Kaitlyn, 2 Years 4 months

It had been a very strange, exhausting, exciting, challenging month, emotionally and psychologically for everyone... Kaitlyn has had many new experiences and adjusted rather well to all the changes.

She's gotten 3cm taller in the past couple of months. Many of her pants and tops are too short for her now. Her weight is still hovering around 10.5kg due to all the colds and flus she keeps picking up from child care.

She makes up stories and reads books to herself now. She can almost recite "the little red caboose" as daddy reads it to her every night before bed. She does a lot of pretending and acting with her toys. She spent 3 hours giving her dolly "medicine" each day a few weeks ago after her course of antibiotics LOL. All mornings, she would go to a drawer, use a pen (pretend it was a syringe) to "suck up medicine", and give it to dolly. I am sure the poor dolly is quite drugged up for a week. She also puts on different people's clothes and prance around in front of the mirror checking herself out. Max's clothes are too small for her, so she puts them on her head. :D

She claims everything and everyone as "Kaitlyn's". Now we have Kaitlyn's park, Kaitlyn's shopping centre and Kaitlyn's moon, etc. She also wanted to touch the moon the other day.

In the evenings, when she is tired, she gets a little jealous of Max, and would ask me to put Max down and hold her instead and tells Max, "Kaitlyn's mummy". Most of the time though, she is quite sweet with Max. If Max cries, she would ask, "why maxi cry?" "you ok maxi" and start burying him with toys. She would also sit with him or sit in front of him and do baby talk with him to make him laugh.

Kaitlyn had her first taste of gingerbread man a couple of weeks ago and talked about it for a few days afterwards. She loves the gingerbread man, especially his chocolate eyes. She also had her first taste of chocolate milkshake and loved that too. Although it took about 40 minutes convincing to give the milkshake a try.

She now knows about 10 colours very well, and also started to know the days of the week and what she does for each day. She is starting to sing more in tune too.

The other day, she didn't want to go to childare,
she came to me with dolly and said "dolly is crying. Why is dolly crying?".
I asked, "why is dolly crying?"
Kaitlyn: "Kaitlyn going to childcare. dolly crying at home, dolly sad kaitlyn going childcare."

She is still quite addicted to "In the Night Garden". She now knows all the character's names and their introduction songs and will sing and dance along with them.

She played by a pool for the first time too, hopefully she would get over he fear of water in her face by summer so she could learn to swim.

Kaitlyn: 2 years and 3 months

So, it's 1.30am and I cannot sleep because my throat is so sore I can hardly swallow at all.. Here I sit waiting for the pain pills to kick in before I could attempt to sleep again, guess I'd better try to finish this late late update for Kaitlyn.

Height: around 90ish cm
Weight: 10.5kgs (Lost 200gms again... arggh)

We are still getting sick all the time, everyone in the family gets sick one after another and then start all over again. I think it's probably all thanks to childcare and the germs circulating amongst the kids there. I get sick the most out of everyone though, so far I have had fevers, mastitis, sore throats, swollen tongue, bad headaches, and I busted my back lifting Max out of his rocker... I just cannot CANNOT wait for this darn flu/cold season to be over.

Childcare has really helped with her shyness around unfamiliar people. She also talks heaps more in English now. (although now we worry that she doesn't speak Chinese much anymore). She finally started napping sometimes when she goes to Childcare. She had made a couple of friends too.

She talks quiet well and asks questions such as what is that, where are we going, what's wrong, what happened. Whenever Max fusses, she runs up to him, pats him on the head and asks, what's wrong?

She also consistently use "please", "excuse me", "Thank you", "I am sorry" in the right context.

Her little brain is starting to come up with "schemes" to get her way. Such as refusing breakfast on the days she needs to go to Childcare, hoping that by not eating breakfast, she won't have to go.

I think she's getting quite jealous of Max for taking so much of my time and attention, that she has become increasingly clingy to me lately. Whenever she's home, she's always going "mummy, mummy, mummy" in increasing volumes until I get to her. She also regressed when we go out, instead of walking contently on her own for hours, she now will ask me to pick her up and carry her. I am only a little person, I am not made to carry a 10+kg kid around!~!! So yeah, I've been putting her in the stroller when we go out now. I feel bad that she doesn't get to walk as much but I just cannot carry her for more than 5 minutes at a time.

