My exploration in life… (diary for baby!)

We always feel time goes by real fast when we are happy - I am so happy this holiday break with the birth of our child, the invaluable amount of time I manage to spend at home with YEN and RACHEL during this early part of our little princess’ life.  Yes, we still managed to successfully apply for a new flat in bid to secure a new home of a relatively bigger size!  YEN and I will have to reach common agreements (without major fights!  =P) on issues like renovations, purchasing of furniture, etc. etc…  I’m sure all these discussions will build our relationship even stronger for obstacles we face later in life.

Like I said earlier, having our baby has somehow made me lose my interest and drive for other things in life.  I somehow do not feel like going back to NIE and starting practicum in NAN HUA; I just want to stay at home to take care of our baby!  Ha…  I know I have to retune and refocus, now that work is starting on coming Monday!

Little RACHEL continues to be irritable in the recent weeks.  We have tried to guess possible causes that spoils her mood and their various possible solutions, i.e. giving her Gripe Water for "too much wind" in her stomach, bathing her early in the mornings rather than later in the day, checking if she is running a temperature, if she needs a change of diapers, if she is hungry, wrapping her little palms and feet with little covers to keep them warm, etc.  Hopefully, her mood will change for the better as soon as possible while we continue to search for the cause of her foul mood…

Another reason why I feel time passes us too quickly - I attended my cousin’s (KAILIN) ROM ceremony last weekend.  Watching her younger brother, JUNHAO, graduate from OCS in June and KAILIN getting married gave me a few thoughts (other than the feeling that I’ve grown so old!) - we have not been really too close through the years; I’m glad that they have been doing quite well in life without our assist / intervention.  Perhaps we could have done more to keep in touch before; hopefully there is more than enough time for us to make amends by keeping closer relations with them in the future…

YEN and I went to HDB Hub to select a flat of our choice this afternoon.  We wanted some other flats originally, but they proved to be hot favourites and were chosen by others since the flats were opened for selection yesterday.  We went across the road from where we stay now to take another look at the available flats for selection today and made a "Top 10 choices" list.

When it was finally our turn to select this afternoon, our top choice on 14th storey of Block 608 was available, and we gladly chose it.  It is a 5-room executive flat of 133 sqm, an upgrade from the current modest 4-room flat we stay in.  Keys will be made available to us in two to three months’ time, we were told.  I look forward to moving and starting afresh with her, our baby and mum.  I would like to invite my mother-in-law over to stay with us, but I decided that she will probably not wish to as she would be used to staying in BEDOK after many year, and my brother-in-law, JASON, is still staying with her.

Time flies!  Little RACHEL is a month old already!  She has grown by 2cm (we measured!) but has recently grown quite irritable.  YEN suspects that the root of the problem is that RACHEL has too much wind in her body.  We bought her gripewater today and hope that that will cure her.

My secondary school footie-pal, WEILI, introduced a massage lady to us to help YEN do so "TUI NA" after her giving birth.  We were quite surprised when we found out that the lady he reccommended was a Chinese lady (we are perhaps too ignorant to know that non-Malay ladies are helping with the after-birth massage).  She had a first massage session last Saturday and we found the lady very friendly too.  We are glad that WEILI linked us up with her.  Now, only if her massage will help YEN lose some weight too…  =P

HUIJUN called us in the morning to inform us that the Walk-In-Selection (WIS) for the flats in our area of choice - Jurong West - was finally open for applications again.  Don’t know how our sister-in-law knew about it - could it be through her property agent-mum??  Anyway, it was all thanks to her that we knew early!

YEN and I went to take a look at one of the areas where quite a bit of the available flats were located before heading down to HDB Hub to submit our application.  We went for a recce because my mum said it could be such a case that we will be asked to choose the flat the same day.  Well, it turned out that we were asked to return a week later to make known our choice to them.  If nothing goes wrong, I think we should expect to receive the keys to our new home a little more than three months’ time.

Met up with my Secondary school-mate, WEILI, on Monday.  We have never been classmates in our four years in COMMONWEALTH.  He was in the athletics team and NPCC, while I was in NCC.  But I knew him rather well as we were in the same prefectorial board, and we were both quite active players of the football game, and we continued to meet each other quite a bit after we graduated as we played the game together with our mutual friends, most of them from the school athletics team.  I never joined athletics as training for the sake of running, competitive or otherwise, irked me.  Still, I was invited to play with them as I had quite a few close ex-classmates who were in the team.

Our playing was on Saturday nights at College of Physical Education, then School of Physical Education.  I would join them rather regularly on Saturday nights after they trained there, and we would play for a few hours on the street-soccer / handball court there.  As they stopped training there, I joined another group of my ex-school mates to play at a certain street-soccer court near City Harvest Church on Saturday nights / Sunday mornings.  I can’t remember when it was that they began playing there on Sunday mornings.

WEILI had joined AIA last year as a financial adviser and asked if we could sit down over coffee to see if he could be of any help.  I have had the patience to sit through quite a number of talks like this one, so I was rather familiar with what he wanted to do with / for me.  Still, there’s no harm listening again to see if there was any new for me to learn…

We have discovered this little routine these days: Our little RACHEL has this habit of waking up at least at around ten-plus at night, two-plus, five-plus, seven-plus from night through the next morning.  She’ll wake up for feeds, or if she has soiled or wet her diaper.  She seems extremely sensitive to wetting her diaper at night, crying once she feels discomfort due to the wet diaper.  And this morning, she cried everytime I laid her down to sleep or for me to accomplish some task; I had to pick her up to carry her very soon again.  She wants daddy to carry her!  =)

YEN and I joked that our little princess will be given a codename - the "Third Party" - since she has came into our lives and is stealing time we reserve for each other.  =P  Maybe our next child will be the "Fourth Party"??  Ha…

YEN and I had our first wedding anniversary on 7 June, and  it was quite uneventful.  Much of the day revolvved around our little princess; YEN is still under confinement after childbirth and cannot go out to celebrate as well.  We would never have expected spending it with our first child on our first anniversary!

