Yearly Archives

2009

pregnancy

Come on over, come on over baby!

July 9, 2009

what happens when i press this button here? absolutely NOTHING.

So here’s the deal. According to the gynae, Kirsten has up till Sunday to come out. The best case scenario is if I go into labor before then and my cervix cooperates and voila! If that doesn’t happen, I’ve got two choices, which is either to go for a c-section or medical induction on Sunday morning.

Either way, she’s coming out by then.

It’s a bit of a pickle, seeing that I’m intent on doing my darnest to squeeze her out of my thing. I’m totally dreading having to go for another c-section, where the recovery will be a real pain (literally). Plus, there’s the breastfeeding problem and not to mention, that destroys all chance of ever going for VBAC again. Which means my dream of having half a dozen kids will be up in smoke.

But the induction doesn’t bode well either, as it increases the risk of a scar rupture by like 5-6%. Which is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but if you think about it, any chance that my stomach could spontaneously split open while I’m trying to push a child out of my vajayjay s is not an appealing prospect at all.

I’ve got the next 3 days to decide if I’m going to take the chance, and the thought of either scenario is making me panic a little. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that she will decide to come out on her own before Sunday. But looking on the bright side, at least after Sunday I won’t be pregnant anymore.

And of course, it’ll be a whole new round of madness. It’s going to be so much fun.

by Daphne

motherhood

Absolutely Priceless Mommy Moments

July 8, 2009

The one question that I ask myself everyday as a stay home mom is “WHY IN THE WORLD AM I DOING THIS?” Especially on particularly bad days where the house is a mess, I’ve got crazy hair and Tru is driving me up the wall, that question pops up at least 4-5 times. I could have been chilling out at a proper job, sipping my lattes and having some decent conversation with proper adults.

And if not for all the little moments that make me stop and go “awww…”, I probably wouldn’t have made it this far.

Here’s my list of Classic Moments as a Mom:

1. The way Tru giggles his head off at the most banal, mundane things like Mommy folding clothes or changing the sheets. Once in a while, he’ll even try to help.

2. Sometimes he’ll be all engrossed with his toys, but he’ll suddenly stop, look up and flash me a giant grin.

3. The look of delight and annoyance when I smother him with kisses. He’ll be all like “Moommm, I’m a big boy now… but here, you missed a spot”

4. When Tru wakes up in the morning, he’ll press his cheeks against mine and then start shouting in my ear.

5. No matter how much discomfort he’s in, he’ll still try to suck it up and bear with it.

6. The look on his face after he wakes up from a really long nap.

Classic

by Daphne

Must Love Dogs (Part 2)

July 7, 2009

Part 1 is right here.

I made a home video that is sure to be the next big hit. It’s got a baby and a dog. And Lauryn Hill. And a half-naked man.

All the ingredients for a massive hit.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2j8D_rTffI

PS. Seriously, please ignore the semi-naked person in the background. We were trying to avoid it, which explains why Tru’s head was cut off during some parts.

by Daphne

pregnancy

Somebody please tell me how to make the baby come out

July 6, 2009

Seriously, the waiting is KILLING ME. I’ve tried every natural birth induction method (except acupuncture because you will have to kill me before I’m allowing anyone to stick needles in my body) since friday and none of it is working. I have been more or less confined to the toilet for some serious business, but other than that, there isn’t even the slightest sign that Kirsten is coming out.

It’s probably way too comfy inside, what with all the goodies I’ve been feeding her and all that water to swim around in. It’s like a permanent spa. Come to think of it, I’d probably not want to come out if I were her.

I haven’t the slightest clue what labor feels like and I’ve been asking everyone who’s ever given birth to describe it to me. The forums aren’t that helpful either. Some say it feels like you need to take a massive crap, and others say it’s like the mother of all menstrual cramps. It’s supposed to be a dull, throbbing pain that comes and goes every few minutes. Mostly, the consensus is that the pain is so bad you lose all control of your mental faculties.

Not that helpful, cos my stomach feels like its in knots all the time. And with the amount of laxatives I’ve been taking, I seriously can’t tell the difference. Every time I feel some tightening in my stomach, I wash my hair and prepare to fly down to the hospital, but apparently, none of it is the real thing. I’m still here and Kirsten is still inside. And now I’ve got really clean hair.