She continues to enact things she does/sees. She would go through her entire bed time routine with her doll. 1. putting the doll in the bath. 2. arranging a "towel" the same way daddy does on his shoulder before getting the doll to "say" "1-2-3", then picks it up. 3. put lotion on the doll and put nappy on. 4. put the doll in "position" (i.e. having a pillow proping it up on her lap), and feeds her "milk". 5. reads to the doll. 6. puts doll to bed and sings "if you are happy and you know it". 7. walks away and says "good night". Never misses any minute detail!! And the other day, she lined up all of her stuff toys and dolls on the floor, each having a piece of paper as "bed", each sleeping on the tummy! Apparently that's what they do in Childcare, making rows of temporary beds and have the kids all sleep lined up. She refused to put them away before she goes to nap, because they were her friends and they were sleeping too!

She loves to draw and write. She can write "W" and "K", her favourite letters for the month. She also draws pictures of circles, lines, traces her hands, dots etc. and then tells us a story of what she is drawing.

She can tell some of her colours "red", "pink", "green", and "orange". and some shapes, "circle", "square" and "triangle".

She totally knows how to dress herself now, clothes, pants, socks and shoes, although sometimes she puts the shoes in the wrong foot still. She has become very particular on what she wants to wear each day. I try to get really plain stuff for the inside layers, otherwise, she refuses to another layer on even if she is still cold. I also have to put stockings inside her pants because she loves to take off her socks!

Her half yearly report from childcare is coming up, I am looking forward to seeing her porfolio. I had been flipping through the class "date book", there are some really gorgeous picture of her mixing with the kids and doing activities.

Oh and her first ever "school" pictures will be taken next Tuesday! I hope it wouldn't be a screaming pic...

Max: 4 Months update

Our little chubby bubba turned 4 months old on the 30th April, but we were away for a while, so this update is late! It's strange how the first time the first 7 months felt like an eternity, and the second time these first 4 months just flew by.

Height: not sure, he is too wiggly to measure
Weight: 6.7kg

He is now doing the following:

• constantly rolling from side to side
• occasionally rolled from tummy to back and a couple of times from back to tummy
• sucks hands ALL the time, now that he has found both of his hands, he attempts to stick both hands into the mouth at the same time and make very loud sucking noises
• laughs out loud a lot and smiling whenever anyone is paying him attention, such a happy baby.
• when on the tummy, lifts his head and chest 90 degrees to the floor
• able to sit with minimum back support
• loves to stand with a little support
• has a stable routine, eating every 2 to 4 hours during the day, and every 4 to 6 hours at night
• twiddles both hands together and "counts" his fingers
• kicks and bats at toys
• getting louder and louder and makes many different sounds
• his head doesn't wobble at all when sitting or standing, and his head doesn't fall backwards when we pull him up to sitting
• able to hold and shake rattles
• recognises and follows my voice and footsteps around the room
• gets very cranky if left lying flat for too long, he likes to be able to see what's going on in the rooms.
• Blows raspberries and dribbles a lot
• Smacks his lips to make loud smacking noise
• squeals

The 2 kids finally syncronised their midday nap, so I get a couple of hours to myself each day, it is wonderful to get some housework done or just to take a bit of a rest.

He runs very warm! We were down in Albury for a week last week. I had to wear 3 layers of clothes, and had 4 layers of blankets/doonas at night. He only wore a short sleeve onesie and a long sleeve onesie, wrapped, and covered with a single bedsheet, and he still got sweaty sometimes! He hates his little feet getting too warm.

Our routines are getting much better now and it no longer feels like a struggle with the 2 kids. :)

We traveled to Albury to visit the grandparents, and Max traveled very well on the long car ride, rarely cried at all. The trip back to Sydney, he just slept through it all, waking to eat whenever we stopped to rest. He also slept pretty well and stuck with his routine more or less while we were there. It was a great trip. :)

We can no longer leave him in his pram, change table, or rocker without strapping him in properly. When we went to dinner last week, he actually wiggled his way out of the pram and landed on the floor!! He was fully wrapped too... Such a little Houdini.

Kaitlyn, 2 year 2 months update

Weight: 10.4kgs
Height: 87cm

This month passed a lot slower than usual, mainly because everyone in the household has been sick on and off. I was sick with flu and mastitis for over a week. Kaitlyn had the runny nose for a few weeks but didn't seem to bother her, until last week, she woke up one morning after childcare day with a fever. Then for 3 days, she refuses to eat or drink anything. Also, it was quite a task to get any meds into her. Poor girl must had very sore throat and couldn't swollow anything. The doc gave her antibiotics saying that she had secondary infection in the throat and chest while still getting over a cold/flu. The one "good" thing about her being sick though, is that she became very cuddly. It was nice to just sit around and cuddle up to my little girl. Usually, she's always running around all over the house and wouldn't sit still.

