When the wolf howls..

Happy full moon, Lolly :)

The pillow story

When I turn myself into a milk factory, I often have a pillow behind me for comfort. And I turn on the machine that sucks my boobs high and dry. Breastfeeding can be sucha lonesome journey.. Many nights I only have the sound of ggrrrr..grrrrrr..grrrr.... of the medela machine for company.

I digressed.

Ok...so...there's always a pillow to support my spine - a little attempt to make bfeeding like a vacation by the pool. Y'know...the 'oh-I--am-so-relaxed' mood that I try to psych myself up. Or should I say psycho myself???

I digressed. Again.

So...

This afternoon, I shifted the furniture a bit in the room. The rattan chair and my faithful pillow are now next to the window. I have yet to buy a plug for the 'breast man-chine' so I resorted to sitting down on the floor, doing my 'thang' when gooly walked in and exclaimed, "So poor thing? No chair?"

Before I could say it's a temporary arrangement, he walked to the window, took the pillow and propped it on the cupboard where I was precariously leaning against (with a finger up in my nostril too!).

"Here, mom. Is that better?"

I tell you..this boy takes care of me. Yes, he does.

I don't need a pillow to feel great comfort. My boy provides so much love..my body, mind and soul are relaxed! *gloats*

Awww

There were nights that gooly woke to drink some water and saw me feeding his lil sister, or burping her, or changing her, or carrying her or heard me asking myself , "Why did we decide to have a baby again?" while tearing my hair out.

Thus, he knows I have had terrible nights.

Yesterday before heading off to bed, he wrote me a note -"Mom, I hope you have a good night sleep."

Aww..that's just gotta be the nicest thing to say and hope for a sleep deprived mom.

Speaking of notes, he also wrote this other one the other day -

"Mom, can I do half my homewrok today and half tomoro becos I want to bengsan alredy."

I relented of course cos 'bengsan' is really too cute a word to ignore.

In the still of the night

At almost 4 weeks old, lil lolly is showing us quite a bit of herself.

Like how she'd pucker up her lips when she does a poop.

Or how her face goes red when she needs to burp.

Her neck is quite strong too. She can like lift her neck up when I carry her upright whilst burping her. Super powerful, I tell you.

I'm awake now cos I just gave her milk. (but won't publish this cos I wanna post her poop face pic which hasnt been uploaded -the puckered lips one, not face full of s*it)

She was wide -eyed a while ago. I looked at her and thought, "Eh, she looks like a mini Deng Xioa Peng!" lol! That's me talking and thinking at 4am. I dunno..she does resemble an old man with the little wispy hair she has. It's kinda bald at the top, and slightly bushy at the side.

Imagine a koala, if you like.
Still cute nonetheless!

Anyways, I was looking at her looking at me just now...and she squirmed and stretched a bit. It was cute so I let out a chuckle. And what dya know... She gave me back a smile! It was a watermelon kinda smile like this ------ > :D Hah! It was probably a fluke smile but I loike it!

And then she gave a tired soft yawn and went back to sleep. Woot! Joo-bee-leeeee!

Ok I admit, there were nights (3 thus far) that she drove me nuts - insisted to be carried to sleep. No..insisted that I walked around while carrying her with wet boobs functioning like dripping faucets! Gah! Totally forced me to cuss 'basket biscuit busted' repeatedly. When I put her down, she immediately pooped or vomited or wanted more milk, signalling each activity with tears. Basket or not?

But ...just now..her watermelon smile...aiseh... Makes me go, ok I forgive you for all you late night illegal activities! * smirk and punch her shoulder lightly*

Say... 6.30 am already? Time to punch out..kakak coming in a while. Yahoo! Maggie anyone?

no!

The other day, a cute lil pumpkin came to my house. Gooly had a little time to show her the iPad before he was scooted off to school. He smiled when our eyes met a few times, indicating that he likes this girl as much as I do.

Later that night, I asked, "Isn't T cute?"

He agreed.

"Your sister will be cute as well later, eh?"

To my utter disbelief, he said NO! My jaw dropped like 2 inches, and my irises dilated to the size of a ping pong ball.

And then....

"She will be even cuter!!" he continued.

Ahh...one big biased family we are, aren't we?

