Let's Go Baby

``Let's go baby, bye bye mom mom!" Siyuan said yesterday as we prepared to head out for breakfast on a Sunday morning.
We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Siyuan has been speaking more, and even his teacher has remarked his vocabulary has expanded. Previously, she told us Siyuan wasn't speaking much in class.

Siyuan is probably behind other kids in talking, but we reckon it's becos of all the changes, flights and moves we've made. Each time he's about to go on a learning spurt, we travel overseas or move, and that seems to have interrupted him.

Oh, and we've all been sick for about two weeks since Siyuan caught another bug from school.

Sihuai Eats!

Lux has started Sihuai on baby food. She loves it, loves it, loves it. Second helpings or I would scream!

Once, she rejected the banana cereal, and Lux switched to another type, and she still rejected it.
We couldn't figure out why, till we realized Siyuan was doing his business.
Sihuai was probably wondering why her food smelt so bad!

Strike like a cobra

So begins the great adventure for Sihuai. She has begun to crawl.
To be sure, it's more flopping like a fish at this moment.
This marks the start of the competition for toys.
Sihuai has the patience of a predator. She would lie quietly waiting for her opportunity as and when her brother drops an interesting toy.
Once her brother dropped a cube. Instantly, she flopped over a meter to get to it and proceeded to chew the plastic piece.
That didn't last though as Siyuan soon realized his toy was missing. Cue, snatching and baby crying.

No, no, I'm a vampire

It's cool now about 21 degrees (though compared to the Melbourne weather, it feels more like a 24 degrees in Melbourne). Siyuan has taken to sleeping in a bit.

The milk shake man

Lux decided Siyuan needed to learn how they make tarik back in Singapore :)

Pretty in Pink

This is Sihuai at about 4 months.We're in a room at Disneyland HK. The boy has gone for a swim.

Big Boy

Last time we visited Disneyland and had dinner at the restaurant, Siyuan would get frightened by the big dressed-up characters.
This time, almost a year older, he would play with them or wave them away if he wants to eat his dinner in peace :)
One tip for parents, don't do dinner. It's chaotic, there's a lot of push to have your pictures taken, and you're tired. The breakfast deal works better as there are fewer people around, you're fresher, and there's no professional photographer trying to persuade you to pay for pictures.

The Siyuan Show

This the great Siyuan show - chasing his balloon, pretending to fall down, letting the balloon fly away or pointing at the sky and looking puzzled.

And each time he fell, people would come over and pick him up :P

His Favorite Ride

He loves to drive.

Disney Land

We took the kids out to Disneyland around Halloween.
Siyuan had a great time, though he absolutely refused to enter the haunted mansion with me. :P

Holding her own!

Sihuai holding on to her milk bottle on her own!
Time: 11:30am on the 6th of October... something to remember ;)

Are children smart or lazy?

This is Siyuan learning to count:

"1... 2... 3... 4... oh many many!"

Now I am trying to decide - is he lazy or smart?

On the side

Just a picture of Sihuai on her side






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The HK Bubble

Thanks to easy credit becos of the HK dollar peg, and money from China pouring out, HK is seeing the kind of asset bubble better associated with pre-Lehman Brothers. Rents are back to peak levels when employment is still weak, and property prices have rocketed. $3 million for a 500 square feet apartment, anybody?

What it means for us though is that the apartment above us got bought and the owner went for a 3-month renovation. Yup, you read right. 3 months of noise and dust. U can build a house in three months in Australia, or renovate 3 apartments in Singapore. HK with its smaller apartments seem to suffer from a lack of skilled workers able to get work done quickly and effectively.

In the first week, the workers burnt so much incense and paper money, we had ash drifting into our kitchen. In the second week, they destroyed a pipe, and led to massive flooding. Our ceiling dripped. In the third week, they left windows opened during a typhoon so all of us could hear the windows slam every 5 minutes and wonder when they will break and shatter.

All this while they create a lot of noise. We asked that they try to have lunch and do quieter work between 1-3 pm so the kids could sleep, and do the noisy stuff in the morning when Siyuan is at school. They said yes, and proceeded to do no work in the morning and start work when the kids are sleeping.

Three months. Amazing.

Attention Needed

As the second child, Sihuai fights for attention with her elder brother. She loves it when we smile at her or play with her, some thing we probably do less of with her than with Siyuan becos there is another child. On the other hand, with our helper, there's somebody else to lavish human love and attention.

We chat about it on and off, it's just one of those things which we try to be conscious about.

