Terrible 2 has arrived...

Karen might only be 17 month old but we are feeling the full effect of her Terrible 2. Gifted with a set of powerful lungs, the ability to scream in the highest pitch imaginable, the tantrums she can dish out are unbelievable. The first time she had a tantrum was approximately 2 month ago. She threw a fit because she didn’t want to go upstairs and kneel face down over on one of the floor mat, with her bums up high to cry. That first tantrum was seriously funny to see. She wasn’t trying very hard and would look up now and then to see if I’m paying attention. I continued to do my chores and ignored her. When she started to try harder, I decided to just leave her in the hall crying on the floor mat and go upstairs with my clean laundry.

Karen looked up only to find that no one was in the room with her, even the dogs had left her and followed me upstairs. She stopped crying to look around the house for us; I was observing from the stairs so I called out to her and told her we are all upstairs in the bedroom, she can join us when she’s ready. She crawled up the stairs and was caught by surprise to see me at the landing waiting for her, immediately she bended forward and buried her face on the stairs to continue her tantrum. That, was a priceless moment. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. I picked her up because the stairs is a dangerous place for tantrum throwing but once she was safe in the bedroom, I continued to ignore her until she gave up. That first tantrum didn’t last long but I couldn’t say the same for the tantrums she can throw now.

Karen still doesn’t or couldn’t express herself vocally but she could understand us perfectly. While I know that speech is something that every kid develops in their own time, being unable to express her needs or wants makes it more likely for her to be caught in frustration. We had a whole series of outburst during this Christmas season and it was made worst by her teething (I spotted 4 new teeth!!), persistent fever and allergy (cause by a new medication for the fever), all happening at the same time. The poor kiddo was spotted in red, with a swollen face from the allergy and swollen gums. Luckily she is probably too young to remember her 2nd Christmas and this will just be a small phase in her life to come.

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Forgotten my password to Multiply - Karen's blog

You know you haven't blog enough when you've forgotten your own password.... this is bad.

Since we started daycare for Karen officially (as in we actually started payment ), our lives have been one busy week after another. I guess when one is trying to adapt to a new schedule, and when a good friend is coming to visit soon, making a new change work (and cleaning and tidying the house for our visitors) becomes a challenge. We've learnt to cook with Karen running afoot, we've learn to feed her anything so that she can have her breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and a snack before dinner (if dinner is late), then dinner and milk for just-before-bed. Yes, she's an eating machine, will and can consume anything....

We've learnt that since chores are endless, we'll need to take time to slow down once in a while and simply enjoy what we have. With the fine summer weather and long daylight, we'll take a stroll around the neighbourhood after dinner to simply wind down. All our dependants (2 dogs n a toddler in a stroller) enjoy the slow walk. Every now and then we'll let Karen walk on her own with Kiki's old puppy leash so that she can walk her imaginary dog. Karen's usually pretty exhausted after day care and is happy to sit in the stroller during the walk and goes to bed around 8pm. She is enjoying her days there and I will blog soon about that (I hope) because I want to be able to remember all those silly stuffs she did in the day care centre.

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3rd day of Day Care

Picture taken at the Auckland airport watching her grandparent left for Singapore

I found Karen playing outside with the other kids, for the fun of it, I didn’t “announced” my presence, I just sat by the bench in their play area and watch her for a minute. The silly child ran past me twice without realizing I was there! Haa.. Even the staffs found it funny. Yup they say, your kid is pretty absorbed when she’s playing.

By the 3^rd time running past me, she looked at me for a moment then ran to me for a hug. Then she held my hand n drag me to the door! She was impatient to go home! This kid certainly knows what she wants.

Today’s report had an additional attachment, a simple report saying that Karen had fell and hit her head in the centre, and they didn’t call me because other than a bump, she seems to be alright. However I should observe her closely and bring her to the doctor if she isn’t well tonight. More details were hand written by the staffs that had witnessed it and they told me how it happened. I wasn’t upset or surprised; As long as she’s fine, a few bumps or bruises are to be expected. In the report, one of the items was “Action taken by the stuffs:”, and one of them wrote, “Lots of cuddle”. That’s so cute.

