Poor Madison...

This morning was terrible.

Chris left the house early so I was alone with the 2 kids. Normally this isn't much of a problem but today Madison suddenly got up at 6. I couldn't figure out why, but before I could do anything the baby woke too and started crying.

I kind of panicked, and went in to feed the baby first. Watching Madison through the baby monitor throughout... she stood in her cot for awhile, and I had this sinking feeling that she had done something nasty in her diaper. When I had finally settled the baby, Madison had fallen back asleep.

At 730, Warni arrived for the day and Madison woke again. I immediately went in and OMG... the smell was terrible. I took her to the bathroom to wash and the poo was all over her diaper. After that she refused to wear a diaper, and I couldn't understand why.So she went diaperless for breakfast, then afterward she said she wanted to pee so I took her to the potty. Nothing. I decided to give her a wash and that's where she started to howl in pain.

Her perineum was excoriated and macerated. It was BAD diaper dermatitis. Poor baby. There was still some poo inside the vulva so I had to gently use wipes to clean again. Then used Desitin ( 40% zinc oxide ) to cover the affected area. The rest of the morning she went without any diaper/underwear.

The ironic thing is that she FINALLY voluntarily used the potty consistently the entire morning, apart from the first poop that landed on the floor! But poor Madison, had diarrhoea 5 times this morning. I don't know what caused it... was it left over banana cake that her grandparents gave her( even though i was against it! ) Or dirty swimming pool water? Or too much dried fruit?

Now I feel bad that I had to choose between the 2 kids as to who to attend to, and Madison had to suffer from bad dermatitis as a result. I know she doesn't blame me, but if I had cleaned her up earlier she would not have had to suffer the pain of excoriated skin.

I'm not sure what we're going to do tonight, because she most certainly should not be sleeping in a wet diaper ( not that she'd agree anyway ) .. I have to see if one of us works something out.

As for Annika, I'm still trying to work out a regular schedule for her so that she's less grumpy and settles better at her afternoon nap. Yesterday things were slightly more settled, she slept in the morning for an hour, then settled beautifully in the afternoon for a decent 2 1/2 hour nap, and one more later in the afternoon for another hour or so. I figured that should be roughly what she needs at the moment during the day. Night time is a different ballgame! It's still variable as to when she wakes, so I take it one night at a time. The only thing I have learnt is that I do need to pump a little just before she nurses at night so that she that she doesn't choke, gulp huge amounts of air and then fuss over gas and then refuse to settle.

Sigh... that's motherhood for you, I guess...

Back to night wakings!

So.. it must have been a fluke.

Annika is back to waking 3 times a night, which is what she has been doing the past few nights. Sigh... I blame Chris! He must have jinxed it! The day he commented that Annika is a good sleeper was the day she reverted back to multiple night wakings...

It's funny how quickly you forget what it's like to have to stay up all night! 2 nights of tasting sleep and I start getting grumpy over having to stay up again! I've already forgotten the nights where she wouldn't even settle, and I had to stay up 2 hours trying to get her to go back to sleep.. shudder..

Maybe it's a growth spurt? Sigh.. the only hope I have is that IT IS TEMPORARY. She WILL NOT be doing this at 1 year old. At least we will have sleep trained by then. I am still wondering about the technicalities of sleep training this time. Do we let her cry it out when Madison is sleeping over at the grandparents' place? Or just do it even though Madison will be next door to her? Sleep training takes a few days to a week, so technically Madison will have to endure some of this crying too. I'm still hoping Annika will somehow magically sleep train herself painlessly!

Anthony is visiting for 2 weeks. It's nice to know there's another pair of hands to entertain Madison.

Speaking of which. We had a great weekend that just passed. Friday Chris finished work early so it was nice that he was home and we had lunch out together. Saturday I got to go to Joan's wedding gown fitting while Chris and the grandparents took Madison out to see kite flying. There was a kite festival at the Marina Bay promenade over the weekend. After dinner, the kids were then taken to Kranji to attend a Lantern Festival event, and they got to walk around with their lanterns and try mooncakes. After the event, Madison stayed over with the grandparents, while we took Annika home. It felt really weird having only 1 kid to look after, and boy! It felt EASY! It's all in the retrospect!

Sunday morning felt so nice and calm. Only 1 baby between the 2 of us. Fed and changed her, then went to the club where Chris managed a swim. We then had a leisurely brunch at Vivocity, went shopping and then frappucinos at Starbucks. Something we usually cannot do because of logistics/ toddler running around/ nap time issues. Also since Madison isn't really allowed to drink frappucinos as a general rule.

Anyway... Monday came around way too soon. The usual mad rush starts again.. me and the 2 kids. Sigh. But I really should embrace the time I have with my 2 darlings... funny thing is, I grumble when I have to stress over all this but then when I get time out I stress over getting back quickly to my darlings!

