No pain no gain

Oopps... the little bald patch 'exposed' !


Kay on the throne...


ghetto baby


Kay and Gabe at the "sushi-nazi's" restaurant in Newmarket.




Kay the serious baby and Rachel the "wan-pei" baby


wow... it's literally 3 weeks of "pain in the boob" for me.
I have been suffering from Mastitis, apparently common in nursing mothers, with clogged milk ducts that turn into an infection. It's been pretty tough for Kay and I to go through this period. I had to take care of her alone with cheeyuen being away on business for a couple of weeks. And because of the antibiotics i'm taking, Kay has to be forced to go on the bottle 'cold turkey'. For the first few days, she was just wailing and screaming her lungs out, probably from missing the breastmilk and the closeness of nursing.

Her voice turned hoarse and husky. Her poo turn dark green. Poor girl.
But she's doing really well now... almost fully adjusted to formula milk and getting into a good sleep schedule. She actually sleeps for 9 hours at night and naps really well during the day. She's back to being a happy baby and so is mummy & daddy.

Well, i'm still in the process of recovering and would probably start thinking about stopping nursing after that. I want to start enjoying my time with Kay and not deal with my own bodily pains for a change. There is so much pressure in this society to breast feed that it's become ridiculous. Anyway, i have already done my dues for the past 4 months, enduring the constant throbbing pains. So Kay, better be thankful to mummy.

She is our little angel. A very serious one, nonetheless, who likes to watch and observe and learn. Drooling and spitting up as we coax a little smile out of her. Watching her grow has been the most fascinating thing ever. She is now playing on her own on the exersaucer and making friends of her own. Well, I set up the playdates but she makes the friends. Rachel and Gabriel are her first two pals. It'll be fun to see how they grow up to be.

That's it for now. We just had BBQ with Yolande, Jay and AJ in the backyard. Need to take a bath and continue with our 6th episode of "24" on the computer. With Kay sleeping better, Cheeyuen and I are enjoying more time together doing our favourite past-time...watching TV serials.

canada day weekend

Kay and Rachel



July 1st celebrates Canada's 140th birthday, and also Kay's first as a CBC :)
We could see the fireworks from Stouffville's Memorial Park from our own backyard...isn't that cool. It went on for about 15 mins at 10pm last night, while Kay was sleeping.

We had friends over the night before to have a BBQ and also to enjoy the strawberry festival in Stouffville. Turned out that no one made it to the festival, which was really lame with nothing more than a few stalls with miserable baskets of tiny strawberries and shops selling sunglasses. The BBQ itself was pretty fun though. Nice company good food.

Samantha, Rachel and Sean came in tow with their yellow Bumbo seat, which Kay seems to love as well. It's a great little stool, especially for little ones learning how to sit upright. Rachel has grown into a playful little baby with a great head of hair. She is almost 2 months older than Kay. Hmmm...I wonder when Kay's bald spot in the back of her head will grow hair ?

Lydia and David are the excited new parents-to-be. About 15 weeks into their pregnancy they are just at the beginning stages of trying to learn all about the journey ahead....diaper changes, types of strollers to buy, what baby needs for the first days at the hospital and listening to my ranting/ complaints about breastfeeding and stuff.

Zahra brought us a cheesecake for dessert and told stories about a drug bust in our old condo and her 99cent dinners. Well, she is our ex-neighbour at Avondale. So apparently, the guys in the flat next to us might be involved in the drug bust in some way...the story didn't really have a conclusion. And she is pretty upset by me saying that she didn't have a good photo in her Facebook profile. :) ...we were just teasing her and she fell for it. Anyway, she will be moving to Sudbury in August for a new job.

Well, as for Kay i think she is beginning to notice food that is not breast milk. She makes suckling motions with her mouth when i hold an ice cream stick in front of her. But i didn't work with chicken wings...so i think she's going to have sweet tooth like mummy.

miss bossy pants

The past week was just lotsa feeding and struggling to sleep at night. Don't know if it's just me, but i feel that Kay has grown quite a bit in one week. She is feeding constantly when she is awake. Could be one of the growth spurts that books talk about. This would be 3 months and 2 weeks.

She has started to grab things with her hands even though she still can't quite control it. During diaper changes and when we carry her, she will grab on to our collar or t-shirt. And she loves grabbing at the little skirt on her romper. She loves all things round...the shape of peoples faces, the ruffles on her bouncing chair and the circles on the underside of her stroller canopy. She'll just stare at them.

And with greater neck control and very strong thigh-muscles, she loves "standing" on her feet...with our help of course. It's a bit wobbly but really cute as she stares at you with those big eyes. She is also strong enough to do "sit-ups", when we hold her hands and pull her up from lying down to a sitting position. Wondering if we should get her one of those bumbo chairs. :)

This summer has seen extremely hot days where we were just sweating it out at home. But yesterday was great...it cooled down to 22 degrees with a nice breeze. Finally received Kay's birth certificate yesterday after a bit of a cat and mouse chase with the courier. Now we can start getting her a passport so she can travel to see her grandamamas in New zealand and singapore.

Last night was a struggle to get miss bossy pants to sleep. Spent 2 hours trying to soothe her screaming & crying. Feeding her, rocking her and committing all the no-nos in the textbooks for parenting. The minute we put her down on the crib she would start protesting. Oh well, it's a brand new day today, will worry about it again tonight. That's my life as a mom.

Mural mural on the wall...

I finally finished the drawing on Kay's nursery. Did it in 3 hours yesterday...between her screaming and crying ...and after she fell asleep after midnight.
It started as a sketch on paper, then i simply freehand the curves with a pencil directly on the wall and paint with white paint. The birds were done after midnight.
I think I like it, hopefully Kay does too.

it;s finally summer

Big kiss for the princess




The boss...sitting on our new sectional sofa



Knowing her ABCDs



Keeping cool.



The big Discovery


hey i never thought i'd say this, but the good ol' warmer season is here. Days have been hot and humid, but i guess not quite in the same intensity as in Singapore. It's still bearable if you turn on the fan.

Kay has finally hit the 3 month mark and made quite a few milestones along the way.
On June 2nd, she slept from 11.30pm to 7am....the longest ever. Then after that it is back to the 4am & 7am feeds. But it's a start and we're happy. ..sorry i meant I'm happy cos' i'm the one waking up :)...sorry hon.

The next weekend June 8th, she has also started discovering her own little hands and few days ago ...her feet. It's the most amazing thing to see her explore and inspect her little fingers and finally understanding that they belong to her.

2 nights ago, she actually fell asleep without much effort on her own baby crib, in her own room. Yes, the first steps to a little independence, we hope. Well, she's been sleeping in her stroller next to my bed all this while.

Well, as she gets more alert during the day, keeping her occupied becomes eminent to my sanity. She gets bored by the same scene/ toys more easily now. And guess what, she has started to watch the tele. In fact, we went through 85% of the movie "Happy Feet" yesterday on the computer. Currently, her favourite book is "Peekaboo" by Sesame street and "Abra Cadabra" the online storybook.

Also, thanks to aunty Kate for starting her on the ABCDs...and the ACDCs. She looks like a really cool rock-chic.

She's feeding on my left arm while i'm typing this.