Karen had a really good 3^rd day. She wasn’t totally without tears but there were short and few. They noticed it usually happens when she’s indoor and is bored with all the toys. If she’s outside, she’s ok. She loves the songs and dance, the water play and is good during meal times (that’s no news to us but the staffs seems to be fascinated by that particular behavior, I wonder if all the other kids gave them grief during meal time) She still doesn’t like to speak much and is very independent. But she conform to the routine well as witnessed today when she woke up early from her nap; she found the rest of the kids were still asleep, so she lay back down n wait for them to wake up.

Seeing Karen coming home with that bump on the head, a small bruised on the thumb, in a pair of soaked shoes, wearing sand filled clothing, and carrying a stubborn ink mark on her face that won’t come off. She looks like she had thoroughly experienced all that life can offer, in one single day, and came out just as strong and happy. I’m so proud of my little bubba.

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Our kid has Singaporean blood

Karen might be “manufactured and produced” in New Zealand but we’ve found out she has Singaporean blood.

Report from the 2^nd day of Day care

“Karen is always the first to get ready for meal time” – Kiasu, scare that the food will be all gone

“Karen is very loud when displeased” – Singaporean are usually very loud with our complaints. Lol…

“Karen had a 2^nd helping during lunch” – I can bring this kid to buffets in Singapore and she will make it worth the price.

“Karen keeps saying ‘Ai-Ya’!” – haa… Singapore slang! She must have learnt that from her grandparent and us. The reason why it was brought to our attention was because one of the staffs was a Singaporean 19 yrs ago. She recognized the word and was so amused by it.

According to the staffs, she showed her displeasure couple of times during the day but was otherwise pretty alright. She won’t let them remove her coat or wipe her running nose and so they left her alone else she “complains loudly” again. ;P

 

Enjoying her meal of pasta and broccoli

 

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High Fever in the night

Just when i thought i'm going to have a full night rest... :p

Karen had a bit of fever the day before and it became a really high fever at midnight on Wednesday. She was so hot to touch that when I measured her temperature it was 40 degree! What a shock! All I could think of is cooling her down. I opened the windows to get some cold air in, switched on the laptop and get her favorite Youtube playlist running to keep her entertained while I grab the gears. She hated the wet cloth on her face and head but was happy to undress and put on cooler wear, she was also willing to have a cool drink from her drinking bottle. And each time I coaxed, she would drink a little more. She was so lethargic that all she would do is to lie down and watched the programs. I gave her another dose medication and bless our good fortune, she was happy to take that too!

Andrew's working night shift so I tried calling him but he couldn't pick up his phone. I left him a sms hoping he would be able to come home soon. If I couldn't bring her temperature down, we might have to bring her to the doctor. Fortunately, her fever did came down to 38 and hover around that range. As soon as her fever was better and she felt better, I tried to get her to go back to bed. She was asleep in an instant. Poor kid. Daddy came home right after she had fallen asleep. He had to measure her temperature again and wake her up to be sure she's alright. lol... Karen was protesting because she wanna go back to bed.

We brought her to the doctor the next day because her fever keeps going right back up. She was given some antibiotics and that did the job. Although she won't eat anything for the day nor would she drink her milk, she would drink water from her little straw cup. That evening we gave her a bit of ice cream as a treat since she still hasn't eaten anything or wanted any food. lol... she must be feeling better by then because she was so pleased with the ice cream.

I'm just thankful that she was really cooperative during the "height" of the fever and that the dogs were very well behaved too. Both dogs kept to their bed corners and didn't bother me when i was running around the house looking for stuffs. They didn't even whine to go to the bathroom but stayed quiet throughout so that Karen can sleep. Sigh, I hope we won't have to go through that again. (wishful thinking! Yeah right!... )

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Karen's first haircut.... by me!

Took a couple of minutes to blog about Karen. She’s certainly growing up fast. It makes us realize how quickly time flies when you are occupied and kept busy caring for a little being. She’s crawling now and is constantly attempting to stand without help. I had to change her to a pull-up nappy because she won’t stay still long enough for us to change her. I asked Tony (age 64) at work, how did they do it back then? He said, once they are pricked by the nappy pin ONCE, they learnt to stay really still when we changed them. LOL… I think children now are so fortunate and pampered.