She had the swine flu vaccindation a couple of weeks before she got the cold, and she didn't have any reactions at all. She was very brave at the doctors and only cried for a few seconds each time (there were 2 shots).

She also had her 2 years check up at the peadiatrician's. She's growing very well, ahead on most development milestones. She is on 50% on height and head circumference, but only 3% on weight. Doc still thinks she's ok being so skinny, so I try not to worry too much. She still walks on tip toes a lot, so the doc asks us to put shoes on her most of the time and correct her whenever we see her walk on tip toes. He checked her over and said he didn't see any neurological or physical reasons for her to be walking on tip toes all the time, so it's probably just habit for her. If she continues to walk this way in 6 months, we need to go back for another check. Otherwise, the next Peadiatrician checkup will be at 4 years old, before she starts school.

She is adjusting very well at childcare now. She is eager to go every Monday and Tuesday and last week, she didn't even cry when we left. She was sick this Monday and Tuesday but she asked us to take her to childcare to play and we had to try to explain that she is sick and can't go. She looked disappointed. She has made a little friend there too.

We can now have simple conversations with her! I think it's rather cool to find out all the wonderful, funny, silly things that little mind of her is thinking.

She loves to sing and dance, and loves to do the hand/feet actions when we sing nursery rhymes. Although, sometimes it gets a little annoying for me when she insists that we sing "I am a little tea pot" or "incy wincy spider" for the m'th time...

What else... mmm... can't think of anything much at this particular moment (too early in the morning LOL). Will post another time when things come to mind.

Kaitlyn 2 year 1 Month

Another month has passed. I am late in writing this update as I am rather exhausted due to a roller coaster of a week. A few major things happened in our family in the last month...

Anyways, onto Kaitlyn:

Now that Max's feeding problem has been corrected, I get to spend more time with Kaitlyn. Also, some unpleasant happenings in the household lead to my mother not talking to us for a couple of weeks, and I really enjoyed those couple of weeks as I took full time care of both kids and I now feel a lot more confident about my abilities as a mother. It works wonders when you are not constantly being criticised and second guessed.

I am amazed how much Kaitlyn has grown and how well she speaks and expresses herself.

I took her out and played with bubbles a couple of weeks ago, and she had so much fun just watching the bubbles fly around and chasing them. To her, it was pure wonder. She kept asking for more bubbles. :)

We go to the playground almost every morning, when Max goes down for his first nap. It's a pleasant short walk for both of us. She is a pro now on all the equipment in that playground. She is usually such a cautious little girl, but when she is there, she has absolutely no fear. She climbs on everything, goes up and down the slide in all sort of ways, asks me to push her really high on the swings. It is nice to get out of the house each day, we both get some exercise and tiring her out means she would eat better and nap a bit better.

I finally stopped her from grazing all day. She now has 3 proper meals and 2 snacks in between, plus a bottle of milk before bed. It is much better now that she is no longer constantly snacking on junk, such bad habits. She feeds herself most meals too and will sit on her chair until she finishes her meal. She even started gaining a little bit of weight!

Of course the most major thing is that she started childcare! She had 2 half days last week and did 2 full days this week. She will be going 2 full days each week from now on. She is adjusting pretty well. Each day, she cries a little when I said bye bye but generally stops quick enough. She has a bit of a fit at nap time, so we gave her a pillow to take with her, and the teachers said that she stopped crying when she got the pillow. Although she cried again when they took it away after nap time. The rest of the time, she is very quiet and well behaved. She is still not talking yet at Childcare. That will probably take a few weeks. She is eating though, which is great. She is already getting a bit of a tan LOL

She is still wonderful with Max. Although she is a bit bossy. LOL She is constantly telling Max off for sucking his fists. She helps me to take care of Max. She comes to get me if I didn't hear Max cry. Even when she is napping, she would call out, brother is crying, brother don't cry. It is so cute...

The last week she has been obsessed with counting. She is constantly counting 1 to 10 in English and Mandarin. She sometimes forgets the number 6 in English...

I finally caught her singing ABC on a video! I shall upload that one of these days. I also finished sorting the photos that are on our computer. Now just have to do the thousands that are on my parents computer... LOL The curse of digital cameras.

