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What happened to my quiet and peaceful baby of the first two weeks? She grunts, growls, squeals, yells, moans and cries nowadays (although big gummy smiles are still abundant when she’s fed and happy)! We usually change her diapers after feeding her, but that’s when she’s about to fall asleep. The minute we take off the diaper, she’ll kick and scream in protest…it sounds like we’re committing bloody murder or something…*blek*. And again when we transfer her from the diaper changing area to her sleeping area. And again if she doesn’t like the music from her cot mobile being switched on when she’s falling asleep…

I made the mistake of waking her up from her nap for her daily bath, and boy, payback sucks. She cried her lungs out from the minute I undressed her, she pee-ed on me, then poo-ed on me (yes, ON ME – luckily, there was a towel between her bum and my lap), and she continued pouting her way through her post-bath feed. Like hubby said recently…the title of ‘complain queen’ has now shifted from mother to daughter!

And on the very same day, I also made yet another mistake of mixing her formula together with my expressed breast milk. We usually feed her 2oz EBM followed by 1oz formula, but it’s pretty hard to coax her to take the second bottle once the teat of the first bottle is out of her mouth. I got this brilliant idea from my baby bible (What To Expect - Baby’s First Year) that it’s ok to mix the two together so we decided to try it that night. The reaction we got was priceless! She tasted the milk, turned away and screwed up her face! And then, she stuck out her tongue as if she was trying to get rid of the taste in her mouth. We tried four times, and got the same reaction each time! In the end, I had to throw the milk away and make a fresh batch of pure formula for her. Darn…too smart to be tricked. What’s more, she drank 1oz of the new batch of milk…enough to satiate her hunger, and then she stopped. She refused to take anymore no matter how much I coaxed her until I began to apologize for mixing her milk…”sorry lor, mommy’s fault…mommy didn’t know it’ll taste that bad…mommy won’t do it again, etc. etc. etc.”…short of crawling on my hands and knees, I tell you. Then, she gave me a wide smile as if she has decided to forgive me, sucked the teat back into her mouth and guzzled down the remainder. *faints*

On the 14th of Feb, we had a simple ceremony on Saturday to celebrate Elena’s full moon. According to Chinese custom, a baby girl’s full moon should be celebrated earlier, preferably the day earlier…the belief is that it’ll prevent them from marrying late or becoming a spinster… Anyways, that one day earlier happened to fall on Saturday, which was convenient for all of us. The ceremony was really simple…I bathed her earlier in the morning and dressed her in new clothes and socks. We brought her to the living room where my mom had prepared ang ku and red eggs. One of the red eggs was peeled and some sugar was sprinkled on top and we symbolically ‘fed’ it to her by touching it lightly to her lips. Apparently, this is to ensure that people will always say nice (sweet) things about her! Then, we cut a little bit of her hair and placed it into a red packet, which was then placed underneath her mattress for one night. I believe that the usual custom is to shave all the hair off, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to my baby girl! After that, hubby brought her for a short walk outside the apartment…once through the front door, and once through the back…and that was it! We took quite a lot of photos after that, as she looked so adorable in her new red dress!

In terms of development…well, nothing really much to report…I mean, what can babies do at this stage except poo, pee and sleep? Well, we did notice that she seems to have quite strong neck muscles as several times while carrying her against our chest, she seems to be able to lift up her head for a short while. She’s also able to focus on objects and recently, I’ve noticed that her eyes are able to track objects as I move them from side to side. She has a newfound fascination with the mirror that came with her Tiny Love gymini…last night, I placed it in front of her and she kept on looking and looking, and then, waving her hand slowly in front as if to test if her reflection did the same thing. She also gets very excited when I place her near one of the hanging toys on the gymini…she tried to bat it with her hands (usually unsuccessfully!)…it’s absolutely amusing to watch!

The other thing we’ve noticed in this week is that she loves being carried…not a really good thing in the sense that after lying awhile in the cot, she’ll start howling in protest until someone picks her up. Definitely not a habit I want to cultivate…sigh! Anyways, I’ve invested in two slings…a pouch and a ring sling, so if she does want to be carried when we’re out and about, at least my arms won’t suffer that much! Will do a write-up on the slings when I’ve put it to good use…am still practicing at the mo.

Factory production: I hit a one-time high of 6oz one morning (honestly, 6oz doesn’t sound like much in writing, but when you see the whole bottle filled with milk, it’s quite amazing!). Alas…that phenomenon was never repeated again. However, I did succumb to an unfortunate bout of mastitis, though…luckily, am on the road to recovery and am still able to express and feed her as the antibiotics that the doctor gave does not affect lactation.

We brought her to the paed on Thursday for her second HepB jab, and when the paed weighed her…wow, 3.6kgs, baby! That’s a gain of 800gms in 3 weeks, which means we’re right on track as she should be gaining 250gms per week. No wonder my arm has been aching when I carry her during feeds!! The additional weight is definitely apparent…her arms and legs are much chubbier than when we first brought her back, her cheeks have filled out, and at certain angles, she definitely has a double chin…*grin* These days, she drinks around 20oz to 25oz in total…her record high was Wednesday night…28oz! As I told hubby…daddy’s girl with daddy’s appetite!

In the past four weeks, we’ve slowly managed to settle into a daily routine whereby my mom would take the early feeds at 5am, 7am and 9am, after which I’ll wake up and take over the 11am feed followed by her bath. Bath time is followed by an oil massage and application of the yu-yi oil on her belly. The rest of the day is an ongoing routine of feed – change diapers – sleep – feed – etc…till the second last feed of the night, after which I give her a quick wipe down, change her into her pyjamas and apply another round of yu-yi oil. She’s usually quite alert once she’s changed, and for the past two days, she remained wide awake until she finished her last feed. She usually wakes up around 2+am, fussing a little bit but not really crying out for milk…that’s when I’ll carry her to the bed to breastfeed her, but she doesn’t really suckle a lot and will fall asleep soon after. She wakes up again at around 4am, again, just to suckle abit…and then, the whole routine starts again at 5am. It’s not always regular though, as sometimes she would wake up earlier than expected, crying for milk but overall, looks like we’re slowly settling in nicely (fingers crossed!)…finally!

As for me…I finally managed to go for a pedicure and a haircut over the weekend! Hubby stayed home to look after her on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, bless him! I felt *almost* human again, especially after my much needed haircut!