Blessed Wongs

My little girl has grown!

2011-01-09T23:10:00.000-08:00

6 Jan marks the day of formal preschool education for Jan in SJCK. I think I was more excited than Jan about going to school - kinda evident when I spent quite a long time to iron her school uniform (probably longer than hb's work clothes) :P

Here's Jan posing outside the house before we left for school.

2 days of orientation went by smoothly and I even had the chance to excuse myself out of the class halfway on the 2nd day during snack time. The little girl was busy eating biscuits and drinking milo (food not encouraged by her grandma) and was happy that I was out of the way. I "spied" on her outside the class and saw her asking for a 2nd helping of biscuits! Faint!

I managed to drop her off in school this morning with ZERO crying and boy was I glad! While she was in school, I had the time to buy my favourite teh c from Ya Kun at Mt Faber SAFRA, did my time alone in Telok Blangah Hill Park, had a prayer walk at Henderson Waves, run some errands and then picked her up from school. God is good! :)

In the car, Jan started pestering me to go back to work. When asked for the reason why, she said she wants to take the school bus. Really dunno to be happy or upset!! Seems like the bus ride matters more than spending time with me... boo hoo!!

Nonetheless, thank God for His protection over Jan and praying for better days to come! :)

再见了，陈老师！

2010-01-31T07:58:00.000-08:00

1月24日。我从妈妈那儿得知我敬爱的陈鸿珠老师已逝世。消息因为来得太突然，我一时间接受不了，仿佛有着一种晴天霹雳的感觉。老师怎么会一声不响就走了呢？是不是旧病复发了呢？为什么没通知我们呢？。。。心中的疑问不停地浮现。当晚，我梦到和老师一起坐在车后座，游览了我们以前的住宅区，景色却有别于当年。两人一路上默默无语，有着一种尽在不言中的感觉。

回想起来，我同老师已结识了22年。当时，我正在念小学5年级，而老师则刚从高中毕业。白天，她在宽中托儿所上班；晚上，她就给我和弟弟补习。老师给我的第一印象是非常平易近人、纯朴、温柔、同时也带着点儿傻气（因为眼镜超大！）。但是，相处久了才发现老师原来非常严格，生气的时候瞪着你的眼神会让你毛骨悚然。弟弟好几次因为调皮而时常被老师鞭打。弟弟不爽就给老师取了“陈红猪”这个外号。然而，老师总在鞭打之后又给弟弟涂上雪花膏，让鞭打的伤痕没那么明显，呈现了老师温柔体贴的一面。这或许就是所谓的打是疼、骂是爱！

老师非常用心地教课，也让我对华文有更浓厚的兴趣。那一年，我还在学校的作文比赛中得了第2名，那篇文章《钱的自述》也入选刊登在全国小学作文精选集里头。她也教了我怎么去记中文字的窍门- 就是在同别人说话时，用拇指在食指上把说的话写出来。

渐渐的，我们因为常到老师的家上补习课而与老师的家人建立起良好的关系。老师的家境并不富裕，但是兄弟姐妹之间的感情非常融洽，让我羡慕万分。后来，才得知老师想要赴台深造，所以省吃俭用，兼职当补习老师完成她的梦想。虽然老师的父母并不同意她出国深造，但老师非常坚持自己的理想。记得在机场送老师的时候，我非常舍不得。老师就像我的姐姐一样，是个学习的好榜样。当时我告诉自己，一定要象老师一样，考进大学。升上中2以后，我也开始给小学生补习来帮补家用。

老师虽然远在台湾求学，但总不忘给我们写信问好，还常把近照寄给我们。老师也从不忘记我和弟弟的生日，总会给我们寄生日卡。当老师交到男朋友时（也就是我们熟悉的师丈-云忠），她也很大方地把他俩的照片寄过来，给我们介绍。我们和老师的关系更是从师生变成了朋友。老师出殡后的那一天，我在家里搜到了老师在台湾买给我的书籍，上面有着老师的笔迹。这将是老师留给我最珍贵的纪念品吧！

上中学的时候，很幸运地和老师一家成了邻居。老师回国后，两人无聊的时候还常互相串门子，那是多美的回忆啊！随着年龄的增长，和老师接触的机会也逐渐减少。老师婚后搬进了婆家，每次见面也就是给她拜年的时候。偶尔在街上碰面，老师总爱问我找到男朋友了吗？是不是眼光太高啊？当我终于找到对象时，便带着“他”去给老师“审查”。老师仿佛是岳母见女婿，越看越有趣！庆幸的是老师后来不仅参加了我的婚宴，也见到了我的女儿。去年3月份的时候，我们举家去探访老师。见到老师时非常高兴，犹如回到从前串门子的那种感觉，老师也不忘给我们一些教导孩子的贴士。到了该回家的时候还有几许的依依不舍，但却万万也没想到那竟然是我最后一次和老师见面了！老师在6月期间到新加坡伊丽莎白医院做例行检查后曾到我家做客，还带了一箱的礼物给我的小宝贝。只可惜她来的时候我正在上班，所以没机会见面。

1月27日。我们一家带着沉重的心情，回到新山去见老师最后一面。看到老师的遗照时，还是记忆中那璀璨以及和蔼可亲的笑容。当我去瞻仰老师的遗容时，却差点都认不出她了。老师因为癌细胞扩散到肝脏，脸显得浮肿，脸色也变黑了。眼泪不经意地落下，心中的遗憾、惋惜及愧疚感跟着涌上来。随后，老师的母亲招待了我们，向我们述说了老师突发的病情。老师后来因为接受化疗，嘴里长了许多溃疡，头发也随着脱落。在不能忍受疼痛使，要求家人送她到新加坡看医生，却在经过关卡的时候病逝了。一只手的拳头还在紧握着 - 想必老师走的时候放不下的应该就是云忠和年仅12岁的儿子-翊轩吧！听了之后，能感受到老师所承受的痛与不舍。但老师即使已病危，却再次叮咛家人不能通知任何人，以免让他人操心。老师就是这种性格，处处为他人着想！唯一的安慰便是老师终于脱离苦海，再也不会被可怕的癌症病魔纠缠。

老师出殡当天，来了许多在籍学生、已毕业的学生、同事、亲戚和朋友，场面非常壮观。老师在世的时间虽短暂，却已桃李满天下。大家都带着沉重的心情送老师走完最后的这一段路。想到将再也见不到老师时，眼泪便不由自主地流下。到了火化场，当和尚诵经完毕后，有人喊出“起立、行礼、谢谢陈鸿珠老师！”。的确，正所谓“一日为师、终身为母”，谢谢您老师！

火化场的门关上了。火化的仪式也完毕了。曲终人散，望着翊轩拿着妈妈的灵牌那悲伤的神情和彷徨失措的表情，心中不禁阵阵作痛。真希望翊轩能早日振作起来，永记妈妈的教诲，千万不要让她失望！

老师的逝世给了我许多启示。
1. 生命的长短并不重要 - 重要的是活着的时候能为社会做出多少贡献、给身边的人带来多大的影响。

2. 珍惜身边你所爱的人 - 无论是一句慰问、鼓励甚至是道歉，哪怕是一通电话、一则简讯或是一封电邮。不要等到失去以后才来后悔，留下遗憾。

3. 传福音的工作不能怠慢 - 必须抓紧机会，否则就来不及了！真希望老师曾经接受过福音，至少来日我回到天国时还能与她再次相聚。

安息吧！我的老师、我的朋友。。。

爱你的tupai

Taming Monkeys

2010-01-10T08:09:00.001-08:00

This week we have been subscribing more to the old wisdom of "spare
the rod and spoil the child". We started drilling into Jan that she
will get spanked if she disobey us.

Why this week? Partly it's because she started school again, and it's
very challenging every morning getting her to class on time if she
refuses to eat breakfast quickly or let us brush her teeth. In
addition, we also wanted to greet her elders when she sees them.

There was definitely resistance in the beginning, and much tears and
some frustration. But after a week, we have made good progress. Jan is
noticeably more obedient now, and understands the consequence of
disobedience. She has also started greeting uncles and aunties when
she sees them.

A pat on our backs! But I reckon this as the start of the long
journey of child discipline.

A key goal of parenting

2009-12-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

I believe that one key goal of parenting is to let our children achieve independence. My interpretation of independence, is when my children is able to provide for herself physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Hmm....these four dimensions resonates well with the heart, soul, mind and strength dimensions in Mark 12:30!

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength"

Above: After much effort, Jan finally drinks milk from her own bottle by herself. Yet another step towards independence.

Heart - emotions! Be able be the master over common emotions like anger, frustration, sadness, etc

Soul - spiritual life. Establish her own personal relationship with God. Know how to continually deepen that relationship. Also develop her own value system.

Mind - thinking skills. Problem solving skills. Decision making skills.