Max 3 Months Update

Our little man is growing like a weed. :D He is already way over half of his sister's weight! He is now 6kg and Kaitlyn still hovering at 10kg. He has these adorable chubby rolls, double chin and a very round tummy. He can sit with support now and looks like a little buddha. I just love chubby bubba...

He had his 2 months shots and amazingly did not get sick at all. He didn't even get more cranky than usual. It was still terrible to watch him getting jabbed twice and forced to take meds though. Next one is at 4 months I think...

He rolled both ways now, tummy to back and back to tummy, although he would only do the full rolls when he is very mad/frustrated. He is constantly rolling to his sides though.

He has very good neck control now and can lift his head up for quite some time.

He does this silly thing while feeding... He would look up at me, stare at me for a while, and if I make faces at him, he giggles and laughs out loud, and sometimes make faces back at me. I try not to do that too often though because he forgets he is eating and chokes and coughs sometimes when he laughs too hard. But it's so very cute and such great bonding moments.

He makes lots of cooing and sounds and is getting louder everyday. He does the same thing as Kaitlyn when he yawns, making a very cute long yawn sound. He also started to imitate some simple sounds that we make.

He loves to be tickled, also loves to have his head rubbed. These always make him smile wide or laugh out loud.

He now follows faces and objects and grabs things. He recognises my voice and foot steps and would always look around for me if someone else is holding him.

He finally starting to have a pretty stable schedules. His last feed is between 6:30 and 8pm, after that feed, he baths and goes to bed for the day. He would wake for a feed between midnight and 2, then back to bed till between 5 and 7. Sometimes he would nap a bit after that, sometimes just lie there entertaining himself for a bit. He would wake for the day between 8:30am and 10:am. Then feeds from there every 3 to 4 hours. He gets 6 to 7 feeds a day, awake for 1 to 1.5 hours and naps for 1.5 to 2.5 hours between each feed.

He loves Kaitlyn I think. He always smiles and coos when she talks to him and plays with him. He lets her move his arms, legs and rubs his tummy and head. She points at his face and names all the facial features, and he just giggles.

I just LOVE the toothless baby grin and the loud baby laughs... can't get enough of them.

Max is 2 months old ! :)

Max is 2 months. :)

He seems to grow a lot faster than Kaitlyn, actually probably because I just don't have the time to pay a lot of attention to every single details and day.

He is now 4.8ish kg and about 55cm long and is getting chubby rolls on his arms and legs.

We've finally figured out all the feeding issues. He now eats every 3 to 5 hours and each feeding takes around 40 minutes, which is a vast improvement.

He is alert when awake now and a lot more interactive. He is such an easy going smiley baby, I feel very lucky.

He and Kaitlyn are getting along great too. Yesterday, Kaitlyn gave him a high five, and he was all smiles. :)

He has these amazing grey/green eyes whereas Kaitlyn has warm melted dark chocolate coloured ones. I just love my kids' eyes...

He started to make noises, grumbles, yawns, gagas.

He appears to have found his hands. He bats at toys, plays with his hand with his other hand, and always tries to stick his fist in the mouth. :D

I love the moments when he finished feeding and places his head on my shoulder when I burped him. He has this completely drunk, content look on his face, just so adorable. He looks just like Kaitlyn when he does that. :)

Happy 2nd Birthday Kaitlyn!

This morning as I woke up, I looked at the clock and saw 6:30am, and thought, hey, 2 year ago this day, this time, I was being wheeled into the Operating Theatre, about to become a mother for the first time...

It's incredible, that my baby girl is TWO years old today. We shall now stop counting her age in months, and start counting in YEARS!

Being a mother is difficult, for me anyways. But everyday, I am grateful that I have my children. They never cease to amaze me each day, with their little personalities, and little/big achievements/developments. It makes everything all better when Kaitlyn runs up to me and hugs me, and when Max stares at me with those deep thoughtful looking grey eyes.

With Kaitlyn, it really was love at first sight. I remember the first night at the hospital as I held her in my arms, the world melted away and nothing else appeared to matter anymore, and at that moment, I thought, now, THIS IS CONTENTMENT. That moment, just she and I, and that moment, even though I knew that there will be many challenges ahead, I knew what love really was. I knew that this love will only get stronger with time, no matter what happens.

