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~

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..

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?" ;)

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.

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

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)