Strength - physical well-being. This requires her to be able to earn her own living and know how to take care of her own health.

Wow....this is complex stuff, but writing them out helped me think through this topic more.

One last area is motivated by the 7 Habits book. Besides independence, the author also stressed the importance of interdependence--the ability to create synergies with people around us. So interdepedence should be another key goal of parenting!

Share you experience of how you had progressed towards these two goals!

2009-11-22T05:53:00.000-08:00

Jan's Naughty Spot

2009-11-15T05:53:00.000-08:00

Jan is fast approaching her 2.5-year-old mark, and through the past few months, we have witnessed the infamous "terrible-twos" in Jan.

She is a lot more insistent on doing things her way, and would whine or throw tantrums to get her way. She also says "no" very frequently. It often made our lives miserable as simple tasks like meals and milk turned into long-drawn battles.

Fortunately, I had a copy of Jo Frost's "Ask Supernanny". Jo Frost, if you recall, is the supernanny on a popular reality-TV series where she is called in to bring order to families under attack from unruly kids.

Jo Frost finds the technique "Naughty Spot" the most effective. She didn't invent the technique, as it also often known as the "Time-out" technique, but her high recommendation got us to decide to give it a try.

The amazing outcome was it works but we still don't understand why it works. For example, we would be feeding her food, and then when she refused, we would take her away to her naughty spot. Then when she returns, she would obediently finish her food...! And sometimes she would even ask to be brought to the naughty spot....

Amazing stuff...do give it a try with your toddler. Might even work with your spouse =)

Above: Jan posing with her artificial smile (that's what you get when you ask her to say "cheese")

Jan in Disney

2009-10-31T08:10:00.000-07:00

We went to Hong Kong earlier this month, and we decided to pay a visit to the disneyland there since we had not visited it before.

It was a nice hideaway from the busyness of Hong Kong, and thankfully the park was not crowded when we were there and the scorching summer heat had just departed.

Jan enjoyed many of the rides there, but I suspect it was just another amusement park to her as she wasn't that into disney characters yet. I suspect the "disney magic" worked more strongly in my wife...

Jan started school!

2009-10-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

Since Jan turned two, we noticed that she had gotten increasingly restless at home, most likely bored by the lack of new stimulus and people to play with. As such, we began our hunt for a school for Jan so that she can get some regular playmates.

We finally decided to put her to the Montessori at Tiong Bahru plaza, based on friends' recommendation as well as the school's convenient location.

In her first week of school, Jan was reluctant to join her new friends. She gave all kinds of excuses to not to go--want to sleep, need to go wee wee, need to go poo poo. She cried when we left the school. One of the days in the first week, she cried from the start of the session to the end (about one and a half hour).

Her second week was much better, though she would still give some of the excuses, and would repeatedly comfort herself by reminding herself that granny would be picking her later. Miraculously, towards the end of the second week, the excuses disappeared, and she was running into the classroom by herself! The teachers commented that Jan adjusted quicker compared to the average child, most took two weeks to settle in. Thank God for that, we were really happy to see that she enjoyed the sessions.

Konichiwa!

2009-05-17T08:21:00.001-07:00

The #1 question we got over the past few days was "How was your Japan trip?"; the #2 question was "You went to Japan?"

Yes, we were in Japan for six days, and it was really a very last minute trip. An original work trip to Japan got canceled due to H1N1. We were disappointed both because we had already made arrangements on taking leave from work and also we had built up an expectation to see Japan. So when the H1N1 situation turned for the better, we resurrected our Japan plans--this time as a family holiday and not for work--bought air tickets, booked accommodations, packed and left the day after. Definitely the most last minute trip for the both of us!

Right: Me doing last minute planning of the trip. Not sure what my girl was reading...

For our lazy readers, a one-liner description of our trip would be: good but tiring, too short.

Good because Tokyo definitely has a lot to offer -- interesting and very different culture, many types of food to try out, lots of shopping, numerous outdoor options and a great chance to practice Japanese for people learning the language!

Tiring because everyday we had to lug around our 12+kg girl, along with her meals, change of clothes, water bottle, wet tissue, etc etc...and we also had our SLR camera with us. I was surprised at how sore my body was at the end of each day...think hiking was less strenuous. Moreover, everyday we need to feed her milk, feed her food during mealtimes, shower her at night and put her to bed, wash her bottles, pack-unpack her stuff. Whew!

Top: Me with my standard gear -- Jan's bag and the camera bag

Left: PT had to carry Jan for much part of day, esp when Jan naps

Too short not only because Tokyo and its surrounding has much to offer, but also the meager number of usable hours each day. This trip gave me a more realistic expectation of how much parents with young children can do each day. I have learnt to plan my days to just focus on one or two highlights, strategically plan rest stops and include lots of time buffer.

When I started writing this blog entry, I was planning to cover the highlights from the entire trip. However, as I went through the photos, I found that there were just too many things to talk about, and if I were to cover all of them, this entry would probably sit in my laptop for a very very long time. So this is the introduction to an upcoming series of entries that will talk about the interesting sights and sounds we encountered during this trip. Stay tuned!

Jan goes to school!

2008-11-30T07:31:00.001-08:00

* Warning: This is a looooooooong post..........

Jan's turning 18mths soon and we thought it'll be good to expose her to some classes... so we signed her up for a holiday programme with Julia Gabriel for a week and the theme was "Off to the farm!". We also wanted to check out how the lessons was conducted and to gain some insight in teaching toddlers.

The first half hour was basically taking attendance and free play with all the toys on the red mat. Before lessons started, the toddlers will help put the toys away in the respective trays. Jan was quite upset on the first day when she had to put the toys away but it got better. She even helped the teacher to carry the tray!

The proper lessons was about an hour. It starts with morning greetings to all the teachers, adults and toddlers. The lead teacher would then do a demo of the craftwork that the kids would be doing shortly after. Here's the collection of art pieces that Jan did over the span of 5 days!

After the craftwork, there were songs, introducing the letters "p" and "g", "Magic Box" time, story-telling and more songs!

The last half hour was basically snack time and play time. Jan has many first-time experiences tasting different food like oatmeal squares, raisins, cocktail sausages, raisin bread, marie biscuits etc. I love to see her expression when she tastes the food. She also learnt to self-feed quite a bit from the class which I'm happy about :)

There was a variety of outdoor play time activities like the usual playground, sand play and water play. It was good exposure for Jan. She learnt to climb up the stairs, go through tunnels, down the slide etc.

All in all, I would say that this was a good experience for both me and Jan. It's actually quite tiring since I had to be with her in school in the morning, rush home after class and then get ready for work in the afternoon. Thank God for bringing me through the tough week!

Will post about the school excursion to the farm soon!

Well done Trinity!

2008-11-30T06:31:00.001-08:00

All of us who send our kids to Trinity's nursery should really pause a moment and give it our most sincere thanks, because it offers awesome value for free! After sitting in a Julia Gabriel class over the past week, I made a mental list of what I liked and dislike about the class.

What I liked was that Jan got to interact with and learn from other kids of her age group. I also appreciated some new ideas of activities we could do with Jan (e.g. playing with playdoh). Jan also learned more about how to feed herself!

However, I found that even for professionally trained teachers, it was not easy to engage children of this age using a classroom format--much of the time half of the children were lost in their own worlds. Also, the instructor led parts of the session was only 1 hour long (the remaining hour is free play), so I find it a bit short...

So if I think of the session in a slightly simplistic manner, it was not too different from a typical Trinity nursery session! Music, activities, snacks and play. Yes, Julia Gabriel has more trained teachers, but Trinity has loving and committed volunteers! Haha...think my church is going to get me be a spokesperson for the nursery. Three cheers to Trinity's nursery!

I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet

2008-11-16T06:37:00.001-08:00

We went to the zoo during one of the past weekends! I haven't been to the zoo for quite a while, so it was probably as exciting for me as it was for Jan. I rediscovered this world class treasure that we have in Singapore. I was really impressed with how the place is setup, such that visitors can have close-up experience with a huge variety of animals, not be obstructed by cages and fences, and enjoy shade from Singapore's blazing sun.

Unfortunately, Jan was not feeling very well that day, so she didn't get to see much of the park. Moreover, the park was rather crowded that day, so that further dampened our experience.

Nonetheless, I would want to go back there again. I think it is a great place to visit, especially when you bring kids. It is the perfect place for me and pt to bring alive all the animals we have shown Jan on picture books. Moreover, there were a lot of informative display boards about animals in the park, and I think we adults can benefit much from the park too. However, next time I would prefer to take leave on a weekday to go, hopefully it will be less crowded and more enjoyable.

Oh ya, if you are wondering what the title of this post mean, it is the title of a story that we frequently read to her.

Below:

The famous (probably now infamous) white tiger.
Jan with a tired face...she was feeling sleepy for most part of the trip
These otters were really funny. They would move around as if they were stuck to one another.

