Small Beginnings

Zhixin is always sleeping.

Hubs say that that’s because he is so small that he has to concentrate all his resources on growing.

He is indeed small:

• His head fits easily in Hub’s palm.
• His clothes overwhelms him most of the time. The sleeves are so wide apart that his arms slip through them easily while he is asleep. I often wake up to find him wearing his clothes monk-style, exposing one shoulder.
• He don’t get to wear mittens either, because no mittens fit him. They all slid out 2 minutes after I put them on.
• When he wears socks they reaches up to his shins, making it look like he is wearing loose boots.
• When I change him, the tabs on his diaper overlaps. The smallest diaper hangs until his knees. Luckily he doesn’t wriggle around too much yet because the leg holes don’t close up properly either.

Right now, Hubs and I hope that he will grow up quickly and healthily. Hubs can’t wait to teach him all the “guy things”, and is already telling him that he has to protect his sister when he grows up. Well, we shall see won’t we? Coz we all know that from small beginnings come great things.

Huirou’s mealtimes

Whenever I ask Huirou to smile for the camera, I get the following cheeky expression. Over and over again.

So now y’all know why I take so few pictures. I laugh too hard to be able to take any good shots. Anyhow, I like to remind myself that enjoying the moment is more important than having a picture to show for it.

After much persuasion, and a lot of bad shots later. I got a semi-good, semi-candid shot.

I realise that everything is green in this picture but it’s merely a coincidence ok? Also, she now likes to eat most of her meals in her chair now. She also insist not to be fed. Therefore, dinner now takes twice as long. Luckily, she has more success putting food into her mouth now. No more messy floors. Yeah.

Here’s one where we were at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. She loves the muffins at this place.

Our Family (updated)

By the way, you can make your own stick figure family by clicking on the image above.

Granma visits

Granma only came to visit about 1 week after Zhixin was born.

She was very happy that the baby was born safely but she was particularly concerned about the tiny baby and the almost non-existence of my “confinement month”.

Tiny baby, understood. He just have to drink more milk.

Me. A puzzle to her. Since she couldn’t make me feed formula to the baby she decided that she had to feed him through me. I ate 5 meals a day while she was here. Luckily she didn’t force me to wear sweatpants nor disallow the fan. Also as long as the baby was swaddled she couldn’t care less what he was wearing underneath.

Before she went home, she pre-fried a whole bunch of ginger in sesame oil , cleaned up the house and left a whole lot of chinese herbs behind.

We are going to visit her for prayers around Zhixin’s full moon celebration. Hopefully he would have fatten up by then.

Zhixin’s Health

 

This was how Zhixin was presented to me when I had rested and ask for him to be breastfed.

He was bathed and was alert. He latched on like a natural, though it was a little difficult because I was not used to seeing such a tiny mouth. He would smile after an especially full meal and then throw his head back and fall into deep sleep. He’s a  good sleeper too. I think he’s only awake for like 4 hours total in a day. But he wakes up to eat like clockwork every 3 hours or so. He’s also impatient, demanding that his meals (milk) be served the moment he goes waaah. Any delay will result in progressively louder wails and he will not quit till he gets to eat. Boys will be boys. This he definitely inherited from Hubs.

Due to his low birth weight, the doctor ordered his blood glucose to be monitored while we were at the hospital. So every 3 hours, one of the nurses would have to draw some blood from his heel……

It resulted in him being a little jittery the first day that we were home. Poor guy. The needle holes were visible on his heel even at his 1 week check-up with the paediatrician.

Speaking of the paediatrician, he’s a cool guy. When he saw the tiny baby, he just asked to make sure that I didn’t have any high blood pressure. Then he proceeded to check the baby’s organs, reflexes and of course the level of his “yellowness”. He felt the baby, despite his size, is doing great. Hubs and I like his style.