three cents on breastfeeding

and so it became the gold class standard that in order to be a mom that provides the best for your kids, you had to exclusively breastfeed for that first six months of your little joyful bundle's life...

sounds like no problem at all you think...at this point i would request persons with overactive visual sensors or friends with no kids and don't know what the hell i am talking about to just shut the screen and tune back in for the next post. sometimes ignorance can really be bliss....

so as i was saying...breastfeeding contrary to secular belief does not come naturally to all moms. There is nothing natural about fully grown women trying to figure out how to bring a biting and furious or sleepy and disinterested baby to the breast, a squirmy subject whom incidentally happens to be only a few hours old and figuring out how it works for the first time too.

Oh man, with Aly, i had to battle with milk not coming in, pressure from the confinement auntie, bloodied nipples from all that tugging and biting. All of that emotional trauma i never experienced and the sunken feeling that i possibly may not succeed at being a good mom. It literally and figuratively sucked. Thank god for lactation consultants and nipple cream! We eventually managed to overcome the initial road blocks and i managed to breastfeed Aly for close to a year (though supplementing with fm from month 5 onwards)

With asher, all the nightmares of breastfeeding which i managed to forget came back all over again. Although this time i managed to avoid seeing blood but the issue of undersupply as usual crept in around the same time as asher was about 4-5 months.

The law of basic economics is a wonderful thing but somehow in the world of breastfeeding, mommies just can't find that equilibrium which is supposed to oh come so naturally. Oversupply leads to pumping and bags and bags of frozen milk that gets eventually thrown away when they expire not to mention a higher risk of engorgement and mastitis for the mom and baby throwing up from the overfeeding. Not fun. Underdemand? A very skinny baby where parents worry and wonder if the baby is having enough nutrients.

Undersupply and overdemand. I think the most traumatic of the lot, emotionally wearing down the mummy who feels inadequate and lousy for not being able to provide and poor baby of course, always fussy and hungry for more.

Overall, i salute all breastfeeding moms, no matter how long they manage to keep it going. It is not funny having a few kilograms of weights strapped to your chest every 2-4 hours to suckle. Waking up at all inhumane times of the night to latch little bub back to sleep is the hardest especially when mommy has to be fully functional during the day too. Furthermore, working and studying moms have to lug pumps, bottles, ice packs, cooler bags and detergent to work / school everyday and suitable facilities for nursing are not always readily available for all.

I was going to post this much earlier on but i accidentally deleted the post. Now Asher is already six months+ and thank god we have made it together this far and i am still breastfeeding even though i have to supplement with a bottle of formula for the last feed at night.

I am going to try to make it till a year i hope but who knows. Despite all the difficulties, the bond you feel with your child when breastfeeding is irreplacable. When you hold your baby and watch him snugly fall asleep with a satisfied "milk face", the tiredness washes away. I came across the article below on breastfeeding as well which is absolutely funny. So hoping this would spur other mommies to continue their efforts too. Kanbate!

http://ouradoptionfaithwalk.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/world-breastfeeding-week-salute.html?m=1

the emba journey begins

today marks the last day of a very long week for me. i decided to embark on further education sometime back and this week was the first week at school. i spent this week occasionally mulling the consequences of my potentially reckless decision, constantly wondering if i would emerge from this in one piece. the only saving grace was that i am still in between jobs at the moment, so work commitments have not found its way to the equation yet.

within a day or two, i soon realised balancing a very demanding school and family was going to be absolutely herculean. it wasn't just me taking an emba...the whole family was taking it along with me. mom and hubby were fully mobilized for the one week exercise, transporting and caring for the babies, milk, diapers etc on a full scale basis from 7am to 10pm. babies x 2 have to wake earlier and sleep later and neither  were particularly pleased.

i slogged through the first week of strategy, organizational behavior and statistics classes, struggling to keep up intellectual discussions or network with 37 other classmates (mostly enthusiastic alphas) wondering where all their energy come from. networking itself does not come naturally and i found it at times more demanding than the lessons itself. the lecturers were amazing and made boring subjects come to life and surprisingly i never felt inclined to doze off despite the sleep deprivation at night. in between breaks, i pump to try to maintain the milk supply but the volume dipped as the week wore on.

