Shopping vicariously

Being on leave means when I go out now, I go out in jeans, which I love. However, that leaves me little excuse to shop for new clothes or pretty stiletto heels, although I still hanker for bags; that's the good thing about jeans, all bags go with them.

Anyway, even though there's nothing much I want to buy, it doesn't diminish my desire to shop. So I channelled it toward the kids. I've been thinking of buying them a play gym, to give them yet another place other than their cots to hang out. And this need has been exacerbated by the fact that the babies are gaining weight and carrying them for long periods of time makes me feel like I need to go to a chiropractor and get myself realigned.

And this mommy doesn't do things in halves. Looking at all the playgyms available, I zeroed in on the one with the most functions. My eyes bugged when I saw that it cost more than a hundred bucks, immediately my mind translated that into tops and shoes. But I shook the thoughts out of my head as I decided I wanted to spoil my children and thrill myself by buying something as cool as this, so I splurged and bought it. It's as cool as the bouncy chair that plays music from the iPod that Ru has for Xander, but close enough. And thankfully, the kids really like it.



Evan, in it, just after he woke up. a convenient place to put in as I struggle to get sleep out of my eyes and wash up.

Jordan, rolling around on it, fascinated that there were so many things hanging above her and these weren't the usual ones on her cot.

So, Mommy is happy and pleased although the desire to shop? Not quite sated.

Technorati Tags: babies, Tiny Love toys

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Constipation

I could feel it full and I felt that it was time to go. I got everything ready, put the baby down, excused myself, shut the door and undressed, sat there, poised for action. And then I waited. As the minutes passed, I could feel it build up even more, but it wasn't coming through, there wasn't a release. No matter what I did, no matter how much I strained, I just remained full with no sense of reprieve. I thought taking a warm shower might help. Who knows? Relaxing may pave its clearing. But once again, to no avail. Why was this happening? Did I not eat enough of something? But finally, relief came at high speed, spluttering and splattering as unhappy as I was to have been dammed up, releasing itself in an unfettered torrent. And I could sit back, spent and relieved.

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That was my experience today with expressing. It sure felt like constipation and I have no idea what brought it on. Usually, I have no problems and the milk gets released in a matter of seconds after the pump starts, sometimes, even before. But today, the full breasts were not giving for the longest time. It couldn't have been that all the ducts were blocked because then I would be writhing in agony. So, it remains a mystery to me. I'm just glad it cleared itself up and the contents have been safely expressed, bagged and stored for future use.



Technorati Tags: babies, breastfeeding

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Yoga baby

My daughter has explained, very clearly to me why there is a position called the Child pose in yoga.



Plus with the diaper on, it looks even more priceless.

Aww...

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Chasing sleep

I'm exhausted. That's all I can say. The combined efforts of the two munchkins is enough to wipe out ten adults. Anyway, both have different sleep patterns and these patterns keep changing. A few days ago, they refused to sleep the entire morning and only crashed at 3 pm leading me to believe that the iced tea I surreptitiously drank the day before had something to do with it.

Then there's the asleep but fidgety son of mine. Through most of the night, he's pretty much concussed. With the pre-dawn hours come his fidgety, stretchy, noisy non-REM sleep where he spends a great amount of time stretching, groaning (yes, our 8 week old son groans), kicking vigourously, pretty much all the activity that would keep himself awake. This translates into a very sleepy mommy trying very hard to calm him down and getting him back to non-thrashing sleep. I often try to do it with minimal consciousness, that way, I can lull myself into believing that I'm actually still asleep. But it's hard to do that when you're constantly kicked in the stomach, poked in the face and headbutt in the chest.



My daughter, on the other hand has different sleep patterns. She doesn't thrash so much and seems to easily be lulled to sleep (provided she's not hungry!) if held close to you. I know there are people out there who will say that I am then spoiling her and teaching her that it is ok if you need someone to put you to bed. My response to that is, whatever makes her feel secure and right now, whatever works.

The outcome is a comatosed baby who often looks bedraggled and messy by morning. I love this photo because she's somehow or other nearly kicked her own pants off. On top of that, the pants are skewed and even though it can't be seen, her top has ridden up at the back. But the most important thing is she was asleep and stayed that way till 9 am, allowing mommy an hour of sleep which at this point, is better than nothing.