Last few days, I’ve been attempting to trim her hair. I allow it to grow because she looks so much like a little boy baby that I thought a bit of hair will make some difference. However, it’s getting long and messy (and she still looks like a boy). First try on her fringe and the straight line across makes her look really silly. So I did another trim last night. On the bright side, this 2^nd trim is a little better than the last, on the negative side, I’ll have to vacuum my room this weekend because I trim her hair while she’s playing on our bed. Sigh…

Before trimming her hair

After the first attempt....

The final result after having lots of hair on my bed.

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Karen on the trip back to Singapore

The 10 hours flight wasn’t as bad as we imagine it to be. The seats were separated into columns of 3. On the flight to Singapore, I was assigned a seat alone where the bassinet was, while Andrew and my parents took the 3 seats behind me. Another kiwi couple was seated next to us with their one year old toddler girl.

At 5 month plus, Karen wasn’t crawling yet and all she wanted was to be carried. I kept her close, pat her to sleep in my arms and the bassinet was mainly use to hold all her stuffs. I doubt she spent more than 2 hours in that bassinet. However, I won’t be able to do without it, it was really handy having her bibs, toys, and bottles within arm reach inside the bassinet.

It was also fortunate that Karen was distracted by the toddler next to us. She would spend her time in the plane just observing what the one year old was up to. The tod’s parent however wasn’t having an easy time. There was one time when their kid burst into tears refusing to nap even though she was exhausted. Her dad cuddled her in his arm in the seat next to me and Karen. While the toddler was waving her arms around screaming, Karen reaches out and touched her hand. The tod immediately stopped crying and tries to touch Karen’s hand. They keep fingering each other which were really sweet to see. All the fingering and hand touching calms the tod down and she eventually fell asleep. By then Karen starts fussing a little and I immediately walk her around the cabin which promptly sets her sleeping too.

About the toddler , her dad and mom are both New Zealander and she’s born oversea. They brought her back to NZ for a visit and were on the way back to England. On the other hand, Karen’s born in NZ and was on the way to visit Singapore. Talk about irony.

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Interaction

You know how we adults would repeat an action if it makes the baby laugh, what if the baby could do the same for us?

2 days ago, I put Karen’s back to my front and sit her down to play on our bed. She would reach forward to grab her toy and put it in her mouth (as usual). She was able to sit up by herself now but would still lose her balance now and then so it’s important we watch her closely.

Since I just got back from work and was exhausted, I lay down across the pillow just to observe her from behind.

Then she decided to flip backward and her head hit me hard on my tummy as I was sheltering her from the back. In case she was frightened by the fall, I laugh to settle her down. She had this big grin when I laugh and decided to sit upright again. Then out of the blue, she flipped backward once more and immediately look up at me. I was puzzled so I did a little laugh again. Guess what, she grins and struggle upright, then fell backward, and look up at me AGAIN. And it dawn on me that she was playing with me, trying to make me laugh! Aww….

We did that repeatedly for 5 mins, by then she was laughing along with me. I shouted for Andrew to come look and of course, she stopped and was distracted. Wish I had it video captured but that’s the problem with a baby, they stopped as soon as the camera comes up. Any way, this will be one wonderful memory I will always have, Happy 2009 everyone.

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Sleeping through the night

Finally! Oh well, I better not be too optimistic. The good news is that she has finally slept through the night since last friday. Bad news is that she still cries and wails but she does go right back to sleep after a while. Even if we try to feed her when she cries, she would just drink around 10ml of milk and falls asleep. This just shows that she doesn't need the milk, just the comfort of sucking.

We nearly achieve that when she was around 3 months old, she had around 6 hours of sleep without waking up. Then her gum started hurting and she was back to waking up every 3 hourly no matter how much we tries to feed her during the day or get her back on track again.

