We rushed to a famed PD at Ang Mo Kio after work that night. The taxi driver shared the scares he's had with his son years ago. It seems that parents are destined to suffer for the sake of their offspring. From the way people tell us, we have the impression that it is an immutable law of nature. We spent over $120 to be told that he would recover by himself. We were given some medicine, which we had not yet opened because he really looked tonnes better, kicking and chewing vigorously, as he always does. On the other hand, if we had tried to save the money and it happened that he developed some illness that is more serious, we would feel terribly guity.

The other news is that he is now able to recognise his favourite people and is starting to wail when carried by unfamiliar people. His poor second aunt (who has lavished him with toys) was heart-broken when he was frightened by her. His happy daddy discovered that the little boy is delighted to have something to chew on, even if it is a finger attached to the hand of his daddy. The vigourous chewing meant that he is teething, and it is possible to feel them under the gums when you get your finger chewed on. Poor mummy, when the boy is unwilling to suckle. He is quite capable of chewing on her nipple when he is not in the mood to suck... Oh and he gave his daddy a very wet and sloppy kiss, or was that just drooling all over another surface? He was smiling so happily when he did that, but give him something to chew and drool over, and you will find him smiling.

This little boy has turned out to be the laughter in the lives of the extended family. We laugh with him when he is happy, and we lose sleep with him when he is ill.

6 months old

Our boy has now passed the 6 month mark and went for his final Hep B jab today.

He is now 8.5kg, 75 percentile
Height 69cm, 50 percentile
Head circumference 45cm, 75 percentile

He started eating solids last Tuesday, eating up to 3 tablespoons of Nestle cereal, or Nestle brown rice, or Healthy Times brown rice with his milk a day. His first fruit is apple, in puree form. Sunshine will be starting him on avocado tomorrow.

ninja in training

It is said that ninjas undergo grueling training to develop their abilities. To gain the skill to scale walls and fly over roofs, they train for years, jumping daily over a sapling that will over the years grow into a tree that is tall and mighty. And so as the sapling grows, so do their ability to jump high.

Well, that is what they say. This is not from the horse's mouth. This is not even second or third hand news. This is the stuff of myths and legends. But if this is true...

My son is getting heavier and I can feel my left bicep muscle cramping after carrying him for a while. My left arm will soon be larger than my right arm. Perhaps I will look like Arnold Schwarzeneger if I spend enough time carrying him around. Check back with me in 20 years and see if I have developed the ability to easily flip grownups around as if they are toddlers.

Fine motor skills

Having read about how fine motor skills are supposed to be developed by the 4th month, I was a little worried about how he is totally uninterested in gripping things with his little hands at 3 months. A little kiasu perhaps, but he has been ahead of his time in everything else, including his physical size. It turned out that removing his mittens does make a difference and within days his hands were able to grip my finger. It is a heartwarming sight, seeing his tiny hand managing to grip only one of my fingers. Hopefully he will be able to hold his milk bottle all by himself before long!

First stroll downstairs

I was home after work early yesterday, just in time to see my dad downstairs with my son. It was the first time grandpa brought this grandson down for a stroll in his pram to show him off to neighbours. He soon chased me off. I think my dad didn't want me around while he is spending quality time with his grandson!

I'm not sure how much my son can see and how much he can recognise of the new surroundings at 3 months, but he is definitely curious and will protest with cries and whimpers if we are not holding him up to look around the house. So yes he likes to examine his territory and he is probably happy to be moving around downstairs with new things to see and stimulate his growing brain. It will not be long before he insist on going downstairs everyday for his daily stroll!

Flipping baby

Mum called up excitedly while I was at work and gave me a fright. She told me that my son has flipped over. Did he drop onto the floor and hurt himself? No, but it is the first time he flipped over all by himself while lying on his back, and she wanted me to know ASAP. Yeah she's so proud of him because he is not yet 3 months old and he is already able to flip onto his chest. She had to help him pull out his arm which was trapped under his body, but he could lift his head and breathe.

