Blessed world of the Beloved family

Daddy's fishing trip

2009-11-16T23:24:00.004+08:00

mummy has been too busy to update... so, here's a quick upload of daddy's most recent fishing trip.

will be updating about the girls soon... erm, soon, i hope =P

Mummy and 姨姨's virgin run ^_^

2009-11-01T23:08:00.008+08:00

Yes, our virgin run... we went for the GE 5 km fun run... =) *proud* didn't thought mummy could complete the 5 km... had early thought i was going to drop half way and wait for the medics to pick me up! Whahahah...

Managed a couple of shots before the run started...

the half-awake us...

Us and our 'lucky' numbers... 姨姨 spotted her number reflects her bday, in jumbled sequence, 1/7/85.

we didn't managed to take any pics @ the finishing point, since our barangs were at the baggage service. So *shrug* make do with this ^_^

Yeah!!

the way to the starting point... (after the event! hahaha) when we were walking over to MS...

MS @ 9 am... is a dead town...

姨姨 was so amazed by this antique set of furniture on display and the 'mahjong' lamp...

a closer look at the 'mahjong' lamp...

Went for our breakfast... guess? BK breakfast! Whahaha... so much for trying to be healthy... had a long chat, about everything and anything under the sun... feels good to sit down and have such chats with peeps close to heart. that's sthg $ cannot buy...

Saturday, 31 Oct 2009

Dav obediently sits and watches TV...

Daddy with one of his closer sec sch mate... guess what were they talking abt? work, on a Saturday afternoon... ^___^"

Dorielle in gong-gong house in the evening...
Training her to sit, but she's still wobbles and topples over...
so someone has to sit by her,
else she'd just topple and knock her head somewhere...

In fact, earlier today, Dorielle had her first... first fall off our our bed. We just left her to grab her diaper after her shower, with Davina looking at her, she did a couple of flips and fell off our bed! What a 'first'...

Davina's broken tooth

2009-10-30T00:00:00.018+08:00

28 October 2009

Davina had a fall in her childcare. Apparently the children were playing and running, and a kid pushed Davina so hard that she fell, hit a cupboard and chipped her tooth.

Accidents bound to happen when there are a lot of kids... but we also understood from the teachers that the kid who pushed Dav had been a lil violent lately, possibly b'cos her mummy had just given birth. Jealousy... so we're constantly reminding ourselves to look out for jealousy between Dav and Dorielle. FYI, Dav gets jealous, she will verbalise or at least do /say sthg to get our attention. You'd be surprised, Dorielle gets jealous too! just that she can't verbalise in words, so sh screams! OMG~!

still as cheeky though she will periodically complains of pain

finally managed to capture her broken tooth...

side-track...

talking about Davina's weird sleeping poses?
We've found another one, another weirdo...
daddy calls this the 'tortoise' sleeping pose *shrug*

Updates overload...

2009-10-30T00:00:00.016+08:00

Now a bit more steady in the stroller... Am i cute?

24 October 2009

Our 2 little 'hot babes' *courtesy from 姨姨's bestie, auntie lynn*

Davina's current fav - bee hoon

dorielle fits into another of Dav's clothes.
Still remembered we bought this OP spaghetti dress from phuket!

Sunday, 18 October 2009
Cos 公公 & 嬷嬷 went for tour in Fuzhou, China, we didn't go back to Hougang & hence mummy had the luxury of time to bring Davina to church for the 1st time!

Davina's 1st time to church @ New Creation & partaking her 1st holy communion!

On our way, in the train...

Saturday, 18 Oct 2009

Feeding Dorielle with mashed potato from KFC...
food, of any kind, simply gets her excited...

A satisfied little one... ^_^

Daddy's latest love... his designed and made fishing rod, with his nick

Davina's art piece for Teacher's Day...

Hahaha... another weird sleeping pose... she never fails to amuse us with her sleeping poses, since young...

Saturday, 3 October 2009

Eeewww... whole mouth full of ice-cream... little treat on a hot day...

almost giving up asking Dav to smile... *frownz*

Sitting up in the stroller... though not very steady yet...
Dorielle's more photogenic than Dav, don't you agree?

Dorielle holding milk bottle on her own...

Now this clever little thing can 'play' with her milk bottle...

Happy Childrens' Day

2009-10-02T13:12:00.010+08:00

Officially Davina 'celebrates' Children's Day cos... her childcare is close... duhz...
Mummy brought her out to meet Daddy for lunch @ TPG BK.. den we went to MS...

Our little vainpot who wants to tie her hair, after the teachers done it once for her in childcare

Now she knows how to pose for pictures...

dav, given the balloon, when we walked past Poney's opening @ MS

Saturday, 26 Sept 09
We went to visit mummy's godmum... and to 'deliver' mooncakes... have always like the pics of grands - grandparent with grandchildren

god-grandma with Dorielle...

This jie jie is one of mummy's fav nieces - Zhang Ying

Misc pics of our growing mischievous Dorielle...

Mummy's bestie back from Perth... 21 Sept 09

Trina is pretty much regarded as family... ^_^
much loved by all

Mummy's bestie, Trina... Our sexy doctor in Perth...

the girls...

Pls dont ask why the stickers are on Dav... she refused to let us tear it off!

Liquor chocolates from Perth

Misc...

27 yrs down with perfect eyesight... now mummy needs to wear glass! Darn... And of all colours for the frame, white looks best. So reminds us of Uncle Ben and his signature white glasses!

Big monkey & small monkey... hahaha...
yeah, your eyes ain't playing tricks, they are wearing identical PJs...

talk about weird sleeping poses... how about this?

one of Dav's playground time after breakfast...

whilst the jie-jie is enjoying herself,
poor Dorielle is perspiring in the baby sling =(

Davina's lunar 7th mths' encounters

2009-09-20T00:02:00.010+08:00

hmmm... the lack of time to update blog has resulted in us using the pics to recollect events... *test of memory skills* dotx... ^___^"

teacher feedback that Davina has been isolating herself over the past 1 - 2 weeks... we're not sure why too... our guess, jealousy... But then again, her tantrums started after she 'saw things' across our master bedroom last Wed... if you do a quick recollection, we mentioned Dav saw "things" during lunar 7th mth?