Gina Ford talks about putting the babies on a routine and she prescribes an extremely detailed one that goes right down to the minute. I would love to have the babies on such a regimen, but that's what it is, a regimen. And it's a regimen that doesn't take into account the fact that babies don't necessarily obey books and it is not always possible to feed the baby before 7.30 in the morning and only have the baby wake at 10 for the next feed. The reality of the situation is, they'll probably feed at 7.30 and then fuss and kick about all the way to the 10am feed. I wish it were as easy, because if it were, I wouldn't be writing this half asleep and needing to climb up and down 14 flights of stairs to make them drowsy enough to fall off to sleep. The bright side of that is I get a little bit more fit and the muscles are a little bit more toned. The bad side of it is, I'm tired, I'm already sleepy and yet, I'm still traipsing up and down the stairs.

Technorati Tags: babies,sleeping habits, Gina Ford

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New formula

Apparently, confinement month isn't just the month after one delivers. A new formula was presented to me this morning.

Confinement month = number of babies one has had x 1 month.

So, for most people, confinement still remains as one month. But for people like me who have had twins and therefore whose bodies are much more frail, confinement month is 2 months.

You know how it is said that necessity was the mother of invention? Well, the necessity here was to ensure that I would still obligingly eat awful tasting but tonic like foods. Therefore, the invention of the new formula.

Thankfully, I've never been one to put much faith in math, formulas or equations so I'm going to ignore that I ever heard the comment and turn my nose up to the mere suggestion of sea bass in soup!

Good Grief.

Technorati Tags: babies, confinement month

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crack of dawn

This is my son at 4 am in the morning.



And there's something about having Mickey Mouse on his feet that never fail to crack me up.



Or maybe, I'm just tired.

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Mischief makers

Here're my two mischief makers plotting to make mommy's life just that little bit more interesting. :)



Jordan's on the left and Evan's on the right. It's amazing how many people think Jordan's the boy and Evan's the girl or that both Jordan and Evan are boys. That's what happens when we use androgynous names I guess.

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The more we get together

Having two babies that cry a lot requires an arsenal of tricks to soothe them even if they are temporary measures. There's the rocking, there's the walking up and down, there's me prancing little ballet steps that seem to stun them into silence quite effectively, there's also a combination of everything including the perennial favourite, singing.

We sing all sorts of things to the babies. although I haven't sung Baby Got Back like Ross and Rachel did on Friends. I have however started singing them songs from my childhood or rather music lessons in primary school. It's amazing how many songs I remember. To date, I've sung them Auld Lang Sye, If You're Happy and You Know It..., The More We Get together, both the English and the Chinese version although there're parts of it with words I don't remember.

Strange to think that when I was haplessly singing these songs as a kid, I never knew they were actually going to come in useful 20 years later. Now to get my hands on one of those song books with the big treble cleft on the cover, just so that I can expand my repertoire.

Technorati Tags: babies, children's songs

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Strength

I know there are agnostics and atheists out there who read this blog so warning, post with spiritual, Godly mambo-jambo ahead. But it's my blog so...

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Someone whom I've been talking to a lot, especially on my blue days, asked me this question, which I thought was very pertinent- if things do get as bad as they do get, what gives me strength? It was a question that made me stop short because I never thought of the strength that I had been using to get through things. I'd been basically living minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day and praying that each day is better than the day before. So, when faced with that question, I stopped short and really had to think about it.

And the answer came to me quite clearly. It was my faith. Not generic faith, but Faith with the capital F. And when I think about everything that has happened, it really is a miracle and truly has great elements of grace in it. Right from the get go, when we decided this was the way we were meant to have kids, there were so many risks and the possibility of failure was so high, I couldn't let myself think about it. Possibly because there were so many uncertainties, I stopped trying to be in control and ceded all of it. I'm sure there was a great amount of anxiety still but looking back at it now, with 11 months or so of hindsight, there was a great amount of divine intervention and protection that covered us throughout.

I mean, how else would one explain us being successful at the first attempt? And not just being successful but to have a 100% success rate and be expecting twins. When we found that out, we were terrified because of the increased risk of miscarriage and I read about it on the forums all the time, where twins were expected and one stopped growing or worse still, both stopped growing. And none of that happened. I worried too about pre-term labour, about losing the babies mid-pregnancy because of the sheer weight of the pregnancy, once again, extremely possible with twins and I didn't come close, until the end but that was already 34 weeks and even then, that was put under control very easily.