When I last checked on Thursday, she’d already hit 3.3kg, which is already bigger than Tru was when he was born. At the rate she’s going, I’m going to have to squeeze a 4 kg monster of a child out of my thing, which also increases the risk of a wound rupture, which means that I could end up waiting all this time and having to go for another c-section. Gah!

I’m so desperate I’ve even tried to go all new age and visualize my cervix opening up like a flower, (complete with the nirvana music, as I would like to call it) although half the time I’m giggling at how retarded the mental image is.

Now I’ve missed the 4th of July and I can’t show off having an independence day baby. I’ll just end up having my kid on another boring, non-cool date. I hate it when that happens.

And it’s all thanks to my uncooperative cervix.

by Daphne

pregnancy

Help, my boobs are broken

July 3, 2009

breastfeeding

Believe it or not, I’m actually envious of women with squirty breasts. Some women seem to be able to produce enough milk to feed a small province in China and still have enough to spare. I once went to a friend’s place and her freezer was overflowing with bottles of breast milk. I, on the other hand, have barely enough to feed a tiny kitten.

Partly thanks to the c-section the first time around, I literally had no milk for the first 5-6 days. Not even a drop. I was hell bent on breastfeeding Tru in the hospital, so I voluntarily endured some brutal breast-manhandling by the lactation consultant (who didn’t seem to notice that my breasts were actually attached to nerves and kneaded and pinched my areola like she was rolling dough). And even then, still nothing. Zilch. Every time I latched Tru on to feed, he’d suckle for a few minutes, then stop abruptly and scream for dear life.

The nurse was trying to console me by saying that newborns don’t really need much milk for the first few days, but looking at my helpless little bundle screaming for food, it was too much for me to bear. By the second day, I caved and fed him formula milk as a supplement. From then on, he figured out it was much easier drinking from a bottle and refused to latch directly to drink. The only option was for me to express the milk and feed from the bottle.

So for the first month, my daily schedule consisted of feeding (30 minutes), burping (15 minutes), rocking him to sleep (45 minutes) expressing milk (60 minutes). I’d emerge an hour later with a measly 20 ml of milk (that’s from both breasts, mind you). By the time I was done expressing, it was time to start the whole cycle all over again.

I was so immensely jealous of moms that could fill up a 200 ml bottle in 30 minutes. I even heard that some women have so much milk that when the baby stops drinking, milk would be squirting out in all directions (WAY COOL!)

In fact, I was convinced that my boobs were broken and it’s a miracle I even lasted a whole month. I was too bummed by the fact that my game plan for losing weight had vanished into thin air (the hopes, not the fats).

Very soon, I’ll have another shot at breastfeeding and I AM GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. To aid the process, I’ve gotten all the breastfeeding devices I could think of, like a co-sleeper that attaches to my bed so I’ve got easy access to her during all hours of the night, a breastfeeding pillow for proper positioning and support, a state of the art breast pump to provide the necessary stimulation and a ton of herbs that’s supposed to increase the milk supply.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that somehow, my breasts will miraculously start squirting milk in the next 2 weeks. I’d take leaky breasts over spoilt ones any day.

by Daphne

kids inc

Kiddy rides

July 2, 2009

Bob the Builder ride? No, you can't!

You know what’s the biggest rip off for parents these days? It’s those darn kiddy rides you find in shopping malls. I’ve got to hand it to the folks who came up with the idea, because it is the single most ingenious idea in human history (to slowly siphon off your retirement funds). It’s like a drug that hypnotizes all kids and turns them into raging kiddy-ride maniacs who MUST ABSOLUTELY sit on a useless machine that goes nowhere for 60 seconds.

As far as I’m concerned, the whole idea is retarded. First of all, the rides look mutated and ugly as hell. Just last week, I was at the mall and there’s this ride that’s supposed to resemble Barney the Purple Dinosaur, but it looked more like a T-rex that got caught in a nuclear explosion. The trademark cheery grin was replaced by a grimace that pretty much says “It’s dinner time”.

