Filling up our rooms

Louis and I have always resisted buying a study table when we first shifted to our current home. Partly, we wanted to keep our 2 rooms empty and also, there weren't space elsewhere to site a work desk. Our dining table doubled up as our work area whenever we need to use our laptops.


Increasingly, with Faith's appearance in our lives, we've now accumulated a lot of other stuff in our house. Slowly, the 2 rooms that were once empty are now filling up very quickly. Last weekend, we purchased a multi-function printer and I shifted my laptop into the room next to Faith's and that became our little office. Today, we went to Ikea and purchased 2 tables and chairs. With these purchases, our 2nd empty room has now become sort of a study room, amongst other.


Admittedly, it feels nice to finally have a proper work table, instead of working or surfing the computer at the dining table. I don't know why we resisted the idea for so long.

Coming into motherhood

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with an old friend and lamenting to her that motherhood wasn't such a big deal as many friends have told me that it would be. In fact, many times, I feel frustrated at the challenges in trying to breastfeed Faith, the intrusion of another living being (even of my own flesh and blood) into the couple lifestyle that Louis and I have, as well as trapped by the responsibilities of motherhood. Truth be told, I was feeling guilty that I'm not experiencing any of the joys and fulfillment that motherhood is supposed to bring.

I remembered very clearly and am ever thankful up till now for what she told me. She shared that it takes time and reminded me that the body is still recovering from the delivery, hormonal changes, as well as the fact that I could be going through some small amount of post natal blues. But, she also assured me that things would get better. It was the same with her too when she delivered both her kids, the 2nd being about 4 months ago. She assured me that one day, I would wake up feeling happy and excited becos I have a baby to play with. Tammy was right!

Throughout the birth of Faith and up until now, there wasn't any doubt that I love my little baby. Nonetheless, I couldn't help the occasional feeling of resentment creeping in. But for the past few days, I've been feeling very positive and happy about motherhood. Perhaps its a combination of a few things.

Firstly, Faith is growing up and developing well both physically and emotionally. She's a happy baby most of the time, especially in the mornings when she would wake up on her own and coo on her own in her cot. Being treated to her innocent smiles when I talk to her just about melt my heart and makes me think that I've got the cutest and greatest kid in the whole world!

Secondly, now that I've changed my own mindset about breastfeeding, Faith seems to have a happier disposition with 2 bottle feedings a day. Overall, she manages to drink more and fusses a little lesser when given the bottle. Now that I do not have to fight and struggle with her so much at feedings, I'm feeling a little more relaxed myself.

Thirdly, and this, I have a lot of people to thank for. I cannot be grateful enough for the support that my mom and in-laws have given to help take care of Faith. My mom would come in on weekdays and "relieve" me in the afternoons and also bottle feed Faith. That gives me some break time and "me time" to blog or even step out of the house to go for lunch. And my MIL and FIL would help to babysit Faith on weekends and public holidays so that Louis and I could have some couple time or run errands. Even with such offers of help, it took me a while to comfortably handover Faith to my mom and in-laws and not let guilt assuage me that I'm not taking care of Faith 24x7 on my own. On this, I have Louis to thank for his gentle persuasion and encouragement that I'm not a bad mom for wanting some personal time of my own. Not forgetting that Louis and I are very appreciative of our extended family members, each of whom have most willingly and happily helped to love and care for Faith in their own ways e.g. Adrian, Astee, Anthea, Anders, Terence, Cherry, Nicole, Nell and Richard.

Lastly, I've got many friends and colleagues to thank for, especially the moms who were most helpful in answering my SMSes and IMs with advices and assurances for this new mother. There are so many of you and at the risk of leaving out any names, I'm just going to leave it as that. You know who you are :)

So, thank you very much, xie xie ni, terimah kaseh, je vous merci and muchos gracias :)

Tagged: Meaning of Faith

Actually, I'm still not very sure how this tagging thing works on the blog. Nonetheless, I've been tagged by my SIL on the meaning of Faith's name. Well... would be good if someone can eventually tell me how this tagging thing works on blogs.

Now back to the meaning of Faith's name. From the onstart, Louis and I wanted the name Sara if our kid turns out to be a girl. The reason? We like the sound of Sara. Actually, we wanted our kid's name to reflect characteristics or certain virtues e.g. wise, kind etc. However, we couldn't find out that we liked with the appropriate meaning. Hence, Sara was the name that we stuck with for the longest time even though we know the meaning for it was Princess. At the back of our minds, we wanted to ensure that the Chinese name for a baby girl would reflect the virtues that we have in mind (wisdom, kindness or filial piety). We were most afraid that our kid would turn out to be some spoilt brat.