Potty training and sleeping

Yesterday Madison finally voluntarily went potty by herself for the first time.

So many people have been either asking me whether she is potty trained already or nagging me about it, but after a few failed attempts I've decided thus far to leave the issue alone. After all, like the books say, it'll happen eventually.

Anyway, yesterday morning she didn't want to wear her diaper. Which has been happening for awhile. It's just that she refuses to go anywhere near the potty or the adult toilet. So, as usual I warned her not to pee on my bed or the couch. She agreed. After breakfast, I took the 2 kids out alone for a short jaunt to the petrol kiosk then we were fiddling downstairs by the pool, where she promptly splashed the water onto her clothes. When we got home I wasn't sure if she'd peed or it was the pool water. She denied having peed. So I took the opportunity to ask her to use the potty. Initialy she sat on it and I tried the usual tricks, reading, encouragement etc. Then she insisted on taking the potty to the living room, to my chagrin. I caved in in the end. Told her that if she did pee she'd get a reward. That worked instantly. So she got her pack of M&m's. Sigh. So much for trying NOT to use rewards to potty train.

The other thing was that for the very first time, Annika slept through for a really long time! I hope I don't jinx it by blogging about it, but I really should document it this time. She was fussing in the evening at about six, so I fed her and she went down by about seven. I was expecting her to wake earlier since she usually goes down closer to eight. To my great surprise she stayed asleep till midnight, then managed to continue till 6 the next day after a quick feed! I still had to get up to pump though, since I got engorged anyway but it was great not having to settle her in the middle of the night after feeding! I made the mistake with Madison of routinely waking her up in the hope that I could get a regular night time schedule. In the end I'd spend over an hour trying to resettle an woke baby after feeding! That drove me nuts. This time round I'm going to let Annika lead the way. Until closer to 8 months or so, then we'll have to sleep train if she doesn't do it herself.

The 2 girls ended up having vaccinations yesterday too. It was a mad rush getting everyone ready and packed up to go to Kkh but between us all we did it. Madison, being older had to have bribes and promises of treats, but she was a champ at the paediatrician's ! Willingly let herself get examined on the table, just like a pro! I was so proud of her. She cried a little during the jab, but proudly announced she'd had the injection later on. She got her prize at 7-11 afterwards.

Finally, it's really funny the things that she says these days. I keep telling her not to use crying or tantrums to express herself, since only babies do that,a nd babies don't get special treats or outings. She understands but occasionally forgets. Yesterday after her lunch she grouped back into the house and seeing me there, quickly announced :" I no cry!!" of course I immediately become suspicious and ask her if she did cry! She did not admit and then of course the next person I ask is Warni. Who tells me that she did throw a tantrum. Why? She got mad that Elizabeth was faling asleep at the table while they were eating lunch together! Kids..

Relections

I admit it, I'm addicted to the blogosphere.

Since I've got the iPad I've been spending more time on the Internet and I've found so many blogs that are quite interesting-- at least to me. There's one that I've been following for quite a while now, she's a teacher in the US who initially was blogging about her first pregnancy and running through it, then how she coped during the child's first year. And then, surprise surprise, she became pregnant again and delivered just a few days earlier than me! It's unreal how we get glimpses into these strangers' lives and if you keep up with the blogs it's as if you get to know them personally!

Anyway, I found it really intriguing how she manages 2 kids and trains for races without much help... I couldn't imagine doing what she does!

Another blog that I found via a parenting magazine is called " impersonating normal". She's a therapist of some sort that wrote extensively about her struggle with infertility and infertility treatments. She subsequently became pregnant with twins but the male twin died in utero at 24 weeks. That was quite a shock. She writes very well and is really expressive. I was hooked for a few days while I plowed through all her archived blog entries. Thank goodness she only started her blog last year. Reading her blog left me thinking about how lucky I am to have 2 healthy kids without any of her struggle, and to be more patient with them.

Anyway, that aside, things are settling somewhat with the baby. I am still trying to get her on some form of a sleeping schedule, but it's still not there yet. But, the power of hindsight. I know now that in the end all the naps are dropped except for the afternoon one, so i' m really not as stressed about it this time round as compared to Madison. So, I am routinely putting her down for her 1 pm nap in the hope that she gets the hang of sleeping well at this time.

Also, this time round I'm a lot more disciplined with the bottle feeding. Annika gets a bottle of expressed milk every afternoon. Thank goodness for the lactation consultant Yen Ping, who kindly advised me to try the Pigeon latex teat. So far so good. Am thinking of introducing a second bottle feed, perhaps mid morning.

