Tuckshop Day (Rehearsal)

In conjunction with Tuckshop Day, Papa has opened a temporary shop to let Sophie practice buying with coins. We take a lot of things for granted, we realised. Without addition and subtraction or understanding of numbers in their tens and hundreds, money is a difficult concept to grasp. Thus, Sophie has to make do with whatever undertanding she has got about numbers. Anyhow, she was relentless during her tuckshop day activity, according to her teachers in school. She apparently "bought" 2 cups of corn and several pieces of fish cakes from the stalls and gobbled everything up. Of course the teachers returned her money ($2) but I guess it must have been a good experience for her.

Wind In The Tummy

I used to carry Sophie like this every night so that she could sleep better. She had cow's milk allergy then so her tummy was always bloated and painful. Just when I thought things would be better with Alfee, he began to show signs of tummy discomfort as well. He squirms and strains every now and then until he manages to poo. He gulps milk down entirely too fast so he needs to be bulped for a long time. Also Sophie loved her bath time when she was a baby but Alfee hates water. He screams like crazy the moment I remove his clothes and his cries become the silent type once his body touches water. Somehow, changing his diaper is a huge challenge as well. He simply hates to have his body exposed I think. I like to think I am quite thorough in cleaning and maintaining good hygenie for the children. Thus I find it very disturbing when Alfee refuses to cooperate at the changing table.

Tuckshop Day (Rehearsal)

In conjunction with Tuckshop Day, Papa has opened a temporary shop to let Sophie practice buying with coins. We take a lot of things for granted, we realised. Without addition and subtraction or understanding of numbers in their tens and hundreds, money is a difficult concept to grasp. Thus, Sophie has to make do with whatever undertanding she has got about numbers. Anyhow, she was relentless during her tuckshop day activity, according to her teachers in school. She apparently "bought" 2 cups of corn and several pieces of fish cakes from the stalls and gobbled everything up. Of course the teachers returned her money ($2) but I guess it must have been a good experience for her.

Sisterhood

We are still having a challenging time adjusting to Alfee and Sophie's response to the little newcomer into our family. I suppose Sophie has been THE ONLY "baby" to us for the longest time so now both her territory and status are challenged by a tiny, helpless and noisy newborn. He has yet proven his worth (not much of a playmate or companion to her) and Papa & Mama seem to give entirely too much attention to him. And whenever she tried to get "close" and "personal" to him, Papa & Mama would quickly stop her (from squeezing his head or screaming in his ear for example).

Sophie is definitely trying hard to regain her power in our family. She would never allow herself to be excluded in any way. If you look hard enough, you can see her head on the right side of the picture (attempting to force her way into Papa's arms and Mama's line of camera vision.

In the end, we did take a nice picture of Papa and the kids. Of course, Sophie is naturally between Papa and Alfee (firming restrained by Papa's embrace). Meet the Loy members!

Sophie : " Why is Alfee wearing your shirt?" (to Papa)

Papa : " .... "

Mama : "... because Papa has no fashion sense?" (opps... my thoughts were too loud!)

Sisterhood

We are still having a challenging time adjusting to Alfee and Sophie's response to the little newcomer into our family. I suppose Sophie has been THE ONLY "baby" to us for the longest time so now both her territory and status are challenged by a tiny, helpless and noisy newborn. He has yet proven his worth (not much of a playmate or companion to her) and Papa & Mama seem to give entirely too much attention to him. And whenever she tried to get "close" and "personal" to him, Papa & Mama would quickly stop her (from squeezing his head or screaming in his ear for example).

Sophie is definitely trying hard to regain her power in our family. She would never allow herself to be excluded in any way. If you look hard enough, you can see her head on the right side of the picture (attempting to force her way into Papa's arms and Mama's line of camera vision.

In the end, we did take a nice picture of Papa and the kids. Of course, Sophie is naturally between Papa and Alfee (firming restrained by Papa's embrace). Meet the Loy members!

Sophie : " Why is Alfee wearing your shirt?" (to Papa)

Papa : " .... "

Mama : "... because Papa has no fashion sense?" (opps... my thoughts were too loud!)

First PD Appt

We took Alfee for his first check up at TMC today. His doctor is Dr Ang Ai Ting. When the staff called his name, both Papa and I took a second too long to respond. We were expecting "Sophie" to be called, not "Alfee". We are still adjusting to our little tiger cub. The wait was around an hour so I ended up breastfeeding him in the clinic. I felt quite awkward with so many people walking around us but I bit the bullet and continued. I am still not confident as a breastfeeding mum yet this particular necessity has made me felt like a pro. Occasionally, I would give warning glares to passers-by so that they would not even think of staring at me (or my breasts). 