finally Sunday came and as i finished off the stats exam paper, a huge feeling of lightening embraced me. after lunch, we headed to east coast park with the kids. as hubby brought Aly for a walk and i sat on the bench facing the sea and feeding Asher, i decided there was no better moment to blog than now.

i pondered if i was being fair to my family for cutting short their family time with me. i wondered what my groupmates thought of me for missing part of the case study discussion as i had to rush off or pump etc. and i really wondered if i had just concocted and consumed unwittingly the recipe for disaster. cognitive dissonance was at its all time high.

as the wind blew in my face and i looked back at the week past, it dawned on me that i was seriously overthinking this stuff. who doesn't struggle in life or constantly juggle conflicting priorities? even though i have brought it up a notch personally, the core values don't change. family still always comes first to me. :)

with that, i head over to Brussels sprouts for dinner with the hungry and sleepy kids and sign off here. unfortunately no beer for nursing mummies now so i'll just have to wash down my revelations with some cold iced water. most of all, i have to thank my super mom and super hubby for supporting me in this journey despite where the road leads.

Try not to be a lazy parent

That's what i continuously try to remind myself all the time...and it is ridiculously hard not to take shortcuts every now and then. It's too easy to settle the kids' meals via takeaway, go to a mall instead of having an sweaty jaunt outdoors, shove them an ipad at mealtimes to keep them quiet or turn on the tv the whole day instead playing and talking to them. I had so many values to uphold when raising kids before i actually had any kids but many have given way to sheer parenting exhaustion. The national day "long" weekend that just passed certainly couldn't have felt any longer...to a mommy of two demanding babies.

However this long weekend, i reminded myself again not to be lazy and we were so rewarded though super tired! To avoid a super long narration of the super long weekend, here are just some highlights!

1. 7 august grandma's (ah ma) birthday. Aly made her very first birthday card for ah ma by herself (though instructions, layout and 10% help came from me)

2. 8 august - supposed to have a marina barrage picnic planned with 12 adults and 10 kids but rain dashed the plans. Wet weather program was activated at changi t3 viewing gallery where a few sloping structures and lots of open space to run kept all 10 kids ridiculously happy for free...

3. 9 august - playdate at godma house where we stuffed ourselves silly with mee siam, tongheng eggtarts, homemade cowboy caviar super yummy salsa and chips, home baked chocolate chip cookies and more. We ended the day with Aly watching her first ndp on tv although we had to keep stopping her from trying to switch the channel to okto Haha.

4. 10 august - off to ah ma's house again for a big family reunion. My mom wants to bring all her siblings together by having cookouts once every two months. Great idea :)

5. 11 august - hanging out at parkway parade, great lunch at ichiban where Aly happily ordered her own meal informing the waitress that she wants the children's set B. Followed by mommy indulging in fabulous finds on clothings 50% off at mothercare...hello kitty pj grab! Peppa pig swimsuit grab! We followed with a stroll around our katong neighbourhood and picked up a box of macarons to bring to my brother-in-law's (dua pek) house. We ended the day with a great swim session with Aly and her two cousins at dua pek's. It was the first time we got Aly floating by herself with the two star armfloats and the ring float she refers to as "zero". Happy!!

Oh dang...i still ended up with a super long narration! Oh well...but the super happiest part of the weekend was hearing Asher laugh for the first time! A real proper laugh! :) kisses to the boy who has already stolen my heart with his coos and smiles!

Hello Asher!

Asher ng jing kai is baby number 2, now just a teeny 3 month old. He was born on 21 April 2013, weighing in at 3.19kg and 51 cm (almost the same measurements as big sister 3.17kg). With his arrival brings the number of stubborn taurus babies in my family to the grand total of two!

Asher whom we like to call Asher boy, also has a head of showstopping hair drawing bountiful comments from aunties young and old... "wah his hair a lot hor!" is most frequently heard, followed by "girl ah?". Alyssa at the same age was almost always mistaken for a boy, even when fully decked out in pink ruffles. The naughty curls didn't appear until after she was one year old.