What should you learn next, papa?

2008-11-12T06:36:00.001-08:00

Frequently I find myself spending time with Jan but have no idea what activity I should do with her. I really want to make full use of the time to do something enjoyable together, and even better, teach her some useful skills. Occasionally, I stumble into a good idea...but more often I am just blank.

So far, I found it useful to go to books and websites for help. They have given me ideas of what skills I should focus on helping Jan develop, as well as recommended activities that I can do with her.

Moreover, once Jan master whatever skill that I want to impart, I will need to find new activities and new skills to impart her. So I can't just learn once and the relax.

It's a constant learning journey for us parents!

Home Alone

2008-11-02T07:07:00.001-08:00

Last Friday we had a church meeting to attend at night, but my mum-in-law was not around that night to baby-sit Jan for us, so one of us had to stay behind.

In the past, either of us could had stayed behind, since we both could put Jan to bed. Recently however, Jan has become increasingly stickier to her mother. She would cry uncontrollably for her mother during bedtime or when she gets woken up from her sleep. Anyone else (except my mum-in-law) going to her rescue at those times would be greeted with more desperate cries. I suspect it is somehow related to the fact that children of Jan's age is near their peak of separation anxiety. Well, Jan's screams at me are probably also getting back at daddy for not attending to her cries in the middle of the night...

Anyway, strangely enough, we decided I would stay behind that night. When my wife left the house, I was filled with much apprehension, as I have not put Jan to bed for a while, and I was worried that if my wife comes back to a crying baby who had way past her bedtime, she would not dare to go out by herself again...and I really didn't want that to happen. So I prayed to God that Jan would quickly finish her milk and then quickly fall asleep.

After I prayed, I began executing my plan. I had planned a series of activities to slowly wind Jan down. At 7:30pm, she has already finished her dinner, had her shower and donned her sleeping clothes. I let her run around for half an hour before I took her into the room to read her some stories. By then, I had turned on the air-con and dimmed the lights, hoping that to use the cool temperature and the lighting to induce sleepiness in her. I was started restricting her movements by placing her in the cot. After a few stories, it was milk time! Thank God that she held the bottle herself and drank more than usual (usually, she would only hold the bottle occasionally, drink a little from the bottle and would rely on us feeding the remainder of the milk to her using a spoon)! As such, the milk feeding task was actually easier than usual.

Top: Jan holding her own bottle during our return flight from Hong Kong

Once the feeding was done, I dimmed the lights further and played a music CD. Now, I was really getting worried, because I still do milk feeds everyday but it must have been eons since I put her to bed. With apprehension I put Jan into her cot and used the most soothing voice I could master to tell her to go to sleep. She fidgeted around a bit before lying down, and within me I felt a rush of excitement as I felt I was nearing success. Then I noticed she was clawing at her diapers. Worried she had poo-poo'd in her diapers, I quickly picked her up to do a quick check. Luckily no poo-poo, but I decided to change her diapers anyway since she was already on the changing counter.

The frustrating bit was that by the time I got her back to the cot, she wasn't as sleepy already...she roamed around her cot, made some attempts to lie down, before she decided it was time to summon the real bedside angel. My dearest lovely Jan then started crying "Ma Ma!" "Ma Ma!"...*faint*....

I quickly picked her up from the cot and whipped up my last trick--cradle her in my arms and walk her to sleep. I have done it a trillion times and it almost always worked...only that we stopped doing that eventually 'cos we didn't want to make it a habit for her.

The trick worked flawlessly--the crying stopped, her eyes started showing signs of sleepiness, and before long, she looked like she was going to doze off. I battled in my mind if I should carry her till she was fully asleep--but risk re-enforcing a bad habit, or put her back into her cot then and risk her jolting her into full-wakefulness again.

Left: Jan sleeping in the baby carrier during our Hong Kong trip. Of course she would only fall asleep when it's mama carrying her.

I decided to be brave. I put her down, and then held my breath to see what would happen. Jan landed on the cot, sensed that she was out of the comfy of daddy's arms, flipped her body to a face-down position, and then started fidgeting around. I quickly used my hand to pat her bottoms in the comforting granny way. She looked asleep as long as I continued patting, and finally I realised that she had really fallen asleep! Three cheers for Daddy!

Haha...a simple matter but amazing that I could write such a long post about it...heehee...really thank God for making it happen. I even messaged my wife that the whole episode was a piece of cake ;-)

Hong Kong Holiday

2008-10-28T08:34:00.001-07:00

We made used of the long weekend to take a short holiday in Hong Kong. In a way, this is her first flight, because she took her first real flight when she was still not old enough to appreciate what was going on around her.

The flight to and fro went relatively smoothly. The change in air pressure during take-off and landing didn’t seem to bother Jan. Jan couldn’t really sleep on the plane though, think it’s too exciting for her to close her eyes. We were glad we took SQ and got the first row because it was a lot roomier and it came with the bassinet. I feel for other parents with young children who didn’t manage to get the front row…they looked like they were cramped in their seats.

Above: Jan in her bassinet

Jan also tried her first airplane meal. SQ has this post-weaning meal for baby who just started on solids. The one on our going flight (shown in the photo) was very heavily flavoured, so Jan didn’t eat very much of it. The one on the return flight was much better.

Right: Jan’s first airplane meal

Traveling with young children is definitely not easy…have to constantly keep an eye on Jan throughout the flight, so we didn’t get to enjoy much of the inflight entertainment, i.e. the movies. We had to eat our meals later because we have to feed her first. Jan definitely kept us very busy throughout the flight. The good thing was my parents helped to take care of Jan for part of the flight, so my wife and I were able to eat in peace and catch parts of the movie “Hancock”.

Our first night in Hong Kong wasn’t easy though. Jan slept very late that day (past midnight!!), plus she was teething and she was in a new environment, so consequently she woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep till 6am….we spent the following day recuperating from that saga.

Amazingly, Jan was able to catch her naps during the trip in the baby carrier. That gave us more flexibility in planning our time. Nonetheless, Jan definitely slept less than her usual.

Left: Wonder mama carrying the 10kg baby all around town while baby catches a wink

We spent one of our days at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. It was numerous attractions packed into one, and we visited the ones suitable for families: Seeing the Panda and the Chinese Sturgeon, the aquarium, riding the cable car and seeing the ocean theatre. It was a good place for the family to spend the day. My parents had a good time showing Jan the animals, and we all enjoyed the sights and sounds there. And at the end of the day, there is a cafe with a great view for all of us to unwind!

Below: Cable car ride; Grandma showing Jan the fishes in the aquarium; A great cafe to rest your legs while enjoying great scenaries

Right Brain Education?

2008-10-10T08:28:00.001-07:00

I had always found it hard to understand why some parents send their children to all those fanciful right brain, left brain, centre brain training classes, and many of those kids have not even reach one!!!?? Why waste money on some useless classes? Why be so kia su? Why subject your children to school pressure so early in their lives? Can’t we let kids be kids and enjoy their childhood?!!

Well, the amazing thing is…I am now also considering sending Jan to those classes.

I realised that because Jan’s generation is brought up so different from my generation, I can’t apply how I was brought up to bring her up. Moreover, one of my fears is that Jan will start school a lot less equipped than her peers. I don’t believe that having a bigger vocabulary or being able to play more instruments will give a child much advantage in school, but I do believe that equipping them with better learning methods and tools will let them learn faster and help build their confidence.

So now I am still half skeptical how useful those classes are, but I am willing to give them a try and see for myself how useful they are.

And I will definitely see if my girl enjoys those classes or feel pressured by them. I doubt she will feel pressure though, ‘cos now everything new is interesting to her, and I don’t think they will put her through examinations yet.

Well, will tell you more after we get to those classes.

It has been a while!! Sorryz….

2008-10-07T08:41:00.001-07:00

Many fans of this blog have hunted us over the past weeks for having kept silent for so long on this blog…a big apology to everyone…it’s all the mother’s fault =P

(…guess who took all the pictures…?)

Anyway, you must be wondering how our little girl has been these months?

She has definitely grown. We know that because she outgrown her previous set of shoes. We bought her a new pair recently, it is one of those that squeaks. She enjoyed the squeaking sound a lot, and will intentionally stamp her feet to hear those sounds =) My mum’s been complaining about how the sounds would impact Jan’s hearing though…but well…

Oh…and I forgot to mention, Jan is walking and walking and walking and walking nowadays! Hmm…looks like I really haven’t blogged here for a long while, ‘cos I thought I should have mentioned that already. Anyway, sometime in mid-August, she started walking more than crawling, and nowadays she barely crawls. She enjoys going out for walks very much, and would get very excited when we put on her shoes for her.

Check out these cool photos!

