Sleepy Kaden

Funny Kaden

Mood: Merry

Yet Another 2 Significant Milestones for Trenyce

1. Going Diaperless
Trenyce has not been wearing diapers during the day time for a long while already..wearing it only when she sleeps at night. Few weeks before she stopped wearing the diapers, we observed that her diapers were dry when she woke up. This happened consecutively for a couple of days and soon after the grandparents left for their aussie trip in april, she decided not to wear the diapers on her own accord. We tried to wake her up once every night to pee in case she wet the bed unconsciously. So far she only wetted the bed two times and that was when she just started diaperless. Other than that, she is doing wonderful without the diapers!

2. Switching from milk bottle to cup
Besides drinking water from her water bottle, Trenyce drinks milk from her milk bottle...the one that she has been using since infant times. In order to encourage her to switch to the cup, I got her a pink cup from Robinsons one day just before I went on my maternity leave. It has princess pictures all around, so we called it the princess cup. She likes the princess cup very much and hence is very willing to make the change. And so the transition from the bottle to the cup was considered quite smooth except that she tends to drink a little slow and often got distracted during her drink. Mood:Joyful Milestone: 3 years old

Trenyce Jie Jie

Everyone has been asking me how is Trenyce coping with the little brother. She's generally quite ok and is very proud of being called a jiejie. She welcomes the little brother and sayang him alot too...will stroke Kaden's head and cheeks;) When she returned from school, she would shout from the door, "Kaden, Jiejie is back from school loh!" and then she would run to the brother (if Kaden is awake) and started talking to him. She will stand in front of Kaden and says "Kaden, good boy oh. Must listen to JieJie ok". Sometimes, she will say,"Kaden, when you grow big must buy toys for JieJie ok." or "Kaden, don’t cry so loud ok...you want to cry, cry little bit ok, not so loud oh". Such innocent conversations! *grins*

It is also interesting to see how she plays with him as the way she does it largely comes from us....and she imitiates very well. She will shake or squeeze the toy in front of Kaden, or trying to make some sounds using her mouth (she cant really do it so it sounds quite differently but can see her efforts in trying to imitate us to cheer the kid brother)to catch his attention. Sometimes, she will sing for him...her favouite Barney tune.

This JieJie is very kind. She will offer her help to "take care" of the kid brother when I have to do housework while Kaden is awake. She will climb up the daybed and sits besides Kaden and talks to him, "don’t be scared oh, Jiejie is here huh." and sometimes when Kaden cries, she will say "oh oh oh, don’t cry don’t cry, JieJie is here to protect you huh." She will also "run errands" for mummy when mummy needs her help to pick up a hankie or nappy cloth for the kid brother. She does it immediately upon request. Very nice JieJie.

Of course, occasionally she will throw tantrums when she cant do whatever she pleases becos of the little brother and she will say stuff like "I don’t like you, Kaden". Other than that, she is an obedient girl. Sometimes I feel sorry for her as she has to restrict her movements or gestures becos of the the arrival of Kaden. Many times, she got scolded becos of the noise she created has woken Kaden. I know she does it unintentionally as she has been so used to creating all these noise. But there were also times she purposely did something to scare the brother and got scolded from us. Like 'punching' the bed when the brother was sleeping on the bed or purposely dropped something on the floor to create some loud noise when the brother was sleeping. I think this is her way of trying to get our attention. She knows that by misbehaving, mummy and/or daddy will scold her and hence focus on her. Surprisingly, this is how little children communicate with us.

I feel its really hard on the little girl, at such young age, having to adjust herself to life with a kid brother. We cant really blame her if she cant understand especially she is now at this stage where she can "half understand and half cannot understand".

Trenyce, mummy is truly sorry for scolding you all the times...I should be more patient with you. Mummy loves you always ok *muacks*

Dear Lord, pls grant me peace so that I can care for my children with much love and patience that they truly deserved. Amen. Mood: Happy Milestone: 3 years old

Mother's Day Celebration

Its mother's day tomorrow and I had my first mother's day celebration today for my mil with Kaden joining us. We went to East Coast Park for a lunch celebration at the old Big Splash where it had been converted to eateries and skateboarding area.

We had a lunch celebration as we were quite skeptical about bringing Kaden outdoor late at night especially places where its rowdy and non air-conditioned. We went to this Old Town Cafe for nasi lemak and chicken curry. It was a cafe with ipoh specialities, however, for some reasons most of their ingredients were spoilt and so all noodle selections were unavailable and we could only tasted the 2 dishes we had ordered. To be frank, I was quite disappointed as I wanted to try the noodle dishes, especially the ipoh hor fun. I heard from my mother, the food was authentic to those in ipoh and I was keen to try out. Sigh, just my luck.

After the makan, we had a stroll at the park...for just a short while as Kaden had started to fuss again...

Getting back to work

Finally, my 13weeks 4 days break is over. Why so weird? Cos I extended my leave by another 4 days to help my inlaws to cope with the little boy, or more specifically, life with 2 grandchildren. Also, Kaden has quite a temper so I thought it would be good for me to be around to "guide" my mil on his habits.