I mean, if I was creating a useless ride, I’d put a little bit more effort into replicating actual characters. But then that’s the ingenuity. The draw is not in the characters, but the ride, so who cares about resemblance?

And technically, it can’t be called a ride, since it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s more like a stationary piece of plastic that plays gaudy music and moves on the spot for a minute or so. To top it all off, every ride can cost anything from $2 to $5 (for the really big ones). Now, I’m all for splurging on the kids, but I can’t help feeling like I’m suckered every time I have to shell out 20 bucks for a 15 minutes on the kiddy rides. I’d much rather bring him to the theme park or the zoo instead.

I thought I’ve been doing a decent job at keeping Tru away from the kiddy rides, but as every parent will eventually realize, there’s no avoiding them. Every mall I go to, there’s always one at waiting to ambush me. So the other day, we thought since Tru hadn’t been exposed to the wonders of a kiddy ride before, there’s no harm letting him have his first ride. BIG. MISTAKE.

2 rides in, he refused to get off the accursed machine. He was grabbing on to the steering wheel and we had to pry his tiny fingers off the thing and he started throwing a hissy fit. To his credit, the tantrum stopped after 20 seconds, but it was a sneak preview of what is to come.

I’m going to draw up a map of all the shopping malls in Singapore with the kiddy rides all marked with an X, so I know what to avoid the next time I go shopping. That would make my life so much easier.

by Daphne

kids inc

The Bane of Babysitters

July 1, 2009

For the most part, I love being a stay home mom. I’ve pretty much gotten my groove with Tru and the housework and the blog and the rest of the other 15 jobs I hold down. My day runs like clockwork from the time I get up at 7-ish and by the time I get to bed at a little past midnight, I like to give myself a pat on the back for the awesome job I’ve done.

The only thing is that unlike most mothers who can take the occasional night off and leave the kid(s) with the maid, we’ve got to factor Tru in for all our activities. Occasionally, my mom and my sis will watch him for the night, but that’s a trump card I try to save for the really urgent stuff like movies (hey, it’s the only entertainment I’ve got these days) and all.

Without a maid at home, our other option is to get a babysitter in for the night while we take a break. But getting a good babysitter is like striking the lottery. First of all, there aren’t that many of those around for me to pick from. After trawling the online classifieds, I realized that there are 2 kinds of babysitters available.

1. Really old women (usually retirees past the age of 60)

old babysitter

Most of those in this group require you to drop your kid off at their place (I’m guessing its too much of a hassle for them to travel) and the curfew is usually by 10 or 11 at night. No disrespect to older folks, but they usually stuff them with candy and make them watch TV to keep them occupied for the night.

And I’m afraid the intensity of looking after a kid with ADD and a sugar high may cause a mild cardiac arrest for the elderly ones, which would result in a complete nightmare rather than a night off.

2. Really young girls (usually teenagers with NO kid experience)

young babysitter

They don’t mind coming over to your place to watch the kid, but they probably got everything they know about babies from movies like Juno and Knocked Up. I could be paranoid here, but chances are, they’ll dump the kid in his cot and blast angsty music over my stereo to drown out the screams for the better part of the night.

The rest of the time, they’ll be on the phone with some dude they’re too young to be seeing anyway. And that’s if I’m lucky. On a bad day, I might end up with one who’ll invite the dude over to hanky panky on the couch.

I could be wrong here, but I’m reluctant to go with babysitters unless I’m really desperate.

Then while talking to a friend one day, she suggested a really cool idea. I could get some of my married-and-may-eventually-have-kids friends to come over to watch Tru under the excuse of giving them some hands-on experience with a real kid. So it’ll be a win-win situation. We get to take a night off with total peace of mind and also do a kind deed. I mean, having actual experience with a kid is underrated. Which also explains why post-natal depression is on the rise, cos new mothers are not prepared for the intensity of taking care of an screaming baby.

So tonight, we’ll be out galavanting till the wee hours of the night while some friends come over to watch Tru. My plan is to tire him out completely in the day so he’ll be sedated (if not passed out from exhaustion) by the time it hits 7pm.

I think it’s going to be so much fun (for me, at least). It’ll be like my swan song before I pop.

by Daphne

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