D-Day

My little boy is back home! Yipppeee!!  Now I’ve got mood to share his “chop chop” birth story.

21st Nov 2007 was my scheduled gynae visit.  Dr already warned me that if he thinks I am ready that day, he’ll send me in for delivery.  I am suppose to be mentally prepared, I thought I was..  but when he really told me :” ok you can deliver today” I was like :” huh???”  I tried negotiating for another 2 more days, hoping that Kenji’s birth date can coincide with the dad, but Dr said no…  due to my 4cm dilation….. Doctor gave me till 2pm to admit myself into hospital.

The next thing I knew, me and Kiat were on my way to Kuishin-Bo for my last round of Jap buffet before my confinement and also as a form of celebration for Kiat’s birthday.

My “last” buffet lunch for the next 1 month

After lunch, I rushed home to clear my last bit of work through email and before I’m done, my Doctor was already on the phone nagging me not to delay my admission… sigh…..

That’s me right before I leave for hospital.

I reached hosp about 3+p.m.  Went through the routine of admission, filling up forms, answersing questions, changing into robe, going through enema and of course we didn’t forget to ask of epidural!  This time we are smarter, since we are going to pay for epidural, why go through any pain at all?! right?  So we requested for the epidural to be administered before being put on the drip.

Right before administering epidural

Awaiting for the Anesthetist to come

Anesthetist came at about 4p.m.  My drip started at about 4.30p.m and by 6.30p.m Kenji arrived.  Fast right? Ha!

These are Kenji’s first pics.  I know they are gross but these are very precious pics. hehehe

My little bundle.  Doesn’t he look like the famous russian doll?

I am quite fortunate, both my boys came after only about 2 hours of labour.  Will share with all more pictures of the 2 boys soon.

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Yellow Baby

Sigh… before I have the chance to show all some happy pics on my new bundle, he got admitted yesterday afternoon for jaundice…. That leaves me time to do some update… what an irony…. No baby to take care of now… so might as well just post some updates while I am sitting side by side with his empty cot…

That’s the latest pic of him… “enjoying” his suntan… 

So poor thing right?  Dec went through the same thing…  We too took down the same pics.. will go dig for Dec’s suntanning pic and post a look alike postings of the 2 bros….  When it was Dec’s time, probably due to being a 1st time mum and didn’t really know what to expect, I cried like mad when I saw the little form all curled up in that box.  Dec was a more defiant baby then, he struggled, he wriggled, he cried…. and the nurses just wouldn’t allow me to carry him to comfort him, telling me it’s best to leave him in there as much as possible so that he could go home on time.

As a 1st time mum then, it was really too much for me to handle, though I know I am a hard nut to crack… my tears just flowed down my cheeks.  I didn’t sob wor… just didn’t know how come cannot control the tears.

This time, I was mentally prepared!  Before we set off for the paed’s appointment, I more or less already expected that Kenji baby might be admitted, as he seemed yellow to me.  Bingo!  I remembered I was wearing the same dress 3 years back when I brought Declan in for admission.  I cursed that piece of dress! 😡 pui pui!  (Actually I know it’s not the dress fault lah..) 

Though mentally prepared.. upon hearing the confirmation that he needs to be admitted… my heart dropped a little…  was a little sad… but I could handle my emotion much much better now.  No tears shed.  Also, Kenji, being a gentler baby as compared to his elder brother, didn’t fuss much.  Seemed like he more or less accepted his fate that he gotta stay in that box for the next 2 days.  Not a whine from him.  That makes it so much easier for me to cope.  Can yaya chit chat with another 1st time mum and shared with her my experience somemore.  She cried and I understand totally how she felt.

I insisted on total breast feeding and I assured the doctor that I’ve got enough milk supply.  She refused to believe me and “consoled” me that mummies always thought they got enough milk…  Didn’t want to argue with her.  Went home, expressed 2 bottles x 180 ml within a span of 4 hours + 3 frozen bottles of between 100-160ml and whisked them all to the hosp and handed over to the nurse.

Will work hard tonigt to produce more bottles for me to sent to hosp again tomorrow.  Hopefully he can be discharged by Wednesday, I missed my baby already…. I bet Declan missed his little brother too…  He asked me :” How come Kenji got so many home?”  He mistook “hospital” as another home of Kenji when I said Kenji won’t be coming back for till Weds…

Below are 2 pics of Baby Kenji at 5 Days old, taken just 1 day (25 Nov 2007) before he was admitted 

Good night!

