we used to do this on aniq to amuse ourselves, now it’s her turn.
==================
(purely for recording purposes):
i guess i should note for posterity, like i did the last time with the elder one, that she’s weaned herself off b/f-ing at around 16 mths (11 of which were exclusive). a mean feat? i think so, seeing she wasn’t as much as a guzzler.
guess we both didn’t have the drive to keep going till she turned two years after all. which was just as well, coz the supply had gone dismal, and we’re both happy being independent off each other.
so yeah, no more baby hanging on mah titties! *throws confetti* (though there’s actually little for celebration, as i’ve learnt the last time, re: deflated boobs, slower metabolism, etc.)
a year older, she’s used to holding her bottle while drinking milk. although she is still on breast milk, we are slowing weaning her off. she tends to look for her mom every night for her fix.
this sight greeted me when the elevator door opened on thursday night when i reached home.
i was so excited, i ran tottered (wearing high heels and carrying shopping bags, mah) as quickly as i could to call aniq who was home with his daddy and sister.
he’d already seen them, but i hadn’t, so we all went out again to coo at the basket of furry felines.
“see, the baby kitten is drinking milk from the mummy cat,” i said.
“same! like mummy and baby auni!”, he pointed out.
“yes, same,” i beamed at him.
see how both babies’ paws are positioned. uncanny. heh.
i was telling the husband that the mummy cat looked so… tired, from the demands of motherhood. there was another kitten snuggled up under her, so i could empathise how she must be feeling, with two little ones to care for and nourish.
oh, and i also wondered – where the heck is the daddy cat, eh? hmm.
ok, a few more hours before my time is up. (macam kena recall masok jail, or worse, kena execution gitu eh? :p)
am still feeling queasy, lethargic, a little achy and chilly from the leftover viral flu which i’d contracted on friday out of the blue, like what bad timing huh?
and nevermind that i had over six months (technically, is apr 3 to nov 3 considered seven months?) to get ‘things’ done, it’s simply… not enough!!
i’ve been trying to come up with a list of ‘accomplishments’, kinda like your half-yearly work appraisal thing you know. erm, so far, i think, not so impressive.
A. Work achievement/progress
Project I: Baby A
i) Gave birth to Baby. (with least possible incurrence of additional hospitalisation costs.)
Progress: Completed
ii) Placed Baby to sleep in own room and through the night by eight weeks.
Progress: Completed
iii) Provided complete nourishment for Baby 0-6months, direct from source. (with no supplementary requirements.)
Progress: On-going
iv) Provided basic care to Baby. (including clothing, bathing, diapering, minyak-telon-ing, urang-aring-ing, etc.)
Progress: On-going
v) Provided stimulation to Baby to best of ability. (ie. verbal, visual, social, emotional.)
Progress: On-going
vi) Ensured proper immunisation of Baby and post-immunisation care. (6-in-1 package)
Progress: Completed
vii) Providing homemade first foods to Baby.
Progress: On-going
viii) Weaning Baby on to bottled teats.
Progress: On-going
ix) Captured Baby’s photographic moments and physical milestones.
Progress: On-going
x) ??
Project II: Elder Child A
i) Ensured smooth transition from single child to elder child and prevented any possibilities of sibling jealousy.
Progress: Completed
ii) Developing verbal skills, physical abilities, emotional well-being, and setting of ‘moral compass’.
Progress: On-going
iii) Successful toilet training to underpants in daytime, with increasingly lesser assistance.
Progress: Almost completed (night training still on-going)
iv) Ensured smooth transition from three-hourly daily playgroup to full-day centre-based care.
Progress: Completed
v) Weathered through various strains of ‘The Terrible Twos’ syndrome with minimum repercussions.
Progress: Good (behaviour still under monitor)
vi) ??
Project: Housework
Progress: ON-GOING (*note: employed services of new helper, forecast looks promising.)