1st yr was @ the lift lobby of the Yishun block where we used to stay. She saw a white figure go past, she didnt cry but just kept staring at "it". That night, she cried so badly it was not easy that we finally settled her down to sleep & daddy then told mummy abt the "white figure".

2nd yr was @ the bus stop near 公公's house, mummy was bringing Dav home after visiting ... and Dav kept telling mummy there is someone at the bus stop when there was only the 2 of us! *faintz*

Yup, this time, unfortunately she saw again, opposite our hse. Dav returned home from nanny's place and we were settling her and Dorielle for their bedtime. Out of habit, Dav looked out of the window @ the playground downstairs. And it was when we told her not to look at the playground already, it's time for bed... that she claimed to have seen sthg across our block. Daddy told her there was nothing. After a while she got pacified and went to bed. however, later that weekend, daddy went to 嬷嬷 and told 嬷嬷 all about it. Yes, and that was also when mummy knew about it. Dotx...

So of all superstitions, 嬷嬷 decided to bring her to the temple to pray... no matter what or how things are done, we all believed eneryone just wanted the best for our girls, according to our different religions... so we let Dav went along with whatever 嬷嬷 said...

in the morning whilst waiting for 公公 & 嬷嬷 to pick us up

Under the scorching sun, we were trying to capture a nice pic of Dav & 嬷嬷...
err... not quite achievable cos they cant keep their eyes open! ^___^"

The same weekend...
Here's Dorielle finally 'tall' enough, or do we call it 'long' enough,
for her feet to touch the ground when the walker is put to the lowest sitting level

Our dear meimei on the walker @ 公公's hse

Dorielle has moved on to diaper size M!

2009-09-10T21:39:00.012+08:00

9 Sept 09
Dorielle has upgraded to Size M! not that she's still so small, but bcos we had a LOT of Size S diapers... think we overstocked up cos we underestimated Dorielle's growth rate! Given that she is born smaller sized as compared to Davina, Dorielle's growth actually caught up very rapidly. She is comparable with Davina's previous records of growth milestones! She weighs as heavy as Davina was, during the same no of mths!

4 - 7 Sept 09
the weekend that all fell sick... started with Daddy vomiting & having diarrhea on Friday night... Davina followed suit on Saturday... and Dorielle caught their virus on Monday... caused by? Gastric flu virus...

Wanted to quarantine the 'unaffected' from the 2 affected ones, mummy brought Dorielle to 公公's house...

Both our girls are very "yang orh"... remember Dav had a similar shot?

<== Dorielle & Davina ==>

Unfortunately when mummy called home, was told Davina had vomited again, 7th time since the 1st vomiting at 2 am... thank god 小舅 was back from camp & he rode back with mummy...

here's 小舅 accompanying mummy to bring his beloved "fake daughter" (as he so-called her, since he's always mistaken for her daddy when he brings her out) to the doc's on Sat

Dorielle's tummy time...

in this pic, dorielle had her face touching the bolster, when she drifted back to sleep after drinking her milk *that explains the empty milk bottle beside her*

Talk about Dav having weird sleeping poses when she was younger...
Dorielle has weird sleeping habits! Her face must touch/be covered, only then can she sleep... ??? still haven't been able to figure out why...

Dorielle hits her 6-mth mark & Happy Birthday to 公公

2009-09-02T20:27:00.008+08:00

is FINALLY the word? Hahaha... honestly she is much easier to care for now, then her first 3 mths when mummy was still in maternity leave and looking after her.

Here's presenting our 'fattie', Dorielle... *_^

Our latest family pic

daddy and his darlings...

Happy Birthday, 公公!!
Our MAJOR family pic! Woo weet!
(taken during celebration of 公公's birthday)

Our little vain pot... insisted on carrying mummy's bag when mummy brought her downstairs to get lunch on one of the weekends... cute? ^_^

lunar 7th mth...

2009-08-22T15:22:00.012+08:00

it's been a long while since mummy has time to sit down & blog... T-I-R-E-D is the word...

Nothing exciting over the past couple of weeks, it's SO routine...

Fetching the girls on Fri nites... Spending the weekends stressed out & tired by our 2 monsters (1 that yaks non-stop + 1 that cries non-stop)...

Monday mornings bringing Dav to CC & Dorielle to nanny before going to work, at least mummy gets a breather at nite by going for pilates with 姨姨 to re-energise whilst daddy helps to bring Dorielle back from nanny's place & Dav stays there...

Tuesdays, either of us will drop Dorielle off & bring Dorielle back @ nite...

Wednesday nites bringing both girls home, Thursday nites only Dorielle comes home...

Here comes Fridays...

That summarizes our week... *rolls eyes*

The girls are so noisy that we don't even dare to bring them back to 公公''s hse last weekend! Can anyone beat that? *wonder*

The last Thursday was 1st day of the lunar 7th mth... Honestly, Catholics & Christians, us shouldn't believe and do anything about such... however, experience with Dav over the past 2 yrs have proven that children do "see things"...

with dorielle's crankiness to start with, we didn't want to risk any form of "worsening", if that statement sounds rite...

Anyway, we specially went earlier to fetch her back from nanny's house and ensuring that she reaches back home before 7 pm! Sighz... tell us, what other extremes do parents do? *frown*

But before we picked Dorielle, we decided to give Dav a bit of our time & all of our attention... we picked her up from her CC instead of uncle picking her...

this was a notice from the CC when Dav joined her class in May

yup, MacDonalds again... her fav fries...

she just cant put her fries down ~~ ^___^"

Anyway, here's a long catch up of pics of our beloved terrors...

Davina & her 1st scoop of ice cream, all to herself...

here comes daddy who wants to have a share...

All the Doraemon prezzies you can think of from Uncle Ben!

dorielle on the walker @ 公公's hse

Ambitious us, trying to sit Dorielle up when she's just 6 mths...
but honestly, some peeps have told us not to be too anxious, after all, Dorielle was a premmie & technically had she been a full-term baby, she'd only be 4 mths old now!

Dorielle is holding her milk bottle on her own now...
some 'hands-free' time for us...

Random pics of Davina...

the 'artwork' of our nanny... buying them identical PJs...
think all the 公公 & 嬷嬷 in the world love dressing siblings like that... thinking back, 公公 & 嬷嬷 used to dress mummy & 姨姨, 大舅 & 小舅 this way too... dotx...

