Bottles' A-Busted

Myron is putting up a battle.
A battle with his grandma.
Actually, a battle with the bottles.



I take the 2 older ones to school every morning, Tuesday to Friday, and leave Myron with my mil. I leave him at home to give him a bit more time from exposure to the pollution in a bustling part of our city. I also leave him at home because I want to train him to drink from the bottle (I express) but it is slowly showing to be a plan heading towards failure.

The baby is complaining more and more each time he is given the bottle. Today, after two weeks of fighting with the bottle, mil was desperate. Myron was actually fed with a syringe.

The reason for this practise is because Max was fully breastfed at the breast for 3 years. He now refuses any kind of milk other than a u.h.t. chocolate milk. Of course we are concern for his lack of intake of calcium and other nutrients in milk, although he is eating well. Anyway, my intent was to have Myron continue drinking milk after I wean him.

We shall see how this all turns out eventually.

Micah and Max
with some of their classmates.

Some Excuses and Some Updates

Hey, Judy.
Your SMS made me realise how long I have not posted.
Thanks.

It's a tough time getting on with blogging these days because:
1. the connection is so slow it's exasperating;

2. I am tired by the end of the day and usually fall asleep while getting the two older boys into bed and have to snuggle in bed with them, resulting in Mommy falling asleep with them, if not before them;

3. Nursing Myron in a lying position induces slumber;

4. Breastfeeding is so draining I feel tired and in need of protein in-take almost all the time - I even think of having a rack of ribs in the middle of the night;

5. Gadget-daddy is doing some podcast and is hogging the room, and we are all too tired to do anything else after that but climb into bed.


Anyway..

Myron's been growing well.
In fact, to a certain point I feel he is growing too fast.
Thank you all for your prayers, thoughts and well-wishes.

We have not gone back to the doctors for further check-up, but he is now pink and no more yellow. The last we check, Myron is 5kg and about 57cm.

He has outgrown this pajamas.

He now engages you with his coos and gurgles and makes all kinds of facial expressions. Maybe it's just gas (so some scientists say), but he sure warms our hearts as he smiles a lot.



And he is constantly cuddled and kissed by his brothers, especially Micah.


This baby is just so lovely to cuddle.

Diarrhoea and Child Growth

Thanks Judy for this in your e-mail.

My friend sent this link about treating diarrhoea in her e-mail and I thought this is really useful for us who have young kids and are constantly caring and worrying about them.

Just to "cut and paste" parts of the story to summerise :


When someone gets diarrhoea, sometimes the solution is so easy, we wonder why anyone has to suffer.

The secret is in rice water.

My mother knew about it. When Dr Albert Winsemius came to Singapore many years ago for a farewell and thank you dinner in his honour, he brought along his wife Aly and his granddaughter, Jolijn. Both women came down with very bad gastroenteritis.. They saw the doctor who gave them medication. It was slow to work.

Mother boiled some rice in lots of water and went to their hotel with two 1.5L bottles of rice water.

Never heard of this cure before. To my surprise, it worked, and they were even able to go out for dinner the next day. Both were exclaiming how the rice water did the trick of making them well again.

It is rice water and not rice, that does the trick. I have found it effective again and again. You take a handful of rice and boil it in a large saucepan with lots of water. Like three or four large glasses. Then you cool that and drink the water.
If you are in a hurry to relieve the ailing person, take the saucepan off the fire and dunk it in a frying pan or basin of cool water with ice cubes if necessary.

This gives the patient a chance to drink the rice water sooner and cure himself or herself sooner.

When drinking the rice water, make sure there is lots of it. You have to tell the patient that enough water must go in to line your guts from throat to other end, all 10 to 12 metres of it. If you take rice, it stays in the stomach. If you take broth, some of it may go into the small intestine.

But if you take rice water, it will carry rice grains to every inch of your small and large intestine to the end where the problem is.

We always say "Eat rice".
Now we can also tell others, "Drink rice."
:)
Have a good week.

Myron Adored

The brothers just simply love their 6-week old baby.

