Thursday, November 12, 2009

Huirou’s Rigid Routines

HRsmile2

Huirou has got a lot of her own set of rules to follow. Since I am not that organized or ritualistic a person, I don’t know where she has learnt to be one.

Some examples:

  1. She MUST dry her hands with the hand towel after she washes them.
  2. She MUST keep her shoes in the same exact place on the shoe rack. And they MUST be arranged in a certain way.
  3. She goes through the same sequence at bedtime. Naptime is a whole different sequence.
  4. After brushing her teeth, she MUST arrange her toothbrush and cup a certain way.
  5. During bath time, her towel HAS to be on a certain hook in the bathroom.

Come to think of it, maybe she’s just a neater person than I.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Zhixin @ 2 months old

(This is a seriously back back back dated post. I wrote this up and simply forgot to post!)

zx2mo1

My return to work also means that Zhixin is now 2 months old. Although born small and underweight, he is now on the charts for both weight and height.

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

  • Zhixin is still fed on demand at home.
  • At Aunty Babysitter’s house, he gets 5 bottles of 2.5 oz expressed milk everyday.
  • He is still sleeping alot especially at home where it’s often quiet and dark.
  • He is technically sleeping through the night already, often going for more than 5 hours without waking.
  • His night time routine is rather unique. I nurse him to milk-drunk. Then Hubs rock him to sleep, while watching tv or playing games. Hubs consider this “quality” time.

Physical Development and Communications

  • Zhixin can turn his head from side to side and follow our movements with his eyes.
  • Often, he cries for me if he hears my voice.
Character and Temperament
  • Zhixin is very patient, and seems to understand when I ask him to wait a bit.
  • He is already displaying his boyish streak in that he hates to be touched on his head. He will kick hard or even cry out if you do touch his head.
  • He is also much more interested in his father’s boisterous play than my soothing lullabies.

Boys will be boys.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

No Longer Scrawny

zx2mo

Zhixin has now managed to double his birth weight. When we went for his jab he was already 4.2 kg. and has increased 2 cm in length. In fact, we can now track his growth using the growth charts now. Yeah!

Even without the charts, we know that he is thriving and happy just by looking at him. He is now round.

Or, by listening to him. He is rather loud. He coos and gurgles and holds conversations with us especially if he’s had a “meal” and a nice long nap.

Monday, September 28, 2009

I asked her to ……

HRsmile

Smile. and she surprised me with a wide wide grin on her face.

Over and over again.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Huirou @ 2 years old

Wow. Two years old already.

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

  • Her food intake has reduced significantly. I hope this is in line with her reduced growth and not due to having too much milk or Baby Zhixin arriving.
  • She still has 2-3 milk feeds of about 3.5 oz each everyday. Although I earlier contemplated to switch her from full fat to low fat milk, I think for now I’ll still let her drink full fat milk because of her reduced food intake.
  • And of course, she’s having also as much breast milk as she can possibly get whenever she’s around me.  She is probably only going to be weaned when she starts college. o_O.

Physical Development and Communications

  • She quickly learned that she can scream to get our attention when we ask her to keep quiet when the baby’s sleeping. Sigh.
  • She can follow along when I try to count to ten. but regularly misses “five”. i.e. she will go one,two, three, four, six … etc.
  • We recently discovered that she can hum along to quite a few songs, like Baa baa black sheep. Also she can actually recite the first verse of a Buddhist scripture that Hubs was listening to in his car (eh I dunno which one) Na Mo Guan Shi Yin Pu Sah …… Seriously.
Character and Temperament
  • She has now become quite impatient. I’ve tried to stretch her patience by telling her to count to ten whenever I need  her to wait. Sometimes it works. other times not.
  • She is also getting a little jealous of Zhixin always having my attention. She will demand to nurse whenever Zhixin nurses.
  • And when she’s done, she will want Zhixin to finish up too.

On a day to day basis, we are only wary of her tantrums usually precipitated by hunger or tiredness. Otherwise she usually behaves like any toddler would, playful, cheeky, happy, curious and a little bit too energetic for us adults.