I certainly hope this lasts. She certainly looks a lot happier waking up in the morning after a good night rest. Meanwhile I still wake up when she cries or stirs a little and as usual will take me a while to fall back to sleep again. So if you see me online at the wee hour of the morning, don't be offended if I say hi and suddenly disappear. I probably had fallen asleep with the laptop on again. ;)

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Recognising faces

Karen's beginning to recognise faces. My mom and dad went for a hair cut and while they are in the salon, Karen fell asleep. She woke up in the car sitting next to grandpa n grandma but instead of the usual happy sound, she started screaming and crying. She was pretty alright with grandpa because he only had a minor trim but grandma had a shorten her hair considerably and certainly looked a little different. We went out for lunch after the salon trip and we had to sit Karen away from Grandma so that she would stop crying. While we were all amused by her "outrage" my mom was really hurt and upset by it. Took Karen a couple of hours to get use to her ganny's pretty new look.

To think I was considering cutting my hair too. ;)

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Karen has her SG citizenship

Karen's SG citizenship has been approved and is now ready for collection from the SG High Comm here. Unfortunately we have forgotten to include a A4 size return courier bag in our application hence they holding her documents ransom while waiting for us to post the courier bag to them. It took around 2 months+ for this application to be approve partly because of her name.

NZ prefers the family name to be at the back hence her birth certificate says "Karen Kai Eng LAU"

SG wants it in a different way, either "Karen LAU Kai Eng" or "LAU Kai Eng Karen"

We choose to go with "Karen LAU Kai Eng" in her application. Karen Lau Kai Eng, when you are much older, you are going to love shopping in SG. ;)

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Already???

Plunket Nurse came again 2 days ago for Karen's 3rd month check. She was describing certain symptoms to look out for at her stage...

1. Biting her bottle - checked (would chew and chew on the teats of the bottle)

2. Drooling heavily - checked (we started putting a bid around her all the time)

3. Sudden change in diet - checked (wouldn't drink as much)

4. Waking up at night but doesn't want her milk - checked (she started waking up couple of times extra and could be pacify by patting her back to sleep)

5. Fussy during meal time - checked (she usually finish her bottle but now she cries and wails after finishing half of her bottle)

6. Sudden change in her schedule - checked (Just when we had a nice happy routine... sigh)

Nurse says, "She had all those symptoms? Oh well, that means she's teething."

Joan, "WHAT??? Already? She's only 3 months old."

sob...

On becoming Babywise

Whenever I am faced with a problem, a challenge, a need to get some answers, I would always turn to 2 of my favorite source of information. The internet and books. Before the internet, I would borrowed heaps of books with topics that interests me or simply caught my eyes. Now with the world wide web at a click of a button plus over $80 of monthly broadband fees, I could have information at my finger tips.

I've been busy before Karen arrived hence I haven't been reading up as much as I could. With a baby that could only communicate by crying, I was desperate to get some help to set up a routine, and hopefully to get her to sleep longer at night (before I become a vampire). I turn to the library for help and requested for the book "Baby Whisperer" but I was put on a waiting list. While browsing, I came across this other book "On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving your infant the gift of Nighttime sleep" by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam.

I recommend this book to the parents who would like the possibility of getting a little more sleep at night. So far, it has bagged us at least 3 full hours of sleep each interval (I really mean sleep, which doesn't include feeding and changing) and once in a while, 4 hours of sleep!!! The book actually suggest a possibility of 6 to 7 hours by the time she's 8 weeks old. Karen's only 3 weeks plus and I am pretty happy with the result.

But warning, you will need to get half way through the book before you get to the main point that explain how to establish the routine.

Oh, another warning, we have the advantage of formula feeding which actually last longer in between feeds. :p


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3 weeks old today

Karen is 3 weeks old today. It's the reason why i set up this blog in Multiply for her. 3 weeks have passed so quickly and I'm still trying to figure her out. Seriously, I've beginning to enjoy having her around especially during bedtime because she's so warm and it's winter here. This means I get to cuddle her to bed with me. She's like my little hot water bottle. The only problem with this tiny "water bottle" is the leaking... she isn't leaking urine if that's what you are wondering, she sweats furiously if I cover her with my blanket. This means I have to keep her cool while she keeps me warm. It's not an easy task.

As a mother of 3 weeks, I've learnt the following:
1. She can smile.
2. She has very strong neck
3. It's possible for her to almost sleep through the night
4. It's possible for her to wake up every hour too.
5. By 2 weeks plus, she could grab our teeshirt if we tried to put her down
6. She snores... (takes after the dad)



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