Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Beanies Beanies Beanies...

Me being a crazy online shopper now, one of my favorite purchases are the beanies which I got from a Bulk Purchase on Singaporemotherhood.com. After waiting for about 2 weeks time, finally we've received them yesterday. The sizes are still big for Renzo but I am sure he will be able to fit into them nicely very very soon.

Here's the baby model from Korea - Super duper cute.. but err.. boy? or girl? I can't really tell..


Here's our prince Renzo - As usual, he stopped whatever he's doing and stared at the camera, it's forever so difficult to capture his sweet smile..

The lace wig headband is a christmas present we bought for our niece Cherry, we just borrowed for a quick photo shoot (we didn't even have the time to change Renzo into a nice outfit, and really sorry Kelly my sis, we should not have let Renzo wear this even before presenting it to Cherry =0)

Win was very against the idea of letting Renzo wear the headband, well I can understand he doesn't want our boy to look at these pictures and blame his mummy for dolling HIM up.. Till he saw Renzo's innocent look with the headband on, he changed his mind..

But okay, this should be how it looks.. Cherry was asked to wear either Red or Green color to childcare during her christmas gift exchange party, and Kelly decided to dress her up as a "christmas tree" as Red is for Chinese new year.. And I think the yellow headband matches perfectly with her green dress!!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Renzo's development - Month 04

Our little boy (err nope we should say big boy) is growing really well during the past one month, both physically and mentally.
04 Month vs. 03 Month
Weight: +0.9kg

Height: +3.5cm

Head Circumference: not measured


We went for his 2nd dose of 5-in-1 on Dec 14, and he developed a mild fever of around 37.6-38.1°C for a short while, and quickly recovered (in 20 minutes maybe) after giving him 2.5ml of paracetamol.

Till now Renzo is still not able to sleep through the night, usually right after bathe he can sleep for 4-6 hours on average, which is considered a huge improvement as compared to the first 3 months, and he even had a record of sleeping for 7.5 hours at one night as he did not sleep much during the day. Looking on the bright side, we are really proud of our boy because at least we can completely drop the idea of using Sarong or pacifier to help him sleep better (in fact, never in my mind have I considered giving him those). Because I am 100% used to his night feedings at about 3am and 6am, and luckily 4 hours of sleep every night is quite sufficient for me and now I could even sleep for nearly 6 – 7 hours in total.


Major development:
1. He can support his head steadily.
2. He babbles a lot more and can even say words like “meh meh” (obviously there’s no meaning to it). And he is making more funny noises, e.g. after he sneezes, he will make a sound like “arhhhh”, or after he yawns he will make a sound like “eiyhhh”.
3. He smiles and laughs a lot more and sometimes it seems that he laughs just for the sake of teasing us.
4. He flipped from tummy to back once at Win’s parents’ house with a bit of help from Win.
5. He can hold his both hands together firmly.
6. Sometimes he can play with one of his feet using his hand.
7. He blows raspberries and sucks his fists very often, and he is also drooling quite a bit.
8. He can sit on his own without support for a few seconds.
9. He can hold his milk bottle (should say water bottle as the milk bottle is a bit too big for him) and drink on his own for a very short while.

Aside from Renzo’s development which is quite steady at this moment, there were quite a lot of thoughts and discussions going on between me and Win around a few topics:

To shave or not to shave?
Well since there’s no scientific proof that shaving baby’s hair will make it grow thicker, we agreed that we are not going to touch Renzo’s hair. He has this balding line around the back of his head, and the uneven look makes a few other people uncomfortable about it, including my father, my sister and brother-in-law, whom have all suggested to us to shave Renzo’s head, and keep his fetal hair and make a Chinese Calligraphy brush from that. But my mother supports our idea of not shaving since Renzo still has his cradle cap and that area is a bit soft and using a blade to shave over can be quite painful and dangerous.

Is Renzo ready for solid food?
It is not difficult to come to an agreement of waiting further until he turns 6 months old, despite the fact that my parents think otherwise. They are pushing us to give Renzo fruits and cereal from now on, but from our research and readings, it is not advisable as baby’s digestive system is not fully ready yet and he should be able to get all the nutrition needed from breast milk or formula milk even till he is one year old. So we will only start shopping for his utensils in another 2 months time.

How should we bring up our precious baby in a better way?
We have to face the fact that I only have a little more than 3 months with my current company, and it is impossible for me to get another job which allows me to work from home. We had this same discussion 2 months back, when we were going through our toughest period – Renzo was super difficult to look after, I was extremely tired during confinement and not getting used to the life of being a first time mum, my mother was struggling due to her bad health condition thus not able to help us for long, my father was planning to come over only next year due to his work commitment and I have to start work in Dec, Win’s parents offering to help only after Renzo is about 1 year old due to work commitments as well - in short we just have no one to help us besides we ourselves. At that time, my father helped us make this decision to hire our maid and till now I must say that’s the wisest choice, it just feels great when we do not have a need to ask for help from others. And what’s more important? Renzo is our baby and we have the responsibility to take good care of him, we should not even think about getting help from others in the first place.

So we’ve set our minds strong that it will be the same after these 3 months+, as long as we have no problem to maintain the current situation financially. The logic behind is pretty simple, I could foresee that things will only get better when Renzo grows bigger, that also means in no way that we cannot manage things on our own, since we did it and did it well even during the toughest period.