Well I'm happy for him, but I'm not surprised. He is already 6.79kg and 63 cm long at 12 weeks and his head is 42 cm in diameter. He kicks quite hard when he's hot and upset so I know that he is strong. But we will all have to be more careful these few days until we can be sure that he will not suffocate if he flips over at night while everyone is sleeping. I wonder how we can prevent him from flipping over when nobody is watching.

On another note, we had to bring him to the paediatrician on Saturday because he had been coughing the whole week. And coughing pretty loud for someone his size, but that's our boy. It was heartbreaking seeing how he cried when the tube was inserted into his nostrils and mouth to suck out his phlegm. He cried so hard that he had flecks of redness in his eyelids and foreheard. Sort of like burst blood vessels from trauma? The red flecks did clear up within a day or two as the doc said they would. But they are a testament to his trauma. What has to be done has to be done and I kept telling him that it was for his own good while I held his head steady during the suction. I know he won't understand what I'm saying, but I hope my presense will soothe and comfort him while all these strange things are happening to him. He took surprisingly well to the medicine I fed him using the syringe (0.8 ml ??) and I hope he will recover before we bring him back for followup.

Moving house

We have moved in with my parents as planned. We need help to look after the little boy when Sunshine's maternity leave is up, and we would not want to leave the maid alone with him at home the whole day even though she turned out to be very diligent and loves the baby as much as we do. We just don't want to take the risk after hearing all the horror stories.

It took us 2 days and a car to move our stuff to my parents' place. We had to transport Sunshine's frozen milk, our clothing, shoes, working gear, 3 laptops, baby's pram, our toiletries and surprised our parents with the amount of stuff we are bringing in on the first day. Why should they be so surprised when they know how much stuff my sis had? And we still have so much stuff at home (the house I bought with Sunshine) that it is still our home, and my parents' place is just a place for us to get through the week, and we look forward to going home for the weekend. Fortunately my parents are computer illiterate and there is no chance for them to find this blog...

Having a car is really a convenience on a rainy day. Taxis can do the same, but it takes more planning and preparation. It was the first time we drove a Toyota Corolla Altis and we could tell that it was a lot more comfortable than driving a Hyundai or Vaio. The boot is also a lot more roomy than the other cars I have rented previously, if I remember correctly. Sunshine and I were saying that we could get used to all these conveniences! But living in Singapore is not cheap at all and we would not assume that we can always afford such luxuries all our lives. Perhaps we will get a car if we have a second child. If we have a second child.

The poor maid had to adapt to a different way of doing things since my mum was quite particular about how some things were done. Some were for reasons of efficiency and some were personal idiosyncrasies, but when you are a humble servant you just did as you are told and you try not to get things mixed up. No wonder our MM frightened us by claiming that if we do not vote for them, our wives and daughters will have to work as maids in other countries. Having seen and heard how some people treat their foreign domestic helpers (the govt terminology for maids from Indonesia and Philippines), it is a frightening prospect indeed. When my son is old enough to understand, will he be proud of how we treat our helpers? Or be ashamed that we are treating a human being so poorly?

Diaper count after 7 weeks

My son, the 7 week old poo machine, has so far used up

2x46 Petpet small,
1x36 Pampers newborn,
1x56 Mami Poko newborn,
1x70 Petpet medium,
total of 254 diapers!

Moving back is hard to do

Weekends are not at all restful these days even though we have a helper who takes care of the baby through the night. There will often be some issues to worry us, or perhaps we have to make plans that involve some sacrifice on our part. I can just see the glee in my parents' eyes when they say that we finally know that it is not easy to care for infants. Yes we know, and we made the decision to have a baby knowing that sacrifices will have to be made, but we still don't like having to sacrifice.

The issue that had been worrying us in particular last night was our decision to move in with our parents. Sunshine will have to go back to work when her maternity leave is up. 3 months is a long time, but it will still come to and end. We need to move in with our parents so that the baby can be cared for while we are at work, and leaving him with the maid the whole day alone at home is not acceptable to us. We would still rather have our family members watching over him. Having grown used to living a life of our own these 2 years, we are dreading the day when we have to move in with my parents. I'm not looking forward to it even though it is my own family whom I have lived with for more than 20 years. It can't be any better for her.

