Sports day

Last Saturday was Yiu Yiu's kindy sports day, held at SJK (C) Yuk Chai in Taman Megah. I was initially in two minds whether I should attend, coz that would mean bringing Yan Yan along, and I was hesitant due to the increasing incidence of H1N1. But then again, how could I miss Yiu Yiu's first sports day, rite? So off we went with baby in tow. Luckily she was mostly sleeping in the sling throughout the whole event after I nursed her in the car on our way to Yuk Chai. She only woke up towards the end during the prize giving ceremony and I found a quiet corner to nurse her.

The event started with march past by the students and singing of the national anthem.

Yiu Yiu making monkey faces at the children tent before the start of the Sports Day

Preparing for the march past

Jasmine class march past

All attention while singing the national anthem

This was followed by speeches by the Principal, the Director of Community Excel Services (which runs the kindy), and Senior Pastor of DUMC. The 6-year olds then performed a simple cheerleading act before the sporting events began.

Under the hot sun during the speeches

Cheerleading act

Each age group (3 – 6 years old) were divided into four teams (red, yellow, green and blue) to compete in a total of seven events with names such as Hippity Hippity Hop, Fun Acrobatics, Racing Bunnies, Clig Clog Farmer, Bring Rollie Home, Fish Tale and Fill Me Up. Yiu Yiu's event, Fish Tale was the second last event. Yiu Yiu was in the red team, and she was lined up as the first one from her team to start. She wasn't in a good mood prior to her event as she was enjoying her snack in the children tent but had to quickly abandon it when they were called by their teachers to go out to the field. While waiting for volunteers to set up the necessary props for the event, we asked her if she knew what she had to do but she just kept quiet. That got us worried for a bit coz she was the first in line!!!

(L) See her sour face after having had to abandon her snack (R) Being led to the field for her event, Fish Tale

Luckily when the they were flagged off, she just ran off and did her stuff - fishing out a plastic fish from a huge basin with a chopstick, then running on a wooden beam before dropping the fish into a waiting shark :-) She was all excited when she completed her turn and was grinning to ear-to-ear. Her team eventually emerged as champion for the event and boy, was she excited!

(Top) Ready, get set, go! (Bottom) Lets go fishing

Running back to her teammates. Both her feet were off the ground in this shot, perfect timing!

There were also games for parents - three-legged race, tug of war for mummies and daddies, and Wet Wet World. Siblings were not forgotten too. It started to rain during the last parents' game of Wet Wet World, where parents were lined up and had to pass water balloons from one end to the other. The MC cajoled the parents who were already in the field when the rain started, asking them to stay on since they were bound to get wet anyway, and the parents sportingly completed the game amidst the rain.

They waited for the rain to stop before starting the prize giving ceremony for the children but just as the prizes were given out to winners of the first event, it started to pour again. The prize giving ceremony had to be stopped but the sky was just not cooperative so it was eventually held inside the crowded children tent.

(L) Getting her medal from one of the pastor (R) See mummy, it's a gold medal

Here's my buddy, Faythe

With Faythe and Teacher Esther

Thanks Jazz for some of these lovely photos

Parents were then treated to some refreshments before the sports day came to an end.

Just as an aside, I got a call from Yiu Yiu's class teacher several days before the event to ask if I could prepare some food for her class for them to snack on while waiting. MIL and I prepared these:

Bread roll with chicken floss and longan jelly

When I asked Yiu Yiu if she got to eat the food that we prepared, she said no. I guess amidst the confusion, the food must have gone to a different class. Aiya!

Yan Yan - 1st month update

She's now 5.05kg (she put on 1.35kg since birth) and is 54.7cm in length. I thought she didn't grow that much length-wise but her paediatrician said she's probably longer than that as she was all curled up when her length was measured. Her head circumference has increased 4cm to 38cm.

As with most newborns, she still feeds every two to three hours around the clock. And she can be really impatient when she wants to be fed, thrusting her face everywhere looking for the nipple. She suckles well and almost always choke at the beginning of the feed, when I have my let down. She also regurgitates a lot, even after burping and holding her upright for 10-15mins. It's quite distressing sometimes to see her vomiting huge portions of her feed.

In the earlier weeks, she used to have a bowel movement almost after every feed but now, she only passes motion once or twice, but each time she poos, there's really lots!

She stretches and moves her limbs about a lot when lying down, resulting in even more regurgitation. The old folks say that a stretching baby is a growing baby, as in, those who stretches a lot grow longer faster. Wonder if it's true, but then again, ALL babies stretch a lot, don't they?