Our dear girl playing with daddy's phone... she's learnt to take pic of herself, from an 'artistic' angle ^___^"

my god... this is so un-glam... Hahahaha....
mummy is trying to proof.... davina really ain't photogenic... Sighz...

updates

2009-07-30T18:09:00.006+08:00

woah! didnt realised it's been a good 2 weeks without updates of us... until 姨姨 complained... and a couple of friends who have been following our updates feedback that they wanna know what's happening in our lives!! Honoured ^_^ Appreciate your love & concern!

here's what's happening with our lovely duo...

our big baby finds fun in playing with meimei's toys...

*pic, courtesy of 姨姨 * and sitting in meimei's walker in 公公's hse... see her legs...

our darling 姨姨 trying to picture Dorielle with long hair...
See Dorielle's "angry" face...

Here's Davina who wants to help mummy with the grocery trolley...

Big baby acting up again when she wants to sit in the stroller when Dorielle was in it. So we told her, she's gotta carry/hold meimei, else she will have to walk home... and this is what we get ^___^"

despite knowing how much Davina is afraid to stand on grass & sand, daddy purposely carried her to the centre of the grass patch at the bus stop when we were waiting for bus to 公公's hse. Daddy suddenly put her down! Haha, Dav was horrified! =p

Still trying to tease her, we asked her to move closer to the plant and point the leaves to us... haha...

mummy with ex-colleagues from ARC...
once again, congrats to Howard & Hweili... ^_^

Mummy with Auntie Janet, Tristine & Tiffany

Mummy with Uncle Ben

Dorielle's series of pics

2009-07-11T13:51:00.006+08:00

finally for once... Dorielle is "co-operative" enough for us to take her pics... ^_^

This is our terror princess, Dorielle Sin, at 4.5 mths...

Commando training begins...

trying to sit her up...

Oh btw, this lil fella's "leg power" is even better than Dav's!
She hasn't even learn to sit, she's already pushing herself to stand when we hold her hands! my god...

Finally sitting nicely... ^_^

see Dorielle's cheeky face? we are starting to imagine how mischievous she'd be when she grows up!

taken when daddy was playing with Dorielle...

random updates

2009-07-07T22:35:00.008+08:00

Been an extremely busy week for mummy @ work... so overwhelmed by recruitment. 4 resignation letters in 1 day last Friday, and these people are leaving without securing a job. And we thought times are bad?? *wonder*

Oh well... mummy is honestly getting lazy to write, cos mummy simply has no time to log in & upload the pics. By the time mummy logs in, the event is... ... ... ancient history? ^_____^" and looking at the pics, mummy has to try real hard to recall the events that took place *roll eyes* that's some memory game, eh?

Dorielle is salivating quite a bit lately... eh, teething period starts? We can't be too sure about Dorielle cos she literally grew up over the past 4 months, sucking her fist! Hmmm... so we can't tell now whether her sucking of lil' fists has anything to do with teething. When we use our fingers to press on her gums, it doesn't seem any bit like puffy or soft (which is the state of the gums before you even see any tiny white thingy sticking out).

anyway, here's the best part of our blog... the pics =)

Can someone tell me, is having a moth at the house sthg good or sthg bad? mummy thot she recalls moth is supposed to be associated with some beliefs, but seriously, we really dont know... anyway, this big moth was at our gate for a couple of days... Never disturbed us, so we also left it alone...

Our dear jiejie Davina insists she wants to feed meimei...

the focus point? the mess beside her... =p

Hahaha... mummy purposely disturbs Dav...
she happily walked out of the room with just a towel wrapped around her...
Hehe... talk abt being cheeky...

Dorielle is 5 kg!

2009-06-30T12:44:00.014+08:00

yes, Dorielle went for her 4th mth jab & check-up. She's weighing a whooping 5.02 kg now...

Imagine they were born with 500 gram diff at birth & at 4 mths, both weigh abt 5 kg... Compared with Davina, at the same no of mths, Dorielle has caught up very quickly. So fast that we reckon Dorielle will be bigger than Davina in no time!

here's a couple of pics... now we finally get some with a smiley dorielle. But honestly, it's not easy to capture Dorielle given that half the time she is cranky & needs to be pacified. The other half of the time? She is asleep! Hahaha... so to capture one pic of her that is awake & smiley, is not easy, ok... ^__^"

At Compass Point Mac on 28th June morning...

Dorielle "giving us some peace" to have breakfast...

Now she's awake...

we asked her, Dorielle is sleeping, can you talk softly?
And our darling Dav "replied": "shhh..."

Despite having her own set of hotcakes,
she insisted on having Daddy's harshbrown *___*"

Random pics of Dorielle

Taken on 22 June where Daddy went to fetch Dav from her childcare & brought her to the nearby Bottle Tree Park

Unfortunately, she says "Duck duck" when she saw these swans... *faintz*

And her Macdonalds treat from her daddy again...
*her ugly eating pose* sorry, our fault...
never teach her not to take pic when she is eating! Hahaha...

Random abt Davina

2009-06-21T19:43:00.008+08:00

Davina stops crying when she goes to childcare now...she will acknowledge that daddy & mummy is going to work. She'd also say "bye bye" to us, though she still looks kinda sad when she reaches the childcare centre's gate.

We would say davina has considerably good adaptability, don't you agree? ^_^

Ha, this is how our house looks every weekend!
*taken when the girls are taking their afternoon nap*

mummy brought Dav to the playground.
Now she learns to sling her water bottle around her neck.
We reckon, her "school" taught her that...

Mummy brought Dav to Auntie Lily's (mummy's cousin) wedding...

this is one cousin whom mummy is still in touch with after granny passed on. We've committed, no matter how our parent's generation fights over whatever, we're still sisters. Lily 姨姨 attending daddy & mummy's wedding lunch, came to visit mummy in the hospital when Davina was born, came with uncle Dylan (Lily 姨姨's now hubby) to Davina's 1st birthday celebration, came to our hse for Dorielle's full mth celebration... now with us attending lily 姨姨's wedding, some to be her baby's celebration, and so on... the list will go on...