Since we didn't know the gender of our baby, Louis and I were ploughing through a Baby's name book that a friend gave to us. While we were supposed to look for an equivalent name for a baby boy, we chanced upon the name, Faith. I told Louis that I've always liked the names, Faith and Grace. In particular, Faith. Flipping through the meaning in the book, this was what we came across:

"Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1 "

Source: Name That Baby

Louis and I rather liked what we read and since then, the name Faith kinda superceded our earlier choice for Sara. So, there you go. That's how we the name for Faith came about (for more on the meanings of Faith, click here to go to an earlier posting). An interesting little story to share too. When we brought Faith for her routine check up one week after her birth, her paedi remarked that the babies whom he had come across with the same name were usually fiesty little things with a temper to boot. Hmmm... he's somewhat right on that score too ;)

A weekend to smile about

Eve and I finally caught a show this weekend :) This might not seem like much, but it was our first show after Faith was born and for some time now, Eve has been longing to catch a movie on the big screen. It was opportune because this was a weekend of blockbusters it seems - with Pirates of the Carribean, Spiderman 3 and Priceless showing, we had no lack of shows to choose from. In memory of our years in France (and a test of how far we've sunk from our quasi-DELF days), we quickly settled on Priceless starring Audrey Tatou. Add to that, we managed to pull Patrick out after a long hiatus of no-shows and weeekend works to join us - so it was a reunion with a close friend, plus a movie out.

On Sunday, we also had a nice relaxed dinner with drinks afterwards with the family. Apart from Terence and Cherry who had to attend a wedding dinner (they seem to be attending lots of wedding dinners these weekends: a sign of where their cohort is), the rest of the family had a nice Chinese dinner with wine, followed by a stroll along the river for drinks at Central. It seems like a long time since Faith had a chance to go out with her cousins so this weekend's family dinner was a much-anticipated one. Dinner was at the Tung Lok restaurant at Liang Court. Given that this was the last day before the restaurant shifted its operations to Central, we were all too glad to catch the restaurant's swan song. After all, Imperial Herbal's standard dropped drastically after it shifted, so here's hoping that Tung Lok would keep its standard at the new place!

I think over the weeks, Eve and I have now gotten more relaxed about Faith's progress. Next time, we'd take some pictures of ourselves and you can see that we're probably less tired and less stressed out. We just can't wait now for Faith to grow older and be able to interact more with us and the rest of the family. It'd bring its joys and headaches for sure, but oh well, it's all part of the learning journey isn't it?

Faith's got mail

Yesterday, a registered parcel arrived for Faith. It was a parcel containing presents from Faith's grand-aunt Catherine, from UK. How exciting!

We eagerly opened the parcel and saw that there were 2 tops, a dress and 4 pairs of socks with cute wordings like "I love mummy", "I love my daddy" and "I love my aunty" and an old picture to boot. Now, why did my Aunty Catherine enclosed an old picture of me in the mail when I was 5 1/2 months old??!!

We'll... she's been reading on our blog that we've been trying to figure out whom Faith most resembles -- Louis or myself. Aunty Catherine, I don't know how in the world did you still have an old picture of me, but I'm sure glad that you did. Becos, Faith does look like me. And its not just the mouth that everyone unanimously agrees with.

Faith would probably be able to fit into her new clothes in another 2-3 months. For grand-aunt Catherine's sake, here's a few latest pix of Faith and also her posing with her new outfits :) Our little girl has been smiling a lot more in response to people talking to her. Its getting to be more fun to talk to her and have her coo back at you or flash you the occassional cheeky grin or wink.

Thanks Aunty Catherine for the presents and the other very generous gift enclosed in the card. We'll be sending you some of Faith's pictures by post to you in the UK. Wouldn't it be great if we could head over to UK within the next 1 year so that you can see your grand-niece up close and personal?

Lots of love
Louis, Eve & Faith

The fusspot is ready to take on the world

Okay... I've established that there's absolutely nothing wrong with the original teat that we used to feed Faith in the bottle. The verdict is really final. She HATES drinking from a bottle. Period.

Now that we're kinda on a routine and Faith's sorta feeding every 3 hours or thereabouts, its a little easier to breastfeed her. That is if I manage to keep her awake such that she drinks at least 1/2 hour. Given her intense dislike of bottle and the constant struggle to have to force her to drink a bottle of 50-90 ml (the amount varies depending on how difficult she wants to make the milk drinking task ;)) for 3-4 times a day, Louis and I decided to change our tactic and let her suckle at the breast most of the time, with the exception of 2-3 bottle feeds in the afternoon. The reason is simple. We want Faith to continue to "practise" drinking from the bottle for situations where its not convenient to breastfeed her and also to ensure she does not forget how to drink from a bottle.