Dad has been reminding me many times that we must give our full trust to Aye Aye (our maid), and all grandparents (including themselves) will only spoil the kid, so the best person we can rely on is no other than ourselves and our helper. I truly agree that my father is right because he is the one teaches us to always put our baby’s benefits as top priority, instead of prioritizing adult’s convenience. Till now, Dad is still forwarding me those useful articles on how to educate and cultivate our kids at different stages, and the efforts he had put in that brought up my sister and me is really something that can benefit us and even our children in many years to come.

We might not be able to provide Renzo the best, but we will promise him our utmost!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Renzo's first video clips... Lights, Camera, Action ~!

As you reader have read in our previous post, Feli just gotten her Samsung 8910 Pixon 12 on the 2nd of December. A phone with a great camera function? Nope... To me, it is a great camera with phone functions. So on the eve of Renzo's 4th month, this phone camera was put into good use when Renzo decided to put on a giggle show after his bath time...



And then again on Renzo's 4th Month, he had a camera-worthy performance which was captured once again by an excited Mummy Chan...



PS: Please pardon me on my uncomfortably high pitch when babytalking to Renzo... He seems to respond better when I do that... LoL~!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Maternity break ends in a flash

In another 4 more days our lovely baby will turn 4 months old, that is surely a big milestone but the sad fact is, I have to start working from tomorrow (Dec 09) onwards.

Some other mummies delivered in Aug have already returned to work by now, and everyone of them is complaining that they are misssing their babies so much at work.. For me I think I am the lucky one who can work from home and see through Renzo's development at the same time. Life should be good for Renzo as there is not going to be much changes to his daily routine, I will still be able to look after him together with our maid Aye Aye, but it is not going to be easy for me. Because I should be having conference calls and providing trainings over the phone most of the time, and maybe once or twice a month I need to go back to office and fix some problems for my users.. Sounds simple isn't it? But that is not true when you have a crying baby at home.

Renzo loves to play with Aye Aye and he can babble and laugh out extremely loud when he is in good mood. But whenever he needs to burp, drink milk or sleep, he can cry equally loud also. And 9.5 out of 10 times, Aye Aye cannot handle him. That only 0.5 time she could, is when I am out for grocery shopping, Renzo just has no choice but cries till he nearly loses his voice and extremely tired, maybe he will give in a bit and let Aye Aye carry him for milk or sleep.. The rest of the time basically I just have to quickly take over and coax my boy till he cools down, then pass back to her. But a lot of times, the moment I take over, Renzo will stop crying and once he is back to Aye Aye's arms, he will start it all over again. I tried to let go and just let him cry it out but it is so heartpain to see his tears all over his face and he fidgets till his whole body turns red..
So during daytime, this happens at least about 4-5 times and I am really worried about how am I going to work when Renzo is crying. To certain extend, going back to office is definitely going to make my life easier as it provides me with the right working environment. But for the sake of my precious boy, I think I just have to pull through this period, it is only about 4 months time from now till end of March, with a number of holidays and a short month of Feb..

Some people said babies can recognize our faces and that is why sometimes they do not let others carry them. But isn't it normal for babies to cry for mummies' hugs and kisses, since we've gone through an exhausting pregnancy and labour, and now the infant care phase is even more backbreaking. Though Aye Aye is super good at imitating my way of carrying, patting, feeding, talking and singing to Renzo, it is no doubt that my boy still seeks for comfort from me..

Now I can only pray that Renzo can outgrown this period soon, and start to get distracted easily by other stuff when he learns to flip, sit, crawl, walk and talk..

Finally, some pictures taken with my new Samsung Pixon 12 phone for your viewing pleasure.. (err like Win said, we should call it a camera with phone fuctions, haha)..

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Toys-R-Renzo's

For those of you following this blog, you would have come to know that Felicia has started to turn to online shopping to satisfy her shopping craves (lol... just joking, but she is beginning to appreciate the joy and convenience of online shopping...). This blog post is dedicated to the shiny new toys (on top of the eon supply of baby clothes that were also bought online by you-guess-who) that Renzo has now, though he hasn't shown interest in ALL of his toys yet, some does keep his little baby eyes trailing as we play with him. So without further ado, let's introduce the them to you blog readers~

1) Parklon Bumper Playmat (Winnie the Pooh Flower Hill)
This is a wonderful double sided mat that measures an astounding 125cm x 185cm x 1.2cm (slightly bigger than a single bed). It is comfy and the strong colours attracts attention of baby Renzo. According to forumers from Feli's research, many babies learn to flip over onto their bellies just so that they can see Winnie and his friends and will try to grab them with their little hands...
P.S. All the spelling on the mat is correct except for the word 'HUNNY' on his honeypot that this Pooh Bear has yet to correct since his debut appearance in 1926... 83 years ago... -__-'

2) Old MacDonald's Farm - A Counting Book (Pop Up Book)
This is a simple cloth book with lots of folding and movable parts to encourage babies and toddlers to learn to count by lifting the flaps and exploring . Renzo hasn't really found his liking for this book yet but considering Renzo hasn't really reached the age to appreciate this book yet, I guess we might have to shelf this till later...

