Chloe is 6 months old!

Chloe is 6 months old today! Mummy Boo is filled with joy and had been looking forward to this day since day 1. Chloe has been such a darling and has been hitting all the milestones way ahead. She is really very focus and goal oriented.

I would say I had a good start. I had a relatively easy pregnancy (no morning sickness nor cravings, only had cramps in the middle of the night possibly because I walked a lot or rather shopped a lot). Even though Chloe was a big baby, I managed to deliver her within 4 hours without using epidural. I attribute that to my high pain tolerance threshold and that sweet little Chloe did not want mummy to suffer.

With melamine milk powder contamination in the recent years and a family history of allergies coupled with the fact that breast milk provides the baby with tons of immunity and lowers the risk of allergies, I made the decision to breastfeed her exclusively for 6 months because I wanted to give her the best I can. My beloved hubby and mummy were very supportive too. To ensure I had the determination to persevere, I did not even buy a tin of milk powder. As soon as she was born, I let her attempt to suckle in the delivery room. She did it like a pro!

During my 3D2N stay in the hospital, the nurses brought Chloe into my room to be fed every 3 hours. It went well on the first day. But on the second day, we had Chloe rooming in with us. She was not satisfied after the feeds and kept crying. Not realising I was already engorged, I continued to feed her till nipples became sore and bled! We seeked the help of the senior lactation consultant Mrs Wong Boh Bui. She was good! She helped me to massage to relieve the engorgement and the milk started flowing! (Seriously the other nurses didn't know what was wrong and thought I was simply holding the baby in wrong position). Luckily we attended Mrs Wong's pre-natal class so she was willing to help us. She also taught daddy to cup feed (rather than bottle feed) Chloe expressed breast milk so the baby will not suffer nipple confusion and daddy can help mummy out with the night time feeding. Chloe sipped milk from the cup like a kitten. It seemed like she was born knowing how to drink from a cup already.

It was toughest during her first month. She is a very active baby who sleeps very little in the day and reserves all her sleep for night time (exactly how she was during pregnancy). She demanded to be held all the time, not in the cradle position but in the upright position (possibly due to stuffy nose or because she wanted to behave like older toddlers). She always fell asleep during breastfeeding. Then if we put her down in her cot, she would jump right out from dreamland and literally "swim backstroke" in the cot protesting vigorously. When she was upset, she could even bear her weight on her elephant legs (standing) since a few days old. She literally toilet trained herself as she need to sit upright on our laps to poo. Her favourite past time then was to creep up on daddy's chest and sleep (just like her mummy :P). She smiled on video on day 4 but I believe that was just muscle twitching. She would cry during bath time, she would cry when her nappy was wet and would cry throughout the nappy changing process (which made it more difficult for the first time parents to change her). Her jaundice worsened and we had to keep her in the ultralight box 24 hrs for 3 days. Other than feeding and changing her, we should not take her out no matter how badly she cried. So by the end of the first month, she barely gained weight.

All that took a turn for the better right after her first month celebration. I took care of her alone (my mum and hubby were helping out during the confinement period when I needed rest and had lotsa sesame oil and ginger laded confinement dishes prepared by my mum). Chloe settled into a routine making it much easier to predict her needs. Once her needs are satisfied, she became a happy baby. She stopped fussing when we change her diapers. Bath time became play time for her and daddy (Chloe's daddy has been bathing her since day 1 until recently).

By the time she was 2 months old, she was able to sleep through the night (that is equivalent to 6 hrs of uninterrupted sleep for newborns). I put my foot down and stopped carrying her to sleep even during naps no matter how hard she cries. We had a standard bedtime routine (which involves only singing Rock a bye baby twice and a goodnight kiss, it was that easy) and put her down at the same time every night. She still protest during nap times but night time sleep was a breeze.

