Freedom

I have been browsing thru facebook recently and saw many of my friend's comment that the new Jurassic Park movie is really nice and a show not to be missed. I was hoping to watch the 3D version at the i-max theatre. I thought that will be the best show for the year as its such a blockbuster. In the past, Felin and I would have long watch the show. I supposed parenting comes with a small sacrifice of time and freedom.

But with the arrival of the kids, such freedom and luxury are not more. Its difficult to ask my mum just to come help us babysit and tell her that I'm going to watch Movie. I can have such request once a while but I will need to use this card only for bigger occasions. She has been helping me all the weekdays and I cannot ask her to help me during weekends. She need to have her personal time as well.

I think we should stop thinking about Movies for a while and spend quality time with the kids instead during the precious weekend. After my morning appointment, I spent time playing with them, playing the Ukulele and Recorder as well as going thru the flashcards, etc... We even went beach for a short walk in the evening. It was indeed a great Saturday. Tomorrow will be my first Father's Day, I'm on duty in church and we will be celebrating with Dad at Brother's place.

Josiah's nightmare?

I believe babies dream like adults do as they may smile, make some sound or even cry during their sleep. Last week when my in-laws visited us in Singapore, Josiah enjoyed the day so much that he was smiling into his sleep that night because Auntie Wennie made him laughed so much during the day.

But for last night, he had a sudden shout late in the night and cry inconsolably after that. It happened during my shift when I was reading some magazine in my study room. I quickly rushed in to carry and pacify him but failed after 2 minutes and I passed to Felin where she tried her best in various positions but also failed.

As the cry was so loud, the helper also came into our room and asked how she can help. Felin passed to her after about 3 minutes. Surprisingly, Josiah stopped crying within a minute after the helper carried him.

We should actually be happy that the helper is capable but it make us feel bad because it seems that the babies probably recognise the caregiver as his mother. This is not the first time that this happen and our helper seems able to care for the babies better.

We spent much time at work and did not spend as much time with the babies as compared to the helper and my parents. We sometimes are not able to see the babies development as much as we hope to see. For instance, we recently introduced solid food and we cannot see their expression and to gauge whether they like the solids that we prepared for them. Mum and the helper are the ones who fed them.

When I'm home, the babies will be sleeping and when the morning comes, I can only spend an hour with them before I have to leave home. I always have that 舍不得 feeling when I need to say goodbye to the boys in the morning.

As for Felin, her time is even worse because she still have to spend time expressing milk for the babies.

Both of us just sat together and reflect that we must really value the time with the babies especially during the weekends. We felt a bit sad as we are already so stressed and tired with work and yet we can only spend this amount of time with the boys.

My working time had reduced quite a bit as well and resulted in much work undone daily. I need to return home by 10pm daily and continue my night shift till about 2:30am to 3am before waking up at 9am the next morning and leaving home by 10am. I spent almost all the time with the babies during weekends and try not to work.

Babies, you are featured in magazine...

My friend recently went Bedok Starbuck for coffee and browsed through some of the magazines on the rack and she was surprised to see me in a magazine. It was a Magazine by Thomson Medical that talk about parenting. She quickly snapped a photo and watsapp me. I was pleasantly surprised to see the picture and I quickly apps Felin.

I recently browsed through some photos of the babies and I realised that I couldn't really recognise the babies in their infant stage. It took me a while to confirm who Joshua and Josiah is. Made me realise how fast they are changing. I know that in no time, they will be little rascals whom I wish they are what they are today. They are so sweet and cute now...

JJ's encounter with the 28th SEA Games

Its the 28th SEA Games where Singapore last held the games in 1993. I just want JJ to be involved with this year SEA Games and yes we succeeded.

Felin's parents and elder sister were in Singapore last Sunday and we went for Lunch at Raffles City before proceeding to Kallang Wave Mall where a carnival was held.

We just walked around and took lots of pictures. The weather was good and the sporting atmosphere was fantastic. The best is that there are many to help take care of the babies as Felin and I just enjoy the day.

First Solid Food introduced

Its our babies first taste of solid food today. It their 5m2d as of today. Not as bad as I thought as they interestingly opened their mouth when the spoon came close. It seems to be a natural instinct for them. They put in their mouth for a while and will spit it out before we push it back into their mouth again. End of it, I think they ate only 30% of what we fed them.

We had chosen mashed avocado, mixed with milk for them. We like the nutrient and fats level of avocado and that its blend in taste.

Its only their first time with solids today, hope for more success in times to come...

Messy Feeding Times

Felin and I had a lengthy discussion about how to let babies sleep through the night yesterday. We have been trying to let the babies sleep at least 8 hours straight but without success. Both of us always disagree on when to have the last feed and whether we should just wake the babies up to feed etc... I think its pretty tiring for all of us and spending so much time predicting when they will hungry or forcing them to drink when they are not hungry.