3) Hand Puppet Book (x4)
My personal fave~! Educational books doubled as hand puppets. Though out of the 4 farm animals that comes in this package, only the yellow duckling is normal. We have a pig with a blue nose, a purple cow and a rocker horse with bangs that belong to Heavy Metal junkies. But the discrepancies aside, these hand puppet books are great of Renzo as we can interact with him while reading to him.

4) My First Mother Goose Rhymes Cloth Book
This I haven't really picked up this book yet as I've been preoccupied with those above.. LoL~ But by looks of it, this book ain't as interesting as those above. Its interactivity is limited to a bell that rings when you shake the book. Consisting of basic nusery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty and Hickory Dickory Dock, this book should be more useful later on.

5) Baby Swimming Pool
Second biggest purchase of the bulk (First being the Parklon Playmat), this baby swimming pool that we bought off the blogsite of the sole distributor in Singapore was one that was highly recommended on numerous sources such as MotherCare Magazine. So on the fateful day when we received it, we were eager to fill it up to let Renzo have a feel of swimming, all in the comforts of home, but due to my work schedule, we had to push back the idea a few day. And when we finally did, we realised that the preparation was no joke. Almost 20 minutes of running water + a potful of boiling water (just to keep the temperature comfy, just like bath time water temp). Carefully, I climbed into the pool and settled in to receive Renzo from inside the pool but guess what, as soon as Renzo's little butt touches the water... He started crying and screaming his lungs off. Guess swimming ain't his forte... that or he might be claustrophobic.

So the total damage done to Renzo funds for the above purchases?
Approx S$330... and to think he is just 3½ months now... many many many years more of toy shopping to go~

Monday, November 23, 2009

A photo of Yiyi Kelly+Renzo Chan??

Recently there were quite frequent talks about Renzo looks more like Daddy Chan or Mummy Chan, and this is the most interesting one which I find really worth mentioning..

Kelly brought Cherry to visit Renzo on Sat night. And I showed Cherry me and Kelly's baby photo. The conversaton went like this:

Feli: "Cherry, which one is Mummy?"
Cherry: puzzled for a second and pointed at Kelly's baby photo "This one!"
(applause!! Everyone was pretty amazed. Cherry has never failed to differentiate her Mummy and Yiyi, but this time round we are showing her baby photo which we took 30 years ago!!)

Kelly: "And who is this?" pointing at Feli's baby photo..
Cherry: "arh...", she pointed her little finger at Renzo, for a moment everyone was quite stunned and not sure about what she meant..
Kelly: "Err who is this again?"
Cherry: "RENZO didi!!"

OMG, she thought 30 years ago her Mummy took a photo together with my son??!! That's so funny! But, what a lovely girl!! We wish that our Renzo can grow up and play with his Cherry jiejie soon..

So here it is, a real photo of Kelly Yiyi+Renzo Chan..

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Day of the 5-in-1 Jab

Feli and I were never really the superstitious kind... We didn't consult with any masters for an auspicious day to get married, we didn't check up on Renzo's birth month/date against the lunar calendar, and certainly we did not find a 'divine fortune teller' to name our baby Renzo... But coincidence have it that we scheduled Renzo's compulsory 5-in-1 Jab on a black Friday... 13th Nov 09.

I took a full day leave that day to accompany Renzo and Feli to the polyclinic which is conveniently located just across my block, less than 5 minutes away. It was a 10:30am booking that Feli had make an appointment for, but this being Singapore, eventually we still took a number and waited in line on a First-Come-First-Serve basis (we even bother calling days in advance to 'book an appointment'? -__-')

Little did we expect that the '10:30am' appointment would drag all the way till pass 11:30. We didn't bring out Renzo's milk bottle for we thought we could have reached home within the hour, so we eventually decided that it would be best that I rushed home to prepare his milk and bring it to the polyclinic. So home-bound I was... and as soon as i opened the door, a lady popped up from behind me. Startled me a little till she handled me a package in her Singpost uniform. Bah... must be one of Feli's online order deliveries for Renzo's merchandises (Feli is starting to be quite a frequent online bargain hunter since she started shopping for Renzo's baby stuff). So I signed for the package and hurriedly prepared Renzo's meal and rushed back to a soon-to-be-hungry poopersaurus.

Upon my return, I saw Renzo happily cuddled against Feli and looking around in his usual curious fashion. I'm pretty sure he didn't notice my 15 minute absence and was too busy absorbing the surrounding to realise that it was pass his usual feeding time...=P

'Beep' went the buzzer to indicate that room was ready for us. We entered and was greeted by a nurse whom, based on the way she answered our questions about the vaccination and injection scheduled, didn't quite seem to know her stuff. She sluggishly measured Renzo's height and weight (without adjusting Renzo's head position) and made the marking on Renzo's Health Booklet, suggesting that Renzo in growing well (50 percentile for both height and weight). After this, we waited again, this time for Renzo to be examined by a doctor, who did a few physical tests with Renzo, including placing him on his tummy to see if he will do baby's mini push-ups and also holding him just high enough to see Renzo's legs moving in a cyclic motion.

With the check ups done, it was finally time for Renzo to take the 5-in-1 jab. All sources that Feli could find on online forums highlighted that this jab might potentially lead to the baby having a fever, and that kind of made us worried. To make things worse, as the nurse (the same blur one as mentioned above) prepared the equipment, we could hear other babies crying from the neighbouring rooms. Sheesh...

