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).