Work is starting to pick up too. The past week has been rather busy. Sometimes it feels like there is hardly time to breathe, yet it all passes
so quickly. Tomorrow Annika turns 8 weeks! 8 weeks since I was pregnant, had that horrible C section and survived the recovery period! We are going to Kkh for the first of her vaccinations tomorrow. Madison will get the chickenpox vaccine too this time. I am feeling rather nervous about it, although I know it's rather silly and these jabs are really quite routine.

One final thing, Chris received an award for being an exemplary registrar at work! Am so proud of him! He attended a dinner last night to collect the prize. Mun Hon was there with him, since I had to stay home with the kids. Way to go!

Hari Raya break

Yesterday was the Hari Raya holiday.

It's like the new year celebration for Muslims and a fairly important day, so I gave Warni the day off. Thankfully Chris was not on call so he was home the entire day to manage the kids.

My goodness ... Chaos would be a good description of the morning!

Everyone was up by 730 am for the day. it was a tag team effort between the 2 of us to get breakfast sorted put, then the 2 kids reasonably dressed for the day. Madison insisted on wearing her undies without her diaper or anything else first thing in the morning. Hence she was naked save for the above said undies for the better part of the morning!

Lunch was picnic at the beach. The sky looked threatening initially,covered with dark clouds,but we persisted and it didn't rain till we were done! We made it simple, with store bought food and drink. There was roast chicken, 2 types of ribs, ham and cheese, croissants and egg tarts. Talk about a gourmet lunch! Madison was starving and she tucked right into the food. No trouble with eating there...ended the meal with a tub of Ben and Jerry ice cream..

We brought along Madison's little push bike and she was peddling it for a little while. Then the wind picked up and Mun Hon finally got to fly the kite ...he and Chris were the most enthusiastic kite flyers in the family.. Although it was pretty cool at the end when the kite actually stayed air borne without much effort..

The baby was great outside actually. After her screamfest earlier that morning she was quite calm and settled at the beach..she even allowed me to put her in the stroller while I had lunch. Then when she started fussing I latched her on and she fell asleep while I continued eating! It was all great until we got home and then she couldn't stay asleep! Then the crying started again..

Well... I don't know if it was the screaming, or the good sleep she got after that when we took her shopping with Madison, or the full bottle feed that she took but the night was great! She settled really well by 7 pm, allowing Chris and I to grab a nice dinner at Casa Verde (at the Gardens ) then staying asleep till 1 am! She settled easily after a quick diaper change and feed till 5 am then again till past 7! It was great... Worth the screamfest entirely.

Am super glad that there is still the weekend to look forward too!

Goodbye to Grandma

Chris' mum went back to Melbourne last night after a one month visit here.

Yesterday was busy as usual in the morning: Chris had to go to do the round at work, I had appointments at the clinic and Madison had music school. Poor Annika was the only one left out! Lunch time things fell apart: the clinic ran late so at 12 I was still working. Chris was late for his training at the gym because he had to watch the baby while Warni gave Madison her lunch. And of course the baby by then was starving AND tired!

The afternoon in contrast was peaceful. We took his mum to the Botanic Gardens to take some photos ( her favourite activity!) with the kids. Unfortunately the weather was just too humid and hot. We were all sweating buckets by the time we left, which wasn't very long after we arrived!

After the baby was settled in the evening we had to go to the airport. Madison came along. I promised her ice cream after our dinner at the airport as a treat. She was understandably excited the entire day about this.

It was nuts at the airport! There were so many people hanging around and queues were massive at all the dining options! We rushed from one restaurant to another, only to be faced with wait lists ! Crazy! We were about to give up and just say goodbye when I chanced upon Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, which happened to have seats. So we had a quick bite and Madison, got her molten chocolate cake ( instead of ice cream ). She was happy. There was a Grand Prix exhibition by model car maker Tamiya next to us and after watching the model cars zoom by I got Madison a simple remote controlled car.

Sigh.. alas the night was BAD. Annika woke earlier than she'd been doing recently for a feed, then after that it was downhill. Whenever I have a bad night I feel my temper rising if she cannot settle. Then I think.. not doing this ever again! So unfair that men get the easy end of the stick when it comes to kids! It takes me close to an hour to settle her each time she wakes and then I have to do it all over again after an hour! Meanwhile everyone else gets to sleep. It sucks.

I know it'll pass eventually.. in about a year or so...but right now that seems really far away.. yawn...

Work!

This has been a rather crazy week!

Initially when I planned to return to work, I meant for it to be half days in the afternoon only. But, the minute the week started, patients appeared in the morning, and I couldn't turn them down.

Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays Madison has school. Usually I'll drop her off, and by the time I'm back and settled the baby it'll be closer to 1030 am. Thankfully patients at the clinic don't seem to come round too early. In any case, I'd have to turn them down or get them to return later. So then, Annika is left in the good hands of Warni and I rush down to see the patients. On Monday this week, it was too late to go back home after I'd finished so I had to go straight back to pick Madison up from school.

Between 12 and 2PM it's definitely a no go zone. Warni needs to give Madison her lunch, bath and settle her for her nap of the day. Which means I have to stay at home until Madison goes down, usually by 130Pm. Hopefully during that time I am successful in settling Annika, which kinda depends on how much she has slept during the morning.

It's quite hard to keep her up and happy! She's peaceful when she's sleeping, but then she refuses to go down for her afternoon nap. If we try and keep her up she's crying and fussy! So usually it's a delicate balance between the two states. Warni seems to be better at keeping her up and slightly more pacified than me. It takes me close to an hour or 1.5 h before she finally settles in the afternoon ( usually ).

So, then by 145PM or 2 PM I can usually go back down to the clinic. I can't even imagine if the clinic was truly busy! I like it that I don't have too many patients at the moment... and my patients are mostly happy to go by appointments ( rare in Singapore!)

Today the morning appointment ran over time. It was a mad rush to go home and by the time I got there the baby was wailing, Madison had turned the house upside down but the good Warni was cool and collected! I really think Warni is better at this mothering thing than I am... she's got the personality for it.

I'm starting to feel really guilty towards Madison; the days she is at home she winds up spending quite a bit of time with Warni or by herself. I guess I should be happy that she is able to entertain herself, which probably is developmentally appropriate. Just that in the past I'd be able to spend more time with her. Hopefully as Annika grows older it'll get better. Then maybe the 2 of them can play together and entertain each other! Annika also gets the short end of the stick.. she can never get the amount of time that I had with Madison at the same age.. the only difference is that she'll never know.. which is sad. Why does it feel like anything I do is never enough?

Finally... I LOVE the iPad! Only problem? It needs a Mac OSx 10.5 and above to work! So the iMac and this laptop is obsolete... apparently the software for the new operating system software is not even compatible with them! But, Chris got the iPad working for me, and it keeps me company through the long nights and when breastfeeding! Just wish I could download some ebooks off iBook or Amazon for kindle.

I guess we all just have to press on...

Another week

This week marks Annika's 6 th week....

To start the week off, the rear right tyre on my car punctured. Fortunately I saw the deflated tyre.. I would've been driving all week on it.. the car didn't feel any different. I took the car to the nearest workshop ( which happens to be at the SPC station downstairs) and the bad news was that all 4 tyres needed to be replaced! That cost me $900.

The refrigerator at home also decided to call it quits.
The repair guys came to check it, and declared that the compressor was kaput. Argh... so close to moving house and the fridge has to give up on us! So we ended up buying a smaller fridge to replace our current double door. And this is after the renovation to the kitchen just to fit our huge double door fridge!!! Now there'll be a huge gap from the fridge to the wall!

I've also started work as of this week. I think I will do afternoons to start, when the kids have ( hopefully ) settled down for their afternoon naps. Annika is getting difficult to nap... she is sleepy the entire morning, then when 12pm comes and I need her to sleep she is fussing and refusing to nap. Yesterday she ended up catnapping on and off the entire time from 12 to 3, then finally falling asleep after her milk feed at 3!

Today she was battling with me again at 12, but I finally won and she settled at 130PM. I hope she stays asleep though. She seems to not want to nap in her cot during the day. But I'm not complaining as long as she sleeps in it during the night! Madison was pretty much the same, and the only thing that changed was that she required less sleep as she grew up! So I'm banking on the same for Annika too!

Ooh... on the personal front, I finally received my iPad courtesy of Pa! There was a mix up in the online ordering so Chris had to re-order the iPad last week. No regrets getting it. The only thing is that I can't seem to order books! I don't know why they don't allow non US residents to buy the e-books.

Chris' mum is away for these few days visiting her parents in Kota Bahru. She'll be back for another 2 nights then home to Melbourne on Saturday. After that things should really settle down and life should begin.. .the excitement of a newborn is dying down and Annika is growing up quickly.. at the PD appointment on the 25th August she was already 58 cm and 5.3 kg. I was quite surprised but am happy she is doing well. Considering the amount of milk she pukes after each feed. Her next visit is on the 16th September where she'll get the first lot of vaccinations.

The days that Madison goes to school are great because then there is 1 child less to entertain. Today I took Madison to school as usual, only to find out that it was a school holiday and the school was closed because it was TEACHER"S DAY!! Unbelievable! how come I'm the only parent who didn't know that!!!?? The only saving grace was that traffic was light BECAUSE there was no one else had school!