Do not worry??!

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...

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

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

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!

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!

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...

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!