At 3 months old, she took her first 5 in 1 jab with pneumoccocal and rotavirus vaccine with only slight fever that went off with 1 dose of 1.5 ml paracetamol. I am glad she is such a strong girl and that my efforts to breastfeed her were worth it. She chuckled whenever I held her high in the air. A sign that her parents' sense of humour had rubbed off on her. She started blowing bubbles (a sign that speech is developing). Her favourite past time now is smiling and wowing passersby or simply keep staring at them till they play or smile back at her. She is so sociable :) I guess bringing her to Hong Kong helped her in the social aspect as HongKongers are very vocal and love to interact with babies a lot.

At 4 months old, her second dose of immunizations went well with no fever. She was able to sit on her own (supporting herself with her hands on her feet or the ground). A week later, she was able to roll over 1 way from back to front (when both me and hubby were down with food poisoning in HK). Another week later, she was able to roll over both ways. This was when she started practicing very enthusiastically even when she sleeps (she is sleeping facing down as I am penning my thoughts).

By 5 months old, Chloe has started saying "Boo" (while splattering excessive saliva) or maybe "Poo" when she needs to poo poo (or so we thought). After direct feeding Chloe for the past 3 months in HK, she does not want to drink from milk bottles! Luckily she is willing to drink from the training mug given by Auntie Wendy and Phyllis. She even like to hold it on her own after her mummy taught her :) She can also drink from a cup just like us but we need to make sure she doesn't spill them all. On hindsight, it was a good move we cup feed her ever since she was a newborn as she is now able to drink from a cup without a need to wean her off milk bottles.

Now that she is 6 months old, she has started crawling! Her motivational factor is our laptops and iPhones (I guess she must be wondering why her parents spend so much time staring at these 2 items). Tomorrow we shall start her on her first solid food - rice cereal. So excited!

I am so proud of my little girl and I look forward to spending each day with her and her daddy for the rest of my life :)

A "Chicken Soup for the Soul" - Song for Thoughts

Daddy could not wait to return to Singapore last month. He had received an SMS from SingTel informing him that songs can be downloaded from SingTel AMPed for free. When Daddy had some time over the weekend in Singapore, he activated the iPhone application which he had downloaded many weeks ago but was unable to use because he was not within SingTel Mobile's network coverage.

The songs selection were not plenty and disappointed Daddy. Daddy randomly downloaded a few songs and one of them was Eason Chan's 床頭燈 from his recent album, 上五樓的快活. Daddy did not paid much attention to it because it was a relatively new song and Daddy had not heard about it before.

Last night Daddy listened to the song carefully on his earphones with the iPhone, paying special attention to the music and Eason's vocals. Eason's voice on 床頭燈 was his usual relaxed, soft-speaking yet powerful and almost perfect control over his pitch. Daddy liked the melody of the song. In particular, Daddy loved how the song easily added layers (扑层) to Eason's feelings. Being more of an English-speaking person that Daddy is, the lyrics to the songs were not that clearly understood.

Daddy tried to hear the song again and again as he would when he's infatuated with a song. This time round, he wants to learn the lyrics so he can sing along instead of just mumbling out its pronunciation. Daddy searched the internet for videos of the MTV and was surprised to find that none existed. "Could this song be a non-seller (冷門)?

Disheartened, Daddy tried to search for the lyrics and found it easily. As expected, the degree of difficulty stumped Daddy initially. Copying the lyrics wholesale and translating it with Google' language tools did not yield a correct result. Daddy decided to use his limited understanding of Mandarin and Google's search and language translation tool to translate the lyrics as it should be. After its translation, Daddy finally interpreted the deep meaning of the song and the powerful message its trying to bring across.

Instead of trying to translate the song line by line, Daddy will try to pen down his interpretation of the lyrics:

Lyrics are in reproduced from http://www.easonmusic.com/wiki/%E5%BA%8A%E9%A0%AD%E7%87%88 in its traditional Chinese format.

