First flu

As expected, you fell ill after 2 full days of nursery. It's heartbreaking to see the mucus constantly flowing and you waking up every hour or so at night because your nose is blocked. Unfortunately this also means no sleep for me. What I had to get used to however, is the way your saliva and mucus is smeared all over your cot, our bed and on us. I suppose the germs' already all around. So, new sheets only when you get better, which I hope is soon.

I probably won't say that nursery is a dirty place. But, for the past few days, you come back everyday with a piece of clothing all stained needing a special hand wash. You definitely will not be wearing any posh clothes to nursery :)

Playful you

You turned 7 months old 2 days ago. Unfortunately you have not learnt to sleep through the night yet. However, you are much more interactive, have lots of cheeky expressions and very quick in moving about. You are also getting stronger and learning to pull yourself up to a standing position in the bath and in the cot. I am hoping that it will not be so quick because I don't really want to move your mattress to a lower position as yet. Where else am I going to put your boxes of pampers and wipes otherwise?? You are not very 'talkative' though. So are you going to be a man of few words?

First day at nursery

In summary, it was better than expected :) Thank God.

You were not perfectly behaved, but at least you did not cry, finished your breakfast, drank 3oz of milk (better than nothing), slept a total of 1.5 hours (better than nothing) and gave me a huge smile and extended your hands towards me when I came to pick you up. My heart just melted and gave you a great big hug smothered with kisses!! You can only imagine the amount of will power taken not to call the nursery to find out how you were getting on throughout the day.
On the down side, you hardly ate any lunch or tea and had really dirty clothes for me to wash. I was not too surprised that you did not eat lunch as it was your first time tasting chicken and tomato pasta bake :) Adding to that, you did not like tomatoes when I tried giving it to you previously. Hopefully you will get used to the English menu with time. I had a shock at the state of your shirt as it has never looked close to this in the past 7 months, not even when you first started to eat solids. I wonder if they used the plastic, 'collect it all' bib that I purposely left with them.

You must have been really hungry at dinner time as you finished 200mls of porridge. Today was also the first time you fussed for sleep at 7 plus and was asleep before 8. Unfortunately you woke up once at 10.15, could not be hushed and demanded to be fed. I really hope that your sleep will not be too fragmented tonight. I pray that you will settle down more tomorrow and perhaps nap your total 3 hours and drink your full 5oz of milk :) I am sure you will enjoy the food one day as you love solids.

Character building?

I dropped you in nursery 2 days ago for the first time. Although it was only for an hour, I was so anxious and felt terrible that I could not pick you up because of work. I could not wait to hear the report from nursery and my parents. My heart broke and tears flowed when I heard that you cried till your eyes were red, refused to nap and refused to have formula. How I wish it was me who picked you up, it was me who soothed your crying and it was me who reassured you that you're not being abandoned. I wanted to leave work immediately to go home and see you. Thankfully I could talk to a friend who reassured me that all these feelings were normal and it will be abnormal if you settled into nursery immediately. She confirmed that nursery was a good thing and it will build you into a better kid. Unfortunately you woke up every hour at night.

You went in for a second session today and thankfully things were better. I made sure I dropped you and I picked you up for both our sakes :) There were 12 babies today and you got distracted by them all when I dropped you. There was no crying except for a 'manja' cry when I picked you up. Tomorrow you will have your first meal there. Hopefully you will slowly settle in well. We both have lots to learn. You - to have a set routine, not have your way all the time, be more independant and to learn interaction with other babies. Me - to let go and trust God and others to care for you. We will both become stronger.

Nursery

Although we have paid the deposit for a nursery near our place, the kiasu I made your dad make an appointment to view the nursery in his hospital as the fees there is about half of what we will be paying in the nursery that we have booked. It was reasonable as your daddy will be there for at least 2 years and that nursery is highly recommended. Alas, the waiting list is very long!!

So, next week will see you going into nursery and making a hole in our pockets. Our little hoodie, please don't become a scouser.

Playground

After 'making' us dispose off the coffee table, you proceeded to take over the whole living room and make it your playground with toys constantly all over the place.

You can also sit very steadily now and crawling in your own way. Your latest amusement? Yourself :) We have caught you kissing and licking yourself in the mirror many times.

High chairs

Since you are able to sit on your own, you have sat in many baby chairs. The best one had to be the one with a large pooh behind as you were first scared by it and later amused you throughout dinner. We ate in peace. Maybe this is the one to get for our house.