I met one of my client few days ago and she told me that her baby which is merely 3 weeks older than my babies are already sleeping thru and am following mother's sleeping hours. He is fed only 4 times a day with 180ml each. I was blown off by what she said. I then read in the twins and babies facebook page and saw how many parents actually achieved the 7pm to 7am sleep without feeding in between. I was marvelled by what they said and kept wondering if my babies can do the same.

We came to a consensus to improve the situation... We will try drag 9pm to 6am sleep with one feed in between first.
1) Let them sleep around 9pm latest with last feed about 8:30pm.
2) Allow a night feed around 1 - 1:30am with max FM feed
3) Drag next feed till at least 6-7am. (Am telling our helper to try drag the feed)
4) Use the medium sized tit for feeds for faster feed so they don't always drink, stop, drink, play, etc...

They are already coming 5 months and we are going to introduce solids soon and I hope we can get the feeding pattern right first.

Busy week

With parental support, Felin and I are able to put our attention on our work and I really thankful to them for coming over our place from 8:30am to 7:30pm during the weekdays. Its tiring but they did not complain because I'm probably still be the Joshua and Josiah that I'm seeing my children today. (To them, I'm always their baby)
Before having children, I'm certainly not as appreciative of their love for me as I'm always in my own world. Well... The same may happen to Joshua and Josiah one day, they will enter into their own world and remember little of what we did for them in the past. Time will come that I'll miss their current babiness and max cutiness.

Felin and I had an argument lately while we discussed about the topic "Fever". I told her that temperature of babies fluctuates between 37C to 38C and our ear thermometer may not necessarily be accurate as babies ear canal are short. I told her that we need not be overly worried when babies temperature rise between the range and we just monitor symptoms and not so much on the temperature. She looked back at me, not so friendly, and ask if I'm a doctor and if I'm trying to imply that she is overly worried?" Of course, I'm not a doctor but I'm just giving her a piece of information I just learnt. She then asked me if we shouldn't bother when the temperature is 37.5C? Of course I don't meant that too? Then she asked why am I contradicting myself by saying such things? I wasn't expecting her to replied me with such comments and we ended up arguing over such stupid thing. We stopped talking for a day and I apologised to her the next evening after we came back from work. I think I better be careful of what I say in future. When we don't have enough sleep, we can get a bit more sensitive.

The boys are getting more intelligent lately. They are able to respond to their names and Joshua is able to identify whether we are going out and he will fuss if we pretend to go out without him. Its so funny. They will greet me every morning with a smile and I'm starting to go through some flashcards with them while teaching them numbers, fruits, animals, etc. They do not seems to be interested with my cards but nevermind, I'll just carry on. lol...

Some of my church Cell Group members decided to drop by our place on Sunday after Service. Its our CG leader's Angeline's birthday. The ladies kept carrying them around and talk to them for that 1+ hour. Glad that my boys are not so fearing of strangers and quite cooperative. We had a lot of fun and reason why we looked so happy in the picture below is because all the ladies were trying to make funny face for the babies to look up at the camera when the picture was taken. Felin and I was laughing at them.

Long weekend with the babies

Its long weekend and a time for us to bond with the babies. We always value such long weekends because we don't normally been able to spend much time with the babies. Must let the babies recognise that we are their loving parents, not my helper or their grandparents, who spent more time with them during weekdays.

Josiah had a fever over the past 3 days with temperature fluctuating between 37.4 to 38.1 degree Celsius. Felin tried putting a lemon in his socks claiming to be a home based remedy while I just monitor. The trick don't really works and we eventually gave a bit of liquid panadol on the 3rd day. Just as we are able to bring him to see a PD on the 4th day, his sickness are suddenly gone on that early morning. The same thing happened twice when Josiah on 2 occasions when he did not pass motion over 6 days and we wanted to see PD on the 7th day. On both occasions, he passed motion on the 7th day early morning and we avoided the PD. He hates to see PD, I supposed. lol...

It was pretty tiring without my parents around and I became the cook for the family because the ladies are better at handling the babies and I let them handle them. Daddy will just play with them. Haha... We didn't go out over the weekend except for short walks around the compound. We spent the whole 3 days at home simply to feed, play and coax the babies to sleep. Sounds easy but we have not much chance to rest because chance are that one of the babies are likely awake and seeking attention. Its not easy for both babies to be asleep at the same time.

 

On Sunday, we also had lots of fun taking selfie. Its pretty difficult to take selfies with the babies because they refused to look up and kept turning and tossing around. But we still succeeded anyway and enjoyed every moment. Josiah kept laughing and Joshua kept his poker face look and start laughing only after the whole thingy.