We will be keeping our apartment as a weekend house so we can have a place to retreat to and hopefully not go crazy. It is foolish financially not to rent it out since we are moving in with our parents, but we can't bear to give it up. Some of my colleagues just could not understand when I told them that I'm not looking forward to moving back. I guess this is a luxury that we have enjoyed for 2 years, and which we have grown used to. Moving in will be for at least the next 10 years, until the son is old enough to care for himself. But by that time it will be our turn to take care of my parents in their old age. 2 years is not enough.

Planning to move in is more complicated than initially envisioned. My sister's family will have to move out of my parents' place, before we can move in, and their moving out date had been a moving target for month. Until they move out, we cannot do a stock-take and figure out what they will be taking with them, what we need to throw when they are gone, and what we need to buy and bring over. Will have to hold more discussions with my parents over the next week or so to hurry things along and gain more visibility. And I think we really should wait until we are settled down in my parents' place before Sunshine goes back to work, especially since her 12 weeks of maternity leave is not yet used up.

Logistically, we need to maintain 2 sets of clothing and baby equipment at 2 places. Culturally, we have to adapt to my parents' practices, which is why we need SCV for her and broadband for me to zone out and take a break from the hassle of life, at least until the baby cries. Financially, I'm sure we can handle the additional expenses of baby, maid, and 2 sets of household expenses, though I haven't put down the figures on paper so I can't blame her for saying that I'm optimistic. I'm surprised how some other families can feed a car on top of all these other expenses. Am I underpaid??

The direction at least, is quite clear now. It is quibbling over the details that is killing us. No wonder some people would rather rear pets than kids.

Our sack of rice

The Son is now 6.5 weeks old now, and as heavy as a sack of rice. So heavy that Sunshine is complaining of a sprained left wrist from carrying him. My colleague told me that this is pretty common, and that she should get her wrist treated by a TCM doctor.

Sunshine weighed The Son around 2 weeks ago, and he was 4.9KG then. My guess is that he is at least 5KG now, which is why I refer to him as the sack of rice when talking with Sunshine. If you are what you eat... well Sunshine is having a bigger appetite these days and the rice she eats goes into the milk she produces, which is his sole sustenance. Thus the rice probably goes into our sack of rice somewhere...

Colleagues consider him to be chubby, and to our horror we see 3 month old babies his size... and according to the chart given by the hospital, he is a little on the large side. But we are not force-feeding him, so we hope his weight will come within the average range after his growth spurt...

Short bites from now on

If I'm ever going to start blogging again, it will have to be in small bites. It is difficult these days to sit down and compose anything longer than a few sentences and if I were to always wait until I have the time to compose my thoughts, write them down and polish them up, add in links or photos, this blog will probably starve to death while I find the time to cook up something worth posting.

Screw the literary merit. I will be happy to capture some brief memories so that my son can read about them when he is old enough.

Fortunately, blogger has a post-by-email feature. Just open your email client, type in a few lines and send it to a secret email account @blogger.com
Blogger will pick it up and post it to blogspot within seconds. The title of the email will become the title of the blog post. Very basic. I can do this in a few short minutes even while at work (which is about the only place left where I can still find my brain juice).

More importantly, I think the posts will start coming once I heck care about terrible the wording is.

The birth of SunshineKitten

This post is backdated, as the next few will be. I'm trying to record down as much as possible before we forget the details. Perhaps the son can appreciate all these when he is old enough to read.

Birth of Isaac

7th Jan 2008

* Appointment with gynae. Advised to be induced since water level dropped.

* Admitted to hospital after 8, after a sumptious "last dinner" with Sunshine's family

Medicine placed at midnight

8th jan 2008

* Still only 2cm dilation next morning

* 7:20am water bag was burst manually, put on drip

* labour pains started at 7:40

* Gas relief from 9am, didn't help at all.

* asked for epidural at 9;30

* doc came at 10 and informed of risks, finished and left at 10:40

* At 1 plus, Sunshine said she was hungry :P asked to empty bladder and started pushing at 1:25.

* 2pm doc came in and put on boots and apron.

* born at 2:10pm 8 jan 2008. 3.175kg, 50.5cm long, head circumference 34cm.