But as the syringe pierced Renzo's right thigh... our little hero remained calm, but when it was pulled out of him, perhaps due to the chemicals injected, he suddenly broke out into a short cry. Instantly we cooed him and smiled and laughed to set him at ease, and when we brought out his favourite toy, a shiny little mirror in a little sunflower, he smiled a sweet smile with a drop of tear welled up in his eye. At last, it was over. *phew*

As we left waited for the lift to get back to the ground floor, we saw another baby crying from the injection that she just took. I looked at Feli and smirked, "Should we pass her Renzo's sunflower mirror?" ;)

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Renzo's development - Month 03

Renzo has just turned 3 months old this week, many of our friends visited him and all of them commented that he is a really big and chubby baby.
03 Month vs. 01 Month
Weight: +2.9kg
Height: +6.5cm
Head Circumference: +4cm

Compared to the major changes that occured from month 01's transition to month 02 (one most significant example being his serious vomiting stopped at month 02), it seems that nothing has happened this month, but in fact I think he has improved a lot in terms of his daily feeding and sleeping routine.

Renzo's daily feeding schedule at 3 months (starts from 7am):
- 1st feed around 8am to 930am
- 2nd feed around 11am to 1230am
(nap about 1 to 1.5 hours in total in the morning)
- 3rd feed around 4pm to 530pm
(nap about 2 to 3.5 hours in total in the afternoon)
**Shower around 7pm to 740pm**
- 4th feed around 8pm to 930pm
(sleep from 9pm -1030pm to 130am-3am)
- 5th feed around 130am to 3am
(sleep from 2am-3am to around 4am-5am, then I have to carry him to sleep till about 530am-6am)
- 6th feed around 530am to 6am

Around end of Oct, we tried to change his shower time from 7pm+ to 8pm+ so that when I return back to work, I still have ample time to rush back home and shower him. But as a result, we have to feed him 7 times instead of 6 times a day, because when he cries around 6pm to 7pm, we substitute the shower with another feeding in hope that after his shower around 8pm+ he will drink around 10pm and sleep around 11pm and only wake up once from then till 7am next morning. But too bad, somehow Renzo just has this bio clock running in him that right after shower, he must have a bottle. Thus we only managed to drag his shower time by one hour, there's no change in his sleeping routine and still, he ended up having 1 more feeding around 6pm+.

Basically that means our new schedule has failed completely. And hence I just reverted back to the old schedule on Nov 12, fortunately my bosses (one Dutch boss in the Netherlands and one US boss in Singapore) allow me to work from home, and that means I can shower him around 7pm without the worry about not being able to reach home before that, and most of my night conference calls only start after 9pm so there's no conflict at all. A bit off topic but seriously western bosses are generally more understanding and humane in this aspect. Of course I think being able to work from home attributes to my dedication to work also. There was one day I left Renzo at home with Winson (poor hubby was on MC that day) and our maid, and went back to office from 10am to 5pm to re-image 13 computers. Great thing is these 2 bosses always appreciate my work and in return, they are very flexible with my working schedule and help me solved the biggest problem so far.

Why I said so? Because our maid Aye Aye is really having a hard time handling Renzo. I have no idea why, Renzo just cries hard in her arms, of course not all the time. So the biggest problem was, who can look after Renzo once I started working? Our initial plan was to leave him to Aye Aye and let my father-in-law come to our house every morning, just to supervise her. Basically he is not able to help with anything despite that he has babysitting experience in the past. Nowadays babies are very different, not to mention that Renzo has a lot of "patterns" and not easy to look after at all. And I could already imagine that our poor little boy is crying badly and the two just have no clue and no idea how to console him. But now at least I will be around, and it is not a compulsory thing for my father-in-law to come everyday, instead he can just visit us at anytime when he wants to.

Major development:
1. He can almost support his head steadily.
2. He can burp by himself without us patting his back or carrying him.
3. He coos a lot more and changes his tune very often.
4. He is able to grasp a rattle and swing it for quite a while.
5. He drinks 90-150ml per feed and 180-230ml for the feed right after shower, 6 feeds per day and total around 800-970ml.
6. Finally he likes to stay and play in his playpen, sometimes he can sleep for quite a while inside. That also means we need to carry him less often than before.

Now we do not really have much worries like what we had in the previous 2 months, because after reading a lot of posts on Singaporemotherhood.com, I started to realize that many Aug mummies are having same or even worse situation than us, and all of us just have to face it and slowly find our own solution. The only thing that we still can not manage well, is when Renzo cries very very badly for 10-15 minutes, even I cannot stop him, that means he is extremely tired and frustrated because he is also hungry at the same time. We just have to let him cool down, and feed him while he is half awake.

I have consulted some other Aug mummies, and a few lucky ones have their babies sleeping through the night from as early as 6 weeks. Some of them are using pacifiers, some are not. I wish I could train Renzo to sleep through the night (I still do not want to give him pacifier), but even if he could not do that, I am fine with the current schedule and waking up twice during midnight is not a problem to me anymore.

