Is it Spring or Summer now?

Little Br likes to follow his brother around with his eyes.

The month of April should be the time when we could enjoy the crisp cool spring air in Cambridge after a long and dreary winter but this year, the weather is so erratic that for the past week, we had seen the temperature soaring up to 34 deg C. It was really so hot and sunny that Ry was whining when I put him into the heated car seat. I can't imagine us back in our sunny tropical island with the two boys who's totally acclimatised to the cold here. However, we do see pretty flowers and green leaves sprouting out, which reminded us that it is still early spring.

Some updates of our little ones:

1. Brendan has just gone for his 2 month visit on Monday and he now weighs 12 pounds and 8 ounces (~5.5 kg), which explains my muscle ache after I saronged him the whole afternoon while we were out shopping. He is also around 61 cm tall now so he's outgrown a lot of his newborn clothes and is wearing clothes meant for 3 - 6 months. He's also much more alert and is smiling more.


2. Ry is getting better and better with his little brother and has attempted on several occasions to pat him although we had to constantly remind him to be gentle as his pat is often a big slap on Br's tummy. Also, Ry has learned to speak a new word, "milk" this week although it sounded more like "mmm mer" He will pronounced the mmm sound for a long time before vocalising the "mer". It was a real memorable moment when he spoke "milk" the first time. It happened when he saw me pumping the milk and then point to his little brother.

Ry hugging the big panda toy at the Children Museum on 24/4, Friday. The picture is blurred because of the Ry's fingerprints on the lens.

Ry learning to do the "V" sign with his fingers.

3. Ry also has learnt to stand up for himself when "bullied" or "antagonized" by another kid. On Tuesday during a SG mothers gathering, he actually pushed back the antagonizer and screamed at him and was really angry about it. Before this, he used to be a victim and ended up crying looking for me. It was really funny watching him retaliating the aggressor. How I wished I had my camera on hand to capture the moment.

Little one's first month!

Today marks the one month pediatrician visit for Br. Since we were going there, we decided to schedule a 2 year old visit for Ry too. Here's an update of their vital stats:

Ryan
Weight: 25 pounds (11.3 kg)
Height: 33.75 inches (85.7 cm)


Brendan
Weight: 10 pounds 4 ounces (4.17 kg)
Height: 22.4 inches (57 cm)

Ry is still small although he has improved to the 15th - 20th percentile according to the growth chart (the American version). He is slightly thinner and lighter than we previously weighed him as he was down with cold for the past two weeks.

Br on the other hand is doing great. He has gained a whooping 3 pounds since birth and is highly ranked in the 50th - 60th percentile according to the growth chart, which probably makes him a pretty big baby according to Asian standards. Seeing him grown so much today made me feel that all the hard work breastfeeding him every 1 - 2 hrs a day is worth it. Even at night, Br wakes up every 1-1.5 hr to nurse. I was just telling my mum a few days ago that his biological clock is so strong that he automatically wakes up 1 hr later from the time he fell asleep.

Some updates from the past month:

1. Ry is getting more accustomed to his baby brother but still has flares of jealousy sometimes. Like today, he refused to let the me nurse the baby and was wailing out loud on the floor while I did so.

2. The three men in the house went for a haircut together on 22 Mar, Sun at Chinatown. Br did not get a full shave according to the Chinese customs as we think it is too "sayang" to shave his head of beautiful hair, so only had his sideburns and the ends cut only.

Baby Br's new look! He is bursting out of this new onesie (newborn size) that we bought for him.

3. We also celebrated Br's one month old on a Thursday evening, 26 Mar with a cherry cheesecake from Finale. However, the celebration seems to be Ry's birthday celebration instead as Ry eagerly blew out the candle and cut the cake while the little one was peacefully sleeping away.


4. Ry has engaged in more imaginative play over the past month. What amuses us over the past month was when he used an empty red box as a guitar and happily strumming it away in a rock and roll fashion. This prompted us to purchase a toy guitar over Amazon.com, which arrived last Saturday. Ry was definitely ecstatic when he saw the guitar and now this has become his favorite toy.





5. As my mum has cooped up in the house for over the past month due to my confinement, I decided to go shopping with her once Br almost reached his one month old. We had been to a few places alone without K, even venturing as far out to Burlington mall, which is about 30 minutes drive away. However, it is a real challenge to be going out with an energetic 2 year old and a frail one month old who needs to nurse every hour or so. Just preparing to leave the apt took us a good 40 minutes and during shopping, we constantly had to keep a vigilant look out for Ry, who loved to walk on his own and refused to sit in the stroller anymore. I probably have to do more online shopping from now onwards.

All geared up to go shopping!

Alike or not?