Ps: T, you are still cute with your head shaking trademark, k? :)

Diary of an intoxicated mom

On that day, I got one power jab on my spine, and my mind went, "Holy ow ow ow ow ow~~~~This is no fun.. I dun wanna ..I dun wanna.. I dun wanna.." and I started to retch my guts out. Uweek...uweek...uweek..... They had to use a bowl to hold my vomit of nothingness (actually I don't know what came out) cos I had fasted for a few good hours.

Before that, the nurses kept asking if I was wearing dentures. I was getting offended like they were insinuating my boobs were fake too. I dunno how I made the connection. And they cross-checked my identity a few times. "Are you Miss Jenniper Lopes?" I so wanted to say NO just to create havoc.

I was wheeled into the OT and all was swell again. I remember looking at those big alien spacecrafts lights above, and thought, "Oooh, preety..." and sang a tune of (in my mind-lah) "Close encounter of the Third Kind". I nodded at Dr. Doolittle, and his assistant, Dr. Grey - all looking clean and sterile with their scrubs and masks. (Sort jor!)

And then the jab and holy ow moment. And the not so graceful vomit episode.

In between, I was hoping that the doc could remove some fats too but that, much to my chagrin, didn't happen.

..and then she came along

..sang beautifully in her loud soprano cries.

..Looking all pink and gorgeous.

Little frowns were sighted at first - annoyed to be shifted from the cozy pouch of a mother's womb to a cold, unfamiliar place.. and then slowly, she turned those frowns upside down.. to perfect little smiles, which got all of us mesmerised.

There..My little girl. Born at 18.10hrs, weighing 2.98 kg. Babies do come in bundles, eh? A bundle of joy, she is. :)

P/s: Ohh.. And the moment she was..erm.."dug out", the doc brought her close to me and asked, "Boy or girl?". Same thing happened during Gooly's birth. This time, due to my bat eye-sight (pun intended) and also a non-batang-so-less-obvious sight before me, I wasn't sure.. I went, "Huh huh huh.. geez.. I dunno!" And the nurse said, "OK, will let you see again once we clean baby up." I was like, "Man... Don't tell me it's a boy. I have bought pink booties!" And the heart went duk-duk-duk like it was 2012. The second time they asked, I still was unsure..and went "Uhm..err.. why don't you tell me?"

Geesh! The hospital's policy is so weird and full of suspence! I thought they should just go, "Congrats, it's a boy! (or a girl!)" Makes things less...uhm.. err.. I dunno. Just stitch me up-lah, you quack!..and there better be two pretty bows at the ends of the looooong wound...

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I now work night shift, producing milk by ounces (wish I could say gallons!) and feeding lil lolly at ungodly hours. When kakak comes in the morning, she takes over. And I hit the sack, just like a hooker would on a tired morning. :p

Gooly had been exceptionally understanding. He lets me snooze, coming in to give me kisses and sometimes from his tone, I can tell he is praying hard that I'd wake to play with him. My boy misses me, I know. But hang in there, happier more wakeful moments await us!

The other day, he came in...I knew he whispered something and I groggily nodded and mumbled something -can't remember what. When I woke, I saw the items on the floor in the above pic.

Then I remembered -"Mom, there is water in case you get thirsty." "Mom, I wrote you some messages on iPhone." "Mom, another pillow for you so you are comfortable."

Sniff! My son rawks better than the confinement lady whom I don't have!

On the 11th day..

..the stub from her goolypop, otherwise boringly known as navel, dropped.

Now she has an extra hole.

*weird mom*

lil lollypop

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The eighth night

She woke at 3 am till 4 - ish. I think that is the longest time that she was awake.

I fed her, changed her diaper.

She wasn't crying, just looking around the room. So I let her be.

She threw in a few smiles. And at times, looked like she was deep in thoughts.. "So, this is planet earth, eh?" and when her eyes caught mine, she gave me a look which said, "You are mom, I suppose?" and then she nonchalantly looked the other way to find more interesting things to stare at, like her own fingers.

There we were - just the two of us, on a silent night. Our first soirée. I loike!

(but after a while I got tired, so I plonked her back on her crib. She continued her lonely vigil..and finally fell asleep on her own. Bliss!)