At the end of the day, she's still quite an angel when we bring her out... That's what makes our life easy as parents *_^ Can only pray that Dorielle is getting better as she grows up, not as cranky and all... *prays hard*

Happy Birthday 大舅

2009-06-14T17:42:00.005+08:00

most of the pics are with 姨姨, but nevertheless, hope 大舅 had a memorable birthday... no complaining that you don't have your own cake & nobody to spend birthday with this yr, 姨姨 even roped in her friends. Can you beat that? =p

the weird combi - 大舅 with 公公 & 嬷嬷,
with the 2 princesses who is simply in every photograph now...

our family, without 小舅, who is in camp...

Dorielle sleeps thru the nite!

2009-06-13T21:18:00.001+08:00

yup, the long-awaited news... hahaha...

Dorielle isn't too slow, compared to Davina. Nanny has been taking care of Dorielle for 3 weeks now. And we've been praying hard for her to sleep thru the nite so that we can sleep as well... and blessed are we, Dorielle has been sleeping thru the nite for 1 week now... we're trying to keep her routine similar to Dav's (i.e. last feed at abt 10.30 pm)... but Dorielle's nite sleeps doesn't last as long as Dav's. Previously Dav would wake up at abt 7+am after her last feed. Dorielle is waking up at 5+am...

Better than nothing ^_^ at least we get 4 - 5 hrs of undisturbed sleep now *yawnz*

Happy Birthday 小舅

2009-06-06T19:49:00.011+08:00

Happy 21st Birthday to our dearest 小舅!

Pics say more than words...

小舅 & his cake, courtesy of 姨姨 & Uncle Marcus

小舅 with 公公 & 嬷嬷

小舅 with 公公 & 嬷嬷, + the extra Davina ^__^"

BIG family pic...

waiting for this pic to "grow" with peeps...

Just us...

haha, this is out of the blue... with 大舅 trying to act sad

us with 小舅

here's the bday boy cutting his cake

Aside, some random pics...

daddy playing with Dorielle

the day Davina had an ice cream all to herself...

Haha, Dav after her shower...

Randomly taken by daddy whilst carrying Dorielle

Davina's 1st fishing trip with daddy

2009-06-01T23:53:00.005+08:00

Most of you know, daddy's hobby has all along been fishing... he had a dream since Dav was little. thou she is not a boy, but daddy dreams of bringing her along on his fishing trips some day...

and yesterday, we brought Davina to Pasir Ris pond. Little girl was so engross with the fishing pond, prawns (they were the live baits), the water pump (cos it's a wheel that keeps spinning & creates a fountain kinda stuff), oh & not forgetting, the turtles (haha, in case you are wondering, there were 2 turtles ornaments in the centre of the pond!)...

see how little girl "yang orh" her daddy dearest...

wondering around on her own...

unfortunately when daddy caught his fish, little girl was already KO-ed in her pram...

and when it turned dark abt 7+pm, little girl started to get scared (if you've been to fishing ponds @ nite, it's lit with some florescent lights every 2 - 3 metres apart) & kept asking to go home...

hmmm... from the looks of Dav's "performance" today, there's more fishing trips to come ^_^"

Davina sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

2009-05-30T19:06:00.004+08:00

It's been 2 weeks since Davina started in child care. She still cries when she's being dressed for school...

and gee, she's really saying a lot more words then before! Now, she can sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", err with a couple of "fill-in-the-blanks" ^_^

Dorielle @ 3 mths

2009-05-30T19:04:00.008+08:00

Dorielle was due for her 3rd mth's vacinnation yesterday. All praise to GOD, our tiny little gift now weights a good 4.4 kg! Her progress is pretty fast, for a premmie of her size. Here's presenting "fattie Dorielle"... :p

Dorielle is 3 mths old & mummy returns to work.

2009-05-25T21:45:00.003+08:00

Mummy returns to work officially today... Wow, time flies, really... F-L-I-E-S! To think Dorielle is already 3 mths old, over the weekend~!

It really isn't an easy feat taking care of Dorielle for the past 2 mths+. Given she is indeed more difficult to look after cos of her crankiness & constant cries for attention. But like nanny says, be positive. The toughest will be over in no time and soon, we'd probably say Dorielle is 1 yr old! ^_^"

A side joke, nanny said, it's very common for couples to quarrel a lot more when they have their 2nd kid. Cos 1st is always a darling, so loved and all... when it's the 2nd child, usually comes the fights on unequal sharing of 'duties', etc etc...

Daddy & mummy also had our fair share of arguements over Dorielle, & sometimes Davina, over the past few weeks. Jokingly, we have reached a common agreement... and that is...

We want to look for a BIG dustbin & throw Dorielle inside!!

Haha, esp. so when her cries get too much for us to bear & we're both tired out from the 'duties' of looking after her. *shrug* It'll be over soon... *fingers crossed*

Davina's 3rd day in childcare

2009-05-20T11:23:00.003+08:00

Seems like Davina is realising what's with "sending her to school"... that she will be staying in "sch" for the whole day. She wont let mummy leave, and had insisted mummy go into the childcare with her.

When mummy told her that mummy has to return to work, she actually shaked her head furiously and started crying, said "mummy bu yao zuo gong, mummy hui lai" (mummy don't go to work, mummy come back).

Haiz, it's quite a heartache to see her cry so badly. She hasn't been eating much in the childcare, but thankfully she still takes her afternoon naps. Prob cos she doesn't eat much in the childcare, she asks for food when she reaches nanny's place at night! And boy, can she eat! Her routine for the past 2 nights, she will ask for dinner (says "yao chi fan") before she takes her shower. And she gulps down her water cup after cup, apparently she drank a total of 5 cups of water last night! Haha, thank GOD she can speak quite well now and is able to make her wishes known.

today, mummy stayed with her during breakfast and sneaked away when her teacher brought her into the classroom to watch cartoon. mummy did call the childcare, Davina cried for a while when she couldn't find mummy. But the teachers distracted her and when mummy called, she was playing with her teacher.

The next "crying time" - when it's nap time. According to the teachers, Davina cried and looked for papa, mummy and her auntie-mama (nanny) during her nap time for the past 2 days. And her teacher had to carry her to coax her to sleep. but good thing, she is able to sleep for 1.5 hrs. Only when she comes home at night, she has been crying and waking up from her sleep.

well, it'll take time for Dav to settle down in the childcare. But trust me, daddy and mummy are giving her the attention when we bring her back home every night. After all, she is still our no. 1 "bao bei".