I’ve learnt so much since the birth of our baby - changing her diapers (we use "cloth diapers" at home), feeding her, even learning new terms used by YEN - baby is "latching on", "feeling engorged", etc.  And having a baby has also made me look forward to so many things that will happen to our RACHEL - her first crawl, taking her first step, saying her first word, etc. etc.  I hope I can be around to take down these moments on video!  =)

Having this little bundle of joy in our life is really a good thing.  We have found our family being bonded more tightly together as we have a "common cause" to talk / worry about.  YEN and I can just see the excitement, especially on EDDIE’s HUIJUN’s faces when they rush home sometimes to catch a few looks at little RACHEL before we all retire to our rooms.

SHIYONG came to our place to visit yesterday.  I cannot remember if he or I made the suggestion that he should be RACHEL’s godfather.  And all of us are glad that he is serious about the offer.  He came to visit with a gift for little RACHEL - a toy set he bought from TOYS ‘R’ US.  Working as a journalist for The Straits Times, he urged us not to encourage our baby to work as a journalist when she grows up later, citing the need to work, even as he is on leave and the extra long hours he faces, as reasons.  It’s too early to tell what our baby will be when she grows up years down the road!  =P

Having a mum and mother-in-law, who are experienced at handling babies, must help when it comes to first-time parents like YEN and I.  But I just wonder if it could have been much better had we attended classes prior to the childbirth; would it have made a significant difference?  I guess we will never know.

We are getting the hang of things to care of our baby - the waking up in the middle of the night, checking on what is going wrong for her when she cries, cleaning her up when she soils her diapers…  YEN has been such a wonderful mum!  We are trying to breastfeed our baby 100 per cent (other than the formula feeds she had in the hospital earlier).  But YEN is doubting if she can - whether she can produce enough breastmilk at the rate our baby is drinking!

We brought our baby back for another check for jaundice this past Monday.  The jaundice level was 160+ last week and has gone down to 150+ this time round.  The doctor told us it is, of course, a good sign that the bilirubin level in the baby is coming down, but it is still not safe (must be under 100) yet.  So we will have to bring RACHEL for checks until then.  Our hearts ache so bad for our poor girl when they need to take blood samples from her…  =(

I look at our little RACHEL and I feel YEN and I have the prettiest baby, ever.  It’s true, especially when I see other babies around us - none compares up to our little princess.  But isn’t that the same feeling for most, if not all, parents??

I don’t know if I have the heart to leave our baby to go to NAN HUA for practicum later this month, and subsequently, back to NIE to study…  =(

We have decided not to hold a first-month celebration for RACHEL later this month.  It happens that it will fall on Fathers’ Day.  We are unable to find a right place at affordable price to host the function, so we’ll just have a simple something at home with our immediate families…  Sorry, our little princess!

Was driving YEN to SGH for another checkup with regards to her high-blood pressure (perhaps due to pregnancy) yesterday, 1 Jun 06, when our NISSAN MARCH and us met with a traffic-accident on AYE (KEPPEL).  It was somewhere opposite to NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL after the speed camera.  A yellow CITYCAB ran into our rear after I managed to stop behind the car ahead of us, and sent us to the centre-divider next to us on our right.

First thing I check was if YEN was hurt.  I’m so thankful that she only suffered abrasions (due to the seat belt) on a little of her chest and a strain on her left calf.  More so because she had safely delivered, and that we had left little RACHEL at home to the care of my mum.  Or I really cannot imagine how I would have reacted to the accident.  I escaped unscathed and surprised myself that I did not, at any point of time, hurl any form of abuse at the cabbie - I told him that I understand nobody wanted the accident to happen, and now that it happened, "let’s just be glad that everyone involved was fine".  I surprised myself further that I went to check for the well-being of the cabbie and his passenger after I made sure YEN was alright.  Has fatherhood mellowed me, or made me a little more mature??

Back at home after reporting the accident and ensuring YEN’s condition of high blood pressure has stabilised, we rested a little while awaiting to receive a few of our classmates.  You see, JIANWEN initiated a visit to my place when YEN and little RACHEL were discharged from SGH.  But the visit was held back because of our little princess’ re-admission to hospital due to jaundice and all.  JIANWEN asked via SMS a day earlier if a few of our mates and him could visit.  I thought it was fine as he told me about 8 of them were visiting.  You see, I’m fine with having visitors, but I just feel my place is really small and facilities we have at home inadequate to host many guests.  Little did we know…

About double the original number of guests expected actually turned up!  There was EDMUND + ANNETTE (VANESSA’s roommate), THOMAS, VANESSA, JIANWEN, SHIREN, CLEMENT + girlfriend, FAIZAL, JABBAR, LYNN (said she misses little RACHEL so much she just had to make the trip again!), JIANWEN, ADRIAN, MARIE + SATIISH, WEIQIANG…  I was told that YONGSHENG and KAIXIN could not be present as they were overseas.  We had a hard time fitting everyone into my little place, and hope that everyone enjoyed themselves during the visit (especially when those who wanted to carry little RACHEL did so, not forgetting to mention clearing quite a bit of the tidbits we stored for a while!)…  YEN and I appreciate everyone’s concern and well-wishes for my dearest wife and baby girl.  =)