The twins are slowly discovering that they each are one of a set of two. They eyeball one another. Evan, the more timid younger one cries when Jordan stares him down. He also cries when, on pretext of fawning over him and cuddling him, Baby J gums him and slicks his hair back with her drool.
If you jack up the sound, you can hear him complain pitifully whilst everyone is laughing. But generally Baby J seems to know how to go to him more than he does to her. We think it's a boy girl thing. But even then, this poor boy will be bullied by all and sundry. Well, until we see fit, if we see fit, to give him a younger sibling to lord over. He's probably going to be like me, begging my mom to bring home a baby everytime she said she was going to hospital. Just so that I could bully someone for a change, rather than being bullied all the time.
Here's his 1 yr old cousin, Becca lording over him and crawling all over. What we didn't capture was how she, firstly, kept trying to hide his toys behind her leaving the poor boy, who has not yet developed a sense of object permanence, extremely puzzled. And secondly, had toddled up to him from the back and sank her chubby fingers into his thighs and gave his both thighs a good hard pinch, leaving his face frozen in an OMGWTF moment before it melted into a bloodcurdling scream of indignance, shock and pain. We've also learnt that with him, when he knows there're people around to cuddle and console him, there is this long silence after the initial scream where he musters all the breath his little lungs can inhale before letting out a second, much more shrill, much more offended, much louder and indignant wail.
All the while, his older by 2 minute sister sits by the wayside watching bemused. I wonder why Becca doesn't go after her.
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
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hi!
ReplyDeleteLast couple of days I've been spending hours (breaking my resolve to go to bed earlier!) enjoying your blog about motherhood. It brings to mind my own days of motherhood, breastfeeding, expressing, and the same compulsive squirreling away of frozen EBM ('expressed breast milk', in medical lingo). My EBM overflowed into my mother's freezer. In those early days I worked half-a-day, and baby spent mornings at mom's place, during which he would consume one packet of EBM. But every morning I invariably brought 2 packets over to her place. So the extra packets eventually filled up her freezer space and she asked my permission if she could throw some away.. :-)
I think I eventually used some of the excess EBM in the making of cereals when baby started solids, and I also asked mom to use some of it when she later made porridge for baby (SO untraditional! I don't think she ever got used to the idea..)
I wonder if the subconscious reason for this compulsion is simply that a freezer-full of our EBM says: "see how good a mother I am!" And I'm the ONLY person who can do this--produce milk made just for my baby. Everytime I put a bag of EBM into the freezer, it's a self-affirming thing.
From about 1+ month, baby began to sleep through the night (lucky me!). So when I awoke in the mornings, I had enough milk to feed him on one side and at the same time express a full bag from the other side (a juggling feat, I know). When I came home from work straight after lunch-time, I also had enough milk to do the same.
My milk only 'came in' on Day 4 to 5. Before that it was an emotionally draining time, during which baby was warded for 2 days for jaundice (which was no doubt exacerbated by dehydration from insufficient milk intake!) During that 2 days he had his fill from formula milk in the ward. But when my milk came in on Day 4, I never looked back. From the beginning, I was compulsive about building up enough milk supply by deliberately expressing BETWEEN feeds. I used the Medela double-electric pump. I like to tell other mothers it's the 'best' pump on the market. It cost me about $288 then (in 2001), and seeing as I have only one child, some may wonder if it was a worthwhile 'investment'. But to me it was worth it, for the wonderful sense of 'achievement' it gave me. Yes it was a 'one-time' experience for me, but Medela helped make it a good experience. I used Avent milk-bags however, which were like nearly 10x cheaper than the Medela ones, and good enough for the purpose.
I had never, however, risen to the challenge of expressing milk outside of the home. I guess I just worked my schedule such that I never had to do that.
Another thing: some may think I 'chickened' out, but quite early on my anesthetist friend told me I should ask for epidural the moment I step into the labor ward. "Don't try to be hero" she said. "If you hold out for too long and later cannot tahan, it may be too late for them to put in the epidural for you!" I guess she had seen enough of labor-ward realities and had given birth herself. And so I took her advice and never knew how the full extent of labor-pains feel like :-)
I admire you for the feat of producing a girl and a boy at the same time. How enchanting! The Chinese character for 'good' is a girl and a boy side by side. I'm just overwhelmed by the sense of blessedness when I look at the photos of your babies. They're really good-looking, chubby and 'well-fed' -- a testament to your milk-producing abilities :-) Your mom-in-law must be impressed! Actually I think a lot of ladies in our mothers' generation admire our experience of breastfeeding, as many of them bought into the hype of formula-milk during their time.
I can't remember if it's WHO or American Pediatric Assn, but mothers are recommended to breastfeed their babies minimum 6 months, and as long as both parties desire. In my case, I went on until my kid stopped of his own accord, at 3.5 yrs of age.