She's generally quite a happy baby, and will be contented when left on her own if she's not hungry or wet. But when she gets bored, then she’ll cry out to be carried :-) She also grunts a whole lot – she grunts when she's awake, grunts when she's trying to sleep; she grunts when she's hungry, grunts when she's full; she grunts when she's lying on her back, grunts when she's lying on her tummy. I hope this is not a sign that she'll talk non-stop when she grows older :-)

She has progressed from turning sideways from a lying down position, to turning from side to side. She can also hold her head upright and lift her head when she's lying on her stomach, and turning it from side to side.

She enjoys bathing, and being massaged after her bath and when she's changed into her pyjamas at night.

She sleeps with me and Yiu Yiu on our king-size bed, while husband has been relegated to a mattress in Yiu Yiu's princess bedroom. She sleeps better and longer on her stomach so though I know it's better to let her sleep on her back due to the risk of SIDS, I've resorted to letting her sleep on her stomach when I'm desperate, i.e., when she fusses about and couldn't fall asleep for ages after a midnight feed. Thank God for making mummies light sleepers, as I'll wake up at her slightest stir to check on her.

Here are some lovely photos of Yan Yan, taken when she was 13 days old by these two talented mummies.

Jaundice update

We went to Yan Yan's paediatrician on yesterday for the second dose of her hepatitis B vaccination. She's still slightly jaundiced and her paediatrician said that it's most likely breastmilk jaundice. He asked us the colour of her stools (which is mustard yellow) and urine (slight yellowish tinge) to which he said are normal. Anyway, he wanted us to collect a sample of her urine for him to assess for colour, but right after her injection, and before we could put her diapers back on, Yan Yan passed urine for him to see. Smart girl, she wanted to save her parents another trip to the hospital :-)

Upon seeing the colour of her urine, he assured us that there's nothing to worry about, and that he'd only be worried if her poo is whitish and her urine dark brown. Anyway, if she still appears yellowish in two weeks time, we'll have to bring her back for blood test. And he warned us that the blood test would be more traumatizing compared to the few earlier ones as more blood needs to be drawn out. This, and few other websites mention that breastmilk jaundice is normal and quite harmless, so I'm not really sure if there's a need for the blood test. But I guess we'll still bring her for the blood test as advised, but I certainly hope that her jaundice will resolve by then.

My first PayPal purchase

To celebrate the end of my confinement, I decided to reward myself with these:

A Mama Patch raw silk ring sling in Autumn, nori smiley punchers and fork picks.

Not exactly things to pamper myself with, huh? Well, the ring sling will definitely come in handy to have my hands free even when Yan Yan wants to be carried. I figure I'll probably need it a lot in the next six weeks alone at home with her. As for the nori punchers, I've always thought of getting one but the stingy (I'd rather think of it as frugal) side of me always stop me from buying it. But I guess it'll be another good investment if I were to continue to pack bentos for Yiu Yiu (and for Yan Yan in the future). The relatively inexpensive fork picks are useful when I need to secure food tightly, when the usual food picks can't do the job.

Anyway, I didn't have to fork out money as they were paid with $$$ in my PayPal account earned from writing paid posts in the past. There's not much $$$ in my PayPal account, since there were very few opportunities which I could qualify for. It's been ages since I wrote a paid post, and I can probably forget about writing them, as even prolific bloggers and those with their own domain are finding opportunities hard to come by. Never mind, I'll just savour shopping away the remaining balance in my PayPal account, coz that's what a woman do best…haha.

Yan Yan is one month old

In the blink of an eye, Yan Yan is one month old today, according to the Gregorian calendar (it was Thursday, 七月初一 according to the Chinese lunar calendar). So that's the end of my confinement and MIL will be heading home tomorrow. After that, it'll just be me and baby till I go back to work in October.

To celebrate Yan Yan's fullmoon, we distributed these for relatives and friends:

Individually packed red eggs with personalised card

Ain't the cupcakes cute?

This was a box of 10 we ordered for hubby's godparents. Love the 3D figurines.

Hands-free rocking

What do you do when your hands are dirty from eating chocolates and mei-mei is crying in the bouncinet wanting to be rocked?

Here’s the solution. Am I ingenious or what?



And while rocking mei-mei with my bum bum, I can still watch my favourite TV show.

I can lift up my head

Mummy has been putting me on my tummy lately while I'm awake, in the hope that she'll be able to catch me doing this.

I've kept her waiting for few days, but today, since I was in a good mood after a yummylicious meal of breastmilk, I decided to oblige her :-)

Mummy should have known better than to put me on my tummy for a full feed...BURP!

