A Mother’s Monologue

and sometimes Hell….

My little T2, as of 2 nights ago, has started sleeping with Daddy alone in attempt to wean her off the boob. On the first night, I heard her crying behind 2 closed doors and my heart got twisted in all kinds of knots imaginable, and for a million times it played in my head if I should go and rescue her from her harsh master but I knew he had locked the door. He knows how weak I can be with babies…..

The 2nd night, however, there was no crying or perhaps I was totally zonked out that I didn’t hear any. I’ll check on status later. (update: night 1 – woke at 3am, night 2 – woke at 530am; progress!!!)

My T2 is now very mobile and I’m having to watch her 24/7. This means even less time for us as she wants to go places and explore! She’s figured out by herself how to open drawers and even open cupboard doors. Dang! We never had that problem with T1. T1 lived in a totally un-child-proofed house and she was fine. She even listened to me when I said no touching, no entering the kitchen and to think we had KNIVES at the bottom drawer in the kitchen! She was great, my T1. Perhaps I was much free-er then to watch over her and kept her entertained, oh how we were so busy having playdates those baby T1 days. T2 is a whole different ball game.

T2′s even jammed her baby fingers in the drawers but has she learnt? NO! She wants to open MORE drawers and find MORE stuff. So much stuff to explore! And she is so determined. And if she doesn’t get her way, she lets out a LOUD scream. It’s not really an irritating scream but more of a loud scolding. Yeah, she is only a baby but boy, can she scold. Like a real mother hen. Her expressions and body language spells it too.

And as devil as she is, she is also the cutest little angel. Whenever she likes something, she’d bob her head continuously nodding and smiling. And communicating in her babble of gibberish. It’s cute beyond imagination. She follows us wherever we go and knows the home inside out. If we walked away, she’d complain and quickly come after us. Obviously not a loner. If she happens to miss us walking away, she’d go wandering to look for us. She even knows how to pull herself up onto a door and start banging it if I were to lock myself in a room *grins*.

As cheeky as she is, she has that glinty eyed smile that has never failed to melt my heart into mush. Especially when she has done something wrong and I raise my voice at her, she’d stop and look at me all doe-eyed and innocent, as if to say, sorry, can we be friends again? It’s those eyes, I’m telling you. And then when I melt and hug and kiss her, before you know it, she’s pushing her limits to try that naughty stunt again. All over again! She’s like that bad boyfriend your mother never wanted you to have! The one you could never let go off! Urgh!

And it’s hilarious how she knows every time she watches me get ready to go out, she’ll start babbling don’t forget me, Mama, don’t forget me!!! She gets all excited that we’re going out but yet worried because sometimes Mommy gets all dressed and then leaves her behind! So yes, of course she has to remind Mommy that I need to bring her out too and she does this by bobbing her entire baby body up and down with her arms up as if to say, pick me! pick me up now! And can anyone resist? Oh gosh, no…..you go ahead and try. I’ll place my bets.

“Oh, T2….soon we will be going to Australia and Mommy does hope you will not be too fussy and eat the food there. Because I cannot imagine boiling porridge for you every day when we are out and about doing Che-Che’s activities all day! So please, please be a good girl, OK”

My baby T2, she really is a little darling and I love her so much.

There are times when I am crazy busy with work and have to rush out some paid posts and yet have to care for T2, so what do I do with a baby who is not interested in her thousand of dollars worth of baby toys? I give her my box of make up to play with. She LOVES that. SO many boxes and lipsticks to open and explore!!!

And then what happens when she finally gets bored of the make up box? I throw her Che-Che’s marker pen jar. It keeps her quiet for another 10 minutes, and 10 minutes for a quiet baby is Heaven for a busy Mom like me!

Awwwww……….poor thing.

We had no choice but to sleep train T2 because she hadn’t learnt how to get off the bed safely and I couldn’t spend every waking hour in the bedroom next to her whilst she slept, now could I? So into the cot she went and was forced to learn how to sleep in her OWN bed.

I remember when T1 was about 13 months, I was getting rather fed up of wasting up to an hour every day just trying to put her to sleep and friends urged me to sleep train her. I had tried but failed so one friend coaxed me into allowing her to do it. She dumped T1 into her darkened bedroom with a baby monitor and left her screaming for 2 whole hours until she pooped. My heart cried out LOUD and all kinds of knots were pulled tight within my heart but for fear of being called a wuss, I cried silently but swore never to let it happen again. It was not until T1 was FIVE YEARS OLD that she finally was able to sleep on her own and even that because we forced her. She cried, oh, she cried…..but we figured that at FIVE, she was definitely mature enough to understand why it was time to sleep on her own.