Given attention, she has a lovely smile :)



One difference we note with her is that she likes to talk. She can babble happily away for a long time making all sorts of noises. Her brother was more active physically, rolling around a lot more. Maybe a gender thing, or maybe just the personality. Who knows :) But i guess it's part of the fun of raising two different kids.

Toy for Mei Mei

Siyuan likes his sister quite a lot. He found an old toy which he used to play with, dragged it out from underneath the bed and set it, with help, for her.

Belly time

Sihuai can now lift her head for a short while when we put her on her belly :) She's also starting to roll to one side, as a prelude to rolling all the way onto her belly :)



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Her feet

Just a size comparison

Old Siyuan Picture

Another one


This is when he is about 3 month old

Old Pictures

A couple of old pictures of Siyuan when he's about 3 months for comparison.

Jump

Siyuan and Sihuai

With Siyuan around, it's a lot harder for Sihuai to get good naps during the day because he is noisy and our apartment is small (cue usual comments about shoeboxes in HK). On the other hand, she doesn't have to worry about getting bored, becos her brother is always up to something. She can watch him drawing, playing with his cars or gesturing as he talks.Sometimes he would kiss her, pinch her toes or dangle a toy to entertain her.

She seems to sleep better than Siyuan, who had frequent nite wakings. On the other hand, Siyuan doesn't need to be cuddled as much during the day. How much of it is nature vs environment we don't know. It could be the noise and lights in HK made Sihuai want to be reassured more during the day. It could be that becos we're more experienced, we could take better care of her, and therefore she sleeps better at nite.
What we do know is this: Siyuan thinks his sister is cute, and would say so. :P

Picture

A picture Lux took.

Pecking Order

There's a distinct pecking order in Siyuan's universe. If there are two forks in the fruit bowl, one belongs to him and the other to his mom. I only get a dip if there's a third fork.
Some days, he would get intensely protective of his sister. That applies even to me - he could try to shoo me away if he feels that it's not time for father to play with mei mei.
Failing that, he would enlist Lux's help. Funny aren't it?

But, he has a conscience. Once, he finished all the fruits in the bowl,and was bringing it back to the kitchen when he ran into me.
``Where's the fruit for papa?'' I asked.
He stared blankly at me, and then as he realized he had forgotten about me, his face went red. Stunned, he stood there, not knowing what to do. Lux had to cuddle him while i laughed my head off.


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Who's the Boss?

If I like it, it's mine.
If it's in my hands, it's mine.
If it looks like mine, it's mine.
If i think it's mine, it's mine.
And everything else is also mine.


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Smiley

Sihuai loves it if you're there smiling at her when she just wakes up. She enjoys having us making cooing noise at her. She's fascinated by colorful toys we dangle in front of her.

It doesn't take a lot to elicit a smile. Just by been there and smiling at her would get her laughing back at you. Lovely :)

She's about 2 month-old now.

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Coffee

Am now at the two cups of coffee a day, and yet still feeling tired and sleepy stage. But at least i can drink coffee and also get about 6 hours nite sleepthrough if I'm lucky. Lux doesn't have that luxury.
Also note to self: do not buy coffee at starbucks on way to work. they just don't pack what's needed.

Twist and Turn

How do babies fart? By twist and turn. Waking Sihuai up at nite to feed means u have to give her an extra five minutes to twist and turn to get her farts out. Then she would be able to feed more comfortably. O/w she would be doing rock and roll while feeding or else be crying a fuss.

So far, her stomach issues have been milder than Siyuan. We suspect it's becos she has better "milk management" as the maternal nurse in Australia called it. ie, she doesn't overfeed, whereas Siyuan would even store milk in his mouth. Her twist and turn also seems more effective in getting the fart out, although this bit could be wrong as my memories of Siyuan's early days have already faded away, leaving only the nice bits.
Lux says my memory has been sanitized.


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Siyuan and No

Supposedly toddler learn to say no quickly, which then becomes their fav word. Siyuan learned the word MORE first and preferred that. Yes, he's a glutton.
Now however, at 2.5 years old, the word no is creeping into his vocab more and more. Even to the extent that if I use Putonghua to describe something, he would say no, preferring in in English.


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Sleeps like her brother

Here's a picture of her fav sleeping posture. Yes, it's the same one Siyuan had at that age and for a while.

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The weary bit

okay, so the excitement has worn off. Sihuai has also moved from the sleep 20 hour-phase, and is more alert. Naturally in the second month, the development of her stomach meant more wind, more discomfort. Been breastfeed meant she could go for two weeks without pooing. U can imagine what happens then.
The second and third months are the tiring part.
We're starting to put her on her front. This a pic.