Left behind…

2008-08-11T07:31:00.001-07:00

Well, Jan’s gonna be left behind for a week while we are on our missions impact trip to Taiwan, Miaoli from 11-17 Aug.

The decision to go on a missions trip was not a difficult one as it was quite a loud and clear command from God to “GO!”. However, the thought of being separated from Jan for a week was a tad too long for me to bear. To prepare her mentally, we’ve been telling her about the trip and that we’ll not be able to see her for a week. Not that she can’t go with us, but we figured it would be better if she stayed home so that we can focus on doing God’s work. I’ll definitely bring her along when she’s slightly older :)

It’s been amazing how God has prepared the way for us so that we are able to leave for the trip in peace:

1. Mum was willing to take care of Jan while we are away;

2. SQ had a 2-to-go promotion so the airfare was actually quite comparable to budget airline;

3. I managed to take leave even though it was a busy period at work for me.

Thank God for his favour!

Before we left for the airport, we took some pictures of Jan monkeying with our luggage, toddling around the house and exploring the box of her new hi-fi set (which Papa managed to set it up within half an hour… amazing!!).

I was fighting back my tears as I left the house. It didn’t help when mum called to say that Jan was knocking at my room door when she woke up from her morning nap calling out for mama. She actually cried when mum told her that we are not home and have left for Taiwan! It does make me wonder if she really did understand.

We’ll miss you little girl and see you back home SOON!

p.s. Do pray for us whenever you think about us! :)

Long overdue review with PD

2008-07-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

Jan's supposed to do her 1-year-old review with the PD but being the procrastinating parents (papa's fault), we just conveniently waited for the appt with the NUH PD today. It was actually fixed more than 6 months ago and we had absolutely no clue if she's due for any vaccine - faint!

So, at 13.5mths, Jan's vital stats are (drum roll)
Height - 77cm
Weight - 9.6kg (the blur parents actually thought she weighs barely 9kg)

Hmmm... she actually belongs to the 75th percentile! Thank God for the growth :)

The PD went on to perform some developmental milestone checks. Cheeky Jan started blowing at the light that the PD used to check her eyes, thinking that it is a candle! Faint! Nonetheless, the PD was quite impressed with the number of words that Jan could speak!

Papa
Mama
爷爷
奶奶
外婆
舅舅
电视

眼镜

美美

姐姐

抱抱

怕怕 (taps her chest when she's scared)

banana (one of her favourite fruits)

apple

pear

baby

lion
star (her favourite song - twinkle twinkle little star)

bear (her favourite soft toy)

hair (pulls her hair while she says this)

nose

taxi

tortoise

cheese

please

men-men (she still can't say amen)

She can also recognise some words and say them as well:

Mmmm

Ooooh

Aaaah
Ssssh

duck

We've been letting Jan play with stacking cups and she's been quite good at it. She would also automatically start clapping, singing and dancing when she hears music. Maybe she's musicaly inclined?? She enjoys putting her toys away too! Other than taking a looooooooong time to finish her milk (sometimes, it takes her an hour to finish her milk feed!!), she's relatively easier to care for now that she's older and able to communicate her needs.

Looking forward to better days ahead!! :)

Jan Hits the Road!

2008-07-26T07:56:00.001-07:00

We were originally waiting for Jan to master her walk without support before taking her on a road test, but then one day I had an ah-ha moment--for safety sake, I would still hold her hand when she's walking, so why wait?

As such, a few days ago, Jan started her first steps outside the house. Indeed, one small step for man, one giant leap for Jan-kind (haha...more like for the parents)

Anyway, one interesting development is Jan started associating her shoes with the phrase "美美" (i.e. pretty). The reason being that when we first put those shoes on for her, we pointed to her that the shoes were very pretty. As a result, she would go "美美" when we mention her shoes.

Back to the main topic, Jan's walk outside the house progressed quite rapidly. I started with a short walk on the corridor outside the house, and in no time we started bringing her for longer walks downstairs. I think she has grown to like walking, as at times she would be tugging me around instead of me leading her. Looking forward to her walking even more steadily!

Jan’s first steps

2008-07-06T08:35:00.001-07:00

For a long while, Jan has been walking around, but she always need to hold on to something, like to her toy car or to a chair. Because of that, many of us had made wrong predictions of when she will be able to walk unassisted. Jan just seem to be delaying that milestone again and again, and we concluded that she found no value in that new skill, since walking seemed so much slower than her crawling (come to my house one day and leave the kitchen door open…before you can catch your next breath, she would have emptied all the kitchen cabinets). In fact, she crawls so much that I think she clocks at least 1km of crawling every day! Anyway, on Jan’s not walking, I wasn’t too anxious as I was dying to have a kid running around in the house yet.

Above: Jan’s photo taken in late May of her pushing her toy car. She also likes to push the dining chair and sometimes the stand fan…

One day before her birthday, Jan took her first and ONLY unassisted step…*sigh*…was she trying to do the minimum so that her parents can proudly wear the “kid walked before one” badge? Over the past few weeks, we coaxed her to take more steps. Now she has achieved a 800% improvement. Impressive ya? That means she doubled every week! At this rate, she will be able to walk 4,503,599,627,370,496 steps when she reaches two!!! (ok, bad joke. But if you are laughing, then you are not any less geeky than I am)

Exploring the new bridges

2008-07-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

We went to explore the bridges connecting HortPark to Mount Faber. Before I went, I thought: two bridges, no big deal. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised. The bridges helped create a very nice trail, and better still, this trail is close to my place!

The trail was also very stroller friendly, so we would highly recommend it to families with young children. Even if you don’t fit this category, it is still a nice trail to walk, run and maybe blade??

We started at HortPark (along Alexandra Rd) and ended at Mount Faber. The drivers caught a cab back to the starting point when we got to the Henderson Waves Bridge. The only trouble with starting at HortPark is that there is a steep climb when you are about to reach telok blangah HILL park. So if you want to avoid, you can try to drive up to the park and find parking there. There aren’t a lot of lots but we spotted a number of vacant lots. I guess many people didn’t know about those parking spots.

I recommend doing a picnic on Henderson waves! Go early in the morning or near sunset time

Check out all the photos on our web album.

Jan’s 1st Brithday

2008-06-17T09:48:00.001-07:00

Jan turned ONE last Sunday! We held a birthday party for her on Saturday at our place. Check out her dress and birthday cake! Though uncoordinated, they turned out to be amazingly harmonious in colour and style!

Her birthday cake also turned out to be much nicer than we expected. We spent many hours trying to confirm the design, and when we did, neither of us had a good idea of how it will look like in the end, ‘cos we mixed elements from a few designs. When I saw the cake on the actual day, I loved it! A lot of kudos should go to my wife and her colleague Lawrence. My wife for picking the cute bear, and Lawrence for helping us bring the bear to the cake shop a few days in advance. I believe the cake makers drew inspiration from the bear and put together the final sweet-looking cake.

Pei Tze’s aunt also made a very cool looking jelly cake. This, like the cake, exceeded my expectations. I attribute it to the clever addition of garnishes like the deer, the fence, the plants and the “grass”. Pei Tze added a final, genius touch to it…she put the jelly on a piece of glass (take from our TV console…), and that just up the class by several notches!

There was a lot of preparations to be done. But thanks to the many pairs of hands that came to help, we managed to set up in time.

In almost no time, the guests began arriving! Imagine the frenzy we were in…thank God most of the things went well.

There were also a lot of babies and toddlers...you might actually think we were running a nursery. Fortunately, we had a play yard in the living room.

It didn't take long before the house was overflowing with people. We estimated that there were 50+ adults and about 10 kids in the house!!

Thankfully, we had a huge area outside our house, which is rather unusual for HDB flats. We were able to fit the catered food and a make-shift canteen in this corridor space.

The high point of the celebration was marked by the cake-cutting. Jan probably did not understand what was going on. I on the other hand, was awestruck when I realised that so many people were celebrating the birthday of a one-year-old!! I then understood that it was really not just a birthday party, but a day where we celebrate the victory of surviving the first year of parenthood! ;-)

Well, we are definitely very thankful for how God has seen us through this past year, of how He has provided and protected us. Happy 1st Birthday my little girl!

Excursion to West Coast Park

2008-04-29T06:38:00.001-07:00

Yeah! We are going outdoors!

We went to West Coast Park on a weekend morning, wanting to get some fresh air and to make it a family excursion. After Jan's first milk feed, we quickly got out of the house and headed towards West Coast Park. We got there at around 8+am, so the Mac there was not crowded yet and we easily found a parking lot. Then my wife got her favourite MacDonald breakfast...*embarassed*...

Jan got her first taste of coffee (ok, just kidding...already she is very active without the caffine...) ..and after that she seems to be getting her mouth onto everything...