Quite some updates: Davina's 1st day in child care, Dav's 1st volunteering event & Dorielle

2009-05-19T18:16:00.016+08:00

Our beloved's 1st day in childcare... proud to say, although she's a little more whiny, but all in all she was good.

ha, the 'typical student'
she fell back into this position after mummy changed her out of her PJs

here's our cute little girl

the moody little girl... 2 things on her mind
1. not very much awake yet
2. apprehensive about going to 'school'

And Dorielle? Simply bo-chap, sleeping away

here's Davina with the other little children.
This is where the children gather before breakfast is served

suddenly, all the little children left the table,
but our little dear still sits at the table & does her colouring

breakfast time

thereafter, it's daddy & mummy's private time! Hahaha... finally it's been a VERY long while since we went out together without having any of our girls along =p Also, meant for mummy to prepare some clothes for work...

after all the walking @ J8, here's having our early dinner...

daddy & his 'yuan-yang' noodles

mummy's seafood & pork baked rice

The night before...

here's the bag-packing part...
getting ready Dav's stuff for one of her 1st big days.
More of such to come...

Labeled instructions for her milk

Back-dated pics, in preparation for childcare...

the "toy" that attracted davina when mummy brought her to finalised her enrolment into the childcare & get her uniforms

the childcare uniform that looked like a long dress
on Davina ^_^" and mind you, this is size S!!

here's the expert at work, auntie pat pinning the uniform for alteration

16 May 2009 - Saturday
1st time we brought Davina along when we volunteer. Today's a mini community service project, Care & Share Day, where 80 elderly were brought to ECP Big Splash for lunch. 姨姨 came along today as well ^_^

Throw Dav a piece of paper & a pen, she can self-entertain ^_^

the sisters in volunteering

just us...

act cute 姨姨

to prepare our little fair lady for the sun, daddy even bought her a hat!

Gee, she sure knows how to pose ^_^

Aww... our cranky Dorielle
who scared us when she didnt poo for 2 days!

Finally when she does, it was when daddy & mummy were having dinner... daddy had to 'hide' in the alley beside the coffeeshop... =p

Haha, daddy asking for help!

Davina's 1st time in KTV

2009-05-10T18:47:00.009+08:00

Sweetie pie

Davina with Zijing jiejie

Davina with Auntie Pat

Uncle Marcus & Auntie Pearl with Davina @ the pool table

the 'table-banging-during mtgs-&-dinner-together' group of peeps
WELFARE

in the morning...

Little girl sees us changing Dorielle's diapers &
wants to change diapers for her toy octopus!
And she does it step-by-step, including applying of nappy rash cream!

daddy & girls, watching Doraemon on Sat morning

8 May 2009 - Friday

We've decided prevention is better than cure... Nanny helped us brought Davina for her chicken pox vaccination today. Though it's only 1 more week before she starts in childcare, hopefully it'll still protect her from the virus.

[Update] Dorielle's cough

2009-05-06T17:45:00.005+08:00

Dorielle's cough didnt get better last week since she saw the GP. So we decided to bring her back to the PD who saw her from ESH... on monday.

Given colic drops for infants & 2 seperate mixtures, that's sure quite a bit of medicines for the little body. But 3 days after the meds, Dorielle's cough has subsided. Her tummy wind, still is bothering her, but the little "terror" is sleeping better now. Makes mummy wonder, is it because of her cough med which supposedly "might cause drowsiness"? hahaha... ^_^"

Gee, counting down... another 2 more weeks,

Davina will be going to the childcare centre &

Dorielle will be going to be with nanny.

That leaves mummy 4 weeks to adjust to schedule, clean the house a bit, rest & prepare to go back to work...

Davina's 1st kite flying attempt

2009-05-03T22:43:00.008+08:00

Thanks to auntie Pamela who brought Disney kites back from US... See dav with her Elmo kite ^_^

Here! Dav is flying the kite on her own!
Clever girl! ^_^

2 May 2009 @ Uncle Marcus & Auntie Pearl's place

whilst the ladies chat away...

here's auntie teng teng helping mummy to pat Dorielle,
trying to loosen the phlegm in her throat

Dorielle's 1st cough

2009-04-29T13:35:00.004+08:00

Dorielle was coughing and sneezing away since morning, yesterday. Last evening, we decided to bring her to the doc's @ our place. However, it wasn't much of a help cos the doc said he can't give her much medicine, given her age of 2 mths. It's the time for her body to build her immune system.

Nevertheless, he gave some cough mixture. hopefully it helps to ease her discomfort.

Poor little darling is scared awake from her sleep by her own coughs... so she hasn't been resting well. Same applies to mummy cos she has to carried constantly... She wakes up the minute mummy tries to put her in her rocker chair & starts to cry.

Cos Dorielle cries a lot more, as compared to Davina previously, and it really drained us quite a bit. So some time last week, when she was left crying away in her rocker chair for some time. This lil monster didn't just cry, she screamed! So much so, mummy thinks her cries are a bit hoarse now...

Now that she is coughing, it's declared that she is NOT to be left crying for too long on her own. *ahem* no prize for guessing who this order is for. =p

Diaper sizes

2009-04-24T12:56:00.012+08:00

isn't it funnie that we even post blog on our princess' diaper size? Hahaha...

Davina moves on to Size XL. Now Davina recognizes her diaper colour - from orange (Size L) to purple...

Meanwhile, Dorielle is , of cos, on size S... still a bit big for her thou ^_^"

Some random pics...

The sisters...
(taken in the wee hrs of the day when Dav was having her bouts of slight fevers. Dav was awaken by Dorielle's cries and asked for milk herself. Mummy was so happy, cos Dav had refused milk during that couple of days, due to her throat infection)

The weekend following Dav's recovery... We were @ MacDonalds... dotx...

See how Dav sits on her daddy... ^_^"

Mac @ Taka

Some "not-so-glam" pics of Davina...
小舅 teased her & "dressed her up", or down rather... *shrug*

the "empress dowager" seat?

Pics of Dorielle...

Interesting find, this is one of Dorielle's signature pose.
Remember mummy's gynae had to 'push' her hand back in cos her
hand was on her head? We reckon this was the position she was in,
just before delivery.