Project: Social & Love Life
Progress: Minimal. Positively dismal.
B. Training and Development Plans
Nil to date.
C. Career plans/ possible posting
i) Child-bearing career: Retired.
ii) Mothering career: On-going (end date: most likely on deathbed.)
iii) Wifely career: Endeavouring for a raise and better remuneration.
iv) Professional career: To be reviewed…
and in order to ensure that C.(iv) gets to see the light of day, i will need to log off this instance and literally wake up in the first light of day. (note to self: do not forget to bring the ‘espresso machine’ and all its parts, unlike the last first-day-of-work!)
wish me luck, people! (and good luck to you too, kiddos, ha ha.)
last day of ‘freedom’, on the sg flyer
===
mummy to aniq: aniq, daddy go to work, mummy go to work, aniq go to school, ok?
aniq: noo, aniq go to work also!
mummy: you want to go to work? where?
aniq: prison!
so i did finally find time to break out the new food processor, a hand-held one, which is so, erm, nice to hold, long and firm, with strong vibrations and all… err…
anyway, this baby food-making thing is kinda deja vu for me (the entry of oni’s demo still resides at aniq’s old blog), and like the last time, i’m holding out on the heinz/gerber-made purees because… well, i did it for the firstborn, so mommy has to be fair, right? and i still have a week left before relinquishing my sahm status, so i might as well do the homemade stuff like a good supermommy would (yeeaaah right, lol!). and, hmm, two babies on and i’m still a little suspicious of shelf-food (and beverage) for babies. (hey, you’ll never know what’s been melamine-infused! :p)
steamed japanese sweet potato
(i know others create lovely entries on cooking, especially exotic food, but this is as far as hana goes with so-called ‘culinary adventures’, bah.
oh, and let me tell you, i did this in mum’s kitchen, and she took one look at me and went, “you hold the baby, let me do that instead” which made me fume and start nagging at how she ALWAYS did that, from when i was young till now that i’m an adult, and this was why i never learnt anything in the kitchen, bla bla bla, afterwhich she smirked, and continued holding the baby while i daintily scooped out the contents of my lovingly-made mush.)
this time round, inspired by Fiona Miles’ ‘Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts’ (great read! it even has a breastmilk ice-cream recipe, if anyone’s interested… and stories on lactation p*rn*, ho ho), i did something which i unfortunately didn’t try the last time. and my favourite part of the whole process too, actually!
i bent over, and squirted milk into the bowl, straight from the source. mix, squirt, mix, squirt… until i got the consistency just right.
not gross, very nutritious, confirm no melamine. ha ha.
so far, so good. she’s learnt to open her mouth wider instead of ’sipping’ from the spoon. but mess is mess, for sure!
the truth is, being a sahm is great… if you have help.
without help, it can be quite a mountainous challenge, juggling household chores, your young children’s needs and well-being, and your own sanity.
with help, you get to eliminate the irksome and nitty gritty tasks of cleaning/sweeping/washing/ironing, and focus on the whole point of sahm-ing: your kids.
that’s how i see it anyway. of course, not everyone will agree! sahm-ing should come in a package, some say. what’s two kids, after all, right? our mothers and fore-mothers have done it all before, single-handedly, with half a dozen kids around their ankles. sahms should be supermoms! it’s a criteria, for heaven’s sake! and to those sahms who do manage without helpers and still have time to shop in town for the latest gucci garbs, well done!
but the fact is – i absolutely stink at housework. i grew up with a perfectionist mum who preferred doing things her way around the house and so, as a defense mechanism, i blacked out her naggings and got away with minimum lifting of my oh-so-delicate fingers. usually on the pretext that i was, err, reading or studying or something that required little movement on my part. nevermind that i was from an all-girls’ school for ten formative years of my life – i still suck at doing what is seemingly an inborn girl thing: domestic work. blame it on the lack of playing ‘masak-masak’ when i was young, i don’t know.