Anyhow, we are so glad Alfee's jaundice has almost gone down to nothing. We did not really sun him according to their advice because I found it too distressing to strip a newborn and leave him crying for 30 minutes. Instead, we put him in a comfortable position in his cot bed near the window. Fortunately, it worked. And that was when we discovered Alfee's initial talent - boxing!

So apart from jaundice, we were very worried about his poo-poo. He had not poo-ed for 3 days after a major one on Tuesday 3.30 pm. The standard for newborns is 3 poo a day. Yet his urine has been plentiful and clear. Luckily, he gave a enornmous puddle of liquid poo at 8.40 am this morning so the PD was glad it came out of his system. Alfee has also put on 300g since he was discharged on Sunday. His currently weight is 3.04 kg. Hooray! It means I have enough milk for him (for now) and he is growing!!! How amazing! This little fellow is slowly filling up although I still cannot see it. However, he also has some serious erythema toxicum (ET) and neonatal acne which makes him look quite ugly (objectively). To me, he still looks as sweet as ever...

Elephant

Sophie's home learning has came to a complete halt the moment Alfee popped. Fortunately, we could still rely on schooling for now. She came home with an elephant mask she made in school. She could name the tusks and trunk when I asked her. Amazing to me since I did not know trunk and tusks until I was more older. Lately, she was also able to identify the chinese characters "da4" and "xiao3" (big and small). She kept pointing them out to me in her books. A big accomplishment, considering how she used to understand and say nothing in Mandarin. I wish I could continue with teaching her but at the moment, I doubt it is possible. Not with Alfee still so young and Sophie still so emotionally unstable.

Elephant

Sophie's home learning has came to a complete halt the moment Alfee popped. Fortunately, we could still rely on schooling for now. She came home with an elephant mask she made in school. She could name the tusks and trunk when I asked her. Amazing to me since I did not know trunk and tusks until I was more older. Lately, she was also able to identify the chinese characters "da4" and "xiao3" (big and small). She kept pointing them out to me in her books. A big accomplishment, considering how she used to understand and say nothing in Mandarin. I wish I could continue with teaching her but at the moment, I doubt it is possible. Not with Alfee still so young and Sophie still so emotionally unstable.

Sophie's Baby Brother - Alfee

Inevitably and naturally, we compared Alfee to Sophie when she was a tiny bundle. I must admit they did not really look alike initially. However, I am seeing more and more "Sophie" in him each day. The resemblence kind of ends there.

In terms of temperament, Alfee is quite different from his sister. He seems (at this point) a lot more docile and less demanding. He could be left to soothe himeself to nap (unless Sophie is around yelling and playing) in his rocker or cot bed. He only cries violently when he is very hungry or distress (at the changing table). Sophie would scream everytime we put her down so we had to hold her in our arms perpetually.

Baby No More

We have always seen and treated Sophie like our most precious baby. In a way, we must have impeded her development by not challenging her to behave and operate more like a preschooler. When Alfee is born, we started to see changes in her. She communicates more (partly because she has to in order to make others understand her needs and wants) to people. She also tries to display her abilities more (to get more attention) to us. Then we realised how big she has grown without our noticing. Today, the air-con guys came to service our units when she was asleep. I had to carry her and transfer her to our master bedroom (not too easy to carry 15 kg with a c-sect wound). I looked at my children as they slept side by side and thought to myself, "OMG! My baby girl is a baby no more!" Look at her build, her hands and her feet! She is a big girl now. And somehow, I felt a tinge of heartache because I knew then I have lost the moment with my baby girl forever.

Baby No More

We have always seen and treated Sophie like our most precious baby. In a way, we must have impeded her development by not challenging her to behave and operate more like a preschooler. When Alfee is born, we started to see changes in her. She communicates more (partly because she has to in order to make others understand her needs and wants) to people. She also tries to display her abilities more (to get more attention) to us. Then we realised how big she has grown without our noticing. Today, the air-con guys came to service our units when she was asleep. I had to carry her and transfer her to our master bedroom (not too easy to carry 15 kg with a c-sect wound). I looked at my children as they slept side by side and thought to myself, "OMG! My baby girl is a baby no more!" Look at her build, her hands and her feet! She is a big girl now. And somehow, I felt a tinge of heartache because I knew then I have lost the moment with my baby girl forever.

