The Leap Year

Today is the 29th of February, which only occur once every 4 years, which is also know as the leap year. Under the good old days when we are only twosome, I would have suggested spending this day doing something different. However, being a parent again changes your life as one don't have the luxury to do stuff as and when you like.

Anyways, we had a bad scare last night when we read a letter from Caden's childcare which stated an outbreak of HFMD of 8 children on Monday! As we didn't bring Caden to school on Tue and Wed, and continued to send him over on Thurs, we were so worried that he may caught the remains of the virus from the centre. PaPa checked him on thurs night when he's back from work and found 2 red spots on the inner lips. He quickly summoned Mummy back from her boss's dinner treat at Noble house as he broke the bad news. As I rushed back in the cab, my mind was fully occupied with the times that Caden would probably have spent with Ethan and worried that Ethan may be a victim as well.

My ah lou came back from the PD eventually and said its a false alarm. Although Caden has not been diagnosed to date, we decided to quarantine him from ethan as far as possible just to play safe. So today I stayed at home to take care of Caden while I work half-time at home.

So just like any usual Friday, we are now relaxing at home and me hoping that Caden is willing to let PaPa accompany him to sleep later..

Grandma is on leave

My mother-in-law has happily left for the day to enjoy a sumptuous hi-tea spread with my father-in-law yesterday. As I had planned to utilise my remaining one month maternity as I can, I am tasked to baby-sit the rest of the children in the house for the afternoon. I have done this once just 2 weeks ago, and thought there shouldn't be a problem doing it again yesterday.

Kimi wasn't too cooperative, it was tiring getting her to take her afternoon nap. She was moody after she came back from school, not looking for Grandma, but rather wanted her Mummy or Daddy to come back again(this happened 2 weeks ago). I have to sms her Daddy to get him to call home and ask her to sleep.. in the end, after attempting for almost 4 hours, I gave up the idea.

Caden was super-cooperative, surprisingly, he slept from 130pm till almost 5pm, where I have to wake him up so that he will not have a problem getting to sleep at night.. Ethan was good too, he has to be woken up from his sleep to take a scheduled milk feed which has been exceeded by 1 hour.

I had planned to be a Chinese teacher by bringing along a book, the children obviously took no interest in that and kept bugging me to play Barney for them to watch. In the end, I gave in cos I need to be busy feeding Ethan again.

My MIL came back later that night looking very happy, she commented that this could be her one and only hi-tea in her life.. if there's another chance, I think I'll probably sponsor them to do another round later this year.

Terrrrrible 2

We often hear stories about the Terrible 2 stage of a toddler, and I thought I was lucky that Caden was a disciplined child since he turns 2 last April. However, this little child of mine went into horrible tantrums lately, especially when he saw how we paid attention to Ethan. Caden loves to negotiate. When we gave him ample time to prepare him for his afternoon nap, eg, after you have finished watching Hi-5, it's time to sleep - he'll say ok. But when the programme finished, he starts to ask for more again or he'll say," I want to play for 5 mins."

We usually don't give in to unreasonable demands or negotiate. It's especially tempting in public to cave in as a way of ending the episode. Often we don't worry about what others think — anyone who's a parent has been there before. By conceding, I know that i'll be teaching him that pitching a fit is the way to get what he wants, and setting the stage for future behavior problems.

So how do we handle this? Put him in the quiet corner for a time-out till he stop crying. then he'll be released and do whatever that we have asked him to do.. Every weekend is chaotic, there is so far no one day he leave us in peace and not put him in the quiet corner. Just hope he'll outgrown this bad behavior problems by the time he turns 3.

Ethan becomes Botak

Finally, we managed to bring Ethan to the hair salon downstairs to have a good shave of his patchy hair this Sunday, 2 days after he turns 4 months. His cradle cap is still in existence to date, so hopefully this shave can really help to eliminate the condition quickly. Ethan was calm and quiet when the shave is taking place, didn't struggle any bit at all. We were pretty impressed with his calmness and the shave was done in no time. He definitely looks cuter having a botak head and his Grandma commented that he resembles very much of Caden now that the curly hair is taken off.


Day before the shave




During the shave

Valentine's Day

V day has never meant anything to my ah lou, least when we started seeing each other till now.. I don't quite remember receiving any specific gifts meant for V Day, or maybe some gifts which are expensive enough to be combined for Xmas gift and V Day gift. For a long time, I have resigned to the fate that my hubby is simply not bothered to celebrate V Day cos he doesn't really do anything for our anniversary either so what's more a V Day.