And now that the twins are here, I look back at the delivery and the days after. The babies didn't need special care, their jaundice was easily dealt with, I didn't have problems with my C-section, no reaction to the epidural, I could breast feed, I didn't have nipples that cracked or bled and I have sufficient milk to feed the two. Once again, blessed and could not have been possible without a greater hand of protection over me and the kids.

So, now in my darkest moments, I think of how there was a greater power at work and that nothing untoward had been allowed to happen to me or the twins and I know even though I cannot physically see, that Someone else is in control gives me that little bit more peace. Even when I was crying buckets at the beginning and the realisation that I had to care for two strangers I knew nothing about, it was my Faith that told me I could do it. I had wondered how it was possible to love two beings that I hardly knew and the answer came to me very quickly and clearly; because it's been done before and I believe that my God does it everyday for everyone even those who are just thoughts in their parents' heads. That realisation humbled me and knowing that slowly showed me how it was possible.

Ultimately, what gives me strength when I feel like I can't go on or when I can't cope? It is this one word- faith, that there had been so many junctures where this dream of mine to have kids could have been thwarted if it was felt that I wasn't ready or I wasn't meant to do this. So, the fact that I do have kids and I have not one but two kids convinces me that even though sometimes I feel pretty shitty about not knowing what to do or am very overwhelmed, I have it in me to do this. It's just a tiny bit inside me that reminds me of this but hey, like they say, all that's needed is faith, the size of a mustard seed.

Technorati Tags: babies, the Christian faith

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Light at the end of the tunnel

My friend just delivered her baby 2 days ago. I rang her today to find out how she was doing and she sounded pretty much how I sounded, overwhelmed by a baby who didn't stop crying. She asked me point blank when it was going to get better. I wanted to tell her that it would get better soon and then realised that might be hypocritical of me to say so because in some ways, I am still going through it and I would be lying if I told her that it was already better for me.

At the same time, I knew that she needed some sort of comfort and I told her what I believed to be true, the hope I cling to every single day, that this too shall pass and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Some days, I do feel that I can see the light and actually have moments of "hey, I can actually do this" and other days, there's the "oh shit, when is this going to end?".

Some people have told me that it gets better after the initial month, and then others after 6 weeks, others tell me the 3rd month is better. I've crossed some of the markers and have on days felt like going after the poor sods that were just trying to console me yelling "YOU PROMISED!!!". Unfortunately, there's no use in that, there's no money back guarantee to what they said.

So, what can I tell my poor friend who's desperate for comfort? I told her the truth. It'll be hard. There'll be days that you'll want to cry and hide and ignore the child. You'll blame yourself or the husband and hate the world. I also told her that she should feel that it's ok to feel all these things and to cry if she needed to. That's all I could tell her because that's what I did.

In some ways, I don't feel equipped to give her advice since I'm still going through it myself. But in other ways, I feel like I can help her the most because all this is still fresh in my mind and I know exactly what she's feeling.

The most important thing I learnt the last 7 weeks that has kept me from really spiralling into the depths of depression is knowing that while the tunnel is dark and long and more often than not, you can't see the light at the end of it, knowing that there are others groping in the dark with you or that there have been others who have gone ahead of you in the same tunnel is the greatest comfort a new mom can have. So, I'm determined to do at least that for her.

Technorati Tags: babies, post natal depression

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The ultimate heartbreak

I think my daughter prefers the bottle to my breast. When I feed her, she'll feed for a while and then scream blue murder even though there's still milk in abundance. I figured it's got to do with the fact that she gets the bottle at night and sometimes in the day if I'm not home or not feeling well.

This has added to the already building layers of dismay that I feel. And of course, to make it worse, the BFNazi has made it worse by berating me for having put them on the bottle this early on in their lives. That made the mommy in me feel extremely guilty for failing my own child. But the rational and educated adult in me knows the world has not come to an end because at the end of the day, if Jordan can drink from the bottle and is willing to do that, that's all that matters.