I remember the first time she smiled at me... it was in the middle of the night... she had been fussing all night. Then out of the blue, she smiled, looking right AT me, smiled. It was one of those "awww" moments...

The first time she rolled, I missed it, and she rolled off the chair and we rushed to ER as I feared possible head injuries... LOL ah, first time mothers...

I am not sure what her first word was, all I know was, all of a sudden, she was talking. Not just the baby babble, but she was saying actual WORDS and quite a number of them, around 10 or 11 months.

She never learned to crawl, and went straight to walking. The first time she took 3 steps on her own, everyone was so very excited, she got scared by all the cheering and clapping.

Ah, memory lane...

Now, she just started to say "why not?" and says all the time when we tell her to not do something or not go somewhere. She has quite a temper, well, she probably got that from me... Yesterday morning, I was feeding her breakfast, and she wanted something else, and I wouldn't give it to her. She threw a tantrum and cried. I told her, you can keep crying, but mummy is not going to give you . She gave me a death stare, and turned her face away stubbornly and wouldn't look at me. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I clearly remember myself doing that exact same thing for years. LOL ah, I knew karma would get to me... if karma has its way, the teenage years will surely be h3ll for us...

She talks a lot, serious, this girl talks too much... It's funny to listen to her talk to herself when she's put to bed. She says everything she thinks, out loud, sometimes for hours, literally. Random thoughts being babbled out. One minute she's telling her pillow bear to sleep, next she's talking about grandpa taking her to play on the slides... I should tape it one day and keep it for her 21st birthday... She has an amazing imagination, she makes up songs, tells herself stories and does lots of pretending plays with her stuff toys and her doll.

She sings ABC, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and bits of Old McDonald has a Farm, as well as quite a number of Chinese rhymes. She doesn't carry tune very well though, but still cute when she does it.

She's a good helper with Max. She helps out when we change his nappy by bringing the supplies and she keeps him entertained when I bring him downstairs.

Her toilet training had stopped. :( She sees Max being changed, she also wants to be changed. She will take her doll to the toilet and go through the whole routine, but she wouldn't go to the toilet herself. It's frustrating. I guess we will have 2 kids in nappies for a while...

We didn't do much for her birthday this year. We went to yum cha, just the family. We will give Kaitlyn the birthday toys gradually over the next month or so. I need to clear out some of her old toys first. Our living room is becoming way too cluttered with her mountains of toys...

So, people say that the height a kid is at 2 years old will be half the height she will be as an adult? Well, Kaitlyni s roughly 85cm tonight, does that mean she will be 170cm fully grown? That's not bad, considering I am only so very tiny. Hopefully the other side of the gene pool wins out here...

We got her some tiny cupcakes, and she chose a pink one. She likes pink. :) We put 2 candles on it and asked her to blow it, but she got a bit too close to the flame and got scared, and then wouldn't go anywhere near the candles, so I had to help her blow it out. She did enjoy her cake though :)

Anyways, happy birthday my precious baby girl. Mummy loves you very much.

Quite a fright

My parents just walked out with Kaitlyn to drive to an early Chinese New Year dinner with my aunt and her family. 5 minutes after they walked, around the time they would be driving out of the complex, I heard a VERY Loud BAM, something/someone had crashed, and crashed HARD!

I ran straight out, all I could think about was, please please please, not my dad's car...

Dad's car was about out of the driveway, and it was NOT my dad's car, thank goodness. My heart could finally stop trying race out of my mouth.

What happened was:

A car turned down Park Road way way too fast, lost control, crashed into the corner of our wall, lost its front bumper, swirled hard, accelerated while turning hard right, cut acrossed the busy intersection, across 4 lanes, and crashed hard, finally stopping on the other side of the road, into another house's wall.

So, the car took out the corner of our wall, loads of plants, 3 road signs along the way, and the wall at the house across the road.

The ambulance finally turned up now, 10 minutes later. Apparently the driver is fine, just in shock.

All it all, it had been very lucky:

* This is a very busy intersection, but there is only ONE car involved in the accident, no other car or pedestrians got hurt
* It was literally seconds before my dad's car drove out of the complex and right into the path of the crashing car! Seconds, making the difference between life and death, for half of my family! I am grateful, grateful for my mother's obsessiveness. She asked me to lock the front door, then, she came back to check that I had indeed locked the door. Those seconds, made a world of difference!

I think I had lost my appetite...

I am going to give Kaitlyn a HUGE hug when she gets home...