Our 2nd commando in training... recap: Davina's 'training'

Haha, the "big boss" look, eh?

dun ask wat pose this is... we have no idea either =p

Dorielle's 1st mth checkup

2009-04-24T12:29:00.004+08:00

Since Dorielle's birth till date, we've heard countless comments that she's tiny... yes, but we are also happy to announce, lil princess no 2 is healthily gaining weight. She's a whopping 3.37 kg when we brought her for her follow-up Hep B jab @ the polyclinic on Tuesday.

She has gained 1.37 kg, since her discharge from the NICU 6 weeks ago.

Haha, she's only back for 6 weeks??!!?!?! It seemed so looooong with her constant wailing & crankiness, so much that we are easily frustrated by her cries / screams.

Back-tracked and compared with Dav's weight @ 1 mth jab was approx 3.5 kg, Dorielle's weight gain is very satisfactory ^_^ at least, we've pretty much set our hearts and minds at ease about this "little gift's" progress.

Wat else can we say? We've long left both our princesses in GOD's hands. =)

Relatives from Taiwan

2009-04-19T10:58:00.012+08:00

Mummy's relatives from Taiwan came over to visit 公公. So mummy did a switch with nanny to take Davina to 公公's house, whilst nanny helps to take care of Dorielle. cos it's easier for us to bring Davina around, in terms of feeding and all.

At the airport

the ladies...

the "grands-" -- grandparents & grand-daughters

Mummy, 姨姨 & 嬷嬷

Pretty random pics cos 姨姨 was not around to be the photographer and 大舅 is not an avid fan of photography! Hahaha...

Dav pestered 姨姨 to "bring her to see fish" when we went for dinner

A new shopping mall @ Bugis

Tim-sum @ Geylang... went for durians actually,
but we were so engrossed with the durians,
mummy forgot to take the pics

Taken @ Qian Hu, went for fish spa...

Little darling was so fascinated by the fishes...

Dav has to tell her 'yi-yi' about the fishes

courtesy of 大舅

chilling out for teabreak

Talking to 大舅 gives our aunt a headache? Hahaha...

the siblings, whose hearts for each other were never separated by distance

All of us...

Newly introduced 'game' to us...
these 'cards' brought quite a bit of squeals in the hse ^_^"

both princesses not well... =(

2009-04-03T20:18:00.005+08:00

Dav's been feverish... on and off, on and off... Daddy brought her to the doc on Monday evening after work, but doc says it's caused by viral infection, hence anti-biotics won't help. It's frustrating to see there is nothing we can do...

Dorielle is colic-y... damn, this is the hardest part of taking care of her... her constant wailing can drive us insane.

Happy 2-yr-old Birthday, Davina!

2009-03-30T00:03:00.014+08:00

Our precious hits her 2nd birthday today. Since it's a Monday, we had an advanced small celebration at 公公's house last night before sending Davina to her nanny's place.

Davina's fav cartoon character, Doraemon, cake, courtesy of 姨姨 & Uncle Marcus

Davina 'pestered' 公公 to buy her this balloon. According to 公公, she chose it herself. Why Big bird, we wondered? Then, Davina 'told' us "duck, duck"... haha... She's mistaken Big Bird as a duck, one of the 1st animals she's exposed to.

Celebration pics...

大舅 and Davina's 'signature' - fingers-on-your-lips, when Dav gets a bit too noisy for 大舅

The lead of the day

Personalised bday song singer? ^_^"

the 'soong' family + the lil 'sin'

the gramps

all of us...

our new family pic of 4, of cos

姨姨 's cheap thrill... hahaha... a kiss for getting lil girl a cake with her fav character

Of cos muz thank uncle marcus with a kiss too...

Random...

Dav loves to sayang her lil sis...

Our latest family pic...

taken when we brought Davina to visit Dorielle in the NICU

Davina 'helping' 嬷嬷 with the bean sprouts - helping to make a mess... ^_^"

Interesting find...

2009-03-26T17:37:00.006+08:00

Cos mummy is trying to book an appt for Dorielle's next vaccination, and out of curiousity, did a comparison between Davina & Dorielle's stats @ birth, as recorded by the hospital. Interestingly, Dorielle IS slightly bigger than Davina! Really!! Hahaha... ^_^"

Other than weight, hospitals will usually note baby's length & head circumference @ birth.

Length: Davina = 48 cm Vs Dorielle = 49 cm
Head Circumference: Davina = 32 cm Vs Dorielle = 34 cm

So technically, Dorielle is bigger in size! So meaning, we weren't quite incorrect when we compared their scans & remarked Dorielle is 'going to be bigger sized' than Davina.

Now comes the puzzling part,
Dorielle's birth weight = 2.09 kg Vs Davina's = 2.72 kg
how is it that Dorielle is bigger in size, yet so much lesser in weight compared to Davina?? Hmmm...

Dorielle is 1 mth old today!

2009-03-23T11:45:00.013+08:00

Here's presenting our 1-mth-old 'small gift' from GOD...

Cos Dorielle is a premmie & is back home less than 2 weeks, we are a bit more concerned with her immune system and all. Hence her full mth celebration was a mini one, mainly with family, relatives & a couple of buddies... Many thanks to 嬷嬷 and 姨姨 for staying up till 4am to do 100 red eggs!

To all who sent their wishes, thank you. Greatly appreciated, we'd catch up separately again when Dorielle is healthier & we're not so paranoid :-)

Pics: Courtesy of our dearest 姨姨...

Dorielle's full mth cakes for our relatives

The mischievous & cheeky beloved...

Davina, being a sweet darling sis, who protects & sayangs her meimei

姨姨 says Davina 'bullying' her 公公

Having fun @ the playground cum fitness area

the dearest 公公 chooses to think he is still young... *grinz*

the 舅舅 whom Davina fears, yet respects

Unfortunately, thou it's supposedly Dorielle's celebration, daddy & mummy forgot about taking pics... =p

Random pics

2009-03-19T17:20:00.009+08:00

Super random... cos mummy has no time to blog...

Jiejie is 'carrying' her meimei... with daddy's assistance, of cos.
But it thrilled Dav to be given an opportunity to carry her meimei,
that she asked for another go!
Er, Davina, meimei is not a toy... ^_^"

Left: 13 Mar (Fri) morning, 公公 carrying Dorielle on the way to see her PD
Right: afternoon, back to ESH for Dorielle's hearing test. 公公 is now a pro in feeding Dorielle ^_^"

Doesn't Davina's face look rounder in this pic?
Here's presenting: The 'ballooned-in-2-weeks' jiejie who 'benefit' from mummy's excessive EBM cos Dorielle is drinking quite minimal, whilst mummy is continuously expressing to keep up the supply.