Br is now about 3 weeks old, meaning that I have only about one more week of confinement to go. It is not that I'm really following a strict confinement regime which I'm not allowed to go out of the house at all for a month. In fact, I have been out of the house a few times to do some grocery shopping as K is down with a bad flu. However, I have been trying to keep those outings real quick so I'm really yearning to go out to have some fun and do some real shopping with my mum and have a great meal outside once the baby is 1 month old.

Last week, while I was showing my mum some photos of our life here in Boston, we ended up discussing whether Br and Ry look alike. Since we could not make up our mind by comparing their present looks, I decided to put Ry's and Br's photo by which they are of the same age (7 days old) side by side to compare. The following is a comparison of their looks. So friends out there, maybe you can tell me whether they look alike or not.

Big brother Jealousy!

It's been 10 days since baby Br is home. He's grown 10 ounces heavier than his birth weight and is a healthy pink baby with no signs of jaundice at all, unlike his older brother, who was severely jaundiced at birth. This is definitely a piece of good news for us since we were worried that the baby may be like Ry who is colicky and jaundiced in the first month. Everything is going pretty well with the new baby except that he's wide awake at night, keeping me up almost every 1.5 - 2 hr and refuse to go to sleep from 10 pm to 1 am, like last night. The pediatrician says that it is because the baby still couldn't differentiate between night and day. And I guess it's the same timing the baby is keeping when he's in my tummy by which he usually starts his kicking and movement after 10 pm every night when I was enjoying a late night show with daddy.

Attempt to catch a picture of Brendan smiling away.

As for Ry, things weren't so good for him. After spending almost a week with the baby and realizing that the baby isn't going away, i guess jealousy starts kicking in. He's been whiny, needy and attention seeking. My mother-in-law has made 2 new pillows filled with 豆芽壳, the outer shells of dried bean sprouts (P/s: dunno what is the real translation in English, can anybody enlighten me?) for for Ry and Br but Ry kept taking Br's for his own use and refuse to share any of his pillows. So now, Ry has 5 pillows and we had to secretly put one away for Br. Also, Ry would want me to carry him, hug him or play with him whenever I'm breastfeeding Br or carrying Br. If I told him to wait till I finished with Br, he would promptly plop himself on the floor and start knocking his head against the floor to coerce us .

Worse still, for the past week, Ry has been waking up in the middle of the nights crying and kept snuggling into our bed which the the baby is sleeping in his sleeper between me and daddy. Thus, keeping the daddy awake since his cot was beside K. So last night, we decided to have a new sleep arrangement such that Ry is sleeping between us and we put the baby and his sleeper onto Ry's cot beside me. However, around 2 am last night, Ry woke up and saw the baby in his cot and started wailing away as he refused to have the baby there. Ry kept crying for almost 2 hours and by then, our temper has flared since both of us had not been sleeping well for the past nights plus I just went to bed only half an hour ago after carrying Br for 3 hours when he refused to sleep. K almost resorted to punish Ry to his naughty corner when my mum came out to interfere. I have no choice but to get out of the bed and try to pacify Ry. Fortunately, he quieted down as he realised that K was really angry with him and later went back to bed after I soothed him to sleep. So, the two of us only went to bed at almost 4 am and by then, Br was almost up for him his next feeding, meaning that I get to sleep only at 430 am.

Before Br's birth, K and I had already agreed not to scold or punish Ry for at least the first 2 weeks when baby is home. However, we find that it is really hard for us to keep our temper and patience in check. I have on numerous occasions raised my voice at Ry especially when he refused to wait for his turn and kept tugging at me when I was carrying or feeding the baby. I guessed we just have to learn to cope with two young kids and as my mum says, they are really too close in age and Ry has been too comfortable with the both of us and it is difficult for him to start sharing his attention with the younger sibling. Hopefully, as days go by, Ry will be better in his behaviour.

Picture of Ry with the birthday present from our good friend in Abu Dhabi.

Ry loves to sit in Br's car seat / bouncer.

Ry's Second Birthday!

Ry's second birthday was yesterday, 5th March. However, we had already celebrated his birthday about 3 weeks ago. Hence, this is a backdated post.


According to K, Chinese custom states that we do not celebrate two happy occasions together, especially for birth. This is to prevent the clash of two joyous occasions, to avoid 冲喜. Just like the old belief that a pregnant women should not attend a wedding celebration for the same reason. Since the due date for Br was so near Ry, we were also afraid that we won't get a chance to celebrate Ry's birthday when Br was born. Also, we figured out that we'll be too tired and occupied with the new baby to be in the mood to celebrate with Ry.

Ry loved the lighted candles on his birthday cake.