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Put, Put

Sometimes when we carry Sihuai, Siyuan would ask that we put her down on his lap while he sits on the couch.
And yes, he can be very possessive about his sister. When other kids or strangers started looking at her when we went out, he would crowd round her protectively. Once, he even told his maternal grandmother that Sihuai was MINE, MINE when she pretended to carry Sihuai away.

Sihuai, Tough It Out

Well, we didn't celebrate Sihuai's first month birthday since that was when Siyuan went to the hospital. We've entered the phase when Sihuai would progressively get gas problems. However, because she seems to control her feeding better (ie she doesn't overfeed like Siyuan who even stored milk in his mouth), the problem was less extreme.
Her maternal grandmother, who was visiting, also remarked that Sihuai cried less often.

It was also easier to deal with the crying bouts associated with her stomach discomfort as we knew what it was about. It was incredibly frustrating when Siyuan had it becos nothing we tried worked and the crying made me feel angry and bewildered. This time, it was simple: Sihuai, you just have to tough it out.
Of course, we burped her,cycled her legs and massaged her belly to help.

There's of course a cycle also to her behavior. After she pooed, she would have a good day, and then as the shit builds up, her farts would get incredibly smelly and the stomach uncomfortable. She seem to be doing a 4 days cycle between poo. Siyuan once went 10 days before pooing. That's normal, our maternal nurse in Melbourne had told us. Breastfed babies can go up to two weeks without pooing.

Finger Chewing

Since coming back from the hospital, Siyuan has dropped most of his fingers chewing habit. It had started with his thumb and escalated to him putting his whole hand in it. We suspected he was doing it because he was bored. Maybe he thinks finger chewing would lead him back to the hospital.

Oh, for the next couple of days after he was back, he was incredibly fascinated by his toys. He's well now, but seemed to have passed the bug to me and Lux. Children!

Siyuan and the hospital

So he's sick, the A&E doctor said to me. I nodded and started to tell him about Siyuan's high temperature.
Oh, he's vomiting, the doctor said. I looked down, and the remains of Siyuan's dinner was all over both of us. While I looked on in stunned silence, the doctor quickly took wipes out for us to clean (must be a common occurence!).

That began Siyuan's three days stay at the hospital. By the time we were admitted to his room, his temperature was at 41 degrees and he was lame as a duck. What started as a simple flu had escalated. While normally we would have kept him at home, the swine flu and the presence of Sihuai had our doctor advising us to bring him to the hospital.

We were put in the infectious ward for children, and shared a six-bed room with a kid that's probably about 10 years old. With just three of us and two huge air-cons bellowing away, it was a pretty cold night. Siyuan kept me warm as we shared the couch. He refused to sleep on his bed alone.

By the next day, his temperature had come down. Blood and a nasal swipe tests didn't reveal anything unpleasant lurking other than a normal flu bug, but the doctors wanted to be sure. So we stayed a third day. The doctors were concerned because of Siyuan's chronic coughing. (pollution and dirt in HK)

By the third day, Siyuan was bored out of his ears, and was happily pulling levers and wheels on his bed. We played hide and seek. At lunchtime, he would loiter near the door waiting for his food. We weren't allowed to wander around becos it was the infectious ward.

IF the experience of staying in a private hospital proved underwhelming in HK, the stay at Pamala, a public hospital showed why many still praised HK for having a first-class healthcare service. The care was professional and good. The furniture was older and the queues longer (45 minutes to collect his medication), but the doctors and nurses clearly knew what they were doing. The nurses showed excellent care as well as give us good advice.

The cost of seeing an A&E doctor and the three days stay? HK$200, or about S$40 or A$30. That's inclusive of the tests and chest X-ray they did. AMAZING.

Day O

This is hilarious :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euc9MMRtuSg

I know what I'm doing

Comparisons are inevitable. Sihuai seems more self-determined where feeding is concerned. When she had enough, she would push herself away and no amount of coaxing would get her to drink more. She had spat milk back at me (yes, at 3 weeks!). Siyuan seems more accomodating. That maybe also why Siyuan seemed to have had more wind problem. Or so my faded memory tells me.
Maybe too early anyway since we're just about to step into the second month, when normally the biological development means a baby gets more stomach-related issue.

Still Small

Yes, this is in the second week.

Useless doctor

So, Sihuai had spots, which i reckoned was just allergy. Was afraid she got the chicken pox virus, so brought her to see the doctor.
``Not chicken pox,'' the doctor said. He then proceeded to tell me I need to bring her to a hospital's A&E and get blood tests done.
I stared at him like he was an idiot. Skin allergy right? I asked. He said yes.
I left. We changed her muslin wrap cloth and her allergy cleared.
Talk about scaremongering.