Previously Davina was dressed in a super-sized PJ (see post on Super-sized PJ).
Look, now even Davina's shirt looks like a dress on Dorielle... My god~!

Dorielle pouting after her feed

Is the light too bright? :p

We realised Dorielle likes to pout a lot... *wonder* whilst Davina's signature was blowing bubbles. Pretty interesting to note the diff btn these 2 princesses...

Dorielle's various slping poses... Hmmm, makes us wonder, are all babies the same? Dav also had a lot of diff slping poses previously... see post on Dav's sleeping poses & compare? Dav likes both her hands wide open above her head, Dorielle prefers both hands @ her side.

Many thanks to Dav's nanny. She's really nice, knowing mummy is doing w/o a confinement lady, hence no tonics or whatsoever, she boiled this 'chicken-in-martell' for mummy. Supposed to be a tonic for confinement mummies...

Dorielle finally comes home...

2009-03-12T19:54:00.004+08:00

After a 16-day stay in the Neonatal ICU, Dorielle has finally come home yesterday.

公公 & 嬷嬷 went with daddy & mummy to fetch the little precious. Davina was carried home by 嬷嬷 the last time & 嬷嬷 has this 'theory' that the baby will be closer to the person who carried them home from the hospital, apparently based on 嬷嬷's experience with her 4 children. Anyway, jokingly we wanted to 'test' this theory and this time, Dorielle is carried home by 公公, whilst 嬷嬷 did the driving ^_^

here's finally a proper pic of Dorielle, ready to go home...

公公 dearest with his 'sweetie pie' (小甜甜) @ ESH's lobby,
whilst waiting for 嬷嬷 to get her van from the carpark

Looks like it's 公公 who is more attached to the little one :p

Dorielle's progress

2009-03-09T12:56:00.006+08:00

Since the last mentioned of Dorielle losing weight on 5 March & PD started her on alternate oral & tube feeding, Dorielle has been consistantly putting on weight, abt 30 grams daily, over the past 3 days. Today, her weight has went back to above 2 kg. ^_^

At least this is a good news after the past few stressful days.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Initially, we had the intention to transfer Dorielle to KKH, as the ESH bills are adding up to quite a bit now & we're basically paying for these time in NICU just waiting for Dorielle to pick up her sucking skills to drink on her own. However, we were hesitating cos we didn't want to put Dorielle in any other additional risks.

Per the PD's advice, we had 2 choices:

1) shd we do a direct trf from ESH to KKH, we will not be able to downgrade to class C, but have to stay as Class B1 or upgrade to Class A. Cos it's a trf from pte hosp to govt hosp. In that case, no diff whether trf or not...

2) is a "back-door" way, where the PD writes a memo to discharge Dorielle @ parent's request. And we take Dorielle to the A&E of KKH for her to be admitted, we can then admit as Class C from there. However, KKH being the 'children hosp', we would possibly be exposing Dorielle to virus from other children who are there. Dorielle's immunity hasn't reached a mature stage + she's already being forced to 'learn' even the most basic sucking instint, exposing her to more risk or stressing her out in any other way is the last thing we want.

3rdly, PD's clinic is near our place @ Rivervale Mall. Hence, shd Dorielle have any prob, it's not a big issue for mummy to bring her back to the PD, who knows her progress from the start since her birth.

Hence, still decided to stay put in ESH. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We've seen yesterday, when we visited, that Dorielle has gain her 'rooting instint' & was searching when daddy teased her with the bottle teat. Even the nurses said her sucking progress can be seen more obviously now. She used to not even want to move her mouth, now you can hear her sucking away.

Today, PD is going to try Dorielle on oral feeding for every feed again. This time, if she doesn't lose weight again, she prob will be home within this week!

Yippee! ^_^

Confinement lady got sent back w/in 2 days

2009-03-09T12:48:00.003+08:00

We'll try to make the loooong story short.

1) The confinement lady (CL) has been bugging 嬷嬷, since Feb on whether mummy has delivered. Funny thing was, 嬷嬷 had already told her mummy's EDD was supposed to be in April, but would prob deliver in March. But the CL has been calling 嬷嬷 since FEB!

2) After mummy discharged from ESH, we had in mind to ask the CL (out from M'sia) only when Dorielle comes back. Hence mummy ordered confinement food catering for a week (back then we didn't know how long Dorielle was going to be in NICU). The CL kept bugging 嬷嬷 on how come mummy is back home & no need to eat...

Anyway, since mummy's catered food was only a week & also under the pressure from the CL, we asked her to come out last Wed, 4 March.

Here's what makes our blood boil...

1) Since the CL stepped into our house, there's non-stop grumbling abt how untidy our house is, our dog kept barking & dirtied the service yard (for laundry), etc etc... eh, mummy is in confinement, not supposed to touch water. daddy is already trying his best to be the 'confinement man' liao... If we can do everything ourselves, then why do we still need a CL?????

2) On wed evening, Davina came home. The CL suggested since Dorielle is not home yet, we can leave Davina @ home, she can look after. We decided, we should also let nanny rest a bit since she has been helping us a lot to take care of davina over the nights, so daddy didn't have to rush to pick her up & mummy can rest more, etc.

The terror started on Thursday...

1) Mummy asked the CL to iron clothes, she had a funny way of ironing daddy's shirts. When asked, she said she don't iron shirts for her son cos they don't need to wear shirts. But still, when doing confinement for other mummies previously?? Can't expect everyone to have a maid for household chores & a CL for mummy & baby strictly rite?

2) The CL cannot handle Davina. Davina is at a stage where she keeps talking. Nanny didn't mind her. The CL commented Davina is very talkative. *feel like slapping her* Davina has a habit of asking 'where?' lately. So whenever she asked 'mummy, where?', the CL will bring her to me, regardless of where i am! And she will then leave Davina with me & go to the living room & watch TV.

Even when mummy was in the toilet, the CL brought Davina & left her standing @ the toilet door knocking away whilst the CL 'returned' to the TV... !!????!!!?!?!?!?!

mummy realised at every opportunity there is she'd just sit and watch TV. There is absolutely no initiative! Hello??? I'm paying close to $2K for her to come & have a holiday??

