Lite N Easy. Week 1 - Day 1

I am sick of feeling chubby and carrying the last 5kgs from the pregnancy. After going to the gym for a couple of months and still have the 5kgs... more drastic actions were needed. So, I started the Lite N Easy program this week. For those who doesn't know what it is: http://www.liteneasy.com.au/nova/index.html

I know it's quite expensive. But then, I had to buy a new shirt and suit recently due to my larger size (from 6 to 10 now) and that costed me $600. If I could get my waist back and fit into my old clothes again, that would save a lot of money. So I guess it will be worth it.

Day 1:
Breakfast: 2 pieces of Pikelets and Fruit Compote.
The pikelets were nice. Normally I wouldn't go within a mile of something like Fruit Compote. There were sultanas and strange smelling spices... BUT, if I didn't eat it, I'd be missing out on 96 Calories... Every calorie counts, hunger overrides personal dislikes.

Morning Snack: Greek Style Passionfruit Yogurt.
This was surprisingly tasty. I must confess that I ate this with breakfast as I was still SOOO very hungry after the tiny pikelets... Also, I couldn't be bothered brushing my teeth yet again after a morning snack. So I decided, I will eat the snacks with the main meals.

Lunch: Crunchy Vietnamese Salad with Chicken Tenders. Melon Fruits
I really did enjoy the salad very much. Perhaps I was just really hungry and everything tastes better when you are hungry. I even licked the bowl clean of salad dressing... a very sad sight indeed. The melon fruits were nothing special.

Afternoon Snack: Banana and Date muffin
I ate that with lunch. And together, they made me feel quite full. I checked the CalorieKing site and realised I had consumed over 2/3 of my daily calorie allowance... does that mean dinner will be tiny?? The muffin was ok. Like I said, I wouldn't normally touch a banana and date muffin as I liked either banana nor dates... But Beggers can't be choosers... I ate everything down to the crumbs.

I washed it all down with 2 nice hot cups of Nursing Tea to make sure I don't lose too much supply for baby to notice tonight.

It was torturing in the afternoon because we hosted a focus group and there was a huge plate of assorted cakes and sweets... and I couldn't have any... /sighs

Dinner: Steak with creamy mushroom sauce, 6 slices of potato wedges and a bunch of snake beans and carrots
It was delicious!!! I worked late, then had to wash my hair and have a shower right after I got home because I had the great fortune of sitting next to a sick/flu-y person... I wish people would stay home when they don't feel well... some people have babies to care for you know. :( I was so hungry by the time I got to eat. The food was GREAT and once again, I licked the plate... But I did feel full afterwards

I cheated a couple of times today by eating a medium sized peach with breakfast and another with dinner.

What did I learn today?

• To be within the 1200 calories a day, the servings are a lot smaller than I am used to.
• When you have limited food, you really learn to take your time and eat everything on the plate
• I enjoyed eating (well, I always have enjoyed eating) when I finally reach meal time, every time.

Well, I survived day 1 :) Now only 5 weeks and 6 days to go LOL.

Kaitlyn is walking (and I missed it)

Kaitlyn took her first steps last night. She stood completely unaided, then took 4 steps on her own. They were actual steps, one at a time. Unlike what she usually does, half running and tripping over most of the time, when she is not holding onto something. She's a very cautious girl, and still does NOT like having to walk without holding onto at least someone's pinky. Well, I'd say she's walking now. :D I was in the shower, and missed it too. I saw it when we asked her to do it again, and she reluctantly did a few steps for me.

And she's very vocal now. She babbles and "talks" all the time. Like last night, we kept asking her to walk on her own and she got a bit annoyed I think. She "ran" into Brett's arms and babbled for a good 5 minutes. We couldn't understand what she was saying, but from the way she was talking and her expressions, I think she was complaining about her "treatment" of being made to walk. Very cute...

She knows a few of her body parts and would point them out for us. She also points at things when we ask them where they are, such as her photos, birds, books, etc. She learned a new word: Rabbit.

Lessons Learnt, Part V -- Misc. tips

Having kids is an expensive business... unless you are very well off, your finances will be stretched. Here are some stuff I've learned about saving money, a little here and a ltitle there.

• Buy in BULK, especially for the following items
  
  • Nappies, get the 4 to 8kg size, more than you would get Newborn size. The Newborn size won't last you very long. Kaitlyn was in newborns for 2.5 weeks, but wore 4 to 8 till 16 weeks.
    