Friday, November 13, 2009

A Gift For The Future~

On 31 Oct, we bought another insurance policy for Renzo (besides the hospitalization plan we got immediately when he was first born). We have been wanting to get one for him earlier but somehow dragged till now.

Our financial planner James Teo (in photo with sleepy Renzo) from HSBC presented us with 2 plans. First of which was a Life plan that we would need to maintain for 21 years (during which he will have 30k protection for CI, TPD and Death) and from there on, he will be covered at 60k till death for free. Didn't quite make sense to me as for the plan, we put in 45k in total, only to get 30k-53k back at age 21 for his education (or how else he wishes to spend it...)

Our agent didn't really support this plan but quoted the selling point is that at 21, we can hand the policy over to Renzo as a gift, telling him, "This is our gift to you for life."

Feli replied,"Like that we bo hua, he tan tio.."
I added,"Nope... we bo hua, he bo hua, his wife tan tio..."
Which I found particularly true with all insurance policies. Unless a policy owner gets a critical illness or is permanently disabled, he wouldn't get to use the funds at all, and even if he did, it would be for medical treatment... but then again, i guess that is what insurance is for, to cover the costs of medical treatment (in the above case) or to help the lonely spouse cover daily maintenance after having lost the deceased's monthly income.

So with that, our agent presented us with his preferred plan, one which most parents bought for their kids. It was a life plan cum investment, which was pretty much like the ones we bought for ourselves. Can't really remember the details of the policy off head though... lol...

On the following Wednesday, I met up with James to pass him Renzo's health booklet (apparantly he needs to zap a entire copy... -__-' ) and to settle the final details of the policy. Thankfully James was able to pass the booklet back to us the following day because on 13 Nov 09, little Renzo will be going for his 5-in-1 jab at the Clinic. :S

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Mummy Chan's most special birthday

I just turned 30 today, how time flies!!

This morning Renzo woke up very early and thus I did not have much good sleep (you can tell that from my puffy panda eyes). Renzo showed me the usual grumpy face when I asked Win to help take a picture of me and my precious boy on my special day. In the end I have to bring him to the mirror as he loves to smile at his own reflection and that's how Win managed to capture this shot..

My dearest hubby gave me a big surprise because recent years we stopped buying birthday presents, and instead we usually just go wine & dine at some nice hotel restaurants. This year is even worse. With our little prince, basically we have no personal life. I only bought a cake for Win's birthday as that was during my confinement period and I was having a hard time looking after Renzo. Thus I was really shocked when Win presented this nice Louis Vuitton key&card holder to me.

It is my favorite damier canvas again and looks really chic and practical. I really love it and the most important thing is, it is from my dearest hubby who cares for me so much!

Okay back to our little moo moo, he is still doing ok and we will bring him for his 5-in-1 jab on this Friday. I dare not to let him go for Pneumococcus this time as I am afraid 2 jabs at one time is going to be too strong for him. The nurse has advised that we can let him take 3 dose at 7th , 9th and 12th month. Therefore our plan is just to let him have 5-in-1 with 1st dose of Rotarix (oral jab) and hopefully that will not cause any fever. The routine checkup at polyclinic will include weight and height measurement, and I am pretty sure this little sumo is already above 7.5kg so it is not too difficult for him to hit the top 97 percentle. Haha I have to admit that he is really big in size, but I am happy enough as long as he is strong and healthy, and he has really soft, supple and kissable skin .^_^.

And something we have not done so far, is to take a family photo which we might be taking on Renzo's 1st year birthday. So for now, a "superimposed" copy first (sorry Win I know your baby photo is a bit unglam, haha but that's the only one we can find close to Renzo's age now). Win should be at least 5 months I think, and I was 100 days at that time (err so who should be called the little sumo? Should be Mummy Chan instead of Baby Chan =P)

Sunday, October 25, 2009

New change in little moo moo's life

On Oct 23, my mother who's been helping me greatly for the past 2 months plus went back to China and officially, we are on our own with our new Myanmar maid Aye-Aye. For the past two days little Renzo has been doing fine, it seemed that he was not affected much by the fact that grandma has left and will not be returning soon in the very near future. and that night he even slept for 5 hours from 9pm to 2am for the very first time. But the amazing thing is when we were at the airport, he stayed awake all the way till my mother left for boarding during his usual nap time. I guess somehow he really sensed that grandma is leaving him.. I am hoping that Renzo grows up healthily and by next year, we could bring him to meet my parents in Japan for my cousin's wedding...

And back to our little moo moo (haha a friend of mine asked why he becomes little moo moo, okay simply because he's born in the year of Ox.. haha), he is now adapting to the new change because Aye-Aye is still learning hard to handle him.

So far she's able to successfully feed him but of course not everytime. Feeding him is many times tougher than putting him to sleep (okay putting him to sleep is never easy either), because he needs to do at least 4 things including burp, cough, pee, poop, rest and drink water during one feeding, if you cannot get his cue, he will just keep on crying.. The good thing is we can see that Aye-Aye really likes Renzo a lot, whenever she's free she just likes to carry him. Also she gets disappointed when Renzo cries hard in her arms and I have to take over at the end.