On day one, she cried for 3 whole hours, sobbing and trying to get out of sleeping on her own. On day two, she cried for an hour and a half. Of course, she wasn’t really crying, just sobbing and being a drama queen. On day three, when she realised we weren’t giving in (as we kept reminding her that we wouldn’t!), she went to sleep entirely without crying and was actually quite happy and normal. And then WOOOOOOOSHHH!!!! It hit us like a ton of bricks. She could actually do this and was playing us all along…….In fact, on subsequent days, she would walk to her bedroom happy at night and then stay up reading with the radio on before she passed out.

I felt really conned. FIVE years of my life was spent putting T1 to sleep.That is 365 hours per year, sometimes it took even MORE than an hour. You do the math what I could have achieved more productively in those hours……I wasn’t going to do the same with T2. No way.

On day one, the cot was more a novelty for T2 so she didn’t have any problems sleeping in it. On day two and day three however, she realised it wasn’t so fun after all and she WAILED!!!!! But I didn’t leave her alone in the room. I was right beside her whispering sweet nothings into her ears, explaining why she had to learn to sleep on her own bed I kept repeating T2 sleeps on T2′s bed, Mama sleeps on Mama’s bed…..

She’d complain up to an hour and then pass out. For the 3am feed, on day one, I brought her out for a feed then put her back in when she’d passed out but on day two, I didn’t feed. I just went to the toilet and by the time I’d returned, the fussing had stopped and she’d put herself back to sleep. YAY! For the 6am feed however, I’d bring her out and depending how tired I was by then, I’d either put her back into the cot after she slept or just allowed her to be in bed with me (for the times I’m too exhausted to wait for her to finish!). On day FOUR, she had growned to accept that we both had our respective beds. She has stopped her 3 am feeds now (YAY!) and only wakes between 5-6am for a feed. She will fuss a little when we put her down into her cot but generally, after some patting and some soothing words from Mommy, or some crooning, she’d lie down and sleep.

We’re working on it. I want it to be where she stops waking up entirely and can sleep from 8 to 8 (right now, it’s 11pm to 9am, with 2 wakes in between) and I want to be able to just put her down and walk out without her grumbling. I wonder how long that will take but it seems like she’d a fast learner so far so fingers crossed!

No, I’m not THAT crazy. I actually believe that when children are ready, they are ready. Of course, if you want to start them early to familiarise them with the act, there is no harm though you may be wasting a lot of precious time.

For T1, I taught her the act of running around naked when she hit 2, with some accidents here and there for about less than 2 weeks before she started feeling cold down there got it. During that time, all carpets were rolled up and any soft furnishings put away, especially the Persian carpets! She never had an accident at school after that but there was once at a story telling session before she hit 3 when she was SOOOOOOOO excited that she pee’d right there!!! I was so embarrassed!!! The girl had held her pee because she didn’t want to miss out on the fun and when she suddenly told me she had to pee, it was too late! Gosh! And there were soooooo many people at the bookshop as well! I swear I wanted to pretend she wasn’t my kid!!!

She still wore night diapers till she was 3.5 years old though but when she started waking up in the morning with dry diapers, we knew she was ready. However, Mommy still wasn’t ready to clean bedsheets at 4am in the morning, so we always woke her and brought her to the toilet at midnight for a dream pee. T1 has never, ever, EVER had an accident in bed. Good girl. Or the Hubs would have been having fun changing bedsheets at 2am. Tee-hee.

Lately though, T1 has been to the potty to poo 3 times because purely coincidentally, when I changed her diaper, I saw her butt winking at me so instead of wasting yet another fresh diaper only to be poo’d in seconds later, I’d sprint her to the toilet for some gold depositing. Sometimes, I’d catch THAT LOOK and I’d strip her like a man in heat and rush her there too. So yeah, she’s poo’d in the toilet 3 times in the last week. It’s a lot more convenient for me and easier on her bum too as it’s not soooooo messy as the poo hits the toilet bowl directly on target and not get all mashed potato-ed up in said diaper.

T2′s first toilet poo before 12 months – a reason to celebrate with Che-Che, T1!

I’m sorry if you were in the middle of a meal *burp*

T2 finally broke SEVEN KILOS!!! The Doctors rejoiced and we all went out for a celebration!!! For the longest time, T2 was my little anorexic baby but finally, thank the Heavenly Fathers, finally, she’s started growing again.

She is such a joy every single day giving us cheeky, mischievous smiles with that silver glint in her eyes. She knows when she’s not allowed to touch something and would always look at us when her hand is about to touch it for a reaction. And when we shake our heads, there! That smile will brighten up the entire Universe. She used to be such a grumpy baby, she wasn’t unhappy, it was just hard catching her in smiles. She’s a lot more smiley these days. It must be the food. Or maybe because she’s started being mobile. She is now crawling on all fours and can walk with support. Like a horse trotting. Cute. She also pulls herself up to standing but is yet to discover cruising…..

