The Pre Trip to Europe

I had the last night feed for the season as I prepare myself to Munich and Prague today. Joshua generally is easier to feed as he is able to focus better but his drinking seems a bit slower and take slightly longer than Josiah. As for Josiah, he seems to drink faster but has a habit of shaking his head and turning his body while drinking and make feeding difficult for us. He needs to hold on to something or to have something interesting to look in order to have a more stable feeding.

Their solids feeding are still not progressing very well. Josiah will just eat a few mouthful of Cereal lately and refuses to open his mouth and the porridge they ate are really very little still. Maybe total about 3-4 Tablespoon in term of quantity for a porridge feed for Joshua and 1-2 for Josiah. The consolation is that they are still able to drink well on their milk. They are taking in about 1 litre of milk +- now. They are still quite small size between the 10th to 25th percentile in term of height and weight,  I will wish to feed them more.

As I get ready for my Europe Trip later, its probably the most unprepared trip that I have so far with no idea where to go, how to go and what to do, etc. I was so busy with work and kids that I practically have little time to plan. My flight is tonight and I'm still going to work and only to start my packing in the evening. I just pray hard that things will just go fine and both Felin and myself can relax and enjoy properly with ease and safety.

I somehow start to miss the babies already. I keep thinking that I couldn't see them for the next 2 weeks. They are so adorable that I can't miss stop looking at them everyday. Hope they will still be excited to see us after the 2 weeks trip.

Poor Joshua was bitten by mosquito early in the morning with 4 patches on his face. He seems to be more prone mosquitoes bites like Felin.

This Europe Trip will be the first without the babies for 24 hours for both me and Felin together. We are also less adventurous this time and will confine ourselves to just the city area. We are mindful that 2 babies are waiting for us to go back safely and soundly. Hence we must be extra careful with our well being and safety.

Babies 9th month polyclinic checkup

The babies were schedule for their 9th month regular check-up today. Josiah's height and weight are constant in the 25th Percentile line for both height and weight whereas for Joshua, his height is about 20th Percentile and weight about 30th Percentile. No wonder I felt that they looks quite small when compared to other babies I see. Went back Malaysia last weekend and saw babies bigger than them and yet younger than them by about 2-3 months. Must try harder to feed them so that they can grow taller and heavier...

As for the hearing test, both babies do not seem to be responsive to the sound of the machine and they kept looking to the front when the machine are sounding behind them. Joshua are slightly more responsive but I actually don't know whether its because he knows someone was behind him and he just wanted to look back or its because he really heard the sound. As for Josiah, he nearly failed the test because he simply are not bothered by the sound and just look to his front the whole time. We nearly have to arrange another appointment to see Specialist already until he suddenly seems to respond slightly to the sound and he passed. Lucky lor. But hope they are okay and they just are not responding to the sound as there are so many other sound in the Polyclinic... The checkup are all free anyway. Quite good ya...

As for other updates... Joshua have been sleeping on my bed lately and I have to sleep on the floor. Now I value my time sleeping with Felin as its so difficult that both of us have quiet time together. I am still feeding them at about 12:30am to 1am daily so that they can last till about 6am. They are drinking about 180ml during the day each feed and my midnight feed generally is about 130ml to 140ml. On daily basis, they are drinking about 900ml to 1litre now. They ate cereal in the morning and a serving of porridge and fruit in the afternoon and evening respectively now.

Okay. Update till here and let see another of their adorable picture... Taken in Malsysia while we have breakfast with Mother In Law before coming back Singapore on Monday...

Evelyn's wedding over the weekend

We went back Malaysia on a Thursday night and traffic was exceptionally good. I suggested to Felin that we can probably do that in future but the con will be a day of leave that need to be applied on Friday. Its Evelyn's wedding on Saturday, 17th October.

I sometimes really like the time spent in Malaysia because I will have almost 100% of the time with the children and I will normally put work aside for that few days. Its normally refreshing and relaxing to be in Malaysia and yet able to spend quality time with the family.

There was a buffet dinner at Felin's mum place on Friday and we realised that the kids refuses to be carried by strangers already. They don't even allow Mother and Father in law to carry initially. This new trait is making us quite tired because we need to carry them almost all the time. The weekend is also the time whereby the babies get to meet most of Felin's relatives. Evelyn's wedding also helped me recall our wedding 9 years ago when Jia Xiang and Jia Xing was so young and cute as well when they kept taking pictures with us. How time really flies.

Joshua and Josiah also have a role to play in this wedding which is to roll on Evelyn and Jimmy's bed and grab some oranges on their bed. They will also be part of the video which they will play during the wedding dinner. Maybe its also a Chinese tradition to help boost their chance of conceiving boys.