This is like the movie "Sliding Doors"... seconds, life could've been very different...

I am grateful, I still have my whole family, safe and well.

Terrible Twos + 6 week growth spurt = Exhausted Parents

It hasn't been a great week in our household and I am pretty much like a walking dead right now. I've had less than 4 hours sleep each 24 hour period for over a week, and even those 4 hours are broken up into 30 minutes to 1 hour chunks... My back is sore, my head aches, and my hip is playing up again...

First of all, our Little Miss finally caught on that new baby means mummy won't be able to pay her as much attention. So, she's become extremely clingy whenever I am downstairs, and sometimes gets very upset when I have to go up to feed Max. She is still very loving to Max when she sees him though, guess she just doesn't want me to leave her. She squeals and screams (in words and sentences) when my parents, especially my dad, are around. My parents raise their voice as well to try to be louder than her to "be heard" by her. LOL/sighs. I kept telling them, kids model our behaviour, screaming matches are just not the answer. It's quite effective most of the time if she screams, I actually whisper by her ear, and she would actually lower her voice. But then, hey, my parents never ever listen to a word I say about how to raise MY children anyways. :( So the screaming matches continue. All the loud noises are giving my migrains and keeps Max awake when he tries to drift off to sleep. :(

Our Little Prince is hitting his 6 week growth spurt and demanding to feed around the clock. Usually it's probably fine to feed every hour or 2, IF the kid eats fast... But Max takes about an hour to hour and half to complete each feed... so eating every hour pretty much means he's ALWAYS on the boob!! It's been like that for 2 days now... I am seriously considering using a sling and just permanently attaching him to my breasts.

Some days I wonder what it'd be like if the 2 kids were spaced further apart. Maybe I would've been able to spend more time and attention on each kid? But then, neither of the kids were planned. Oh we planned... but the kids just had other plans...

Days like these, I just have to keep telling myself "the nights are long but the weeks are short", and "this too shall pass". I am just grateful that I have the kids, and they are healthy...

Max is one month old today!

Drowsily one month had passed. LOL

Max is doing great. He is gaining almost 200gms a week and starting to get chubby rolls and double chins. Last weighed, he was almost 3.74kgs. We will get full measurements at his 6 week check up.

We put him on his tummy after each nap, he rolls from tummy to back consistently. He lifts his head and moves it from side to side very well.

He just looks so very serious with the huge eyes and wrinkled brows, always makes me laugh. He looks like a little old man. He makes a few more different noises now and his cries are even louder (I didn't think that could be possible).

He smiles often.

I just can't get over how much hair he has. His hair is a natural mohawk up top. It just doesn't behave regardless how much we try to brush or comb it down. He has a perfectly circular hair whorl. His hair is very fine and soft, sort of feels like down feather. It's a dark chestnut colour with blond-ish roots.

It looks like he may have a dimple, but only on the left cheek.

His eyes are black with blue mixed in, and they are quite large. It looks like he will have long pretty eye lashes too. His eyebrows are very neat.

I can't find any birth marks on this little man.

He appears to have my nose and mouth, just like Kaitlyn. His mouth is bigger than Kaitlyn though. Max also has skin tone closer to mine whereas Kaitlyn is quite fair skinned.

I think I have lucked out on both kids, as neither of them got my crooked toes and mole on the nose LOL. They will probably both need glasses and have their teeth straighted. But no biggie really.

I am finally starting to feel more human now that my tummy and scar are not constantly hurting anymore. I still tire easily but then, it could just be that I don't get enough sleep... So far we've survived the 2 week and 3 week growth spurts. I am glad that after the 6 week growth spurt, we get a little bit of a break till the 3 month one hits. Growth spurts are nasty, especially when the baby decides to feed non stop...

Brett will be going back to work in a week. It was good to have him home to help out, especially in the first few weeks when I was "less than mobile".

So tired (whine fest)

You know how sometimes you see these women that have a clan of children and are saying how easy everything is and how being a mother is just so natural to them?

well, I ain't one of those women. Don't get my wrong, I wanted 2 kids, and I feel blessed every single day to have my 2 beautiful children and I love them to pieces. I just get so frustrated that my body is just not doing tasks that are supposedly easy and natural!

My body is definitely NOT made for pregnancy and birth. Neither of my kids ever dropped or engaged, so even if I didn't choose to have c-sections, they most likely wouldn't have come on their own anyways without surgical assistance. As they were, the obstetrician had to literally put his foot on the table to pull my babies out.