Asher is always full of smiles, whenever anyone smiled at him, he always gave a big grin back! But he always saves the biggest, gummiest and toothless wide smile for mom and dad. I guess that's our reward for the mountains of diapers and poop ploughed through to date :)

Asher being so social and all, is terrible in the carseat, unless you had the energy to talk to him throughout the whole ride...thank god Singapore is small. Asher is also a uber light sleeper which makes putting him down for naps oh so tough. So glad for the miracle blanket again which Aly also loved that keeps him asleep for longer at night!

We look forward to crossing all the baby milestones with you too Asher boy! Stay oh so dashingly cute!

Introducing Alyssa

Alyssa ng jing xuan is two years and three months. She is my beautiful first child, arriving on a pleasant Friday, 29th April 2011. She has natural babydoll curls, which is rare for a Chinese baby and those charming curls seems to have a way of stopping passerbys in their tracks. She also has a very small face, very round eyes with long eyelashes, a cute button nose and a small pink mouth. Looks every bit of a chubby angel but screams louder than a fire engine when agitated.

Alyssa is advanced for her age, she can read and spell many words, write a to z and 1 to 10, draws cats and even can memorize the times table. She doesn't attend school now so all these skills were picked up from home. A very small and scarily smart little girl indeed...

On the other hand, Alyssa is not such a friendly kid. She doesn't like strangers to go near her and doesn't like to be cuddled. She doesn't like to play with other kids and prefers to be on her own. We intend to send her to kindergarten next January and we hope she likes it and surprises us by making friends there.

Two days ago, she declared her favorite colour to be green and favorite number to be two. A very assertive little lady who knows exactly what she wants and makes sure you know it too.

We love our little Aly...a super special star in our eyes...like her favorite song "twinkle twinkle little star" goes... "then you show your little light, twinkle twinkle all the night..." You light up mommy's and daddy's lives my precious star!

We love the weekend!

It is Sunday morning and mommy gets a few minutes break to drink her cup of tea after breakfast and blog as Daddy brings A1 and A2 along the corridor for a morning walk. Aly loves to walk outside, even if it is just along the five-foot way outside our house. There is an amazing amount of things to see along the 100m path back and forth; she will look out for the neighbourhood cats including her favorite orange Margaret mao, watch the fishes swim in the tank and stand beside the water spout and pretend to be "incy". 

Daddy makes french toast for breakfast but fussy Aly eats a small 1cmsquare piece and refuses more. It is funny how she loved it so much a couple of weeks ago as she polished off the whole plate, but now doesn't like it at all. We are going to 112 Katong Mall for lunch. Aly loves her weekly trip to 112 mall as she gets to run around in an air-conditioned environment...Aly is a very sweaty baby, as soon as we hit the outdoors, she withers.

Yesterday, we brought the whole family out to the NTUC UFamily Event "Baby's Day Out 2013, baby's first national day" held at the outdoor lawn next to MBFC. There were tons of activities for the kids, Asher and I participated in the mass breastfeeding event which was pretty cool. Aly got to make her first NDP keychain, sit on a carousel, play tikam tikam like catch rubber duckies with a net, throw a ball down the bowling alley at milk bottle pins and even won some prizes too. She also sat very quietly to allow a "jie jie" to paint a little white kitty with a green ribbon (she requested) on her face and a lovely yellow shiny star on her hand. And she finally allowed me to put on her pretty red dress for her because I told her it was National Day and all had to wear red, what a sweetie pie. As for Asher, he totally enjoyed lying down on the picnic mat with the cool breeze blowing and did a mega big poop right there and then!

Although we were all absolutely tired out at the end of the day, it was a totally enjoyable day with the kids. I hope Aly and Asher had as much fun as we did. On the flip side, Aly was still freaked out when the National Day Preview fighter planes thundered over the airspace and when the fireworks lit the sky at the finale. She also refused to sit the choo choo train and helicopter kiddy rides but she did very well already by getting on the carousel ride all by herself. I can't help but look forward to the same time next year and see how little Aly and Asher have blossomed by then :)