She loves eating porridge. I usually boil organic chicken stock for 4 hours and boil it with chicken, fish (cod and salmon but soon to be ikan kembung!), anchovies (from Paik Ling, now my regular supplier – it’s an early dowry) or Australian beef (don’t care, just rojak everything up together) with up to 10 vegetables. Almost like a minestrone porridge! I usually put sweet potato, carrots, french beans, red spinach, broccoli, pumpkin, celery, turnip, tofu and leek. Also, we don’t use white rice for her porridge but an organic mix of quinoa, millet, brown rice and some mixed grains because it gives her more protein than pure carbohydrates. And I know you think I’m crazy but if you had an anorexic baby, you would understand!!! Anyway, it has worked.

She also likes to eat tastier food. Give her anything bland and she will clam up and turn away. And oh. my. God. She HASSSSSSSSS to feed herself. if I don’t let her feed herself, she would show a tantrum and go on a hunger strike. Seriously. And I would usually say, OK starve then. Except that I really can’t do that to an anorexic baby. Her favourite food is still bread (which she eats with Olive Grove Butter, which the Doctor recommended, and either peanut butter or jam – yeah, T2′s already on all the sweet, unhealthy stuff; all recommended by the Doctor.) T1 didn’t have any sugar till she was 2 years old apart from the odd occasion when Nana would secretly feed her with ice-cream.

She has also started drinking a little bit of formula – YAY!!! Which means she has also started taking to the bottle – YAY!!! She drinks anywhere between 30ml and 100ml per day. It’s a start. Of course, she still loves the boobs better……..and *drum beats*, after sleeping on my bed for 11 months beside me, she has progressed into sleeping in her cot. Or rather T1′s cot. You know, the expensive cot that T1 NEVER used…..so I’m really glad that at least T2 is using it. So much progress within this last month. It’s incredible. I’m totally blown over.

The reason T2 is now in a cot is because it wasn’t safe for her to be loitering around if I was in the kitchen, and this girl, no matter how many times I’ve taught her how to descend from the bed, she still insists on diving down head first. She’s a dare-devil, I’m telling ya. So different from her sister (who’s a dare-devil too, just not such a silly one). Her sister was army crawling at 4 months, doggy crawling at 7, and immediately knew how to descend legs first. Confidently.

T2 is easily excitable and would bounce up and down grinning from ear to ear whenever she is so. Always, always, this will happen when I unhook my bra. And when Daddy comes home. She insists to be carried IMMEDIATELY by him and loses all interest in Mommy (who does not mind AT ALL). Another person she loves being carried by is Nana because Nana plays rocking horse with her and she loves it. She also adores he sister but sometimes gets annoyed with her and would scold her. She can really scold!!! She’s been doing it ever since she was a newborn!!!

When she doesn’t get her way, she will make it known that she really wants it her way. And when she still doesn’t get her way, she then clenches both her fists and her teeth and grunts a constipated GRUNT and you’d really think she was pushing a huge poo out of that little butt crack but nay. It’s just T2′s way of saying GIVE ME MY WAY BEFORE I EXPLODE INTO ASHES OF BABY MATTER!!!

T2 does not like being alone but is OK when I say that I’m going to wee. We have practised this wee-wee routine that she now knows that when I say I’m going to wee, I WILL be back. Of course, she doesn’t know that Mommy has a weak bladder and needs to WEE A LOT like EVERY 10 MINUTES. *feigns innocence*

T2 also has this game she conjured (not the dropping things on the floor game) where she would generously offer you what she has, and when you thankfully accept, she’d pull it quickly away before you take it. She finds it very funny and keeps repeating it over and over. And there goes again that very mischievous grin. She also loves it when we take magnets and fling them onto the fridge and they stick. She cackles in hysterical laughter. I don’t know why she finds it funny but it must be a baby thing. If the magnet drops on the floor, she doesn’t laugh…..

Her fine motor skills are very good which is a bummer because she can now crawl around and pick up lizard shit. I’ve told the Hubs a million times to be quicker than that damn lizard that hides behind our fridge! She likes using her fingers a lot and likes exploring books and boxes, tears tissues, pulls out wet wipes, plays with buttons and ahem, nipples. Anybody’s…..you have been warned. Plastic toys don’t get her adrenaline up so much interestingly enough.

Well, Happy Birthday, T2. We all love you to tiddly bits as I end this thousand word update on your 12 months with us despite being an early-wearly baby. We really, really cannot imagine a life without you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY GIRL!

Can you believe it? I can’t…..Her birthday is in a few days and this busy, disorganised Mommy has not planned a single thing for a birthday party. How? Che-Che had nice birthday parties every year……

I guess things are just going to have to be a little different!

Can you tell who’s who? One of them is T1, the other T2…..I actually have photos of the 2 of them in similar poses and outfits but I don’t have time to go looking for them.