The breakfast was enjoyable, as the Mac there has outdoor seating and the weather was great that day -- not too hot nor too gloomy. We then took a quick stroll around the park. That was enjoyable too, saw a number of people sitting on mats laid out on the grass, as well as people camping in tents in the park. A great place to spend a weekend morning.

No-no! No-no! No-no!

2008-04-21T08:54:00.001-07:00

Yes, we have been using that word quite often recently. Yes, Jan does understand this word. And yes, she does gets unhappy at times when we say that word to her, as you can see in her photo.

We believe that as parents, one of our greatest responsibility is to draw boundaries for our children; help them know the parameters that are safe for them. And definitely these parameters should change as the child grows.

The book "Babywise" gave me fresh perspectives on boundaries. The book asked, "will you let your 10-month-old play with the remote?". My answer was yes, but I didn't realise that I would be exhibiting inconsistent behaviour when I refuse her the remote when we are at my neighbour's place (fearing that she would bang or drop the remote). She is not yet old enough to understand the reason...so ya, seems like we parents need to think quite hard of what is ok...my take is to let her stick to toys for now and slowly let her touch more stuff when she exhibit greater maturity.

My colleague has a good way of describing this philosophy. He said it is called loving the "V" way. Notice how the letter "V" is narrow at the bottom and widens as you move to the top? Same way with boundaries. It's easier to start with very strict boundaries and slowly relax them as the child goes, compared to doing it the other way round.

Change is not easy

2008-04-14T07:06:00.001-07:00

If any of you had followed us in changing your baby's schedule, I hope it went well for you =)

It was definitely not easy for us -- there were tense moments when we wanted to blame each other, when we questioned the usefulness of the change, and when we wanted to give up.

Jan was not used to the schedule during the first few days, and after we put her to bed at 7:30pm, she would wake up exactly half-an-hour later, thinking that she just had her usual 3rd nap of the day. She would then be ALL READY to play...and it was very difficult getting her back to sleep again; it took an hour or more before she relented.

Thank God, now she has gotten used to the new schedule! The good of this new arrangement is that we are free to do our stuff after 7:30pm, and we can eat our dinner at leisure. The bad is something we have not tackled head-on yet--how will it be when we have to be out till late and she won't get home till about 10 or 11pm? Will she be able to start her sleep outside? Or will she be super-cranky through the night? *sigh* don't worry too much lah, let's do it one step at a time. The bottomline is that we are happy that she is getting more sleep, and already we are seeing that she is less cranky during daytime now.

Can this work for you? It's really for you, your spouse and all the care-takers to decide. I think what is important is for all to agree that it is something that you want to do, and expect a rough transition period during the first week.

New Schedule?

2008-04-07T02:21:00.001-07:00

We had been wondering if we should let Jan sleep earlier. Nowadays she goes to bed at 9+pm. Comparing notes with our friends' babies and recommendation from Supernanny (yes, the USA supernanny series), that timing is too late. So now we are trying to get Jan to bed by 7+pm, and let her sleep as usual to 7:30am. Here's the new schedule that we are trying:

7:30am Wakeup and drink milk #1

8:30am Breakfast

10:00am Morning nap

11:30am Milk #2 + lunch

2:30pm Afternoon nap

4:00pm Milk #3

5:00pm Dinner

6:00pm Bath and get ready for bed

7.00pm Milk #4

7:30pm Bedtime

Well, this is definitely work-in-progress, but if it works out well, we hope that Jan will sleep better at night and give us more time in the evening. Also hope that it will help her be a happier baby in the day.

ZZZzzz

2008-03-26T19:29:00.001-07:00

My mum-in-law is out today so I took leave to stay at home to baby sit. One of the challenging parts of taking care of Jan is getting her to sleep. She usually plays so hard and so much that it can be hard at times to get her to unwind.

I was wary of that today so I made plan: I would bring her out for a while before her nap time. Usually that trick works pretty well...going out tires her rather quickly. However, when I got back and put her in bed, she was still very awake...*sigh*...I decided to leave her alone while I spend some time alone with God (thru reading my bible, journaling my thoughts, praying, etc).

I checked back on her several times and for a while she still didn't show any signs of weariness. I was getting desperate until I went into her room for one last check, and this is what I saw:

So hilarious!! Haha...I couldn't help but immediately grab the camera to snap these pictures.

Guess she joined me in my prayer time...hahahaa...except that she fell asleep halfway

Think God honours us spending time with Him, so He help me took care of Jan =)

kena botak head - AGAIN....

2008-02-23T07:01:00.000-08:00

Both papa and mama thinks my hair seems to have stopped growing since my last botak experience.... so they made this "cruel" decision... to shave my hair again!!! *faint*

Here's how I look before the haircut...

during....

and 1 day later...

I can stand!

2008-02-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

After much assistance from papa and mama, I finally learnt how to stand on my own! Mama says I kay kiang... use only 1 hand to support... hiak hiak...

I also learnt how to sit after standing up... pandai hor??

hmmm... what's next?

Milestones check

2008-02-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

On Lunar New Year's eve, Jan seemed to discover new skills! Recently, I've been trying to let her drink water using a sippy cup and decided to let her try holding her own cup. She seemed to grasp hold of the new skill quite well and was holding it on her own. While putting her to bed, she seemed to refuse to sleep and kept turning to the prone position. Then she started to slowly move her hands backwards and soon she was sitting! I was quite amazed and she kept repeating the actions - prone, sit and then sit, prone. She was at it for quite a while before she decided that it's time to call it a day! Haha!

Some things she can do currently:

1. Protests violently when we take away something that she's playing with

2. Able to change from crawling position to sitting position and vice versa

3. Able to hold her own bottle

4. Cries loudly when daddy and mummy wave goodbye her every morning before heading for work (quite heart-wrenching!)

5. Kneels in her play pen and "munches" on the sides

6. Likes to hum

7. Shakes her head when she's sleepy or to indicate "no" e.g. doesn't want to be carried by someone else or she doesn't want more food. She looks really cute when she shakes her head. We never fail to be tickled by her action.

Gong Xi Gong Xi!

2008-02-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

Happy Lunar New Year from the Wongs!! Wishing all my faithful readers joy, blessings, prosperity and good health! 新年快乐、万事如意！

I am going to collect ang baos for the 1st time in my life! So exciting! =)

p.s. mummy says i'm quite smart. i know how to hold on to my ang bao very well. if someone tries to take it away from me, i cry!!

another weird observation - i dun put ang bao in my mouth. daddy says good coz i wun "jia lui". whahahaha....

Kung-fu master in the making?

2008-02-06T19:19:00.000-08:00

let me show you how to sit...

* caution: i have undergone special training for this move. pls do not imitate. if you really have to try it, practice only under adults' supervision...

got it?!?

My 1st reunion dinner

2008-02-06T03:16:00.000-08:00

This is my first reunion dinner!! So exciting! Mummy says we're going to have the dinner at harbour city restaurant. And, because it's a special day of feasting, mummy made apple puree and pumpkin cum tofu puree for my dinner. Yum yum!!

See how much food i've eaten!!

Posing with my grandparents...

Happy Reunion everyone!! :)

Arghh...Spinach!!

2008-01-25T08:38:00.000-08:00

Did Spinach really make Popeye strong?

Yucks!!

Ma ma mia!!!

Farewell, Nee-du

2007-12-20T01:31:00.000-08:00

The pacifier (aka the Nee-du) is an amazing invention. I always try to visualise the expression on the inventor's face when he discovered this simple device that can pacify even the most rowdy baby and help them go to sleep. He must had been very proud of his invention.

Or maybe not. Many babies grew so dependent on the pacifier that it became their opium. Jan was one of them; when she wanted to sleep, she would start searching for her pacifier like an addict.

We had been wanting to wean Jan off the pacifier (aka the Nee-du), but had been putting off the decision as it seemed daunting. Moreover, it was an easy way for us to get Jan to sleep and to quieten her in public places.

However, many times the pacifier would fall out of her mouth while she was asleep, and then she would wake up almost every hour from 2am to 6am screaming for her pacifier. One night, after Jan threw her pacifier out from her cot, my darling wife decided that Jan should say farewell to her nee-du.

In the following days, Jan constantly screamed for her pacifier during naptimes. She would scream at the top of her voice for as long as 45 minutes, with such intensity that ALL my neighbours came over to find out what was happening. I thought they would ring the police to report me of child abuse, but my plan was to clarify to the police that I was the real abuse victim. It was extremely challenging to listen to your own baby cry and not doing anything about it.

Our plan was to try for three days and then see how, and we prayed hard we would succeed. Thankfully, and amazingly, we pulled through! After the first night, Jan was able to sleep (at night) without much screaming. She screamed a lot during her afternoon naps though, but by the end of the three days, that became easier also.

So our recommendations to people who want to try this: have total agreement on the plan with your spouse, pray hard and get ear-plugs.