But afterall life still goes on as usual despite all these changes, and our little boy never fails to amuse us. Look at this picture we managed to capture last night. I just burped him after feeding, and when I turned him from upright to seating position, I was shocked that he has this cloth in his mouth. I am not the one who stuffed it in!! I wanted so much to train him with grasping toys using his hands, but never expect him ended up mastering the skill with his mouth!!!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Renzo's Day Out

It was last week on 10 October 2009 and with Renzo about 2 months old, we decided that we should bring him out to the mall and meet the crowd...

Feli's sis (Kelly) happened to be at our place that morning and we geared up at about 10am and prepared to go out.

Usually bringing Renzo out means we have to go through his 'Ready-for-Outdoor' routine which includes topping up his little stomach with milk and hopefully to get him to pee or poop before he crosses the main gates which divides home comfort from outdoor heat, noise, pollution and a host of other factors that can result in a grumpy baby Renzo.

So comfortably set into his stroller sponsored by my bro and sis-in-law, Renzo set out on his journey to Pasir Ris White Sands... It is about a 20 minute walk from our place to White Sands and the clear weather was comfortable enough for us to take a leisurely stroll there.

Kelly happily chatted with mom while Feli and I followed behind with little Renzo dozing off in the afternoon sun. This little guy likes it when the stroller bumpily rides over those drain covers. The bumps seems to coax him into a deeper sleep.

Anyway, so we reached White Sands and Feli left with Kelly to take a train to Tampines Mall to get her much desired Kiehl's "Ultimate White Surface Brightening Exfoliator" for S$49 for 150ml... So with that, my MIL and I headed to White Sands NTUC to do a bit of weekend grocery shopping. Wanted to get a healthy supply to replenish the stock in our refrigerator but turned out that my MIL didn't find the products there fresh enough, and we ended up with just a few small purchases.

While my MIL was shopping in the supermarket, I found a quiet little corner to park myself and played with Renzo for a good half hour, awaiting for Feli to come back from TM with her facial cleansing purchase or my MIL with her groceries, whoever first...=P

Took a few Renzo pic of him in his stroller and found an uncanny resemblance to those japanese gundam pilots in their gundam cockpits... =P


Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Renzo's development - Month 02

Another exciting month have passed. There’s no vaccination done this month, so we did not do any “official” measurement at polyclinic but based on the readings on our digital weighing machine (basically Daddy Chan carries Renzo and takes a weight and thereafter, Daddy Chan takes his weight again and we take the difference), Renzo should be about 6kg by now. Yes he is really a big baby!! Can’t believe he can be so chubby now (erh I don’t like to use the word “fat”) compared to his size when he was first born.


Major development:

1. His feeding time dragged from every 1-2 hours to every 3-4 hours from Sep 24 onwards. And finally we managed to reduce his feeding time to 6 times a day from Oct 04. (used to be 8-12 times and even more). This is really a tremendous improvement as now I can have some time to catch 2 TV series and even cook dinner every night.

2. His neck gets much stronger and can lift up for quite a while.

3. He starts to drink quite a lot of water during and after feeding.

4. Able to differentiate milk and plain water clearly by rejecting his bottle when he does not want to drink either one.

5. From Oct 06, he starts to smile to himself while looking into the mirror.

6. From Oct 11, he starts to move his hands and legs and lean his body towards Mummy Chan for cuddling when being called for. (So touching, sorry Win, don’t feel sad if he has not done that to you yet, he just needs more bonding time with daddy)

7. Starts his baby talk very often, and besides “arh” and “orh” and “eeh”, sometimes he can making sound like “arh-orh” or “eeh-orh-arh” or even longer “sentence”.

8. We were quite worried about overfeeding him but now he takes about 850ml (+/-) of milk daily which is perfectly normal based on the guideline given on formula milk tin.

Daddy Chan and Mummy Chan's new worries from this month:

1. Ingrown nail

Our poor little Renzo had ingrown nail for his right thumb after a finger nail cut and recovered only after about 1 week time. We should have thought about that because me, my sister and my mother are all having this same problem. Now we dare not to cut his finger nails too short.

2. Scratches on his face

Since we can’t cut his finger nails too short, and he stopped wearing mittens after full month (for better development as baby learn new things through touching with their little hands), now we see more marks on his face. Luckily baby’s skin cells regenerate really fast so hopefully there will not be any scars left.

3. Need of cuddling

I have to cuddle him to sleep for a few hours at night, and during daytime he cries often while sleeping half way, and all he needs is just attention, so we have to spend quite a lot of time carrying him. My in laws advised us to use sarong, I am pretty sure it is going to help, but for sure we cannot let him sleep in sarong at night, so I rather just do without it then.

4. Way of carrying

From Oct 11, after a growth spurt, he started to prefer being carried in an upright position. We have not figured out the reason but if our bicep muscles are not strong enough, it can be a really big challenge.


Daddy Chan and Mummy Chan's worries from previous month:

1. Renzo is not sleeping much especially during daytime (Improved)

Same as last month, he is still not sleeping well, but at least now he seems to have a pattern. Usually he has 1 or 2 naps in the morning for a total of 1 to 1.5 hours. And then sleep another 1.5 to 2.5 hours in the afternoon. At night he can sleep for 3-4 hours after bathing, and then from 1am to 7am I will have to cuddle him to sleep for a few hours because he will wake up once I put him into his cot.