No surprise for this year, though he kept saying that he will pay for my Coach bag which costs 600 over for my Vday present. Sometimes, it will be nice to have a surprise from him, but the un-surprise thing abt him is that there is no surprise - he is the most unromantic person I ever know. Despite this, I still rushed down to Zara on Vday in the mist of my reporting period to get a shirt for him which he has tried but not bought cos it was beyond his price range.

So why am I married to him in the first place? There are more than this about him that meant more to me...

Foursome

Weekends in our house is simply chaotic... we couldn't persuade the share resource (filippino maid) to come over to our place to help our chores as we are predominantly occupied with our 2 lil boys. So every weekend, we have to learn how to manage on our own with crazy schedules working around them.

Mornings, we have to bathe them separately, usually Caden will stick to mummy like superglue in the house while PaPa helps to take care of Ethan for milk feeds and naps. We spent bulk of the time in the house doing things for the kids, and squeezing our some hours to clean up the house (which includes toilet cleaning, vacuuming, mopping the floor, wiping the surface areas and changing bedsheets). Sometimes, I try to squeeze in some time to teach Caden some words to orientate him with words recoginition so that he won't have a hard time catching up in school.

So there is a pre-fixed set of duties to fulfill each weekends, we don't have the luxury to go shopping, watch movies, short holiday at some beach resorts, but rather, cleaning up the nappies, clearing Caden's backside full of shit, cleaning up his vomit (when he is cranky and demanding but we don't give in), feeding meals, working like a slave in the house while they are asleep.. our only free time to ourselves is probably Sat afternoon when we catch a nap - if Ethan sleeps then too, or night time when the kids are tuck in to their beds.. sounds horrifying, but it's enriching. To think about it, we probably lead a more fulfilling lives than other couples who have lotsa of time to themselves, who in turn cannot decide what to do cos the choices are simply too many. Whileas for me and my ah lou, we don't have any choice to begin with when the sky turns bright each day. Each weekend is spent benefitting our lil ones..

Ethan's Cradle Cap

Ethan has a bad case of cradle cap recently. We asked Dr Sim if he carries any cradle cap shampoo but he said using baby oil to apply on the scalp for 30mins, then comb it away will do. We did this for Ethan this morning and manage to get rid quite a fair bit of the dead skin on his scalp for him.. don't know whether is it because of our comb, some parts of his scalp became a little reddish as I examined him this afternoon.. We are bringing him for a thorough shave next weekend when he turns 4th month old, hopefully it will help to reduce the dead skin on his head..

pictures of him in the last 3 weeks, the last 2 pic are taken today, seems to have lost weight, but grown taller

Ethan's latest development

Ethan has started to "speak"to us during his awake time. He simply loves oohing and cooing at people who speak and play with him, engaging and even laughing out loud at times. His legs are kicked at a higher level, I suspect, in time to come, he will start holding on to both legs and putting one of them into his mouth..

Although Ethan is our second baby, his new developments are refreshing and entertaining to us.. we are still looking forward to new "stunts" to be displayed by him as the days go by.

This Lunar New Year

This Chinese new year, we have both Caden and Ethan doing the usual house visits at the elderly. Ethan just turn 3 and a half months and is still on his usual 18 hours sleeping routine. Caden has now become more sociable, and knows how to say "happy new year" in Teochew, our dialect. He is very happy upon receiving hongbaos and even helped his Lil Ethan accept on his behalf and placed it on his chest. Even when we returned home after the house visits, Caden will ask me for his hongbao, but definitely we don't pass them back for his safekeeping as we know he won't be able to remember where he placed them after a while.

Everyone is eager to carry Lil' Ethan but most of the time, he is either hungry for feed or sleep. So Caden then becomes the focus as he is now more vocal and curious with the surroundings.

One unfortunate incident over the 3 house visits we have made so far was that all the elderly have serious health problems this period. My Aunt is not able to walk as her spinal and nerve condition worsen, Ricky's Da Po has started with dialysis as his kidneys have failed, Da Mu also have problems with her hands and is getting weaker due to old age. Da Yi has also recently have problems with walking as well and may potentially need an operation if her physiotherpy is not effective..

Then leads me to think that if I were to age, I hope I won't be a burden to my children, it will be physically, emotionally and monetary draining to them.. and I will feel as frustrated as my ah Yi.. so possibly, it helps to have more than 1 child, but at this point, we'll still stick to 2, as we have problems juggling between work and family since Ethan is born...