A For Alfee

So, we had the perfect plan to finally see Alfee in person. We picked the best possible date, day and time for Dr WK Tan at TMC to perform my c-section. Actually, she only operates on Wednesdays and Weekends so it was either 18th, 21st or 22th August. Alfee was 38 weeks by then and we did not want any "surprises" that could complicate the delivery. After all, any later than that would increase the chance of my uterus rupturing during an actual contraction or anything that required an emergency c-section. We also wanted to be the first patient for that day so that everyone was fresh and eager to get things going well for the rest of the day. Partly also for Sophie, we wanted her to nap in time. Thus, we reached TMC at 5.30 am to for admission and preparation.

By 7.45 pm, they wheeled me into the operating theatre and there I waited for the inevitable. I have always been afraid of operations - if it was LA, I worry that I would still feel the pain; if it was GA, I worry of waking up in the middle of the operation. Well, I think I might have been a psychic or something in my previous life. I was first injected with the maximum dosage of epidural. It did not work. I felt pain when I was pricked (many, many times). My doctors did not believe I could feel the pain. After a long wait, Dr Tan "tried" to operate on me. She cut and I almost screamed. Fear, embarrassment and pain hit me senseless. I kept repeating "pain... I feel the pain..." Dr Tan quickly pressed on my "cut" and asked me if I would like to go under GA instead. In my heart, I thought "What do you mean by that? Of course I want GA! I don't want to feel you cutting me up!" So, that was how I went under GA and woke up complaining, "... pain... why so painful?" And the nurses "scolded" me "... don't force yourself to wake up... " or at least I thought they said that before I lost consciousness again.

The rest was predictable. I woke up and requested to breastfeed Alfee as soon as possible. To my surprise, he was only 2.88 kg. Another small fellow to worry about... I probably forgot how painful it was to have my lower abdomen cut open. By hey, there was a new pain... I was on drip too! Oh it was pain over pain and nothing but pain. I gained some new understanding on myself... I am pain intolerant.

Other than that, Alfee is a cute little fellow. He is not quite the same as Sophie when she was born, but he has his own charms. A little wrinkled and yellow, impatient and demanding when hunger strikes, but still very endearing. And he has elf-ish ears! Or ist it valcon ears?

Poor Sophie though. She could not fully comprehend childbirth although she knew her little brother is coming out of her mama's tummy on that day. Curiosity overwhelmed her as she tried to make some sense out of the whole episode. It helped little that Alfee stuck his tongue out at her, just to tease her... So there you go, my two beautiful children - Sophie and Alfee.

My Babies

By this time tomorrow, I will have Alfee in my arms. I am saying this with a heavy heart though because I am very nervous about the entire procedure and the coming week. Perhaps, I am not being very fair to Alfee because the bulk of my worries is how Sophie copes with my absence and his arrival. Having said that, I do anticipate Alfee's arrival with great joy and excitement. A new baby! My son! I will very soon be a mother of two beautiful children. No matter how much Sophie drives me up the wall, she is a beautiful little girl with a very innocent heart. She is always cheerful and enthusiastic to experience life and explore the world around her. I hope Alfee will also share her passion and sense of adventure. Certainly, I will raise them to be good companions to each other, keeping sibling rivalry to the minimum. After all, I never really enjoyed my childhood with my brother and sister and that is my lifelong regret.

Recently, I sang Sophie to sleep with "Rock-A-Bye-Baby". I came to realise how much she wants me to revert back to our old ways - I always sang to her when she was an infant in my arms. She must have missed that a lot but she does not know how to tell me. As she grew older, our expectations and the way we treat her change dramatically. We smile, sing and chat less to her. Instead, we frown, scold and reason with her more. We also spend more time on explicit learning and cut down on playing (just for the sake of playing) time. To her, I must have lost my sense of humour. She would stroke my forehead gently as I lay beside her at night, attempting to smoothen my frown. "Why are you angry?", "I don't want to make you angry.","I want to make you happy!" she would often say.

I feel sorry for her. I am not particular patient with children and she has to bear all my wrath and idiosyncrasies. I will haveto bear that in mind as I manage her from now on. After all, as mentioned by her principal, she is still "emotionally little" and I need to be "lovingly firm" with her. She is my precious baby (always will be) and I love her so much.