2. Vomiting (almost resolved)

I must say there’s really big improvement from 2nd month onwards as Renzo did not really vomit this month, despite spitting up a little bit sometimes. Of course we still need to be extremely careful while feeding him, because if we push the milk bottle teat too deep into his mouth, sometimes it really irritates him and cause him vomiting.

3. Awake after bathing (totally resolved)
Now we fixed his bathing time from about 7pm to 8pm. And usually he can eat a bit more as long as the previous feeding was about 4 hours apart. Or if the previous feeding was only about 1-2 hours ago, he can be very tired after bathing so he does not eat much. But the good thing is he can sleep for 3-4 hours right after that.

4. Passing motion (Improved a lot)

"Poopersaurus" starts to have 3 times bowel movement a day from Oct 01, and further reduced to only twice a day from Oct 08. Guess we should not call him poopersaurus anymore.

And my biggest achievement for the month is – I managed to understand Renzo’s cue a lot better, 80% of time I can tell when he wants to:
-fart
-burp
-past motion
-have milk
-have water
-sleep

But of course, the most satisfying achievement would still be when I call out to him "Want mummy to carry?" and then seeing his little body arching towards me and kicking frantically. That feeling is just pure magic... And the smile on his face - Priceless!!!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Baby Renzo is getting cuter everyday

Renzo is sleeping soundly right besides me now, my heart melts whenever I look at his face or touch his body..

The toughest (or I deem so) period is finally over, he is still not easy to look after, but as compared to my confinement month, at least now I started to understand his patterns and get his cues much better. Well I will blog about it in the coming week..

Now just to share some really interesting pictures of our cute little prince..

Sep 05 - Poor Renzo crying hard for his milk milk.. see his tears?!

Sep 06 - Holding on to his own milk bottle? We wish only, got to wait for another few months..

Sep 20 - Posing while sleeping, I wonder how can he do that??

Sep 22 - Sleeping in his new cot we just bought from kiddy palace..

Oct 02 - Passing Motion in action...
Want to know what happened after this? A big mess on the floor, Renzo tried his best to aim at the dustbin but too bad, being a poopersaurus, his pooping is just sOooo powerful!!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Renzo... the Poopersaurus that never sleeps... *yawn*

Being statistical people, Feli and I have been noting down Renzo's every activity since his first day back home on 14th August 2009, in hopes that we can find a pattern through the data gathered. These data includes things like the time he sleeps and wakes up, the amount of milk he was fed and how much he actually drank, number of diaper changes and brand of diaper, his temperature (taken 3 times daily... or at least we try to...=P ) , etc...

And after painstakingly gathering all the data, I shall try to make sense out of the data on our excel spreadsheet and get some information from it...

Accordingly to baby websites like BabyCenter.com.sg and a few others, at 6 weeks old, Renzo should be sleeping about 15-16 hours per day and feeding about 5-6 feeds of 150ml per session per day.

ContenderHrs of sleep/dayNo. of feed/dayAmt/feed (ml)

Total feed/day

Avg. Baby (6 Week) 15 ~ 165 ~ 6150750 ~ 900
Renzo Chan (5 Week)14hr 43min9.14107.53959.29
Avg. Baby (4 Week)16 ~ 186 ~ 7120 700 ~ 820
Renzo Chan (4 Week)13hr 51min10.8681.71884.29
Avg. Baby (2 Week)16 ~ 206 ~ 790

540 ~ 630

Renzo Chan (2 Week)13hr 55min10.43

50.35

510.71
Note: Renzo's data is only until Week 5 as Renzo is into the 2nd day of his 6th week as of writing

So as we can see from the table above only during the second week of his life did Renzo eat less than he should... Probably his Jaundice caused him to have less appetite?

Anyway, it is confirmed that he sleeps less than the average baby and that coupled with the fact that he poops quite regularly (current record stands at 8 poop sessions in a single day) have earned him that title of Poopersaurus, the sleepless dinosaur~

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Thomson Medical Centre Bills

This post is long overdue was in our draft for the longest time. Initially wanted to make it a Thomson Medical Centre review, but heck, decided to chop it down to only the charges and cost involved.. =P

HOSPITAL CHARGES

Mother
- Assisted delivery 1 bedded room 2 days: $1840
- Companion accommodation: $120
- Drugs/Medicine: $178.2
- Medical supplies: $74.4
- Procedure: $40
- Use of equipment: $216
- Parent retail: $2.8
- Facility: $30

Total with GST: $2676.50
**Medisave deduction: $1650
Balance: $1026.50

Baby
- 2 days package: $338
- drugs/medicine: $15.1
- Medical supplies: $41
- Medical laboratory fee: $39
- Procedure: $75

Total with GST: $543.67
**Medisave deduction: $507.29
Balance: $36.38

Doctor charges
- Dr Lim Teck Chye (for mummy): $950
- Dr Ong Eng Keow (for baby): $256.8

**Medisave deduction: $1095 ($950 for Dr Lim Teck Chye and $100 for Dr Ong Eng Keow)
Balance: $156.8

Grand total: $1026.50+$36.38+$156.8 = $1219.68 round off to $1219.70

We paid $19.7 upon discharge as we put $1200 deposit during admission..

Heh... when the nurses came to us with the bill, I even asked Feli, "Should we pay cash?" lol... imagine telling others "I pay cash for Renzo's delivery..." heh...that'd be fun... but eventually we still stuck to using our credit card as it would be easier for Feli to track our expenses...