So, about 3 weeks ago after my mum arrived from SG, we host a mini birthday celebration for Ry on a Thursday evening. K and I bought an ice-cream cake from Baskin Robbins after my last Ob-gyn appointment while we walked back home from the Holyoke centre. After dinner, we got out the cake and K blew up 2 balloons for Ry. Ry was mesmerised with the candles and he was so thrilled to blow out the candles. Till now, he would still take out the candles and pretend to blow at them. The ice-cream cake was surprisingly nice and the four of us actually finished the whole cake that was meant for 6 -8 people at one go.

My mum still pretty jetlagged from her flight 2 days ago. One can see the pretty low bump on my tummy - the lightening as known to be near labour.

After the cake cutting, we took out our presents for him that we had bought at least a month ago. There were 3 presents. The first present was a box of flash cards, the second was a book and the last was a jigsaw sound puzzle from Melissa and Doug of transportation vehicles that if one fits them correctly, it will give off the sound of the vehicle. So throughout the night, Ry was happily playing with his puzzle and the flash cards. I was pretty suprised that Ry actually know at least thirteen out of the sixteen words in the flash cards. Although he can't speak the words, he can pick out the flash cards correctly when I said the word and he loved playing this game. So, I think I would get him more flash cards to help to improve his vocabulary.

Ry savouring his piece of cake and he finished it all by himself.

Ry was surprised by his three presents.

Daddy showing Ry how to open his presents but before doing so, a daddy and boy photo together.

It has been 2 years that we are in Boston that we do not have a really proper birthday celebration for Ry. Probably, next year when we are back in SG, we'll be throwing the two boys a combined birthday party and invite our closed ones and friends to celebrate the joyous occasion together.

Arrival of Brendan and my rollercoaster emotions over the month!

Information of our new baby

Name: Chan Hao Hian, Brendan 曾浩轩
Date of Birth: 26 Feb 2009
Time of Birth: 2.37 p.m.
Place of Birth: Brigham Women Hospital, Boston
Birth Weight: 3.17 kg (7 pounds 0 ounces)
Birth Length: 19 inches (49 cm)

After waiting nervously for about a month, we have finally welcomed the arrival of our second baby boy, Brendan. At the beginning of my 36 weeks pregnancy, I was already beginning to get nervous and excited about the birth as I was going to try out for vaginal birth after a C-section, commonly known as VBAC. We were briefed about the risks and complications many times during the prenatal visits and have discussed all the possibilities with my Ob-gyn before we signed a consent form for our VBAC. Everyday since 36 weeks, I was becoming increasingly paranoid over any small little cramps and was worried that my mother would not be able to make it to Boston in time for the birth as I really wanted K to accompany me during the labour which I knew would not be possible if no one was around to care for Ry.

Fortunately, my mum made it safely to Boston on 17 Feb and my Braxton Hicks contractions started kicking in immediately the next day. On Thursday, 19 Feb, during my 38 weeks Ob-gyn visit, the doctor informed me that I was already 2 cm dilated and proceeded to strip the membrane around the cervix, hoping that it would initiate the labor soon. So for the following days, I was strutting around with trepidation while trying to get Ry comfortable with his grandma whom he had not seen for the past 6 months and also getting my mum into the routine of things around the house. I was getting more contractions after the stripping of the membrane but nothing really happened over the week. So, K and I were a little disappointed and we were quite prepared for another scheduled C-section on the due date, 2 March as days went by.

On Wednesday night, I went to bed pretty early at 10 am as I was very tired after bring Ry to his usual gym activity in the afternoon. In the middle of the night around 3 am, I was woken up by a sudden and consistent pain that is similar to a menstrual cramp. I thought it was the usual false contractions that I had been having for the past week, so I duly ignored it. But, the cramps continued and became regular at 5 - 10 minutes interval after they kept me awake. So I woke up K at 345 am and informed him of the possible onset of labor but told him to continue his sleep. At 430 am, I finally woke K up and asked him to call the Ob-gyn hotline to see whether we can go to the hospital. The nurse called back and after confirming that I was having a VBAC and my contractions were 5 minutes apart, she then advised us to go to Brigham Women Hospital. This is not the usual practice in US here as most mothers who are having their first labour would usually be advised to wait for another 3 hours before making their way to the hospital but since I was having a VBAC, I could go in earlier as they need to put me on monitor throughout my whole labor.

I bathed and packed my bag and left for the hospital at 6 am and reaching there around 6 30 am. The Ob-gyn on shift came and examined me at around 6 45 am and informed me that I was around 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced, which means that I could go into the delivery suite immediately. I was escorted to the delivery suite 505 and was hooked up onto the various monitors. The cramps were still coming in between 3 - 5 minutes apart but my water bag hasn't break. I was previously told by my Ob-gyn that I must have epidural so that I could go into emergency c-section immediately if there's a need so I need to inform the doctors when I felt the need and the pain becomes unbearable. So on the delivery bed, I was constantly debating whether should I ask for the epidural now or is the pain still bearable.