With this mindset change on my part, I think Faith is a little happier for the last 2 days. Of course, it makes drinking from a bottle trying at times becos she still protests quite a fair bit. But becos my mom is the one feeding her the bottle in the day and we've restricted her drinking time to between 30-45 mins max (regardless of the amount she has drank), its a less stressful exercise for all of us. I know that people who follow the on-demand feeding will shake their head at what we're doing. But frankly, life's gotta go on and Faith's gotta learn that her mom does not operate a 24x7 cafe ;) However, we'll have to monitor her weight when she next visits the paedi to ensure she does not have any weight loss.

We've also collected her passport yesterday (long queue at the immigration office) and Faith is now ready to travel the globe, subjected to a few conditions of course. Namely, the location of Louis' next assignment and the green light by Faith's paedi. So, let's see how things go in the next 1-2 months.

Growing up

Faith has been rather vocal about her dislike of bottles, taking an extremely long time to finish her milk (1 hr or sometimes more for 90ml of milk) the whole of last week. She would even throw temper tantrums.

Fortunately or unfortunately for her, I'm still trying to persist with giving her the bottle in the day. However, the new "strategy" that Louis and I are trying is to allocate about 1/2 hour at each feeding and see how much she would finish, regardless of the amount she had consumed by then. Hopefully, she would get hungry enough that she would want to feed more and go back to her normal feeding amount.

Her milk intake over the weekend went down quite a bit. I'm not sure if its a result of her injection-induced fever, and hence a lack of appetite or just simply becos she really dislikes drinking from a bottle. For certain, the problem is not with the teats becos we've tried many different types and she's still behaving the same way. I guess its just her nature and temperament afterall.

Feeding aside, Faith seems to enjoy having people talk to her more. She's definitely more alert and happy whenever people start having conversations with her. Apart from that, she also loves the mobile hanging over her cot and continues to be fascinated by it everytime we play it for her. Really can't wait for her to grow up quickly! While she is reaching her 2-month mark in another 2 days, it sometimes feels longer than 2 months since Faith was born :)

At 2 Months - GlobeTrottie Wannabe

Thanks to technology, we've taken lots of mugshots of dear Faith. Not only because we procured a new SD card and have a decent digital camera, but also because the Immigration Authority allows one to apply for passports online - by submitting a digital photograph!

So, in the past week, Eve and I had a delightful time capturing mug shots of Faith against a white background. We were determined to capture a "suitable" picture for her new passport (ears showing, full frontal, eyes open etc). Think Anne Geddes. And Faith, you'd appreciate this someday, but we didn't include your Full name in the passport. Otherwise, you would have needed to fill in your full name in your embarkation/disembarkation card each time you travelled! :)

While Faith's passport photo was being sent across cyberspace, Faith took another step to becoming a globe trotter - her immunisation schedule. This time round, she took 2 jabs - besides the mandatory jabs, she also took one for pneumococal - a jab which apparently is compulsory in countries like the US and India, but not yet in Singapore. After all, we weren't going to take any chances, mandatory or not. If we had a choice, I think we would have taken as many jabs as ber body would withstand - prevention is better than cure anytime, especially, if we intend to travel in the near future with my job assignments overseas.

As you read from the posts, it's been a tiring two months - especially for eve and mum-in-law. Guys have it easier no matter how you see it. Being away in the office means that you get to still lead your normal life - listen to Class95 while driving to work, go for lunch, drop by the coffeshops to pick up dinners etc. So chin-up to all Fathers who are tired out from all the late-feeds - it can be much worse :)

Maybe the problem is with the teat afterall?!

For the last 3 weeks, we've been giving Faith expressed breast milk in a bottle in the day. And what a trying period it has been for my mom and I. Not lest the time that she takes to finish her milk (1 hr for 90ml), but the whole effort in trying to feed her as she struggles, screams and occassionally cries is horrifying. In fact, my mom laughingly said (and I'm sure there's some heartfelt truth in it) that she's starting to be scared of feeding times. I can totally empathise with her feelings becos I've on many occasions chickened out and resorted to giving her the breast when it comes time for her feed :)

We've tried different brands of teats and figured that at the end of the day, she still prefers the NUK teats. As a last resort, my mom tried piercing the holes in the teats so that the milk flow would be faster. Today, we noticed that some of the teats seemed to be wearing off. Also, it appears that there is one particular teat in which Faith would drink faster from, albeit, still with her usual amount of disgruntleness.

Hence, I went out to the supermarket to buy new teats to replace the old ones and just in case, I bought one with a larger hole and another silicone teat too. We've tried it on Faith for her late afternoon feed. Definitely, the milk flow is faster and there appears to be slightly less resistance from our little one to drink (although she still takes a long time to drink).