Baby Jan gets royal treatment

2007-12-10T00:58:00.000-08:00

For the longest time, I had suspected that my darling wife came from New Zealand, but it wasn't till we started having an oversupply of breast milk in the fridge that my suspicion was confirmed... =P

We felt it was quite "sayang" to throw away the old milk in the freezer, then we found out that others were using it to give milk baths to their babies...so we decided to give it try; it was said to make the baby's skin silky smooth. *wow* And doesn't ancient royalty bath with milk too?

So here we were, baby Jan and I, getting ready for our first experience of milk bath.

Initially, when we put her into the milk bath, she looked a bit shocked. I guess she was wondering "why is the bath water different in colour from the usual ones???".

It didn't take long before she overcame the shock. She definitely had a great time!

I did not find it as enjoyable though, 'cos the un-thawed milk has a smell to it, I think it is from the fatty parts of the milk. The fatiness also make Jan and the bath tub oily after the bath, so we needed to wash both of them.

But well, if it does make her skin "smooth like tofu", then it is worth the sacrifice right? Hahaha...

Well, like the chinese saying goes, "All banquets comes to an end". Jan, it's time to get out of the milk bath...

"Mum, that was awesome! Can we have it again some time soon??"

funny face :)

2007-12-02T08:56:00.001-08:00

Just some random pics of Jan making funny faces... some look really like those bo gei ah-ma... hahaha!!

Thank God for growth!

2007-12-02T08:43:00.001-08:00

We are really thankful for a number of developments over the past few weeks. Firstly, Jan's appetite has returned! More importantly, she has been gaining weight. The strange thing is that Jan drinks less than babies her weight. She is 7.25kg now and she drinks about 700-800+ml a day; but as long as she is gaining weight I'm not too bothered. My theory is that she is very energy efficient, so don't need to drink much to get what she needs and even gain weight. Somehow makes me think of the inverter air-cons....

Definitely a big thank God that Jan no longer wakes up every hour at night. We stll have not figured out if it was a virus or bug that caused her running stools and discomforts. However, we are glad that it has lost its impact on Jan's diet and night sleep. In fact, Jan more or less sleep through to 7am! Really thankful for that, else pt would go crazy with the little sleep she was getting. More sleep definitely put both of me and pt in better shape. Jan's stools are still mucus-y though, and sometimes with traces of blood (was considering putting those pictures online, but uh-hmm....I guess you understand).

Anyway, also thankful that she was able to switch quickly from a 3-hour schedule to a 4-hour schedule. We noticed she was getting uninterested in feeding, and those feeding sessions were getting increasingly violent (haha....a bit exaggerated, but well, there's some truth in it. a note when you interpret the word "violent" though, the victim was definitely not Jan). It was great when we made the switch, the feedings got easier, and this new schedule also gave us more free time.

Lastly, we have also been able to give her the last feed earlier. Last time we gave the feed at around 11pm, and by the time we finished washing up, it would easily been 1am. We have since been able to bring the feeding forward to about 10pm. The worry of doing that was the baby would wake up in the middle of the night crying for food, but thank God she did not do that.

Well, that's my list of thanksgiving now, definitely look forward to more stuff to thank God for.

Do not worry??!

2007-11-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

Jia-en turned 5 months this past week, and I think as much as she has grown, I have learnt much from my role as a parent.

I have grown to understand better why parents worry so much...well, more precisely, I have found that as a parent, there is so much to worry about! Why is my child having runny stools? Is there something terrible going on? Eeeks...there's even blood stains in the stools... Are we teaching her a wrong value by attending to her when she cries? Is she in some serious trouble when we deliberately don't attend to her when she cries? These are just some questions that crosses my mind regularly.

Then I was reminded of God's command in Matthew 6:25....do not worry!!!

Becoming a parent really pushes me to trust God more...since now there's more things out of my control, and God does tell me not to worry.

Some updates...

2007-11-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

Been a looooong time since the last post. Think have to be more diligent to blog a bit more... Well, not that I don't want to, but Jan has been waking up almost hourly from 3-7am for the past 2-3 weeks and I'm seriously deprived of good sleep! It's really challenging coz I'm always struggling to keep awake at work, especially during meetings. Find it hard to concentrate. Sigh... still praying hard for better nights to come!

Well, we are obviously trying to pin-point why Jan is waking up so often, esp so when she was already sleeping thru the night for a while. Here are some of our guesses:

1. Teething - She's been drooling a LOT since she was 4 mths old and tries to stuff ALL her fingers into her mouth to chew, even if the pacifier is there already...

2. Stomach discomfort - She's been having the runs for more than 10 days, with blood streaks and mucus in her yellow watery/ "pasty" poo (try not to visualise ok?). She'll sometimes wake up in the night crying and then let out a loud fart. Just saw a PD last Tues and she said she might have caught a stomach bug and gave her some probiotics (yakult equivalent). It's been a week since we saw the PD and Jan is not getting any better. Her feeding has been poor as well - only drinking slightly more than half of her normal intake. Going to see the PD again today to see what she says. Praying that it's nothing serious and clear off soon!

Nonetheless, she's still quite her usual self and gets super excited when we talk to her and squeals in delight when we sing. She's really quite fun to play with now and we simply love her laughter!

Oh ya, she's finally flipping! MF and I actually witnessed her first flip about 2 weeks ago and it was a tummy to back flip. Quite unusual coz babies normally do back to tummy first. We kinda figured that it's coz she hates to be on her tummy for too long and probably better if she learns to solve her own problem! Smart girl! :)

goo goo ga ga

2007-10-19T02:06:00.000-07:00

Jan is one baby who can complain, wail and scream real loudly but coos so softly that we sometimes call it the "cat mewing". But recently, she has been responding back when we talk to her. She even attempted to sing along and smiles when we sing to her.... amazing!! On "good days", she will laugh quite audibly. Think she loves singing =)

Some "words" she can coo now:
- ah
- eh
- ngai
- ang guh
- uh
- er
- ai

There was once when she was crying and screaming away, I suddenly heard her say "mama". I thought I was hearing things but MF also heard it. So, I declare officially that she's saying mama first!! hahahahaha!!

Oh ya, we started her on the bumbo when she turned 4months! Borrowed from mama's friend, Sharon - she said this bumbo has been sat on by her 2 boys and another friend's son, well worth the investment!

Who do I look like???!? - Part II

2007-10-19T01:58:00.001-07:00

The bo liao parents are at it again.... let's do a comparison using baby photos =)

n.b. the one on the left is papa, me centre, and mama on the right

The cutest baby!

2007-10-17T08:05:00.001-07:00

Call me biased, but my baby Jan is the cutest! Haha....you don't expect anything else from the parent right?

Jan usually don't like to be placed on her tummy, but we the kiasu parents wanted her to learn how to turn over, and we heard that babies in this position have more opportunities to practice turning and exercise the necessary muscles, so....anyway, she will usually ruin our plans by protesting violently (now that I said it, I think a video of her protesting will actually be very interesting, though I fear that when she grows up she will condemn me for publicizing such embarrassing footages ).

We learned that one way to overcome her protesting is to let her "climb" on top of a pillow, so her upper body is propped up and she can see more of her surroundings.

HOWEVER, even then, she would still protest if you leave her there long enough....or she would start sucking her fingers and fall asleep in that position...so much for wanting her to exercise...

Another unrelated thought: now that our blog is linked to facebook, I wonder how many more/less people are reading it...do post a "hi" on our blog if you can =)

See how my looks have changed!

2007-10-07T08:06:00.001-07:00

You must have heard about how newborns take on different looks during the first few months of their lives. It is almost as if the babies could not decide which parent's features to take on, so they just try new combinations each month.

For us, it is hard to detect this change as we look at Jan everyday. So we decided to put together snapshots of her from every month and see if we can see the metamorphosis in action.

Jan indeed did change her looks! The five photos below show her growing from June (when she was born) till now. In fact, she looked rather different at birth compared to how she looks now!

However, comparing her looks from one month to the next, it is harder to tell where the changes occurred. Can you "spot the difference"? =D

12 weeks liao...

2007-09-07T08:07:00.000-07:00

Jan is 12 weeks old and that also marks the end of my maternity leave. I had mixed feelings having to go back to work. On one hand I was kind of "excited" - felt like I'm finally in touch with society again and my life doesn't just evolve around the baby. On the other hand, I definitely couldn't bear to leave Jan at home. Guess that's the irony of life...

Just before I left home for work, Jan seemed exceptionally alert and kept cooing and smiling at me. It's a ploy to keep me at home!! It just melts my heart... sigh... but bo bian... just have to leave liao...

