Happy 4th Month Saige

Saige is 4! Months that is. It may not be 4 years yet, but still it is something to rejoice about. Perhaps because this daddy has been travelling since the day Saige was born, this day makes it even more "significiant". Absence does make the heart grow fonder.

I probably haven't been spending as much time as I should have with Saige. Probably is likely an understatement because the travelling (which now seems to be happening every two weeks) takes me 2-3 days out of town at a stretch. When I am in Singapore, I probably get to really spend time with her in the early mornings of the weekdays and on the weekends; on the weekdays - before I prep Faith for school and rush myself off to work, and on the weekends - less the three to four hours we send Saige packing to join her sis at my mum's place, so Eve and I really have some quality time. Come to think of it, the longest stretch of time I got to spend time with Saige in the 4 months - was in the first two weeks when I was on home leave after she was born, and when the little family (with dad and mum included) were in Hong Kong just a few weeks back.Saige is a smiley kid and I like it when I know I can make her smile so easily just by calling her name. And she has that special way of smiling - when she is in a really good mood, she smiles and kicks her legs and brings her hands to her mouth - that's when you know she really had a good nap. However, she reserves her chuckles for mummy - Eve somehow is the only one who can consistently make her chuckle. Somehow, Saige doesn't chuckle no matter how much I throw her in the air or tickle her. Eve calls it the special mummy's bond.
Saige is now able to recognise our faces. She reserves her puzzled look for Faith each time Faith sings to her - she must be curious why this jie jie sometimes jumps around and wiggles her buttocks while coming so close to her face. It doesn't help that Faith does monkey faces each time she comes close - Saige must be wondering why this face looks vaguely familiar.

Saige is now getting increasingly curious. She has started to turn her head around to look at who's talking to her. More tellingly, she turns her head to the TV when the Disney Channel is on. I think it's a matter of time that the two girls start competing for which channels to watch.

Saige is getting more expressive. She makes it clear when she is upset about not having enough sleep; she shows her frustrations when she gets her hands jammed under her body when she flips over; she coos when mummy talks to her. Eve and I have noticed that her tongue is really sharp. I hope she is able to pick up Mandarin so she can debate/quarrel with her sis in Mandarin - someone has to teach Faith the language.

As Eve would say, Saige is now at a really fun age - she is able to interact and so far, does little apart from sleep, eat and play. Eve is already looking forward to bringing her for music and gym classes when she grows older. As for me, second time round has really been different -I definitely spend less time with Saige compared to when we first had Faith. And Eve is already complaning that the two little girls are the only Daddy's girls for now. Sigh - we need a holiday soon - it seems that holidays are the only real bonding time I get with the girls - Eve included :)

Saige at 2 months and 3 weeks old

Is it just Louis and me that think it, but the 2 sisters do bear resemblances to each other? Its not that all babies look alike, right?

Sure, they might not have been carbon copies of each other, but there are similiarities. Here and there, now and then.

Saige is just a week short of turning 3 months old. She is growing and gaining weight at a nice and steady pace. She has not turned out to be one of those Michelin babies, with fat chubby thighs and arms that I had so fervently hoped for. Then again, she was only 2.7kg at birth. Comparatively, she's much bigger than Faith was at that same age.

She gurgles, babbles and coos even more now. To me and whoever that is willing to sit and talk to her. You can hear her laughter too if you swing her up and down - gently of course. Her neck is also getting a little firmer. Still not very steady, but strong enough that she can hold it up steady for a few minutes, without flopping.

I've managed to capture the picture of her smiling, and looking rather like one of my favourite pictures of Faith at around the same age. I was trying to take a picture of Saige for the application of her passport. Yes, we want to be prepared to be able to travel if the opportunity crops up.

Not sure when that would be but we'll see :)

Music Time

Faith has always enjoyed music and her lessons at Kindermusik.

Last week, I put on one of her Kindermusik CDs and the 3 of us were listening to the music in the living room. Faith was inspired to take out her bell shakers and maracas to dance, prance and wriggle to the tunes. She particularly enjoy bending her knees and doing a little jiggling and wriggling of her tush :)

Meanwhile, Saige was on her playmat, observing and just looking around at the house.

Updates on Faith & Saige

Saige is now 9 weeks old. I can't wait for the 3rd and 4th month to go by quickly, cos that's when the little one will (hopefully) be more settled into her routine and life gets a bit easier for everyone with an older baby.

Unfortunately, the nights haven't been great for this week since Saige started sniffling and sneezing over the weekend. Finally, what we have been dreading for the longest time has happened. Saige is down with a stuffed nose.

Since Saige was discharged from the hospital, Faith has been sick virtually every single week - I've been told by many the tendency to fall sick on a frequent basis for the first six months of school. In all the excitement of having a new sister that she can finally see and hold, Faith's been clamouring to kiss, hug, touch and play with Saige. We tried our best to let Faith do some of these when she wasn't too sick. We didn't want her to resent the baby after all.

I had to bring Saige in to the PD and for a young infant, there's really not much medication that she can be given, except for some nasal drops, to be used sparingly. And so, Saige has been a little fussy, especially at night. Just at the time when I thought that she was settling down nicely into a routine of only waking up once a night for feeds. Now, we are back to her stirring or nursing at least 2-3 times. Oh well....

As for Faith, she's been a great little sister to Saige. She loves her sister so much. She would talk to her a lot, try to play with her and elicit the social smiles since Saige was capable of giving at since she turned 6 weeks old. Of course, she has her moments of temper throwing, seeing that she's still a 3-year old who has been depraved of what has been heretofore been the sole focus of Louis and my attentions.