I started work officially on Friday, which was yesterday. My 1st day back in office was spent clearing my emails and gettng myself updated on work I had passed over to my colleagues. I didnt even have a chance to speak to my boss. I couldnt catch him as he was away for meeting the entire afternoon. Well, guess I could only speak to him on Monday morning then.

I wasnt that worried about things at home on my first day at work cos hubby was on leave at home to help around. But I am a bit worried at how things would be come next week as that would be the official week pils would be left to care for the 2 kiddies. With one week of "farmilarisation", I hope they are getting the hang of caring for them. Cross my fingers....

As it is, I missed the little one at home and had a video call with hubby to see Kaden. From the phone, I could see him lying contently on his bouncer heehee. If only I could have video calls everyday to see him from work....Well, yes I left work very punctually yesterday, arghh...just couldnt wait to be home to see my kiddies! :p

Caring for Kaden

Kaden is an unique child. He is very different from his sis in many ways. Well, physically yes but its not just that. He has very "good" lungs. His cries are very loud and his grandpa is quite scared of him for that..haha..

The biggest problem we had with him was his sleep and his crying. He had 'broken sleep" at night and would wake up several times crying. I am not sure if he had been traumatised by the "nanny issues" but it could have some impact on him. Eversince the 1st nanny left, he had been having "sleepless" nights......even with the 3rd nanny, she couldnt handle him and had to hold/rock him to sleep every night. As a result, we ran into some problem caring for him after the nanny left.....he wanted us to carry him all the time whether he's awake or asleep. And how am I able to carry him all the time, I wouldnt have the strength to do that as my pils will be leaving for Australia in a week's time....plus I got to take care of my elder child too.

In the end, we resorted to getting a baby cradle set (or "sarong swing"). Though there is an electronic one, we got a manual one instead as I intend to get him out of this cradle thing once he's better. So he was sleeping in the swing during the daytime and on bed during the night. Beginning, he was able to take it well...sleeping nicely in the swing in the day and sleeping on the bed at night....but a week after that, he seemed to develop some kind of habit and refused to sleep on the bed at night. But once you put him in the "bouncing swing", he felt asleep.....and you could only put him on the bed after he slept very soundly...which is like after 2 or 3 hrs later then you can take him out without him fussing about. Hubby wanted to put him in the cradle every night but I refused and insisted on "training" him to sleep on the bed, wanted him to ditch the habit of sleeping in the swing. We had a few quarels over that. It was that bad cos hubby couldnt have proper sleep at night due to Kaden's wailing and he had to work in the day. On certain nights, both of us didnt sleep after 2,3 am...just to pacify the boy and put him to sleep. This continued for about 2,3 weeks...until the week before my inlaws was dued to return to care for their 2 grandchildren then Kaden started to get better...His wailing was still there but the duration was shorter from 3,4 hrs to 2,3 hrs..sometimes 1,2 hrs.

Trenyce had also been affected by her little brother's wailing at night. Though she's sleeping but I doubt she had quality sleep. This could be judged by the amount of sleep she's getting from her afternoon nap. Sometimes, she could sleep for 3hrs for her nap! Poor girl!

2 weeks before I am dued to return to workplace, I started to reduce the number of "swinging" times for Kaden. From 3 times to 2 times to 1 time and gradually none. When pils came back, I had already trained him napping without the sarong swing. Quite an achievement huh! But it didnt come easy. It took alot of patience.....I had to carry and pacify him many times to achieve that.

Kaden sleeping comfortably in his sarong swing.

Mood: Exhausting

The month of April

I hardly have time to blog since my pils left for their Australia trip. They were away for the entire month of April to visit my sil in Perth and I was left alone to care for the kids on my own with some help from my sis and mother. My sis would send my girl to school every morning and my mother would pop over every afternoon for a short while to look after my boy so that I could fetch my girl from school. My dear mother also "provide" dinner for us for the entire month...initially we didnt want to impose on her so hubby would pack food home every night. But this only lasted for a week. We were quite sick of outside food. Just imagine every night and the weekends....we really dont know what to eat....even "ta bao" can be a chore! Haha...

Well, how's my life everyday then? Every morning was like having a war at home. I have to hurry my girl to finish her milk, brush her teeth, clean her and get her dressed in uniform. Sometimes Kaden will wake up at 7+am, thats when I'm even more "kan-cheong" cos I have to get Trenyce ready for school by 8am and at the same time keep an eye on Kaden. The worst is when it clashed with Kaden's feeding time! Just imagine!

After Trenyce left for school, I would start my routine: washed Kaden's bottles, washed the clothes (Kaden's ones were handwashed!), swept the floor, prepared lunch, fetched my girl from school, fed her lunch, she slept and woke up, prepared tea for her, bathed her, bathed my boy, fed her dinner, in between also need to feed Kaden....then when the clothes were dried, kept and folded the clothes....and the cycle repeated every day except for weekends when hubby was around. Very action packed huh!

I had less than 5 hours of sleep everyday without afternoon nap. Daytime got to look after my elder child, night time for the younger child. Its indeed very challenging looking after 2 kids...no wonder some couples insisted on one-child policy....oh well...the smiles on my kids' face make everything worthwhile!

Pic taken on my masterbed on 10 April 2008