The wedding dinner was held on Saturday and we spent the Sunday relaxing at MIW's house. We went back on Monday late morning and the traffic was exceptionally good as well.

The boys recent development include the half ability to wave their hands to say "Good Bye" and Josiah's ability to crawl faster than a week ago. They kept mumbling "Pa Pa" and simply refuses to say "Ma Ma" though I heard Joshua mumbling "Ma Ma" once or twice. They are so adorable that I really miss them when I go to work nowadays.

We are just less than 10 days before heading off for Munich/Prague and I wonder how much I will miss my babies.

The Baby Photo Contest which we really hope to win...

BabyU studio posted one of Joshua and Josiah sibling photo for contest in their facebook page and the winner will be the one who gathered the most "Likes" on the contestant's baby photo.

As of today, we are more than 100 "Likes" behind the leader and Felin and I really hope to win the contest because the winner will get a $150 voucher to re-take the photo with BabyU Studio again. We hope to win so that the babies can go for photoshoot 1 year later and we can see their difference by then. I never thought I will do such thing as gathering friends in facebook and watsapp my colleagues as I felt silly about it in the past when others asked me to do it. But I did it and hope to win it for the boys.

The link is below. Pls click and "Like" on the picture. The contest ends in November. Thank you...

https://www.facebook.com/98589598218/photos/a.10154231824928219.1073741861.98589598218/10154245398393219/?type=3&theater

Babies are 9 months old now.

I'm not sure whether to say time is fast or slow. I am taking each day on its own which seems slow but when I look back, WOW, its 9th months already!!!

A few days made quite a bit of difference as the babies are developing very fast lately. My last mention about Josiah having problem finishing a scoop of cereal was overcame within a week. He can finish 4-5 tablespoon scoop of cereals as of today already. I mentioned about Josiah doing the Leopard crawl last week and he is now crawling with his knees and so much faster.

They are also getting smarter everyday. Both of them are able to spit out their pacifier and laugh over it when we say "Wah!" They are slowly learning to hold onto their milk bottle too. They know how to raise up their hands when they want a hug and carry. There are so many things to update and its so fun. Of course, the tough part is that the babies like to either wake up during mid-night like 3-4am or very early like 5+am and refuses to sleep for an hour or 2. I'm always asked to help out when they need an extra hand. My sleeping hours are also brought forward to 11+ nowadays.

The highlight of last week was that we went to BabyU Studio to take pictures of the babies. It was a package which we signed up during the last Baby Fair. It cost $99 but we eventually top up another $500+ for the additional photos and scenes, etc...
It was quite fun overall but they got tired quite fast and Joshua wasn't too generous with his smile whereas Josiah seem to have lots of fun. I think Joshua is just too intelligent that he knows we are simply trying to make him smile and not really playing with him. He can probably differentiate it and hence refused to smile during the photoshoot.

Felin had prepared for the day for quite a while by searching which shirt to wear for them and what we should be wearing, etc... The studio gave us about 300+ photos and I just post a few below...

 

The tough days are coming

Time just passed so fast since my last post on my birthday.

The babies visited the doctor twice during the 10 days due to their cough, reflux and runny nose. They had since stopped vomiting their milk and runny nose seems to come down. But for the past 3 days, Felin started to have quite a bad cough and runny nose and I too, have the runny nose. My Mum had cough recently too and my helper complained that she had headache. The virus season is still not over ever since Felin's fever on 15th September. Its a good 3 weeks already. The bad haze are not helping definitely too.

The babies development are very fast over the past 10 days. Joshua is now very fast in getting from lying to sitting position and his crawling is very natural since 03rd October. He is able to stand with support such as side of the cot or even the wall. He is starting to chase ping pong balls when I play with him every morning. As for Josiah, he is still not natural in crawling but he is very interesting in walking. He enjoys me holding his hand and walk with my support. He will give me his sweetest smile after completing the walk from Living room to Bedroom. We need pay a lot of attention when they stand or crawl because they can easily fall backwards or their head just knock on anything near or even the floor.

The babies are still not good with solids though improving. Joshua is able to complete his small bowl of cereal while Josiah is probably only able to complete half of it. Joshua generally can finish his pear or avocado titbits while Josiah always stop after a few mouthful. They don't seems to be gaining weight and I think their percentile probably dropped to about 10 to 15% of normal babies weight, especially Josiah. I really hope they can grow bigger, taller and stronger. They are eating far too little compared to most babies of their age.

The babies' attention span are getting shorter nowadays too. They do not pay much attention whenever I read or play music to them. Especially Joshua, he is more interesting to practice his new crawling skill. They are also learning to cry out more when they want the attention.

Tough days are coming and I'm pretty worried for my mum on whether she is physically able to take care of the 2 babies with the new demands of the babies..