作曲:李雨寰
填詞:葛大為
編曲:李守信/金木義則/黃冠豪/石博元
監製:林暐哲

搖上車窗　轉鑰匙孔　等引擎熄火　世界難得安靜幾秒鐘
心裡面的鏡頭　突然特寫我　已經習慣多久　得過且過
I wind up the windows to the car and turned off its engine. In that instance, a rare moment of silence engulfed my senses.
Always used to being contented to drift along in life, I felt a sudden sensation of focus upon myself:

曾經夢想　拯救宇宙　許多年以後　在電影院看　天災人禍
快毀滅的地球　總會出現英雄
不知不覺也欣然接受　那並不是我
I used to dream of saving the universe. Many years later, I watched about natural and man-made disasters from the movies. As planet Earth constantly spins towards it ultimate destruction, a hero will surely emerge. Slowly but surely, I have come to terms with my unattainable ambitions. I am not that hero but I am pleased with it.

我慶幸我走在一條　不完美的道路
認清我們　多渺小　多麼脆弱
刺眼的青春宣告沉默　換床頭燈一座
卻照亮了　眼前的　所有
I'm thankful that I'm walking along this imperfect path. It helps me to recognize life's fragilities and all its insignificance. Faced with the glaring truth about my rescinding youth, I finally changed my perspective of my world, akin to the replacement of a faulty light bulb for my bedside lamp. The light from the lamp now illuminates all that lies in front of my eyes.

當生命中　最大成就　不再是掠奪　而是她們　仰望的笑容
情願婉拒應酬　趕回家喊開動
不知不覺也欣然接受　最踏實的我
My biggest achievement in life is this: I can and I will choose to decline invitations from colleagues to hang out after work. So I can rush home in time to start dinner with the longing, smiling faces. Slowly but surely, I have come to terms with my practical self but I am pleased with it.

我慶幸我走在一條　不完美的道路
認清我們　多渺小　多麼脆弱
刺眼的青春宣告沉默　換床頭燈一座
卻燙貼了　我蹉跎的　沿路旅程的顛簸
I'm thankful that I'm walking along this imperfect path. It helps me to recognize life's fragilities and all its insignificance. Faced with the glaring truth about my rescinding youth, I finally changed my perspective of my world, akin to the replacement of a faulty light bulb for my bedside lamp. The warmth from the lamp accompanies the delays along my bumpy life's journey.

我慶幸我身在這場　沒腳本的演出
領悟這個姓名　該起的作用
車窗外　時間無聲流動　我也曾任性過
終於學會了　不再辯駁
I'm thankful that I'm living this life like it was an unscripted performance. I'm awaken to the use of my family name. The world outside the car passes by quietly. I was once willful about this change but now I finally learned the importance of acceptance without refuting.

作過的夢還倒背如流　只是有了不同的感受
不奢想去外太空　躲在被窩　等賴床的周末
The list of ambitions I've made are still vivid in my mind. As I list them now this time, the feeling's different. I no longer need to feel that I'm that astronaut (who saves the world). I look forward to the lazy weekend mornings on my bed.

我慶幸我走在一條　不完美的道路
認清我們　多渺小　多麼脆弱
刺眼的青春宣告沉默　換床頭燈一座
卻燙貼了　我蹉跎的　沿路旅程的顛簸
I'm thankful that I'm walking along this imperfect path. It helps me to recognize life's fragilities and all its insignificance. Faced with the glaring truth about my rescinding youth, I finally changed my perspective of my world, akin to the replacement of a faulty light bulb for my bedside lamp. The warmth from the lamp accompanies across my delay along this bumpy journey.

我慶幸我身在這場　沒腳本的演出
領悟這個姓名　該起的作用
車窗外　時間無聲流動　我也曾任性過
終於學會了　不再辯駁
I'm thankful that I'm living this life like it was an unscripted performance. I'm awaken to the use of my family name. The world outside the car passes by quietly. I was once willful about this change but now I finally learned the importance of acceptance without refuting.


© The English interpretations, not to be confused with the literal translation of the lyrics to the song are copyrighted by Daddy and meant for his two most favorite girls, Nicole and Chloe.