We managed to catch a few shots of them together.

Micah and Myron.

Max holding Myron on his lap.

Myron had his first shower last weekend.
It was because hr pooped while he was being sunned.
That ended his sunbathing and was headed to the bathroom.

Myron's first thrilling shower.

I am Grateful

Thank you.

Thank you for all your thoughts, your well wishes and your prayers.

Myron went in for the blood test yesterday for the bilirubin and it had actually went down quite a bit. It was at 267.5 when we tested on Monday and yesterday it was down to 191.

It's still above the safe level of 180, but the doctor was impressed with the progress and said we just keep doing what we are doing and go back in next week for one more blood test to check the bilirubin level.

Sorry for delaying the good news, but we are juggling going to school, nursing a baby fully, still trying to give attention to the two older ones and ...

...Aarg! Either the internet or Blogger is just so slow that I keep getting interrupted before anything can load fully, and somewhere in between either the computer has gone to "sleep" or I would have.
That's the reason for the delay.

Anyway, Thanks for sticking by us at this time.

Micah finally got to carry Myron...

while sitting on the sofa.

Cry Baby, Cry Mommy

We finally got another series of blood test done for Myron.
His prolonged jaundice is more serious than we thought.
He will be heading back for more photo therapy.

Today at the hospital poor little Myron cried his lungs out when the doctor had to prick him twice and drained 3 tiny test tubes of blood for a series of tests.
Gadget-daddy was in the room, but busy with with on his computer (or just pretending to be?), so Mommy helped the nurse sooth the baby while he cried like for the longest time.
When they pricked him the second time, Mommy walked to Gadget-daddy. His turn was up. Now he patted Myron to try to calm him while the doctor drew blood from his tiny hand.

The doctor suggested "fasting" the baby off breast milk to see if that was the cause of the jaundice.
He warned us it would be difficult.
He gave some nice-looking pre-mixed formula in a bottle (look like for space travel!!) to supplement. more like for a replacement and then bring Myron back on Wednesday for more tests. Mommy has to be in another room, or the baby would smell me and refuse the milk.
He warned us it would be difficult.
He warned us that the baby will cry, and at the end, the Mommy will cry too.

He was right.
We actually tried only once.
After a long day of emotional stress for Mommy and baby, it was all we could take.
I took him back to nurse him in the room and tears just came down like someone had pressed the "on" button.

I called the doctor later and told him he was right.
We will bring the baby in for photo therapy tomorrow.
No need to wait till Wednesday.
*sigh*

Myron's Fullmoon

Myron is a month old.

"Woo-hoo! Look at my loot!"

Thank you, everyone for all the lovely gifts.
Not forgetting to mention all the well-wishes, and those who also gave gifts to the two older boys, for me and the generous "ang-pow" too.


Thank You.

We did a little dinner for the family.




We also gave out the usual package of red-eggs, ang-ku and steamed chicken to reciprocate those who gave gifts in this time.
(Sorry no pix here. MiL and I started the "production line" at 4am, and in between I had to attend to a crying baby and another crying boy.)

Knock-knock

Knock-knock.
Hello, You.

I have been dropping by to visit at your sites, but the internet connection has been so slow that I actually can't get the comments posted up. and so after a while... I give up.
(It has also succeeded in demotivating me to blog coz it takes ages and a few rounds of resending a post. Grrr..)

So here's telling you have been peeking at your place.

Over here it's been exhausting to be back into fully breastfeeding a little one.
Maaan! I have forgotten how draining it can be.
All the night feeds is one thing to handle but actually getting the nutrients sucked out of you (literally)... I feel my energy being sapped out of me.

Oh, I am not complaining in a sense.
I love being so close and cuddling my little on e and doing the thing only a Mommy can do. It's just harder when you have 2 other boys to attend to (which I also enjoy very much) and a hubby who also likes some attention (like making him a sandwich, or getting him a cold drink while he sits with two computers on).

My ever impossible wish is that, "Oh, only if I have as much energy as when I was 18!!
Hahaha...