Holding my head upright

Mummy always holds me up straight after each feed to burp me, or else I'll have the tendency to regurgitate the milk out. Anyway, even after burping, I will still regurgitate milk out. Ha ha…anyway, that's not the point of this post.

This photo was taken when I was 16-day old. I can hold my head upright all by myself, though only for a few seconds. Mummy says I'm definitely much stronger than my che-che.



Actually mummy noticed this few days before this shot was taken but as she had her hands full with me then, she obviously couldn't grab a camera. So the other day, she had her camera ready when papa was burping me. Please excuse my startled look - mummy forgot to switch off the flash when she clicked on the camera.

Budding chef in the making

Yiu Yiu loves ondeh-ondeh, introduced to her by babysitter's sister. The kind lady will sometimes go out of her way just to buy some ondeh-ondeh for her.

MIL is down helping me with my confinement and she's also a good cook, bakes well and makes really nice local kuih. Hubby told her that Yiu Yiu loves ondeh-ondeh and asked her to make some for Yiu Yiu and being the doting grandmother, she obviously obliges.

Here's my excited little girl helping her mah-mah to make the ondeh-ondeh:

Getting instructions from the master

Close-up shot of her little hands forming the perfect circle

Getting quite good at rolling the dough

Aarrgghh!! The gula melaka is falling out

The proud little girl with her tray of ondeh-ondeh, ready to be boiled

Enjoying the fruits of her labour

She's so proud of her feat that she couldn't stop telling everyone that SHE made the ondeh-ondeh. Looks like I've a budding chef in the making.

Arts & crafts

I've always hoped to be able to do handicrafts with Yiu Yiu, but since I'm neither a creative person nor do I have a knack for arts, I had wanted to trawl the Net for an idiot's guide to making simple handicrafts. But as always, time and procrastination (and also laziness :-)) are my worst enemies and as such, I've came to naught in this respect.

Last weekend, Yiu Yiu came back from her art class with these masterpieces:

A giant octopus

And a giant lollipop

Well, at least she STILL gets to make handicrafts, and enjoy herself in the process, though it's not with me.

Spot the similarities/differences

Here's a side-by-side photo of Yiu Yiu and Yan Yan, when both were just one day old. I think they look like twins. Haha…

Can you spot the similarities? Here's what I see:

- The prominent line at the cheek (just under their eyes)

- The big nose, ala Jackie Chan :-)

- Pointed chin

- Curly hair (which is not obvious as Yan Yan's head is covered by the hood)

And now the differences:

- Yiu Yiu has a very prominent and well-defined eye brow, which was evident on the first day itself

- Yiu Yiu has a dimple on her left cheek

Did you see anything else that I didn't?

Yiu Yiu and her mei-mei

Yiu Yiu had been very excited all long with the pending arrival of her mei-mei, and we had hoped that her excitement and anticipation remains strong, and that she'll love her mei-mei to bits.

Mei-mei has joined the family for 15 days now and I'm really glad to see that Yiu Yiu is indeed behaving like a big sister by being a "happy helper".

I'm a happy helper
Show me what to do
I'm a happy helper
I love helping you
Yes, I'm a happy helper
(Sounds familiar? Yeah, it's a song from the the ubiquitous purple dinosaur show, what else!)

She's been busying herself helping me to fetch things like diapers, pyjamas, handkerchieves, mittens, etc from the drawer for mei-mei.

And most importantly, she IS loving mei-mei to bits. I'll let these photos speak for themselves.

At the hospital

She insists on carrying mei-mei so mummy had to ask her to sit on the bed so mummy can support baby's neck and head

I love this shot, unfortunately it was a little blurry

Hello everyone, this is my mei-mei

Mummy, that's the present that mei-mei gives me, rite?

At home

This is the way I drink my milk, I drink my milk, I drink my milk. This is the way I drink my milk, with my head next to mei-mei's

Mei-mei mei-mei, when can you talk to me?

Aah, mummy, mei-mei is crying. Never mind, never mind, I will pak pak (pat) her

Kissing mei-mei, and besides, her hair smells soooo good

This is how she insists on sleeping at night, with her face facing mei-mei's

And sometimes, when mei-mei wakes up crying in the middle of the night, she'll be awaken and quickly extend her arms to pat mei-mei

Footnote: With regards to the last photo, hubby and I have been trying to coax her to sleep in her princess bedroom, as we don't want her sleep to be interrupted by mei-mei's midnight cries, but to no avail.