Outdoor fun

We have tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible coz the weather has been great and your grandparents are here. The initial plan to go to Formby beach was scrapped because it was too far and we ended up in Crosby beach instead. It was good we did not waste time travelling all the way to Formby because we ended up in the car most of the time due to the bitterly cold sea breeze. Coincidentally the last time we were there was when you were about 6 months old in my tummy. Now you have spent 6 months in our world :)

Another weekend was spent in Heaton Park. You were very excited initially and refused your afternoon nap. You went on your first ride on a merry-go-round. But, you did not seem very impressed. Maybe you were too tired by then? Hence, the pitiful cry of sleepiness on the way back to the car.



We walked sefton park quite often, especially if I came back early from work. I am looking forward to the day that I can bring you there to feed the ducks. For now, I am contented to just be pushing you around in your Buzz.

Motherhood vs Career woman

I have returned to work for one week and it has been full of mixed feelings.

It was initially very difficult to leave you in the morning because you have been by my side for the past 6 months and I missed you terribly in the first hour or so. However, work soon absorbed me and I turned into the 'workaholic' mindset and sort of forgot about you until it was time to go home when feelings of missing you returned. I also feel slightly guilty that I enjoy the freedom of eating lunch at peace and can have adult conversations without interruptions :) Stress and pressure at work is not as easily dealt with when tiredness of having disturbed nights overtakes me but you always greet me after work with a big smile and open arms that makes everything better. Thankfully I have the help of my sister and parents and always had good food waiting for us at home.

Life will be challenging when everybody leaves and I have to juggle between giving my best at my career, being a good mother and a loving wife. If only there were more than 24 hours in a day or if I can function without sleep. Going back to work has made me realise that I love my job as much as love being a mother and I strive to excel in both. Thus, my prayer every night is 'Lord, please grant me strength for another brand new day, AMEN'

Indoor activities

In the week before I started work, I decided to bring you to all the activities available in the children's centre as this was probably the last opportunity to do so. So, in one week, you went for an activity a day including the 'kindermusik' class, messy play, softplay and baby swim class.

Although you were a little shocked by the classes as they were quite noisy with lots of babies/toddlers, you enjoyed everything except for the messy play. I suppose stepping in cold and sticky jelly and strawberries' not your cup of tea, and probably a good thing too. I will definitely bring you again to the soft play and sensory room because they open in the evenings but its a pity I can't bring you to anymore 'kindermusik' or swim classes.

DIY again

A trip to Ikea was needed as you are so mobile now that the coffee table in the living room is cramping your style and proving to be quite dangerous with its metal legs and sharp corners. You are also beginning to pick on the long pile of the wool carpet and eating whatever fibers you manage to pull out. So, another small fortune was spent in getting a new carpet in exchange for the current one, a mobile laptop table as the coffee table has to go, and new black out blinds so that you are able to nap better and hopefully sleep later in the morning. Your poor daddy has to do another round of DIY in the house again.

The living room does look more spacious now without the coffee table but we have definitely got to move soon before you learn how to kick a ball.

Jar food: Yummy?

Since you have established 3 meals a day, going out has become a little more tricky coz we need to make sure you get your food. We have managed so far with mainly short trips out with milk as a temporary measure until we get home to feed you. However, we knew it was going to be a long day when we went to Ikea so we had to introduce you to jar food again (You hated it the first time on the plane journey back to UK and hardly had any solids). Maybe it was the availability of the microwave to warm it to the temperature that you like, or the flavour of beef hotpot, or simply because it was nearly 2 hours past your meal time when we fed you, but you ate the whole bottle with minimal fuss.

I was very excited as this meant we can go out for long periods. Unfortunately, the next 2 days of trying to feed you jar food when we went out for meals prove to be 'colourful' with you not opening your mouth and 'fussing' and using your hands to push the spoon away making food spill all over yourselves and me. Maybe I need to get more beef hotpot flavour? I cannot give up offering jar food when we are out until we find another flavour you like.

The end of maternity leave

Today marks my first official day back at work after being off for 6 months. Although I have been back a couple of days in the past few months, it felt surreal to be back and I dreaded this day. Thank God it was not as bad as I thought as I was greeted with some good news about my research, and my office space is as I left it 6 months ago. Although I did not have to worry about you since you were in good hands, I kept thinking about you and what you were doing and it was quite difficult to concentrate. There definitely needs to be another change in the frame of mind and I need to trust God to take care of you when you go into nursery next month. I did take the afternoon off and your smile that welcomed me at home made me think twice about going back to work full time. Well, hopefully its going to get easier with time and all a matter of getting used to.