This orange kitty is a perennial favourite with the Husband, who used to chuckle out loud whenever he sees Puss go goo-goo eyed.
I had wanted to use this picture to reminisce about back in our dating days but since it's his (the Husband) birthday today, hope this classic brightens up his day when he sees this post.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR YEOW!
The differences between having a firstborn and a secondborn:
Bun Baking
Firstborn: Rubs tummy every other 10 minutes. Worries if baby doesn't kick every other second. Talks and sing to baby every other hour.
Second-born: Tummy-rubbing? Mostly when baby kicks. Baby not kicking? See "Tummy Rubbing". Talking and singing? Where got time (or energy)??
Tools Of The Trade
Firstborn: Only the best will do. Tendency to buy too much stuff, just in case you need them for purposes unknown to mankind.
Second-born: Chin chai lah...Improvise. Make do. Bare basics. Hand me downs.
Care Giving
Firstborn: Oh no! Why is baby crying? He's been asleep for so long; is he still breathing??!
Second-born: Anything goes as long as she is not crying the house down.
From blowing raspberries, the little lady has graduated to drooling solid streams of saliva as she learns to communicate with us (so says Baby Center or some other baby behaviour guru).
So much so that I have to put her on the bib to avoid another piece of clothing hitting the laundry basket the minute it gets soaked through with 'holy water'. I hardly have enough bamboo poles to cope with T and K's combined laundry as it is!
Comparing K with her big brother, T never had much use for the bib cos he very much preferred to keep his drool to himself even during Teething Season. With K, goodness! It's everywhere. On her fists, on her chin, on our clothes after carrying her...it's almost like monsoon season without the rain. And thicker, stickier H2O....
Dear skinny jeans, how do I love thee?
By wearing you to death of course!
Four months after delivering the baby that is K, I'm still enjoying the maternity jeans I got from ASOS. For one thing, the water/fats that have been lurking in the hidden recesses of my now nonexistent hips are just that: lurking. Still there. Hovering. Stuck (?!?!).
Coupled with the sad fact that I have upped one dress size post pregnancy, one can imagine how fragile my little ego has become when it comes to wearing clothes. In comes Super Jeans to save the day! No sucking in your guts, no tight waistband to pinch your flab, no worrying about whether you have zipped up your fly after a particular 'relieving' time at the potty (opps, I mean toilet. Was thinking too much about training K to pee and poo sans diaper)
Who needs Levis when you have extra thick elastic bands??
Disclaimer: Pro-breastfeeding Nazis can start navigating away now. This entry is going to raise the hackles on your back.
As with my firstborn, I was and still am on close (you will note the choice of words: 'close', not 'friendly') terms with the breast pump. Only difference is: while I was waking up at unholy hours of the night to pump during T's time, it was a significantly more chin chai affair with K.
There were very little pumping issues with T, very likely cos I latched him for about a week or so before my then confinement lady suggested that I pump out instead so that we are able to tell how much milk he was taking in. Perhaps due to the initial latching, milk supply was great and it kept up untill I had to stop pumping when I returned to work.
This time round, I had a lot of grief over supply levels and breastfeeding issues that cropped up (repeated blocked ducts and mastitis anyone?). At first, I couldn't come to terms with the crappy levels of milk I was producing when I had such great supply with T and was pretty upset about this. Was I doing something wrong? (Yes, I stopped latching K at a very early stage.) Does supply go down as you age? (Apparently not...) Can I do something to improve the situation? (Yes.)
Maybe it's a case of sour grapes. Maybe I am in denial. But I have made peace with the fact that I am never going to get the same supply I had in the past.
Unfortunately, I have also adopted a defeatist attitude. It is recommended that mums who are exclusively pumping milk do so every 2-3 hourly for at least 6 times on a daily basis. I personally disagree with this.
Case #1 - Unless you are lucky enough to have someone help out around the house, u will be permanently attached to the breast pump or kitchen sink. Add a screaming baby in the background while you are pumping or doing wash-up (yes, Murphy's Law will always happen) and you can imagine the levels of stress one will face.
Case #2 - The mum's body undergoes a traumatic experience during childbirth and IMHO, she is entitled to lots of rest while she is on ML. Even more so after she has finished confinement and is possibly taking care of the baby on her own on top of having to attend to daily household chores. Having to wake up in the wee hours of the morning or unearthly hours of the night is just punishing. Mothers are great but they need their sleep too.
I've got to say though, this second pregnancy/birth has unearthed many things I have never knew/encountered before - prenatal nose bleeds, blocked milk ducts, mastitis-induced chills, the works. While these are things to add on to my general knowledge, experiencing them are definitely not pleasant.
While I do want to feed K as much BM as possible, I will give what I can and forget what I cannot. In the words of a very wise friend when I was feeling low about this issue:
"Not giving breast milk doesn't make you a bad mother. There are many other ways to be a great one."
When I first became a mummy and T's gender was revealed, there weren't many hand-me-downs from friends and relatives. Mainly cos my family/friend circles were small and T was one of the few boys to have popped out (girlie chromosomes were dominant then).
Completely innocent of the prolific baby market then, I thought Kiddy Palace and departmental store (think OG, Metro) apparel were as good as it gets. One brand that stood out in my mind was Disney Babies cos I remembered gasping in disbelief when my aunties bought a jumpsuit set for T and I found out how much that itty bitty outfit cost. Buying stuff from Kiddy Palace became a thing of the past as I slowly picked up brand names (Carters, FOX and Cotton On Kids are personal favourites) along the way and turned up my nose at less-than-ideal clothes. Yeah, that sounded snobbish but I am blaming this squarely on being born a Taurean who are famous for their love for the finer things in life.
4 years down the road, K came along and the hand-me-downs came in greater piles as more of my peers popped. I also had fun shopping at Mothercare buying 粗穿 clothes when K started to outgrow her newborn stuff as this stage coincided with the Great Singapore Sale and the magic 4-letter word was plastered all over store-fronts. Think I went a little bit nuts with the buying though, cos there are still unopened packets of rompers lying in K's chest of drawers - Shhhhh! Dont tell my husband!!
For some reason, K has taken a pleasure in peeing on me during morning bath time lately, and it happens specifically when I am cleaning her face or when shampooing her hair. Stuff that happens while she is still on my lap.
When confinement ended and I had to take care of K myself, I was bracing myself for the usual pee 'showers' that will inevitably happen. The first time it happened with K, it was when I was changing her diaper on the bed and the bottom part of her clothes suddenly became wet when it was dry a few seconds ago. Wondering what happened, I was trying to figure it out when I saw a drop of pee in (?) / on (?) her privates. It dawned on me then that K is a girl, and projectile pee *looking pointedly at her big brother T* wasn't going to happen with her.
Yeah, silly Mummy was expecting to be frontally sprayed by streams of pee by K, the same way she was sprayed by T four years ago...Honestly, I will take sneaky pee attacks over jetstreams any day.
See? See?? Girls are still better!