  • Baby wipes, unless you are using cloths and water to clean your baby's bottoms (good on you if you are), you can NEVER have too many baby wipes
  • Formula can also be bought in bulk. Most pharmacies have cartons of formula (6 or 12 cans). It all adds up
    
• DO read the catelogues from shops, there just MAY be some savings every now and then
  
• Baby clothes:
• if you plan on having more than one kid, buy gender neutral colours, such as white, green and yellow.
  
• Don't buy too many newborn sizes (00000 or 0000) as they grow out of sizes VERY quickly
• Buy onesies (jump suits), we found that Kaitlyn had worse collic/reflux when she wore pants or anything that constricts her tummy when she was little. As she got older, she pulls off her pants all the time and tries to take off her nappy. So buy jump suits, so it will stay on
• Hand-me-downs are great. If you can get old clothes from someone who no longer need them, they are better than new clothes. Baby prefers soft old colthes

• Buy Preen and NappySan OxyAction. It will help to get rid of all sort of stains that you are destined to have for the next 18 years...
• Baby's Toys:
• Colourful is good
• Try to avoid battery operated things. Baby gets bored of blinking lights just as quickly as anything else that doesn't blink. You will save a bundle on replacement batteries
• If you must have battery operated things, buy rechargeable batteries
• The following we NEEDed:
• Walker (we have a sit in one and a pusher). I wish we had them earlier
• Rocking chair (no need for fancy lights and music, baby is as happy in cheap bouncer without any gadgets)
• doll or teddy
• balls

• The following we wish we didn't get:
• A rocker/baby swing. It was only good for getting kaitlyn to do no.2 when she's slightly constipated
• baby mobiles, the stuff that spins and hangs in the cot. We had to remove everything from her cot because she wasn't sleeping
• pram toys. Maybe we are lucky with Kaitlyn, but she doesn't need pram toys to be entertained when we are out
• Everything else that uses lots of batteries...
  

• Household items make great toys, such as:
• cardboards
• boxes
• measuring cups
• junk mail
• old/unused remote controls

• Baby's "educational" stuff (books, dvds etc.)
• Kaitlyn loves her books. So we have quite a number of books.
  
• 0-3 months: we used flash cards. Kaitlyn mainly just stared at them, occassionally played with them
• 3-6 months: we started reading her the same bedtime story (still do). And she prefers cardboard books and clothes books
• 6-12 months: She likes all of her books, cardboard, clothes, flippies, pop-ups, foam. She loves the "peek-a-boo" book, where she could flip out the pages and reveal things underneath. She just started pulling out flash cards and pointing at the pictures and giggles

• We have the entire Baby Eistein Collection and many Chinese DVDs. These are good in small doses. Kaitlyn giggles and laughs a lot with the baby Eistein DVDs

Uniquely Kaitlyn

Here are some things that are uniquely Kaitlyn:

• She had a tongue tie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankyloglossia) at birth, but we had it cut at 6 weeks which made a world of difference to her feeding
  
• She wrinkles her nose. She does this when she smiles. She also does this when she's trying to tell her she's a little displeased about something...she would wrinkle her nose and huff and puff
• Her three finger salute. She points at things with her thumb, index and middle finger.
• She says Dadzy instead of Daddy
• She insists on doing commando crawls even when now she can crawl properly.
  
• She does not like to crawl, and insists on walking
  
• She has a pink birthmark on the back of her neck, right below the hairline
• She has one single mole on her whole body (and luckily not on the tip of her nose LOL), and it's right in the centre of her torso
• She loves her dolly. We have 6 of those dolls, 2 of each colour, and she only like THAT particular doll. I think they all look the same, but somehow, she knows the difference. She carries dolly everywhere she goes and hugs, pats and kisses it
• She loves to read and loves her books
• She's very independent. She can play on her own for a long time, as long as when she occassionally look up, she can see someone familiar close by.
• Her hair is a darkish blonde/very light brown colour and seems to be very light in the morning and darker at night.
  
• Her hair is growing rather slowly... I wonder when we could get little pig-tails...
• She loves to play with other people's hair. She always plays with my hair when I nurse her.
• She doesn't like wearing pants and is an expert with taking her pants off. I always find her pants at the bottom of her sleeping bag in the mornings
• She likes to go for a walk outside of the house after her dinner
• She demands for her bath time at 8pm
• She's ticklish at the inside of her elbows, on her tummy, her shoulders and the soles of her feet.