Unfortunately the mommy in me is winning and I'm heartbroken that she will only drink for 10 minutes at the breast and then scream her little lungs out. I fear that if I stop nursing her, I won't be as close to her as I will be to her brother who has no issue taking the breast or the bottle. Damn all those BF Nazis out there who promote direct breastfeeding as the be all and end all and this whole issue of nipple confusion as great a sin as giving them formula which I am also guilty of. I think, by their standards, child services should come and confiscate my babies since I've committed the biggest offences possible!

So how? For now, I'm going to keep trying- she gives me a little bit of hope because even though she kicks up a fuss, she does drink and fall off to sleep after that and I take comfort in knowing that if she were still hungry, she'd be yelling her head off too. On top of that, she also protests furiously if I were the one to give her the bottle so she knows I'm the one with the real stuff. It's becoming increasingly clear who the trying one will be. I don't love her any less, in fact, it makes me want to try harder although she's also reducing me to tears a whole lot more.

Technorati Tags: babies, breastfeeding,

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Delaying the inevitable

When I was pregnant, one of the hardest battles I had to fight with both mothers was to actually hire a confinement nanny who would take care of mine and the babies' needs. I'm glad I blatantly disobeyed them. The confinement nanny was a godsend in many ways. She organized the babies' schedules, she taught me how to express and she made sure that I had enough rest to produce enough breastmilk for two hungry babies- which I must add, is not the easiest thing in the world. What made her extremely special was how much she genuinely loved the babies and would stay up the whole night making sure they were comfortable.

She was also company for me. No doubt I had to speak Chinese to her, but those long days where all I did was feed one baby after another, she was great company, regaling tales of other confinements and talking about life in general. When I watched her handle the babies, I was reminded of my own nanny who stayed with us till I was six. I was so attached to her, I would go home with her on the weekends, totally oblivious to the fact that the weekends were the only time that I got to hang out with my mom and dad. She was more important to me than they were at that point. When I asked my mom if she minded that, she said she didn't because it was a natural attachment and it would have been more detrimental if she hadn't let me go. I still have fond and great memories of her and was very sad when she died last year and I couldn't attend the funeral because I was pregnant and it was just one of those things that wasn't done.

Anyway, my confinement nanny made me miss my own nanny a great deal and made me wish that my children would grow up with the same sort of attention and love that I was given by my nanny. Obviously Packrat and I are still going to be there to love the kids to death but the reality of the situation is that we'll both be working and to have someone around with the kids, that we trust and we know loves them and would protect them fiercely would be a wonderful blessing.

From the moment the nanny arrived, I knew that there would be the day that she would leave and even then, it left me with a sinking feeling. That day has come and she has left. To say that it was difficult was an understatement. The entire morning, it felt like we were just waiting for the moment to come that she had to leave and we were dreading it. It felt pretty much like when I had to send off loved ones overseas and how I kept wishing it wasn't going to happen and the time to leave just crept closer and closer until it was upon us and there was no denying it.

I told Packrat it was pretty much like leaving the hospital all over again even though this time, the babies are much older and there is some sort of routine in place. There was still this sense of loss and fear of what to do next because the crutch that I had been relying on the entire month to make the decisions for me was pulled out from under me and I had to make the decisions. What made her leaving all the harder was also because I felt like I was losing a friend. No doubt one that I had only known for 5 weeks, but we spent almost every waking moment together trying to figure out the twins. I think it was somewhat akin to having gone into battle with someone and that sealing the connection for life. I think it would have been easier if she hadn't been that efficient and she hadn't been that kind. But she was. I miss her and I know the twins do too because they've been crying for her. How I know this is, they'll settle down for a bit when you pick them up but then after a couple of minutes, the howling resumes.

They, like me, unfortunately are going to suck it up, miss her and get on with life. Like my brother says, if nothing else, it builds character, both for the twins and for me.

Technorati Tags: babies, confinement

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Quarantined

I have time to blog today, not because the babies have suddenly become angels and don't require attention. It's because I am on self-imposed quarantine. I have a drippy nose and a sore throat that materialised out of no where yesterday afternoon. I'm totally paranoid that the twins will get it so I'm staying away from there. I shall be the clinical feeding machine till I'm better. No kisses and hugs and all till I'm better.

I'm going to go into withdrawl at some point, but better that then 2 ill babies which I'm praying and praying will not happen.

Technorati Tags: babies, breastfeeding

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