Breastfeeding, geez, you'd think with D cup boobs feeding a tiny baby would've been a piece of cake eh? Well, apparently not. The first kid had a bad tongue tie, so feeding her was a constant battle. She never latched on properly until we got her tongue tie released at 6 weeks. So, I was attached to the breast pump to try my hardest to get enough milk to feed her. Even with a bottle, she wasn't drinking properly. Even after the tongue tie was clipped, she's gotten into bad routines of feeding every 1.5 hours all day long! That lead to her not sleeping enough and not settling herself to sleep... That went on for another 7 months. It wasn't till I landed in hospital that my GP took me serious enough to give me a referral to go to Tresillian for help... Anyways, it was almost a miracle that I was able to breastfeed her for 14 months.

The second kid is a lazy sleepy eater, feeding him means constantly attaching him, then detaching him in a few minutes, try to wake him up, then re-attaching, rinse and repeat for 1 hour to 1.5 hours! Then, still having to express to keep the supply up as Max just "couldn't be bothered" to finish the job.

It's like deja vu, even with his 3 hourly feeding schedule, I still end up with no more than an hour between feeds, day or night...

To add salt to injury, there are all these women complaining about engorgement and having too much milk and not knowing what to do with it? Why couldn't my body do the same!

I am so tired. :( I am so annoyed with my body not doing what SHOULD come naturally! Argggh!

I swear this mothering thing is harder than doing a Master Degree and sitting the Mensa Test... and I have done both...

stats, Kaitlyn 23 months, Max 3 weeks

Kaitlyn, 23 months:

• Height: 85cm (I am so glad that she will definitely be much taller than me...)
  
• Weight: 9.9kg (yes, we are under 10kg again, she's currently refusing to eat meat and vegies.../sighs)
  

Max, 3 weeks:

• Height: 52.5cm (up 2.5cm from birth)
  
• Weight: 3.475kg (up about 90gms from birth, he lost 12.9% of his birth weight when we were discharged from hospital, so we've gained pretty ok since then)

Max's first roll, and Kaitlyn's little ouchie

Max rolled from his back to his tummy today!

Also, his head control is quite good too as he could lift his head while on his tummy and turn it side to side :)

Kaitlyn had a little ouchie today. She was following my dad around the house and dad went into the garage not knowing she's right behind him and her foot got trapped by the garage door. It's bruised and had a small cut. She's been a bit whiney since, and refused to get on her feet. Although, she did stomp her feet a few times when she threw a tantrum, so we know that there's no SERIOUS damage to the foot...

Max's first social smile and a bit of an update

Max smiled today. Real social smile too, not just a grin when he's dozing off.

I was poking my tongue out at him for about 20 seconds, and he smiled at me LOL. I did it again and he smiled again! He then smiled after peeing on my mother. :P LOL Cheeky little guy.

He's gaining weight pretty well, although I am exhausted from the round the clock feeding and pumping. Sometimes I wonder how on earth I lasted so long last time with Kaitlyn and didn't give up on breastfeeding. I had been so tempted to give up numerous tgimes already this time... I will try to stick it out for 6 weeks, hopefully it will get easier.

Max has been a very good baby so far, as long as he gets enough to eat, he's a very easy going and happy baby and can settle himself to sleep quite well. I feel very blessed. Sometimes I am tempted to hold him till he falls completely asleep but then I had to resist because I don't want to repeat all the mistakes I made with Kaitlyn and cause sleeping/settling issues for Max.

I still haven't had the chance to write his birth story yet as I am still sore and very tired. I will try to do that soon.

Max finally has a Chinese middle name, Yiyang, meaning vast ocean. Now we can finally register his birth.

Kaitlyn 23 months update

Kaitlyn had an explosion of in speech in the last month. She uses conjunctions and makes complex sentences now, such as "I want to eat stirred fried noodles because it smells nice and it's smooth"; and things like "Grandpa's surname is Guan, mum's surname is also Guan." Her Mandarin is still quite a bit better than her English. Guess we have to speak to her a bit more in English to prep her for childcare later this year. She answers simple questions correctly such as "how old are you?", "what is your name?" "what is your surname", "where is ?" etc. She started asking "why" last week. oh the fun begins now...

We are trying to also introduce Cantonese to her. She understands much of it but she doesn't speak it much just yet because we speaks mainly Mandarin and English to her but speaks Cantonese with each other.