Me still in the observation ward when we just checked into the hospital.

Finally after a long wait till around 9 am, the next Ob-gyn on shift finally came in to examine me and said I was already 7-8 cm dilated and she was surprised that I had not ask for the epidural yet. She commented I was very stoic and had very high pain tolerance. So things went into a frenzy then, epidural was given and the doctor broke my water bag. Immediately, my contractions started picking up and I felt I was ready to deliver by 1 pm. By 2 pm, the nurse and the Ob-gyn got me to push and within 30 minutes, Brendan was delivered safely. He was crying even before he was completely out and everybody around me commented that he has a lot of hair. The only unfortunate event was that I had a low grade fever after birth and the doctor and pediatrician were worried that Brendan maybe infected too so they had to wheeled him away to the observation ward immediately to draw his blood for bacteria culture and putting IV drip on him so that they could administer antibiotics. Poor daddy hasn't even carried the baby yet!

Baby Brendan ready to be wheeled to the nursery for observation!

Daddy, my mum, Ryan and baby Brendan!

Ry's first interaction with baby! Simply adore him as he's been such a good boy ever since baby is here!

Baby Brendan is so much more chubbier than Ry at birth! We are definitely surprised with his weight as we have always assumed that he'll be in the same range as Ry at around 5 pounds plus.

Baby getting ready to leave the hospital! We'll definitely keep the blue hat in our family as it has sort of become the Chan's family heirloom since it has seen 3 baby boys out of the hospital. Hopefully, it'll be put to use the 4th time in the Chan family!

Personally, I never regretted opting for VBAC this time and I find the birth of Brendan more fulfilling and touching as compared to the C-section for Ry. The other plus side definitely is the shorter recovery time as I was up and about within the next 5 hours as compared to my C-section which I could only start moving after about 14 hours on bed, which thus made breastfeeding more difficult.

Hurray! No More Pacifiers!

Finally, at Ry's 23rd month, he is officially rid of his pacifiers. But, the process comes with a small price ........

Last Wednesday, after watching an interview with a nanny on the morning news show about weaning off bottles, pacifiers and co-sleeping with parents, I decided to heed the advice and go for the most effective method - cold turkey, meaning that we'll just totally removed the presence of the pacifiers all at one time instead of slowing weaning him off through other methods. 

Why did I suddenly decide to do it out of the blue on that day? Well, it was because I was getting more and more worried recently that Ry will be jealous of his baby brother when the second one is born. And therefore, I am getting worried that Ry will become angry with us and think that we do not love him anymore if we start the weaning process only after his second birthday.

So the weaning process started with me going straight to hide all Ry's 4 pacifiers while he was engrossed in his Mickey Mouse show. When he asked for it later, I simply told him that they were thrown away and brought him to the usual place where I kept the pacifiers to show him that there were no more pacifiers. Definitely, he howled and cried pitifully and even attempted to knock his head against the wall to coerce me into giving him the pacifiers. I nearly gave in but I quickly carried him and tried to coax him with his toys and sing to him to soothe him. He stopped wailing after a while and later, I find that he tried to distract himself by taking out his toys to play.

During nap time, there was another struggle and I have to spend more time putting him to sleep but somehow, he managed it without the pacifiers. Probably, he was already tired out. Needless to say, the first night without pacifier resulted in him waking up in the middle of the night crying and searching for it and it took me at least 30 minutes to sing to him to lull him back to sleep. On the whole, I was pretty satisfied with his behaviour as I expected worse from him and his tantrums only limited to mainly sleep time. 

Throughout the second and third day, Ry occasionally looked for his pacifiers but he soon realised that they were absent and since stopped looking for them. So it was a pretty quick process that we managed to wean him off the pacifiers. 

However, the funny thing I observed was that he sufered from withdrawal systems like drug addicts denied of their drugs. He had lower concentration and was more clumsy, so he fell down more often while walking and climbing. All in all, he accumulated a total of 7 bruises throughout his whole body. Some of them were pretty severe especially the one on his right rib cage by which he bruised himself when he fell from the dining chair and knocked himself against the side of another chair beside it. It was really heartbreaking to see him crying while I tried to apply ointment and pressure to disperse the blood clot. K joked that if we bring him to a doctor now, we'll probably get sued for child abuse. Probably, I'm really abusing him since I denied his sanity and concentration when I removed his pacifiers!

See the big red bruise on his right forehead and there are more of these bruises on his whole body! That was the result of him knocking himself on the stair while climbing the slide at the gym on Wed, which had never happened before as he's a pretty good climber!