That's all i can think of right now...

11 Months Measurements (the incredible shrinking baby)

/sighs, Kaitlyn has shrunk again. :(

Weight: 8kg (loss of 100-300gms)
Height: 72.5cm (LOSS 1 to 2cm... HOW ON EARTH do you shrink like this??)
Head: 44.45cm (still tracking well, at 50 percentile for her age)

I don't know what's going on. We Try to feed her as much as she will eat. Because she pushes away the spoon and kicks/bats at the bowl, when she doesn't want it or full, we can't really just stuff food in her mouth anymore. She also doesn't like her bottle anymore, and won't drink formula (will only drink water) out of a sippy cup. We even tried giving her salmon and cow's milk to increase the fat intake... but she's just keep on shrinking!!!

I hope I can get an appointment with the paediatrician next month and find out if there's anything wrong with her. She's never ill or anything though and is generally a happy baby.

Oh, her right top front tooth just broke through yesterday, and we are waiting on the left top front tooth to break through very soon.

She's now a pro in going from laying to sitting or standing now. She just gets on her tummy, sticks her bum in the air and up she goes. :)

Kaitlyn is 11 months old! :)

Kaitlyn is 11 months today and I am not home :( Being a working mum sucks at times.

Anyways, the last month Kaitlyn has been doing quite a few new things:

• She now walks like a pro if she's pushing her walker around and can get into the weirdest spots
• She can stand on her own, but she's very cautious, so whenever she catches herself standing without any support, she grabs a hold of something close by
• She now eats pretty much everything we eat, and no longer likes smooth textures. She prefers things she can chew...I mean gum.
• She says dog, duck, bear, bed, enough, nannan, flower, and melon (some in English, and some in Chinese) on top of her existing vocabulary
• She does patty cake, claps, waves bye bye (at the right time and right context), does "gongxi" (clasping two hands together and move up and down in front of your body), does the chinese version of "itzy bitzy spider", and she opens and closes her hands when you sing 'twinkle twinkle little star".
  
• She picks things up from the floor, using her feet!
• She leans in for cuddles and kisses and will initiate hugs
• She cuddles and kisses her "star bear" doll
• She started to push away the spoon and bat at the bowl whenever she doesn't like the food or has had enough
• She zerbits you (blowing raspberries against a fleshy part of your body) and giggles at the noise
• She understands "One, Two, Three, (be it "kick", "up" etc.)"
• She uses a sippy cup for water.
  
• She can drink with a straw
• She can go from sitting to standing, lying to sitting and lying to standing
• She likes to play with my hair whenever she's nursing and yesterday, she refused to smile at me just because I had my hair up.

Her personality is really starting to show. She's cautious, affectionate, independent, curious, stubborn, has quite a sense of humour, and LOUD.

I will measure and weigh her tonight and put her measurements up tomorrow. :)

Parenthood is not for the squeamish (TMI warning)

Well, after months of being a mum, I thought nothing Kaitlyn does make me go "yuck" anymore... but of course, she managed to surprise me.

Last night, I was feeding her dinner. As usual, she does a No.2 during the feeding (yeah I know, eating and pooping at the same time, how very talented). I thought nothing of it as she does it every night. I waited for her to finish so I could change her before continuing the feeding. THEN... she rubbed her little hands together, and I saw something... brownish green... I looked at the congee I was feeding her to make sure I wasn't feeding her beans... then it hit me... OMG, she's playing with poo!!! I completed freaked out... dropped the bowl of congee and grab a hold of her hands, to make darn sure that she doesn't stick her fingers in her mouth, while yelling for my parents to get me towels to clean her up. Apparently, she had done a No.2 SO BIG, that it blew out of the side of her nappy and she grabbed a handful...

Yes, YUCKY!!!

As I was feeling disgusted and get myself in a tangle trying get her cleaned up and changed from head to toe. Guess what Her Royal Highness did? She laughed!!! I am glad SOMEONE saw the humour in all that mess...

Thus far in my motherhood journey I had been covered in vomit, pee and poo on numerous occassions and I have learned to not be easily disgusted... but this really brings it to a new level. Parenthood is one messy business.