We highly recommend taking the single room for all Daddies and Mummies.
1) Mummy gets privacy.
2) Daddy and Mummy get to be with Baby for as long as they want.
3) Daddy gets to sleepover with Mummy (at a small cost)

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Renzo's development - Month 01

Renzo went for his first vaccination on Sep 14 at the polyclinic right opposite our block, which is the 2nd dose of Hepatitis B injection. Fortunately he did not cry out loud, brave boy!! The doctor did a brief check on him and commented that he's growing very well. I did asked her advice about Renzo's sleeping and feeding pattern, apparently our little boy is eating a bit more than what he should take at his age, but sleeping a lot less than most newborns. But it seems that even the doctor can't do much about it since every baby is different. We will just try our best to establish a proper routine for Renzo so that hopefully he can be fed every 3 hours and between feedings he could fall asleep easily.

The past one month is really tough for each and everyone of us, including Win, my mother and myself. Okay not just us, even my sister. Kelly came to my place a few times to help out, and even my little niece Cherry loves to sing song and pat Renzo to sleep (see our little helper in action - shaking Renzo's milk bottle).

My in laws did give quite a lot of comments about how to handle Renzo, such as giving him sarong so that he could have sound sleep especially during daytime. But I insist not to give in because I am afraid that as a result, Renzo will not sleep without a sarong, so it is going to be even tougher for us especially when we need to bring him out. Now then I realised that I am really particular about anything related to Renzo (that's for sure, he is my precious little boy). I would say that it is not easy to look after this little guy but it all worth the efforts. Good habit must be built since young, so sometimes we just have to let him learn through the hard way.

Here's Renzo's development during the past one month.
01 Month vs. At birth
Weight: +1.505kg
Height: +4cm
Head Circumference: +4cm



Major development:
1. When he is hungry for milk, he cries and swings his hands. From 11 days onwards, when we put him in sitting position, he knows it is feeding time so he stops moving around, and when we tell him "coming coming (in chinese as that's what my mother always says), he stops crying and wait for his milk bottle to be served.

2. On day 11, he started to turn his head from one side to another while sleeping, and I only realized it the next morning.

3. On day 12, he started to reject milk by pushing his milk bottle away with his little hands. Of course he does this once in a blue moon, we wish he could do this during every feeding so we could get his cue immediately and do not need to worry about overfeeding him.

4. On day 14, he laughed out loud to himself while asleep, with a funny sound, and his whole body was shaking, he still does this every now and then, that's so cute as long as it does not happen at midnight, haha..

5. On day 19, he tried to lift up his head for the first time.

6. On day 21, started to recognize people, especially my mother who feeds him often.

7. On day 27, "Potty trained!!", he pooped and peed into dustbin twice when I removed his diaper and hold him in position.

Daddy Chan and Mummy Chan's worries:
1. Renzo is not sleeping much especially during daytime
On average he sleeps about 11-14 hours in 24 hours time, but for baby at his age, they should be sleeping around 15-20 hours instead. Of course this is not going to affect his development, just that we as parents or carer need to spend more time looking after him. The unfortunate fact is, he can just wake up crying because he needs to pee, burp or even just fart.

2. Sensitive nose
I asked for malay massage service which is a 5 days session, but right after the first session, I realised that with the wraps on me, I could not even cuddle him properly and those herbs are making him agitated. So I immediately called it off and for now, I guess I cannot even do things like rebonding my hair or a pedicure session, I am sure Renzo is very sensitive to the smell of chemicals, just like his father.

3. Vomiting
Yes I meant really vomiting, not spitting up a mouthful after feeding. There were at least 3 to 5 times that Renzo vomit out at least more than half of the feeding and even through his nose. This is the most scary part for me so far. And because of that, my mother dared not to feed him for a few days. Now he is getting better, and also we are trying to limit his milk intake since serious vomiting could be due to overfeeding. And based on our record, yes it is quite true as those few times he really drank a bit more than usual. And because of frequent vomiting, we have to change his nappy only before feeding, or else he will easily puke his milk out when we move his body. Luckily he still can sleep with pee and poop on his golden butt, although not always..

4. Awake after bathing
His bathing time is usually around 730-8pm. And we noticed that usually he eats a lot after bathing, which supposed to be normal. But it seems he will just ask for more and more milk and refuse to sleep till about 10pm. Thus the feeding after bath can drag for more than 2 hours. And the more we feed him of course the higher chance of him vomiting everything out. So we decided to change his bathing time to about 930pm instead, and hopefully he will fall asleep easily after feeding.

5. Passing motion
Renzo had no bowel movement on Aug 27th, and I called the nurse immediately but was advised that it is alright, and I only need to bring him to doctor if he does not pass motion for 3-4 days. Luckily on the next day he pooped quite a bit. And he even had a record of pooping 8 times a day, that's where the nickname "Poopersaurus" from Daddy Chan originated from. But now with slightly less milk intake everyday, he has about 2-5 times of bowel movement a day, and his stool is soft, yellowish and seedy, which supposed to be quite healthy.

Pic courtesy of Renzo's Godpa, Mike Tan (http://4stillangles.blogspot.com/)
Now we just wish for his better development at month 02...

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