Here's a pic of Sihuai's peeling skin,which isn't the same as the red dots she had earlier. Her skin is beautiful right now.

Baby Baby

Siyuan is all excited about his sister. Waking up, he will clamber onto a chair to look at his sister in her cot. Or he may point at her and say baby baby while we're feeding Sihuai. He likes to tickle her toes, hold her fingers and stroke her hair.

We're home

We're home! We checked out in the evening of day three, much earlier than when we had Siyuan in Melbourne. Lux was in much better shape as this was an easier delivery - Siyuan's birth was a 12 hours ordeal. We were glad to be out of the hospital because of the HK practices, such as keeping babies in a nursery and restricting parental access.
The quality of the nurses was very uneven. Almost all didn't know about proper breastfeeding. Some didn't follow instructions or requests from mothers where feeding was concerned. A mother in our ward had to wander up and down the corridor looking for her baby because the nurse took it to the wrong room. I chased a nurse to the nursery and had an argument because she took Sihuai back while Lux was still breastfeeding.
I've heard similar complaints from folks who used private hospitals in HK. A local father I know only managed to hold his son once in the five days the family were at the hospital. Ridiculous. Bad treatment and food while paying handsomely!

Lux's experiences at the government hospitals and clinics though are generally good. Staff were professional and practices were similar to Australia. You have to wonder about the divide.

Picture on Day 2

Day 2 :)

Baby 思怀 or 思懷

Baby 思怀 (Si Huai) was born June 1 at about 1 p.m. She weighs 3.45 kg, and has a louder cry than her brother. Both mom and baby are fine, according to the doctor. Was a smooth delivery :)

Siyuan and Yamato

Lux met a Japanese mother 18 months back when we first arrived. Siyuan soon became friends with Yamato, who's a year older. The two kids don't speak the same language, but that hasn't stopped them from playing well together.
Yamato is probably Siyuan's best playmate.
Unfortunately, the global recession meant the Japanese family had to leave HK.
Goodbye Yamato!

Goodbye Melbourne Pram

This was the pram my brother called a tank when he first saw it. When we bought it in Melbourne, it was the lightest we could find at 12.5 kg. In HK and SP, the norm i think is about 4-6 kg. It was hard for Lux to handle the weight of the pram in the first two months, but after that it was great. It rolled uphill easily, always roomy, handled strong wind well and lots of space for shopping.
We took it with us from Melbourne, though we never used it here. It stayed wrapped up.
We finally said good bye to it in HK, needing the room for a new lighter pram for the baby.
Good bye!

Siyuan's first swim

Well, not really. He waded rather than swam :0

The first time round, he didn't want to change into his swimwear. Once he saw the pool, he couldn't get into it fast enough and Lux had a heck of a time getting him away from it.

Singapore and clean air

24 hours after arriving in Singapore, our throats and coughs started clearing. Siyuan who has been plagued with a persistent cough threw up non-stop for an hour midweek. His throat and chest then cleared as the cleaner air in Singapore helped him recover.

Mickey Ate My Dinner!

We chose the hotel becos the dinner buffet at one of the restaurant has disney characters wandering around. We thought it would be fun for Siyuan. But he was a little intimated by pluto and goofy, and i guess at the start, he really just wanted his soup and dinner. He kept climbing onto Lux or my chair to get away from them. Later he was better with Mickey and Mini, but then i think it's also becos they were smaller characters. He seemed to recognise them as well as compared with Pluto and Goofy. It was only near the end of the meal, he started calling Pluto dog and making woof woof sound.

Me!

Okay, one of the rare pics of me and him. We were leaving and going back to our hotel for dinner :)

The higher the better

I decided to be brave and take a ride with Lux and Siyuan. Siyuan loved it when the car we were in rode up and down wildly. On the video i have, you can hear me in the background going, no, lower, lower, enough, enough!

Then there was the Mad Hatter's cups. Lux braved it. The first time, Siyuan was just happy to sit on it and wave everytime the cup swung by. The second time he took it, he spun it so crazily, Lux had vertigo and all the pics were blurrred..

Some pics of the parade and Siyuan's reaction

just some pics of the parade

Candyfrost

His first candyfrost! It took a lot of persuasion before he tried. He just shied away from it, when it was big and fluffy. Lux bought it while we were waiting for the 3:30 p.m. parade. While queueing, a man tried to jump the queue while pretending to talk to Lux. The attendant kept telling him to move back, to the credit of the park. Queue jumping could be rife in the park, but we really liked the staff. They were professional, cool and welcoming. They do make you feel welcome :)

Waiting to Get off

He waved everytime the horse came around. Here they're just waiting to get off it.