shortly after baby c turned one, i started to think about sending him to pre-school. my reasons then were that i needed time off as baby c turned very demanding, expecting and needing my attention 24/7. some days he would just cling to me like a limpet. i was tired beyond words, carrying him, entertaining him, following his every move so that he wouldn't fall (he only started to crawl after he turned one). on top of that, i was only on my road to recovery. so my search started. then only did i find out that pre-schools here only accept kids in at 18 months earliest. (day care accepts them at any age). so i had to improvise as baby c will only turn 18 months next year.
i gradually introduced baby c to tv (i am NOT proud of this. i did well for 13 months with no tv at all). at the beginning, he didn't have the interest. he'd turn away after 5 minutes. but then he started to like it and was entertained by it. so now, he gets 50 minutes in the mornings, when i am putting the house in order and getting ready, AND another 50 minutes in the evenings, when i am preparing dinner. it is not out of control tv watching the whole day. and boy oh boy, what bliss it is for me during those two 50 minutes sessions. i get to get things done without baby c crying and screeching the house down. and if i'm quick, i get to sit down and read the papers or a book.
so NOW that it is easier, i was a bit torn about sending him to pre-school. it was should i, should i not? after thinking it through, i am going ahead with it as both b and i have noticed that baby c is always curious and wanting to play with other kids now. so we want him to mingle and to socialise. besides, pre-school at 18 months is not really school. it's more of play, snack, try and learn some abcs, numbers and music. it's more geared towards fun, fun, fun. and fun is what i hope for him!

baby c has been travelling since he was 6 months old. and he has been a great traveller. our last trip was to milan and he had no trouble adjusting to the time change. he enjoyed himself thoroughly there. he does well on planes too (after our nightmarish initial flight, he's been good ever since). bear in mind all these trips were done before he turned one.
well, the only trip we have taken since he turned one was to melbourne. he was 14 months. he was great on the flight and when we reached my cousin's home (she has a girl who's 3 1/2 and a boy who's 4 months), he was drawn immediately to the kids. which came as a surprise to b and i as he has NEVER liked other kids. he has always preferred and mingled with adults. he didn't even need to warm up. he just got down and explored the house, making himself at home and playing with the 3 1/2 year old. so everything was perfect (or so we thought).
THEN it began. he was perfect during the days. but when night came, he couldn't settle at all. we were there for 16 days and i kid you not when i say that we probably only slept for 4 nights. how in the world we survived, i don't know. it got so bad that he would cry the whole night through. i had to carry him standing up and rock him. yet he would not stop crying. b and i thought he was not well and we brought him to the hospital only to be told there's nothing wrong with him and $200 poorer.
a couple who travelled with us also had trouble with their 15 month old. she could not settle at nights either. needless to say, they too hardly slept.
well, during the mid-point of our stay there, we finally realised it's because baby c is much older now and much more aware. it didn't matter during the days because he was so busy playing with his cousins and even back here, i usually bring him out. it's the nights that the needs his familiar environment. sort of his security.
well, we were there 16 days, and the only sightseeing we did was to the zoo and to the museum. all i can say is this: we are NOT travelling until he's much older and can understand. (well not overseas and not for long periods anyway).

you know how babies love finding holes and sticking their fingers into them? well baby c found a new hole today - his nostril. he'll have his pointer in his nostril and his thumb in his mouth, simultaneously. and then he looks at you like "what?". and then he bursts into the cheekiest grin possible.

isn't it funny how you know your true heart's desire when you're standing at the edge of the cliff and then push comes to shove? well, i had that moment over the weekend. b and i have always wanted another baby. and i told him i wanted to start trying slightly before baby c turns one. my logic was that i want to get all these sleepless nights and these "slogging" years over and done with before i really can't keep up. then my condition took over and when i thought i had a really major illness and was tired all the time, i told b no more kids. and i was adamant about this. over the weekend i went for a colonoscopy and endoscopy to check out my stomach. i reacted so strongly to the medication that i was vomiting non-stop the whole morning. even the nurses kept on asking me if i was pregnant. i emphatically told them no each time. after the procedure, i came home with medication. and i suffered from such severe nausea which reminded me of how it was when i was pregnant at the beginning of each pregnancy (even b thought that i could be pregnant). slowly the thought and suspicion started to form in my head that i could be pregnant. i'll admit i started to feel excited and extremely happy with this idea. then i did a pregnancy test but it was negative (i took it too early, but then i wanted to make sure that i wasn't harming my baby with this medication). my heart sank. i felt so disappointed. off i went to my gynae JUST to reconfirm and yes, i'm not pregnant. i know i'm on the pill but nothing's really ever fail-safe right? (and i was counting for it NOT to work this time). all i can say is: i'm itching - real bad - to have another baby. i know both b and i agreed to start trying at the end of this year but i can't wait to start! but the reality is this: it would be a lot easier for us (well me really) if we started trying early next year when baby c is in pre-school. i'd have some time off and he'd be walking by then. also, we'd really need to look into getting a bigger place as now baby c's stuff is already swallowing up our apartment. sigh............i hate it when want and need collide!

http://two-pixels.net/?p=110

i am a:

• stylist for picking out what baby c wears
• manager for managing baby c 's routines and times
• dietitian for planning baby c's meals
• chef for cooking baby c's meals
• hair stylist for cutting baby c's hair (and yes he looks like 'nga chat so' from wong fei hung now)
• manicurist for trimming baby c's nails
• teacher for teaching baby c new things
• entertainer for being a one woman band

i'm sure this list will grow as he grows................

new things with baby c after turning one:

• he's become very demanding
• he's also become very clingy to me (which is unfortunate seeing as to how i've been feeling lately)
• he's very good at using signs to let us know what he wants (pointing)
• he moves his head AND body up and down (like he's shimmying) to say yes
• he shakes his head to say no (which happens a LOT)
• he has suddenly developed a multitude of facial expressions (from squinting, pouting to arching his eyebrows)
• he imitates us very well now
• he picks up things and learns very fast now (flashcards, new tricks)
• he refuses to eat his completely free of seasoning meals which i prepare for him. he wants to eat what we're eating
• he eats less than half of what he used to (but still weighs the same. hmm..........)
• he wants to feed himself and play and experiment with his food (squeezing the life or rather the juices out of them)
• he's mighty strong for someone so small
• he likes entertaining us (performing the same thing over and over again if it makes us laugh)
• he's babbling all the time now (and he's loud too)
• he does not want to take naps because he seems to think that things happen when he does
• he wants to play all the time
• he hates diaper changes. it really is a two or sometimes three person job. one to hold him down and watch his hands, one to entertain him, and one to do the diaper change
• he gets bored of something once he's mastered it (the ipod, mobile phones)
• he's discovered his penis - he always goes for it when his diaper comes off

i'm sure there's lots more but since i'm pretty forgetful nowadays..............i'll update this list as i remember them (provided i remember there's a list to update! haha)

j - didn't know you read my blog! but anyways, have started feeling better. photos turned out beautifully. waiting for you to put it up on YOUR blog! ;)

p - to think that i kept on telling these "specialists" about how i'm a SAHM and it's been a year, yet they just brushed it off. you'd think that they would at least have an inkling about other medical divisions!

ok........i've been slacking off. well, to bring you guys up to speed, baby c is ONE already! woohoo!
for the past 3/4 months, i've been feeling so sick. i have constant headaches, dizziness, nausea, unbelievable tiredness, sleepiness, body aches, difficulty breathing, forgetfulness, not remembering words, etc (the list is endless). the fatigue was so crippling that i couldn't function at all. b had to skip a LOT of work to help me out at home. i couldn't make it through the day. all i wanted to do was curl up and sleep all the time. but of course, that was not doable. i still had baby c to attend to. (although now it was only a mere quarter of the time i used to spend with him).
i went to see so many doctors. for those who really know me, you'd know that i do NOT like to go to the doc's. i prefer to let whatever illness i have run its course. so for me to go all out to see doctors, i felt that there's something really wrong. i went for mris, mras, etc. everything came back normal. before going in for the scans, i would actually pray and hope that they'd find something, anything. cancer? so be it! i was desperate to find out what's wrong and to get treatment to get well so that i could look after baby c again.
after exhausting all options, i decided to go and see my ob-gyn. she knew exactly what i was talking about: chronic fatigue syndrome and acute hormonal withdrawal (due to my pregnancy with baby c). i was so damn relieved! now that we know what i have, we can treat it. ironically, i have been put on the pill to bring my hormones into balance. it's only been about 4 days but i feel different. more like me. my ob-gyn says it's gonna take sometime for the pills to have full impact but hey, i'm game. i just so desperately want to look after baby c the way i used to. well.............here's to the road to recovery!

p/s: for those who are on my fb, please know that i won't ever announce a pregnancy there! it's too public. i'd announce it here.

g - first trip by plane la! not first holiday trip. note that i am backdating my blog. penang was back when he was 7 months.

we went to penang to let baby c have his first trip by plane. we chose penang coz it's near and only a 45 minute plane ride. we also wanted to see how well he would do on the plane. well, he passed with flying colours! BUT it was because he was still on his pacifier then. so he was contented just sitting on my lap, sucking away. ah well, it was bliss.
i chose penang and hard rock hotel specifically because it's right by the beach. i thought i'd give baby c his first taste of the beach. i had grand ideas of bringing him to lounge on the sand and building sand castles with him. guess what? when we got to penang, the heat was so intense (AND the common areas in hard rock does not have air-conditioning) that we rented a car and went off to explore the malls. sigh.......... well, i DID have good intentions.
BUT we did make the effort and we brought baby c to the butterfly farm. (I absolutely hated it. if you really knew me, you'd know that i hate the outdoors and the heat). i brought baby c to the butterfly farm because i thought he'd enjoy watching the butterflies. i was right. he was absolutely intrigued by the butterflies flying all around him. (i was busy trying not to scream and trying not to duck from the butterflies). baby c was just spellbound by the butterflies. he couldn't spin his head around fast enough to look at them all.
ah well, all in all, it was an enjoyable trip.

c, c and more c @ 7 months

around penang @ 7 months

hard rock hotel penang @ 7 months

sigh............. i've been slacking off. have been too busy! just looked back on my blog and the last entries were when he was 7 months old. he's now 11 months. well, we've been busy travelling. he's been travelling since he was 6 months (and to think that i was nervous to bring him on that journey back to kuantan then!) and we have not looked back since! here's what we've been up to:

6 months - kuantan

7 months - penang

8 months - singapore

9 months - g's wedding and MILAN (woo-hoo! we made it!)

10 months - recovering from milan (it took baby c TWO whole weeks to re-adjust back to local time. needles to say, b & i suffered........ surprising thing was, he adjusted immediately when we arrived in milan)

11 months - i am busy preparing and planning baby c's 1st birthday! can't believe that it's coming to a year already. time flies huh?

i have loads of photos to upload. was just going through them and i simply could not decide. soon....soon.....

da-da and i

absolute favourite play thing of the month

7 months random-ness

the day i sat up on my own for the first time. yay!

with my ever present buddy - froggy

sucking my thumbs, whiling away the time.

i was chewing on dino before mama caught me.

deer caught in the headlights look.