so, with the recent crisis re: the helper which prompted immediate repatriation, i have been stuck with a week’s worth of laundry waiting to be ironed, bathrooms waiting to be scrubbed, floors waiting to be mopped.
housework’s a bitch, can? LOL!
anyway, minor setback. i just have to, err, minimise our lives (less mess, less cleaning up), and wait for the dust to settle (which it has, literally, probably an inch thick!).
meanwhile, the bulk of the madness is getting everyone bathed and fed in the morning, send the elder one to his full-day c/care (at which he’s settling in effortlessly), afterwhich the little one gets full attention, until she has her next nap, which lasts all of one hour or less (hmph, so much for mademoiselle sleeping beauty – now not so sleepy anymore!), then feeble attempts at multi-tasking and running errands, before it’s five o’clock and the madness begins again, getting everyone bathed and fed for the evening.
SO FUN HOR!
jemput makan
the latest thing added to the daily schedule. yes, as you can see, i’ve had time to drop by the library for some, er, refresher. haven’t had time to break out the new food processor to try out the supposedly easy-peasy job of making baby purees, though. broke out in an allergic rash instead the day after the purchase, which got me a jab of promethazine, which made me totally conked out for the next 24 hours or so. (gawd have i mentioned i HATE drugs!!) maybe the thought of me actually doing something with a food processor caused the allergic reaction, ha ha.
so, her menu has thus far been stuck with jemput-jemput-smelling rice cereal with b/milk and bananas. (and which, while recovering from that lethal dose of promethazine, i ate some banana pancakes mum made – without b/milk, of course – and ended up the whole day doubled over with indigestion. i can’t eat bananas, dammit, when will i ever learn?!)
and speaking of b/milk, that’s the other thing i’ve been busy with. stocking up. :S
DIY tahui!
time check, 04:45am. orang gila ajer masih belum tidur eh.
a quick update on what’s been happening on planet hana… well, nothing much, really. other than that great roadtrip and being with the kids almost 24/7.
today, while driving in the car with aniq, i realised that the most conversation i have every day is with him, and he’s practically my boyfriend (in fact, i do ask him everyday if he’s my boyfriend, and he’ll say yes, and put my arm around my neck and smother me with smelly wet kisses. and that’s just how exciting my life is these days – turning my firstborn into a mummy’s boy.)
(on a side note, i met his proclaimed “best friend” in school last week, whose name is naima, a round-faced and round-eyed girl of chinese-malay descent. so, so cute.)
oh, and to add to the insanity, i *did* seek for that extension to continue being with the little ones – for one more month (of which i’m subjecting myself to being sadistically broke).
i figure, if i went back right after hari raya, i’d be a sad miserable hag during the days leading up to the festivities and on hari raya itself. and furthermore, after a month of fasting, my body would probably need to adjust where milk production is concerned.
along with my stock of breastmilk in the freezer, is my now-sluggish brain and my heavy heart… both of which need a little more time to thaw out.
with the World Breastfeeding Week around the corner once again, i realise that this time, i don’t have much else to say about The BF Issue like i did the last time. i guess because everything that can be said, i’ve said before.
things on the ‘udder’ front have been pretty much on auto-mode and a breeze, like second nature, that i’m barely reflective, or conscious, about it anymore. furthermore, the little one doesn’t seem to require as much nursing as her brother did when he was a baby. she hardly even asks for it, actually, which should make first-time bf-ing mums worried, but a second-time bf-ing mum (who is, like me, a little lazy) quite relieved.
ok, so i *think* she hasn’t been growing as chubby as her brother did in the first few months. the last we sneakily weighed her at the hospital during aniq’s follow-up, she tipped the scale at a rather ‘dainty’ 6.4kg. which is what… 1kg a month? is that ok? i don’t know. another thing about second-time mums (who are a little lazy) is that, they don’t bother looking at growth charts anymore.