She is learning to read and recognises the Chinese Characters in her own name and can spell half of her English name.

She loves to draw and write. Unfortunately our furniture, floor boards and electrical appliances had all fallen victims to her pens and crayons. She coloured in our fridge orange last week!

The Terrible Twos are kicking in more and more. She squeals and barks when she's not getting her way. Very annoying sounds... /sighs. Although, most of the time, she's still very independent and well behaved. Sometime I think she's too independent, because my mother just sits her down to play on her own for hours at a time instead of interacting with her more, which annoys me. I wish I feel a lot better so I could actually play with her more very soon.

She threw her biggest/longest tantrum to date last night... She decided she did not want to eat dinner, instead she wants to go to the playground and play with swings and slides. So she whine and screamed and cried or a WHOLE HOUR. I think my head is STILL ringing from all that noise. Anyways, she did not get to go to the playground. After screaming for over an hour, she finally ate her dinner. ah the joy of terrible twos...

She's back under 10kgs again and her appetite is still very good. Maybe it's just fast metabolism? I shall ask the pediatrician at our next appointment in February.

She has a great imagination. She does pretend tea parties with her dolls and stuffed animals. She projects how she feels/wants onto her toys sometimes. Like she told us last night that her dog wants to go to play on the slides, when we ignored her repeated request to go to the playground. LOL

She does 10 nursery rhymes/songs now and loves to sing and dance. She sings herself to sleep most nights.

Where did my baby go?

I've always thought Kaitlyn is this tiny skinny little girl as she is still under 10kgs (lost 200gms the last 2 weeks). Then yesterday morning, she woke up hysterical, screaming her head off. So I had to go in and cuddled her for a while. As I cuddled her, I was like wow, she's BIG. After handling a newborn for a couple of weeks, I realised how big and grown up my baby girl really IS. She's definitely not a "baby" anymore, but more of a child!

It seemed like only yesterday we brought her home from hospital and only last week that we were having countless sleepless nights trying to get her to eat and sleep properly. Then, all of a sudden, she's so grown up! She's now more than half of my height and is able to have proper conversations with us, and is eating everything we eat!

Time goes by way too fast, and when you have kids, you see such tangible evidence of it going by, every single day, in your growing child(ren). Just where did my precious little baby girl go?! I cuddled her for as long as I could yesterday morning, before Max woke up for another feed. I am too afraid that the next time I get to hug her, I'd be sending her off to school, or university.

Kaitlyn's FIRST success at toilet training!

Kaitlyn successfully did a #2 at the big people toilet today!!! She's been telling us when she wants to use the toilet and has been gradually getting better at sitting on the loo, but this is the first time she managed to do SOMETHING while on there.

The whole house applauded :D :D :D Yep, so proud, over poop LOL.

My 2 babies

So... do siblings look alike? (Kaitlyn/Max)

• Asleep on the Boppy Pillow:

• Hours old

• Stretching

Kaitlyn, the big sister

I am pleasantly surprised so far about how well Kaitlyn is adjusting to the new baby. She loves to see the baby, whenever she sees him, she cuddles and kisses him and gives him her toys. She even shared her rabbit and pillows (her favourites). She's completely fascinated with Max's full head of hair and loves to touch it, saying "hair, brother's hair". She would then point out all of his body parts, "eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hand, shake hands, foot, toes, legs". She's adorable really. Max just peacefully sleeps through all the hugging, poking and grabbing. This boy sure can sleep, it's waking him up (even for feeding) that has been a challenge...

Kaitlyn hasn't been bothered much at night from Max's crying, and hasn't woken up cranky yet. It helps that Max is not a screamer like Kaitlyn was as a newborn. When Kaitlyn cried, she was LOUD and doesn't even stop to take breath. Max cries loud too but at least he stops frequently to give the adults a chance to respond... LOL

I hope she continues to be nice and happy about having a baby brother. I feel guilty at the moment not being able to spend much time with her as I am having a difficult time recovering from the birth with much pain and we have stairs in the house, which is not exactly great for me right now. I spend most of my time upstairs.

I do try to spend some time each day with Kaitlyn and Kaitlyn is very clingy when I am around. She runs up to me, hugs and kisses me and tells me she misses me. Such awww moments. She doesn't quite understand that the baby is now been BORN. She still sometimes lift up my shirt and hugs, pats and kisses my tummy and says "hi baby". That always makes me a little sad that I am no longer pregnant (especially when this is most likely my last baby).