Almost Five And Pretty Funny

Entertaining us:
Micah has been entertaining us with his very funny antics and jokes.



A couple of songs he came up with:

Eat some leaves*
Eat some leaves from the tippy-toppy trees
Eat some leaves
The ones covered with bird poo-poo are the best

and,

1, 2 ,3, 4, 5,
Once I caught a dead fish,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go,
Because it is already dead
It is already dead,
So you cannot eat it.


His favourite jokes are (thanks to Tigger):

Why do birds fly south for the winter?
Because it's too far to walk.

Who stole the soap out of the bath room?
The rubber (robber) duckie, because it's a robber and a duck, so it steals.


Micah also likes to quote the funny parts from the shows, at least the parts he thinks are funny.
The other funny thing he likes to do is to re-enact snippets from his cartoon, and this sometimes he will tell you, "Look, Mom. I'll do it again for you - in SLOW motion." And those can really send you rolling on the floor, especially with the facial expressions.


Entertaining himself:
The other day, while his two little brothers were napping, he wanted to do some painting.
Not painting on a paper, but his truck.



He also drew this when we were playing pretend in the room.


The poster was to show our room is a "Cat's Feeding Room."

At other times he will be racing around the house, jumping on the beds in every room and playing at the back yard with the cats.

He loves babies, since the time he was very little.

Max and Myron, 2009

Micah and Max, 2005


Micah and cousin Xue Han, 2007

Micah,
you are so funny and so brilliant.
Stay happy and creative, my boy.
You are so special and we love you so much.



*When I asked him why he did not sing his "Eat the leaves" song to his teachers,
he said, "It's embarrassing. It's only for you."
That made me laugh.

Surprise!!

We got back from school yesterday and the boys and I had a surprise.



Grandma shaved Myron in advance for his Fullmoon,
which is actually this coming Monday.

Micah's exclamation was:
He is botak (bald)!
Now he looks like kung-kung (grandpa).

Time sure flies.

Now he looks even bigger to us, and to me, he looks like a three month old.

Myron: Sweet Slumber

Jailbreak - Shhh... Don't Tell My Mom

I took the boys to school today, as some of you already know.
Gadget-daddy left for Hong Kong this morning for work and will be there till Saturday evening.


Mil had suggested that the boys skip school this week, but we figured it'll be really too hard to get Max back into the routine of getting back to school if he has another "break" this week, and Micah would feel awfully deprived of school. He loves school.

Of course for the adults, I think the house can do with some peace and quiet with the boys out for school, a total of 4 - 4.5 hours, including travelling time.

So I did the usual with my sister this morning - sent the boys to school, had breakfast and walked the supermarket, hanging out mainly at the biscuit aisles, looking for snackies for the boys. The only difference is that we drove the car about a bit more than our usual walks of 15 minutes from the boys' school to our favourite coffee shop.

Oo... and I had some delicious fruit juice!!
Shhh... don't tell my mom. She'll give me no peace.
Oh, btw, my mom is away on holiday in China with a bunch of relatives.
:D


I left Myron with grandma, with 2X 4oz of milk. When we got home he had finished almost all the milk, save 1 oz. It seems that he behaved better today than the last time I left him home - he did a stake out, not sleeping and complaining whenever he had the bottle. Well, baby boy, you'll have to get use to this coz this is going to be our routine in time to come.


Will be doing this for the next two days.
:)

P/s - Grandma started potty-training Myron already.


Apparently if you start the baby off right from before the fullmoon (a month old), it'll be easier to potty train him/her fully in time to come.

Twitter Is Me

Gadget-daddy has handed me the Tweet bug.

So the side bar is me now. Guess it's good and bad.

You'll see some updates of what the kids and I are doing in snippets throughout the day.
But it also means me not sitting in front of the computer as much...
Actually I don't usually sit in front of the computer so much, especially when Gadget-daddy is working from home.

Those of you who tweet, tweet me, ya.
;)

Catch you later.
Max wants a snackie.