and another thing that i’ve been procrastinating (due to said laziness), is the pumping. have been meaning to buy a proper pump to finally call my own (seeing how the previous pumps were hand-me-downs), with all the gift vouchers i’ve saved up (breastfeeding is, after all, about being prudent, no?), but even that has not been put into action. and note to self: please buy a few bottles for her too. that’s another thing i’ve been procrastinating, practising her to go on the bottle. simply because mommy’s boobies don’t need to be washed, scrubbed and boiled after every feed (ie. she’s too lazy to do the whole sterilising routine).
poor excuse, i know. i’m just trying to, erm, minimise my life, you see. and also for the fact that, i’m still contemplating on doing this… sahm thing a little longer. and no, this one is not due to laziness. i’m growing into a new routine with the kids and i realise that i REALLY like being The Big Boss to them. heck with the ‘let’s-bring-women-back-to-the-workforce’ thing. this IS work, dammit. a grossly-underpaid and under-recognised one. grrrrrr.
so, aaanyway, back to the World Breastfeeding Week. wasn’t that the point of this entry? aah…
Venue : National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) , The Giving Place,
6 Eu Tong Sen Street, #04-88 The Central, Singapore 059817
Located @ The Central, a shopping mall directly above Clarke Quay MRT
Date: 16th Aug 2008 (Sat), 2pm
there, i’ve done my part in advocating tek-milk for this year. will you join me? come on, melayu boleh! save the earth! save your children! and most importantly, save your money! :d
besides, clarke quay on a saturday sounds as happening as it can get to this mak-bawah-tempurung.
signing off,
The Once Self-Proclaimed Tit-Nazi who’s not so sure if she’s even doing it right anymore, with soggy + sagging boobs to boot.
visits to the docs are highlights for those in confinement, eh? :p
(boring stuff ahead, but they’re more for my own records. really.)
to summarise, doc checked my stitch (apparently, i only had one, like the last time – how elastic my Netherlands are, i simply cannot fathom) and declared it gone *poof*. the thing about stitches, the peak of its sting is felt some time around the fourth or fifth day, when the thread is drying up. couple that with a ‘bengkung’ wrapped tight around you, sitting down gives you the ultimate OOMPH, i tell ya. (didn’t i mention i’m a masochist?)
there was some discussion on family planning, which i’m sure you’re NOT interested in, ha ha. (and if you ARE – it’s gonna be the needle, baybeh. either that, or cut off those tubes!… ok, kidding.)
another visit due in two months time for a pap smear.
and yes, 7kg down, 3 more to go.
moving on… :p
next was another trip to the paedi, where more questions on her pees, poops and feeds were answered. he assured that the baby’s jaundice is almost gone, and will clear up by itself in due time, so no need for another blood test. hurrah!
i voiced my concern to him about how she sleeps too well at night, and that i even wake her up to feed (well, more to relieve my bursting-to-the-brim ‘udders’, really!). and get this – he said to LET her sleep! a wild idea indeed! apparently, i should count myself lucky that she lets me sleep where others have sleepless nights, and that i shouldn’t change her momentum – just feed her more in the day. hokaaay… i just thought, you know, babies *need* to be fed regularly every few hours. but this girl, hmm… she’s one of those day-feeders, i guess. which is good news for me and the VERY LUCKY husband, but bad news for me boobies!
ok, so i guess here’s where i start talking about my revived breastfeeding career.