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Arrival of Kenji

Dear All, I wish to share my joy with you.  Baby Kenji has arrived safely on 21 Nov 2007.  Katherine!  I post this pic for you, right from the Hospital!! ha!

Kenji is much smaller than Declan at birth.  He weighs 2.995kg while Declan weighed 3.65kg then.  He’s got 2 little dimples.  That comes from the dad.  Single eye lid as I observed, not sure whether it will ultimately evolved to double eyelids.

Will share more pics with all in time to come.  I will be discharging tomorrow and thus probably be able to update by next week after some good rest.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dec woke up with a fever this morning, thus I got to apply urgent leave and stay home with him.  His fever went away after he took some med, phew!  I cooked some porridge for our lunch and since I’m home, I decided to try baking some Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I’ve printed out the recipe since last week and it had been sitting on the desk and staring at me.  How to resist? Ha!  These are my cookies :

This is acutally my 2nd attempt on baking cookies.  I baked some butter cookies last week, but did not take any photos.  My first lot of butter cookies came out all burnt :p  Afterwhich I realise it happened because my dough was too thin for the recommended baking time.  I did some adjustment and the 2nd and 3rd lot came out fine.  I like the taste, Kiat said it’s nice (wonder whether it’s really nice or just to console me heehehee) and Dec likes the shape.  I cut the cookies into heart, bear, fish and car for him.  He like the fish shape cookies most.

Today’s bake turn out good!  EXCEPT, yeah that’s a big “except”…. that I measured the salt wrongly… suppose to put in 1 teaspoon of salt and I wrongfully added 1 tablespoon of salt.  Fortunately I realise my mistake before I mix the ingredients but I already added the salt in…  I managed to scope out some…

The cookies turn out pretty tasty, just a wee bit too salty.  Dec loves it.  This is the first item that he voluntarily ask for more after eating one.  I’m quite sure the next time I use back the same recipe and with the right amount of salt, the cookies will taste even better.  Yahoo!!

 

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Giving Kenji a Brotherly Hug

The picture says it all.  He do that very often and I am not complaining 😉

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Family Time

We both took a day off yesterday, intending to catch a movie since we have 2 free movie passes.  We have been trying to convince Declan to watch the Bee Movie since last week.  Everytime we ask him, he’ll say he don’t want to watch as he is scared?  Wonder what he is scared of, probably the darkness of the cinema I guess….

I remembered the first time we brought him to a cinema was on his 3rd birthday.  We brought him to watch Shrek and ended up wasting the tickets as he insisted on leaving less than half hour into the movie…. since then (it’s been 6 months) we never attempted to bring him to cinema again.

Yesterday, we took the gamble even though he kept saying he didn’t want to watch.  Since it’s free, so we’ve got nothing to loose.  I tried enticing him with a super large pack of popcorn.  He did enter the cinema with us and he got pretty amused with sitting on the booster seat provided by the cinema for kids. It helped that Cathay (Orchard) had lovers’ seat and we got the seat so that he could sit snugly and close to the dad while I sit on the other side.  We occupied 3 seats though we only got 2 tickets :p. It did no harm as it was super low peak hour and there were less than 10 pax in the cinema.  Bravo! He managed to sit through the whole show while munching on the popcorn.  Phew!!!

We strolled around Plaza Singapura after that and snapped a few pics.  That will be one of my last few pictures before I deliver.

This rare family pic was taken sometime last week when we were out lunching with my polymates :

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1st Pandan Chiffon Attempt

I keep looking at this aunty’s recipes until I can’t take it anymore and decided to be ambitious to try baking a chiffon despite the fact that I can’t even bake proper cupcakes yet :p  I took the easy way out and bought a pack of chiffon premix from NTUC instead of DIY.

My result looked like this :

Not too bad lah hor?  At least the cake rose… but it is kind of dense.  Not as light as fluffy as a true blue chiffon should be.  I wonder is it because the recipe called for a 23cm tin while I use a 21cm tin instead, or is it because I didn’t bake long enough or is it because I didn’t handle the mixing well.  *shrug*  Whoever can enlighten me, I’ll appreciate.  Taste wise it is ok, what can go wrong right?? it’s premix! ha!

I shall persist!! and keep trying!!

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