Last Lap

Alfee is currently 3.2 kg and ready to see the world next Wednesday. This time, we made a few changes to our birth and confinement plan. We booked a better hospital room and we intend to establish breastfeeding before we discharge. I am leaving the household chores and cooking to my domestic helper so even if my parents are around, they would be overworked. Although we still refuse to engage a confinement nanny, I believe I am definitely more experienced now to cope with a newborn. Also, we are equipped with better facilities now with changing tables, baby bouncer and gym mat. This time, I have made mental rehearsal of how things ought to be done, including Sophie in the process. I have not packed my hospital bag but the things are all put in the baby cot bed already.

My second pregnancy has been a difficult journey for me, partly because I have Sophie to attend to at the same time. I feel a little guilty that I have not been spending enough time or energy bonding with Alfee, compared to when I had Sophie. I was constantly bombarded with love hormones while I had Sophie, but I am always worried, tired and uptight nowadays. I have been very careful with my food intake as well so poor Alfee has not been enjoying much food. I also give Sophie a lot of attention and shower her with gifts to show that my love for her will only grow with the arrival of a new baby.

Suddenly, I feel very vulnerable and inadequate as a mother. I am not sure if I can provide Alfee with the same (or better) kind of quality care and education I have given Sophie. I am also not confident that Sophie will be getting enough of my attention and time once Alfee is born. I want to continue her home learning but I have not been very fruitful with my attempts. I got angry easily and my energy depleted even more easily. Things have not been moving much or smoothly at all. Sophie talks a lot more now but she has little interest for actual reading and her Chinese is still very amateurish. Maths is a problem as well. And she still does not want to start writing. I know she is only 2 years 8 months old but I want to start earlier before it is too late.

Sophie Gets In Trouble

Sophie is definitely not like other little girls. She did not cry for me in school (except the day she fell) and she was very comfortable with the school environment since day one. Anyone mummy in the right frame of mind would feel tremendous pride and joy to have such an independent and well adapted little girl. However, I was never so optimistic, in fact I was waiting for the storm after the calm. And yes, the storm has arrived.

Today, her principal called me a couple of times on the phone because she had been "misbehaving" in school and she wanted to know if I would like them to carry through the punishment. Apparently, she spilled the beans during her Montessori session and refused to pick them up regardless of her teachers' reprimand, coaxing and even threats. She would rather skip her recess and her snack than to pick the beans up. Even when the teachers offerred to help and ended up picking them up for her, she taunted them by spilling the beans again and again. When they tried to talk to her, she changed the subject by directing them to her hair clip. She only complied when they told her she could not go home until she picked everything up (with my blessing, of course). Still, they cheated by helping her scoop up almost everything while she was not looking.

And on the very same day, she teased me hours earlier in the car with her pranks. She started by putting her finger in her mouth. That made me frown and I told her not to do it again. Grinning, she did it again, making a noisy sucking sound to draw my attention. When I turned around to glare at her, I found her little finger outside her mouth, at her lips. She did not put her finger in at all! She was pretending!!! I was so mad. When I recounted the incident to her principal, she realised how smart Sophie is and we definitely have a handful to deal with. We both agree that she has a tendency to tease and she is very strong-willed' (I say 'stubborn' but she prefers a more positive word).

Sophie Gets In Trouble

Sophie is definitely not like other little girls. She did not cry for me in school (except the day she fell) and she was very comfortable with the school environment since day one. Anyone mummy in the right frame of mind would feel tremendous pride and joy to have such an independent and well adapted little girl. However, I was never so optimistic, in fact I was waiting for the storm after the calm. And yes, the storm has arrived.

Today, her principal called me a couple of times on the phone because she had been "misbehaving" in school and she wanted to know if I would like them to carry through the punishment. Apparently, she spilled the beans during her Montessori session and refused to pick them up regardless of her teachers' reprimand, coaxing and even threats. She would rather skip her recess and her snack than to pick the beans up. Even when the teachers offerred to help and ended up picking them up for her, she taunted them by spilling the beans again and again. When they tried to talk to her, she changed the subject by directing them to her hair clip. She only complied when they told her she could not go home until she picked everything up (with my blessing, of course). Still, they cheated by helping her scoop up almost everything while she was not looking.

And on the very same day, she teased me hours earlier in the car with her pranks. She started by putting her finger in her mouth. That made me frown and I told her not to do it again. Grinning, she did it again, making a noisy sucking sound to draw my attention. When I turned around to glare at her, I found her little finger outside her mouth, at her lips. She did not put her finger in at all! She was pretending!!! I was so mad. When I recounted the incident to her principal, she realised how smart Sophie is and we definitely have a handful to deal with. We both agree that she has a tendency to tease and she is very strong-willed' (I say 'stubborn' but she prefers a more positive word).