(i can imagine all the anti-tit-nazis starting to roll their eyes at this point, ha ha.)
ahh. as the wise old saying goes – “the path to total breastfeeding is never easy”. (ok, it isn’t a wise old saying, i just made that up.)
the two days at the hospital after the delivery, i’d set my expectations lower – yes, you read me right, lower. i knew that my supply wasn’t going to be magically abundant. so i did what i did the last time, but without the guilt this time round – got her to suckle for as long as i could, and when i really needed to rest, i allowed the nurses to give her some formula. i knew she wouldn’t take much anyway, because she’d be tired by then from suckling me, and at one to two days old, she wouldn’t be that hungry.
and when we came home on the third day, the milk came in, right on time. hello, boobs!
it’s… kinda like driving a manual car – you sorta remember, but you need a refresher, you know? i admit that the first week is never easy for any mothers attempting breastfeeding – whether you’ve done it before or not!
engorgement? of course. sore nipples? yep. blisters? sure.
but i had superb support and help from the masseuse. she practically trained the baby to open her mouth “big big!” and taught me to pop that “big big” mouth – NGAP! – onto where it’s supposed to. (ok, she actually suggested that i video auni do the “open big big!” trick and put it up so other mums can do the same with their babies too – maybe i should get funding from the health ministry for a public awareness campaign? hmm. :p)
that sorted, she went on to massage the engorgement away – and it did, instantly. hurts like hell, coz here you have two rocks on your chest, and they get kneaded and squeezed, and you’re squeaking and squawking away, coz the rocks are very sensitive, can? but nevermind, masochist says, “pain is in the mind”…
the blisters, well, once you got the latch right, those things dry up in no time, with all that sucking. mine came off by itself within a week.
and after that one week teething period, so to speak, we’re on cruise control. (what is up with this car analogy, hana??)
but i must disclaim that i only speak for myself, coz i know this whole “BF” issue is like treading on glass. every mum, and every baby, is different!
i had an enlightenment during my two-day stay at ‘hotel eastshore’ when auni had jaundice. i was sharing the room with a mother who’d just given birth to a baby boy just five days before. he was warded for jaundice too, being born a few weeks earlier than his due date, with a cord around his neck.
the room being so confined, i couldn’t help but overhear a lactationist giving her advice and trying to show her how to do the football hold. later on, i could tell she was having a hard time whenever she tried to feed the baby, so i walked past and asked if she needed help, coz her baby was screaming his head off while she was helplessly trying to get him to latch (and coz i’m freaking kepo, i know). she said yes, so i tried the tickle-the-chin-and-”open big big!”-and-POP-mouth-onto-areola thing with the baby.
but i realise that her nipples were short, and the baby’s mouth was small, and she wasn’t comfortable holding the baby, and he was hungry and impatient, and… well, it IS hard, isn’t it?? :S
so yeah, i felt her frustration.
and i thank my lucky stars to have nubs just right for my babies with their big big mouths.
to soon-to-be mums, i wish you all the best if you intend to set on The BF Path. remember to, err, pull those nippies if you think they’re too stubby! (they’re pretty stretchy you know. or you can try nipple pullers, i hear they work.)
and if you need that “open big big!” video… i get auni to demo on izad, ok? :p
ouhh, if you haven’t watched Juno, you MUST. wait, is it out in the theatres yet? coz izad d/l it to his PSP from, hmm… somewhere, plugged it to the tv, and insisted i watch it with him.
gladly enough, i did. killer script and soundtrack! quirky and indie and smart – a winning combination.
and i think ellen page is the next It girl.
speaking of teenage pregnancies, we were discussing how easy it is for sixteen-year-olds to get pregnant, and BE pregnant. like, their bodies are meant to go through the whole childbearing process effortlessly.
i mean, all those stories we hear in our local news about secretly getting through nine months hiding their bellies underneath their school uniforms and giving birth to babies in toilets – a thirty-year-old can’t get away with that, surely! (lemme go find my old tkg uniform and see if i can fit in it now, ok?) how do they do that, get away with nary a waddle, with not even a whiff of suspicion from their parents or teachers, and then give birth alone in a toilet, flush it down, get up and go. free delivery, so to speak.
ok. i think that’s depressing enough.
but go watch the show! it’s not depressing at all. in fact, it’s all vair heartwarming (nevermind the moral implications). and vair cool (once again, nevermind that it would probably inspire even more sixteen-year-olds to get knocked up).
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