Back in the office, various colleagues were catching up with me and asking about Jan. Then it was the planning of when and where to express, how to store the milk etc. Went to recce around the building with Cindy to see potential nursing venues. It's really challenging to be able to continue breastfeeding Jan as the workplace doesn't have a nursing room. So that means I have to pray really hard for a meeting room to be available. It was quite a relaxing day at work and a slow start for my freezing cold engine *brrrrr*

Just wanna thank God for helping me transit into work better as we were praying really hard for Jan to be able to follow the routine and most of all, not needing to be carried to sleep!! The next prayer request waiting to be answered is for her to drop her 4am feed and let me rest till 7am... hehe =)

Mama, don't go to work... play with me!

Thankfully 11-week old

2007-09-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

Jan turned 11-week last Friday! We are thankful for how she has grown over the past weeks, and her schedule has also settled down considerably. Even though we are still waiting for the sleep-through-the-night to happen, we can now predict pretty well when she will next be hungry or sleepy. She is also much less fussy, and is especially easy to handle at night. And that of course translate to better rested mum and dad. =) And we also got more of our usual schedules back--going to church, running errands and such.

Left: Declaring victory or surrendering to pressure? You decide.

Jan has been growing well! She now weighs 5.8kg, 2.8kg heavier than her birth weight, which means she has been following the expected 1kg/month weight gain for 0-3 month old babies.

She now runs on a 3-hourly schedule -- every 3 hours, she would wake up for a feed, then have some wake time, before she goes for a 1-1.5 hour nap. It is so predictable nowadays that I can tell what those hours are: 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 10:30pm, 4am. She has dropped the 1am feed, and our attention now is definitely on the 4am feed.

Left: That is how she usually looks after she had her fill. It's not hard to tell when you should stop feeding.

2 major milestones

2007-08-19T08:36:00.001-07:00

Yesterday saw two major milestones in Jia En's development. When I woke up in the morning and found that it was already 6am, I thought I must had a really deep sleep night, 'cos I couldn't recall woken up by Jan's usual 3/4am feed. I then asked pt about it, and I was amazed when I realised tt Jan hasn't woken up for a feed since 12midnight! In fact, we waited for one more hour before she woke up, which meant tt she slept for almost 7 hours! We had been waiting for this moment to come, a time when we could finally have at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep! We have been following the parent directed feeding method, which claims to have helped many newborns sleep through the night at 7-9 weeks. The authors' data seems to strongly support the effectiveness of their method, but we still have our skeptism of whether it will work for Jan. Furthermore, Jan's hospitalisation disrupted our efforts to try pdf method with her, so our expectations had been tt it will occur later and not now. but it's happening now! Praise God! Our current hope is obviously tt she will keep up the good work. Last night she didn't really sleep through, but my hope is that she is in transition right now so I'm hoping for the best for tonight.

The second development was Jan's hair. We got someone to shave her head yesterday, so now she is the little botak in our house!
Left: Jia En before the haircut

She looked so different in this new hairstyle, and for a while after the haircut, we were half wondering whose baby was this? ;-) We also gotten ppl to make a chinese caligraphy brush out of Jan's baby hair, on it we scribed the blessing '神织佳恩，仆人精神。', which have two meanings: first is that God created an excellent blessing, who will have a servant's heart. This is to take after Jesus' example written in mat 10:45 - "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”. The second meaning is that God created Jan, and we her parents are reminded to have a servant's heart. Actually as of the time of writing, we are still debating on the final version of these blessings, so you might hear from us again on the final version.

Left: our little botak!!

See this funny video of her haircut. Notice how she looks like chairman mao at the very beginnning!!

Our 2nd wedding anniversary

2007-08-07T03:33:00.000-07:00

This year's wedding anniversary was celebrated together with our little girl. We stayed a night in Raffles the Plaza and spent lots of time together shopping and eating (Prego's, Mos burger, Ya Kun, Kuriya)... a bit deprived during confinement... =)

My full month celebration cum baby dedication

2007-08-07T03:03:00.000-07:00

Hello uncles & aunties, just wanna share some pictures taken during my "big day"... enjoy! =)

p.s. my 1st time wearing a dress also. my mama says she not used to seeing me in a dress... hmm...

An unexpected way to spend the weekend

2007-07-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

Jan acted strangely yesterday - she was lethargic, didn't eat much, had a sore throat and was unusually cranky. However, she had had days like this, though not in this combination. So we struggled with the decision of whether to bring her to a doctor. We couldn't help thinking if we were over reacting. Moreover, she behaved more normally towards dinner time. Fortunately, I trusted pt's maternal instincts-that something was not right. Jan's pediatrician who is also our good friend also adviced tt we go and see her.

So we eventually arrived at the hospital, and I was expecting the doctor to tell us that Jan's is ok and we could go home, maybe with some medication to help Jan with her sore throat. The shock came when we found out that Jan was running a temperature, and the doctor adviced that Jan be admitted. She explained Jan should be admitted just to be safe, as her symptoms could be caused by more serious conditions. As such, they need to do tests on Jan and observe to rule out those possibilities.

And that's how we ended up in the hospital! And we have to stay till Sunday for the test results to be out.

Left: Poor Jan, she had a drip put into her left heel.

It was a blow to us both emotionally and physically. Already we have been exhausted from adapting to Jan's 3-hourly feeding schedule. i took leave this weekend because i needed rest and i needed to help pt to get more rest. and it wasn't easy for all three of us to get enough rest while adjusting to this new arrangement.

Emotionally, we felt bad that Jan had to undergo such an experience at this age. it was heart wrenching to hear her cry when the doctor took blood and urine samples from her. we also felt helpless when she cried about the discomforts she was experiencing fr the sore throat and stuffy nose. There was also some fears in our heart that the root cause was some serious conditions; i started mentally backtracking things that i had done wrongly which might had caused all this.

Left: After cooping many days in the ward, we decided to get some fresh air. Thankfully the kopitiam at Kent Ridge Wing had a nice patio-like setting and there weren't many people.

All in all, I felt we were given another blow even while we had barely stablised ourselves. We prayed earnestly that God would watch over Jan, that she would be well soon and that we could all go home soon. We also asked our friends to partner us in prayer, and it was comforting when some of them commited to praying alongside us. I told pt that since this has happened, we should see the hospital stay as a getaway stay at a hotel, and make full use of it as an opportunity to rest. So rest for all of us it will be!

In the end, we found out that apart from having the common cold, Jan also had a tract infection, which was the reason she was running a temperature. We were glad that we went to the hospital early to catch it before it got nasty.

Left: One happy family no matter what!

Left: Papa doing silly imitation stuff again...

Jan turned one month!

2007-07-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

I realised that time indeed flies when Jan passed her one month mark. Jan's been feeding and gaining weight well, and thank God that her jaundice has also subsided considerably. In terms of her care-taking, the confinement lady finished her 4 weeks with us, so we are now working out a new routine to settle into. Fortunately, the remaining caretakers (pt, myself and my mum-in-law) have grown more experienced in our job, so we are still managing quite well.

However, Jan has been recently having spells of frantic crying, and that really wears us down. Already without these tandrums, we can *at most* rest for three hours in a stretch, as that is the maximum time a feed can satisfy her for (but in reality, it is even shorter, as after each feed, we need to put her to sleep and take some time to wind down...). With these somewhat random tandrums, three hours is definitely a luxury.

At the back of my mind, I felt we need to be in more control of what's going on; we need more sleep, pt needs more rest; the schedule has to be directed by us rather than by the baby. In reality, it is not easy. In particular, it's hard to think straight when you don't have enough sleep, so instead of having a plan to decide when to feed and when to rest, we react impromptu to her demands, which makes resting time hard to come by.

As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

So my focus now is really to make sure that pt gets enough sleep. Well, that means that I need to be less lazy and do more nappy-changing/baby feeding/baby-soothing etc...and probably also the different tasks that our busy-bee will keep our busy bee awake. Wah...stressed....

Thoughts of a 2-week-old Daddy

2007-06-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

After almost two weeks of hiding in the house, I finally resumed some of my regular activities at the end of the past week. My colleagues and friends were excited to find out how I have been during my absence, especially since I got promoted to daddy during that time.

My answer to them was that it was a very exciting and wonderful experience, but at the same time, I also experienced stress, fatigue, worry and such. It was a mixture of many intense emotions.

I can still remember the moment when I first saw my baby Jia En. It has become one of those vivid memories that got framed and displayed along my memory lane. I was waiting outside the operating room for Pei Tze and the baby to come out. I didn't want to fall asleep as I was afraid that when they come out, they would just go by and miss me. However, the more I tried, the sleepier I got. So after 40min or so of struggling to stay awake, I fell asleep. The next thing I knew was I heard someone calling out my wife's name. I jumped up, and in my half-awoken state, I saw a nurse standing beside a baby cradle. Something in me told me that the baby in the cradle was my baby! I started walking towards the cradle, but that reality still didn't settled in my mind. I was thinking to myself: "This is so surreal! This baby is my baby!"