Louis copes a lot better with her and she's almost her normal self when Louis is at home on the weekends. At least then, she gets all the attention from him, while I am gratefully able to spent whatever amount of time needed to nurse Saige, change her and put her to sleep without feeling guilty. It is on weekdays and days when Faith is sick and at home that proves to be bit of a challenge.

On her sick days, the tempers come flaring easily. She insists on having things or doing things her way or purely, wanting me to spend time with her playing, feeding, sleeping, reading, regardless that I have to put Saige to sleep or nurse her.

To Faith's credit, she has never once transferred any of her frustrations or temper at not gaining my attention onto Saige. There's no worry that she would hurt Saige by hitting or pinching her. She still plays, coos and talks to her sister lovingly.

It is a period of adjustment for Faith and everyone at home too and there are many moments of ups and downs for me, having to spread my time and attention with 2 kids. While my mom is thankfully around to help on weekdays, especially with the chores, it is still very much my attention that she wants, rather than that of my mom.

I am sure with a little bit more time, Faith would adjust and cope much better, knowing that I can never give her that same amount of attention I did, pre-Saige. I only hope that as Saige gets older and can respond better to her sister, they would be great companions and playmates to each other.

And finally at 9 weeks, I've managed to capture a single picture of Saige smiling on camera. Here's another picture of the sisters together. Faith is pretending to read while Saige is all comfy in her swaddle sleepsack.

Sisters

Have been wanting to take pictures of the 2 sisters together and put them up. That way, folks can comment if the sisters look alike or not at all. Sometimes, when we go through some of Faith's old pictures, there are some resemblances here and there between them, depending on the angles the pictures were taken.

Faith doing "monkey faces" whenever I try to take pictures of them together

At 6 weeks, Saige is starting to respond and smile at me this week. I'd tried to "induce" her to smile for the camera, but to no avail :) She's still waking up twice a night for feeds. I don't know how long she's going to keep at it, but I hope she would be kind to me. Soon.

Saige @ 6 weeks

Faith has been great so far as a sister. She shares her favourite bolster and isn't too upset at having her sarong being utilised by Saige most of the time. By and large, she is loving towards Saige, wanting to kiss and hug her all the time. These days, when she returns from school, she would tell her little sister, "Hello, Saige. Jie jie is back from school" :)

There's not much response from Saige so far. Hopefully in a month or two, she would be excited to hear the sound of her sister's voice, as I've read and also been told that babies of about 4 months are capable of doing.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Faith!

It was her 3rd birthday and the first time that we are letting her celebrate it with her friends in class.

Faith was excited. When asked, she immediately said she wanted a Mickey Mouse cake -- fresh from receiving Mickey's stickers and her pictures being shown in the March Playhouse Disney Birthday Book. She also firmly decided that she wanted party hats and some noise makers to be included in the goodie bags for her friends.

We made plans to get the cake and put together the goodie bags. Unfortunately, she's been sick pretty much the entire month of Mar. In fact, she's out of school more than half the time. Faith first came down with runny nose and cough a week after Saige's birth. Since that time, as soon as she more or less recovered and we sent her back to school, she would came back 2 days later with something else or the same symptoms, but conditions aggravated. The week of her birthday, we decided not to let her go to school at all until she recovered.

On the day of her birthday, we had to bring her in to see her PD for the 3rd time in a row within a period of 3 weeks. I do not know whether to be consoled when her PD sang her a birthday song when she noted that it was Faith's birthday while looking at her record sheet. She had to be put on the nebuliser and becos the cake was already pre-ordered, we decided to head to school after the doctor's visit to celebrate in class.

And so it was, our little darling girl celebrated her 3rd birthday with her friends in class, runny nose and cough in all. I brought her home after she had lunch.

At night, the daddy bought another slice of cake home and we sang her a birthday song and cut the little cake since Louis was busy at work and couldn't make time to be there when she celebrated it in class.

I've been forewarned that Faith's going to fall sick very often during the first 6 months of school. I only hope that next year, she would be hale and healthy on her birthday.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Faith!

Saige's Full Month Celebration

The little family of 3 has expanded to 4

On hindsight, its much easier coping with 1 baby than 2 kids, although Louis and I seemed very busy and flustered when we were first-time parents with Faith :)

Nonetheless, the one month had passed pretty quickly and before we knew it, we were celebrating Saige's Full Month.

While I would have liked to blog more about our #2, a lack of time, energy and pure sleep deprivation have led to tardy and greatly reduced posts about Saige. We are ever apologetic. However, even as we cut down on the number of posts, at least, we make effort to put up some pictures of her.

The first two weeks of her birth was relatively relaxing in that she mainly nurses, poops and sleeps a lot. You can dump her in the cot right after burping her for a feed and she drops back to sleep with nary a care or fuss. As the 3rd week came along, she started to fuss, wanting to be carried and cuddled. That's where the challenge started and how accidental parenting arise.

I'm sure we would still have our fair share of accidental parenting in the months to come. Only this time, we are resigned to it and have better managed our expectations -- i.e not to have any expectations. We know things would work out eventually and we will get a full night's sleep. We just don't know when. With Faith, it took us 18 months :)

On the flip side, Saige latches and nurses very well, right from birth. Its tiring when you have to do an all-nighter of 2-hourly feeds, plus those in the day, all of it while recovering from a c-sect. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It beats being an on-demand cow for 24x7 with no fixed timings and trying to rouse a sleepy baby from her sleep to take more than 5 minutes of nursing each time.

For now, its another milestone that we have reached and there would be more to come.

Happy Full Month, Saige!