Please!!! I hope the problem is with the teat and that its not bottle rejection. Its been a good 3 weeks now and I fear that my mom and I are both developing a phobia of feeding her at mealtimes!!! Whoever heard of 2 grown ups being fearful of feeding a little babe?

Happy Mother's Day

If it hadn't been for my SIL who emailed to say that Mother's Day was this weekend, I would have forgotten all about it, as well as the fact that this year, my status has been elevated to that of a mom.


It still feels surreal to me that I'm now a mother, but gradually, I'm getting used to the idea as well as being more adapt at nappy changes and bathing her. Bath time for Faith used to be a stressful one for me but slowly, I'm getting the hang of it and Faith continues to enjoy her time in the water. Now that Faith is 8 weeks old, she's getting to be more aware of her surroundings and can better respond to people. For example, for the last few days, she would look at me and smile at times or make cooing noises.

I'm also trying to establish Faith on a 3-hour routine to feed, wake/play and sleep. Breastfeeding her on demand during the first 1 1/2 months has been good in the sense that Faith has more than double her birth weight (she now weighs 3.6kg). However, the downside to on demand feeding means that I'm never certain when she will feed, sleep or be awake. With a routine, there would be more predictability in her eating and sleeping patterns, as well as her waking time.

Since late last week, I've been trying everyday to get her into this routine. So far, there's been some progress, albeit very slow. Nonetheless, I'm going to try it everyday till she gets the hang of it. There are days when it seems like its going well, at least in terms of the feeding routine. Other days, it feels frustrating as nothing seems to work and the routine falls apart even at the start of the day.

I know of friends who have successfully gotten their kids onto some sort of routine (whether is it based on Gary Ezzo's "On becoming baby wise" or Tracy Hogg's "Baby whisperer solves all your problems or Gina Ford's "The contented baby"). I think mine would be a mixture of the first 2 authors. I'm not sure how long its going to take to get Faith to successfully be put on a routine, in view that she still has bottle rejection issues. Nonetheless, for more predictability in our lives and a healthier structure for her, I'm going to try it and hope that success comes sooner than later.


Ohhh... I've gotten Faith a new mobile (one that doesn't require constant winding) and she's rather fascinated with it. Its rather useful for times when we would like her to quietly play in her cot and have some 15 mins of free time for Louis, my mom or me to do something else :)

Bottle Rejection

A little bundle is a lot of hard work. Just when I thought that she's gotten the hang of breastfeeding, Faith decided that she much prefer suckling milk while cosying up to mommy than to have someone feed her via the bottle. Nevermind that the content is the same and that she's been drinking from the bottle all this while at night. Sigh...

So, our little girl falls asleep, makes retching noises, kicks her leg, arches her body or scream bloody murder at times when we try to give her the bottle (she might perform one or two or all of the listed, depending on her moods and occasion). Ohhh... and to make sure mommy's heart aches, our dear "little bundle of joy" also cries with big fat tears streaming down her face. All of which must be ochestrated to ensure that mommy will occassionally cave in and offers her the breast instead *sigh*

Definitely, she's got a mind of her own and scared us quite a bit by vomitting up a lot of milk on Sat when we tried to squeeze the bottle teat into her mouth. Since it was the 3rd time that she threw up (the 1st 2 was after we fed her medication), we decided to bring her to the paedi to find out what's wrong. Turns out, there's really nothing wrong with Faith. But she's cleverer than her parents give her credit for. She decides to protest by throwing out when we force something down that she doesn't like :(

Anyways, like it or not, we'll planning to get her retrained to take to the bottle. Otherwise, its going to be difficult to bring her out (I can't breastfeed her while dinning with the family at the restaurants on weekends and its not like every place we go to has got a nursing room handy) or have someone look after her while I occassionally take time off to run errands.

Hopefully, it won't take too long, but there's no telling what other challenges our little girl will throw at us after we've gotten her back on the bottle. Maybe rejects the breast again this time??!! Touch wood! I seriously hope not cos both Louis and I are quite tired out and I think I've lost that motherhood glow since delivery ;)

Faith is sick :(

Sigh... only days after Aunty is gone and Faith has fallen sick. She's got running nose and a slight cough. It was torturous hearing her heavy and laboured breathing all through the night.

Brought her to see baby clinic at AMK central. Doc said that its not so common for newborns to fall sick. So, it could be a number of things that we did that culminated in her falling sick e.g. bringing her out to crowded places, letting her sleep in the air-conditioned room, bathing her once at night (cos we didn't put her diapers on tight enough and it soiled all over her legs and on my clothes too) and also not using warm enough water when bathed her.

Sigh...