To be honest, I feel silly that I felt that way then. And to think that I have prepared myself for that day for 9+ months. I guess seeing and touching and holding made me realized things I never realized before. I felt very amazed that there was now another human being that was so deeply related to me.

I stayed in that moment of overwhelming emotions for quite a while. So long that even when my wife came out of the operating room some 30minutes later, I was still seen grining from ear to ear....hee...time definitely stood still for me that day.

Bonding time with papa...

2007-06-28T22:03:00.000-07:00

hmmm... my papa has a big head. no wonder i hear people calling him datou

papa learning to bottle-feed me

trying very hard to keep awake... my expression macam a bit constipated hor?

a nice burp and...

ahh.... satisfied liao... thumbs up for papa!! :)

Presenting... Cleopatra!

2007-06-26T00:17:00.000-07:00

Jan's favourite sleeping pose

Things only babies can do without getting scolded

2007-06-25T03:32:00.000-07:00

They can sleep, poo, pee and be fed all at the same time!

Not to mention that they can be bathed while sleeping too!

Such are things that only babies have the privilege of doing...

p.s. maybe that's where you start getting training for multi-tasking... a skill important for survival in S'pore...

More testimonies

2007-06-25T03:28:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to share some testimonies of how God had been good to us even through the birth of baby Jan.

After I was back in the ward, the gynae came by to congratulate us and told us that the cord was actually around the baby's neck! That kind of shocked me and found the reason why baby's heartbeat was fluctuating so much! It kind of felt like baby telling us that she can't wait anymore and pressed the emergency bell to get out soon.

The next thing the gynae told us was he found a fibroid and took it out for biospy. The results came back during my next review and it was non-cancerous.

Thank God for everything!

Mummy's version of the labour story

2007-06-25T03:09:00.000-07:00

Life has never been the same again since the arrival of Jan. I had to adapt to a whole new lifestyle as a milking cow on demand - literally. My schedule is centered around when she would wake up for her next feed. When she goes off to sleep, I will be checking emails, blog, eat my meals or just zzz. Never gone through such severe lack of sleep before, even when I was mugging for exams in my uni days. Hmm...

Anyway, here's my version of my labour story... (with slightly MORE details)
At around 0410hrs, while turning to sleep on my left, I suddenly heard a "tiak" sound. It got me a little worried and the first thought that came to my mind was, "Is that the water bag?" Sure enough, within seconds, I felt water leaking out and I got out of bed almost immediately, fearing that my bed would become a "water bed" . Water started flowing out and I went to the toilet. Trying to regain my composure, I called out to Ming Fai and surprisingly, he did wake up! We gave our gynae a call and he told us to go to the hospital first and he would see us at 9am.

Still quite in a state of shock, different thoughts came to my mind.
- I had a lot of work to clear (RFQ, review specs, handover...) before I was supposed to go on my planned maternity leave on 18 Jun
- my mum hasn't really moved in yet
- I can't have baby's birthday on 20.06.2007 (scheduled caesarean date)... =P
- Too sudden, felt quite unprepared in a way with the reality of parenthood setting in
:
:
:

After grabbing my hospital bag from baby's room, I was still sane enough to pick out a bedsheet for baby's cot and hopefully my mum can get the cot ready when baby comes home. We then went downstairs to catch a cab to Gleneagles.

While in the cab, I could feel the contractions coming and also corresponding pain in my back. Upon arrival in the hospital at 0450hrs, we went to get ourselves admitted and walked to the labour ward. The midwife then got me to change into the hospital gown and strapped me on the ctg. One thing that puzzled me was why the baby's heartbeat seemed to fluctuate quite a bit - it was 130 and then 150 the next half a minute or so. I was abt 1cm dilated and had contractions every 4 mins. The midwife then asked me if I want the gynae to come earlier at 0730hrs or 0800hrs instead. Not being sure how much worse the pain can get since I didn't want any pain relief, I opted for 0800hrs.

I felt apprehensive when they wheeled me into the operating theatre, especially since Ming Fai couldn't be with me as I would be on GA due to my slipped discs problem. I prayed that everything will go on smoothly and was looking forward to baby's arrival. My gynae came in and said,"Told you baby can't wait right?". I could only smile at him. The anaesthetist then jabbed me, gave me the oxygen mask and I was away in lala land.

After a while, I could hear someone calling my name. I tried to regain consciousness and asked the nurse next to me how the baby is. "I don't know" was the reply. It got me worried. I looked around and then realised that I was in the recovery room and the nurse probably didn't know why I was there in the first place. It was already 0915hrs.

As they wheeled me out of the recovery room, I saw someone grinning from ear to ear walking towards me. It was Ming Fai! He just looks so elated and that settled my heart. He told me that the baby is ok and we were going back to the ward.

Soon after, the baby was brought to my ward for feeding and even before I saw her, I could hear her sucking away! True enough, she was sucking the back of her hand. One look at her and I can tell you - it's all worth it! =)

A testimony of God's gracious gift

2007-06-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Ps 103:3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases
Ps 103:5 who satisfies your desires with good things

These few verses actually reminds me of God's gracious gift to both Ming Fai and me even as we watch baby Jan grow day by day.

I was first diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) just 1 mth before my wedding in Jun 2005 and the doctor said it would not be easy for me to conceive. It is a sub-fertility condition and boy was I devastated! I had to be on medication for a few months to regulate my condition. Thank God for my best friend, Andrea, who was there to comfort me. She told me that children are a blessing from God and nothing is impossible for Him. Ming Fai was also very understanding and gave me lots of reassurance and emotional support.

I remembered the disappointments when we first started trying for a kid and after a few months, we decided to really commit it to God. Family and friends around us kept asking when we were going to have a kid. My standard reply then was "When God blesses and in His timing". We tried for almost a year and just a mth before we were going to seek help, I conceived! God has indeed satisfied our hearts' desires =)

Ps 103:17 But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children

I want to claim God's promise that from everlasting to everlasting, His love will be with those who fear him and his righteousness will be with my children's children. I pray that God's blessings will flow from generation to generation and Jan will be a testimony of God's grace to people around her.

How to spot a hungry baby

2007-06-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

After attending life's college of parenthood for one week, we have learnt how to spot a hungry baby. We would like to share our experience with would-be first-time parents should that they can save themselves the many evils of hungry babies =P

All babies start off looking extremely harmless. When they are soundly asleep, it is hard to imagine the amount of damage they can do..haahhaa...don't be deceived.

The next stage of development is when they wake up. They will begin to fidget and stretch; occasionally, they open their eyes. This is a good time to start preparing for the feed, though sometimes it might end up being a false alarm. But with a careful eye on the clock (calculate how long since the last feed), experienced parents can satisfy their babies before the milk frenzy go out of control.

If you want to wait some more, you can wait for the more definite sign of hunger: the slurp'ering tongue. You will see the baby sliding his tongue in and out, and sometimes as if he is tasting the air. Some babies will also open their mouths wide and use them to search around, as if a candy is dangled right in front of them. This is your last chance to catch the baby in a managable state...

Uh oh...I warned you...

Arrival of Jan!

2007-06-20T03:08:00.001-07:00

Jan was supposed to come on 20 Jun, but she couldn't wait to see daddy's & mummy's face, so she broke the waterbag and sent them running to the hospital at 4am... =)

Left: Mummy waiting in the labour ward for the doctor to arrive. Also one last look at her with the big stomach!

We got to the hospital about 10 minutes before 5am, and in less than 4 hours, baby Jan was delivered! So baby Jan's birthday is 15th Jun, 8:10am. She was middle-weight at 2.955kg, but tall measuring 53cm.

Above: Daddy waiting eagerly outside the operating room

Left: Baby Jan!

Seeing baby Jan was an amazing feeling. I was overwhelmed by the realisation that this baby was my own child! Even though she had been in pt's tummy for 9+ months...somehow that realisation still struck me hard. I was also overwhelmed by the thought that this baby is very closely related to me...in a way that is different from that with my parents or siblings...but she's a new life that miraculously bears some of my resemblances.

Jan's chinese name is "Jia En", meaning excellent grace. We gave her that name as we saw her as God's amazing grace towards our family--a blessing from God. And for the christian name, we wanted one that sounds and means similar to the chinese name. We played with names such as Jean, Jayne, Grace, etc. Eventually, we settled for Jan, which means "the Lord is gracious".

The following few days were introduction to parenting classes for me and pt. Well...I guess it was more for me than for pt, 'cos she was already pretty good with babies. =)

After a few days at the hospital, we were finally ready to bring Jan back home! A larger task awaits us at home--to rework our lives and schedules so that we can take care of this new member of our family. It definitely feels daunting, so we will need all the advice and support we can get.

Left: A useful photo for answering the classic question-who does the baby looks like?