Her excuse was Davina didn't want to follow her & keep asking for mummy. Gosh~! She cant 'entertain' Davina or distract her?

So for the whole of Thursday, Davina stucked to mummy like a leech.

Friday...

3) She claimed to have swept & even mopped the floor. When mummy could pick up hair & grains from the floor, she grumbled that our broom is no good, the mop is no good, etc etc... everything else's fault

This is not mummy's 1st confinement. In comparison, this CL doesn't seem to know how to do a proper confinement.

The ultimate incident that made mummy flared up & wanted her to leave immediately was... On Friday, Davina fell in mummy's room & knocked her head against the bed-side table, when mummy was asleep. The CL didn't come in to take a look @ Davina, even when mummy called for her, no response... When she finally came in, was with the intention to wake mummy up for dinner. When mummy asked what was she doing, why she didn't come to even check Davina out when she cried, etc... Guess the response?

The CL said she didn't hear Davina cry cos she was cooking in the kitchen. *faint, faint & faint again* Davina is a bigger child than dorielle. The CL couldn't hear her wailing? Then what will happen to our Dorielle if she was looking after Dorielle? Would Dorielle have to cry herself blue & out of breathe?

The thought is terrifying enough. Period.

Mummy called 嬷嬷 who sent the 2 舅舅 over, told daddy who was at work.

Finally Daddy called home & told her to go, whilst 大舅 was in the room with mummy & Davina (cos worried if she might do anything to us, esp Davina. So we reckon is best to keep Davina out of sight). Den 小舅 watched the CL packed her things & sent her off in a cab.

Now, daddy is back to being the 'confinement man' to handle all the household chores, Davina, everything in the house... but we never felt more at ease than this :)

Davina jiejie's 1st visit to see Dorielle

2009-03-05T00:33:00.006+08:00

Daddy sneaked mummy & brought Davina (noticed the diff? *grinz* to ESH to see Dorielle last evening cos Dorielle is the only baby in NICU @ this point, hence the nurses were nice to allow Davina in as well.

Bad news is, Dorielle is having weight lost for the past couple of days. Today, her weight is 1.89 kg which is a 200 grams decrease from her birth weight. PD did the necessary tests and found nothing wrong with her, but suspect Dorielle may be drained of her energy to drink from bottle. Hence PD ordered change in feeding, to alternate fully tube-feed & oral feed to see if her suspicion is correct.

Ok, the following may sound so story-like cos we're not sure whether Davina really understands what's going on or what we asked her. But we reckon she knows cos...

In the night, Davina lie on the bed beside mummy and looked deep in thoughts... So mummy asked her, "Are you thinking of something?" Davina kept quiet & stared @ mummy. And mummy asked her

"Are you thinking of 公公?" She shakes her head.

"Are you thinking of 嬷嬷?" She shakes her head.

Mummy went down the list, asked if she was thinking of daddy (who was in the study, playing PC games), 姨姨 & 舅舅. Davina shaked her head to all.

Finally, "Are you thinking of mei-mei?" Davina actually nodded. *faint* And she actually looked very sad. Then she pointed to her chin & said "pain pain", we reckon she was referring to the feeding tube Dorielle has which was taped to her chin! To Davina now, any plaster she sees means "pain".

Gosh, speechless...

Dorielle's milk intake progression

2009-03-03T10:55:00.006+08:00

PD called mummy this morning with an update of Dorielle's condition. Lil' girl has put on weight slightly! A mere 20 grams... but it means alot to this teeny-weeny little thing...

As for her feeds, her best was at 1 attempt of 20 ml... but feeds by Dorielle sucking milk on her own still fluctuates between 15 ml, (being the min now...) to her best at 20 ml... PD is concerned that if Dorielle is only doing 15 ml when she comes home, she will be under-nourished. Hence, only when Dorielle can do a constant 25 - 30 ml on her own, she should be able to return home. Hmmm...

We also highlighted to the PD that Davina was also "small drinker" when she was a newborn. She also started off with 1 Oz+ (approx 29.5 ml) when she first returned home. By the time of her full month celebration, think Davina was feeding at max 3 Oz (88.7 ml) only.

*note: we've had a couple of frens who followed some "standard amount" guide, which
1) mummy has never seen it in any mags or books (thk god)
2) we feed Davina on demand, ie when she wants.

Our davina was drinking, ok IS STILL drinking, lesser than her 'peers' if according to the guide but she's eating other stuff well, e.g. porridge, biscuits & watever nonsense she can get her 公公 to give her ^_^" So our conclusion, she's probably not a very "milk" baby. She only needs her "white drug" (daddy calls it) when she wants her sleep, and oh! we found, she will ask for her milk! She did once with 公公, she asked 公公 for "milk milk" and she wants to "yao yao" (which she refers to the baby swing @ 公公's house)

So, new mummies or mummies-to-be, our 2 cents advice: pls "listen" to your baby's needs instead of following a standard "2-week-old baby must drink at least xxxxxx" stuff. If you are reading up, there's also a period known as "growth spurt". So if baby wants more, den how? Hmmm... *wonder* ^_^

Anyway, our moods have been lifted bit by bit since the day Dorielle had her oxygen aid removed. Thks guys for praying for us & staying with us emotionally & spiritually.

Dorielle's 5th day

2009-02-28T23:43:00.010+08:00

Saturday, 28 February 2009
Is also a good thing to have Davina home for the weekend, for she distracted us from Dorielle for a while with her constant yakking & need for attention. We had to sit beside her to watch her fav cartoon, which is a recorded 1.5 hrs of “Thomas & friends”! Thou her attention on the TV was very short, but she’s insistent abt having us sit in the living room with her…

Mummy has been feeling constantly tired compared to the last time Mummy was in confinement with Davina. Instead of getting up early in the morning or sitting by the comp, mummy has found herself needing to sleep very much… and mummy can REALLY sleep 3 – 4 hrs in a stretch!

Today is Dorielle’s 5th day. Daddy went to ‘deliver’ milk himself, after dropping Davina off at 公公’s house so mummy can rest.

Bcos mummy didn’t need to rush home for dinner or the next milk pumping, daddy could take his time with Dorielle & he decided to stay till her feed @ 8pm to watch her drink her milk. Daddy says Dorielle appears to have no interest in sucking from the bottle at all… we’ve always thought babies are with the in-born sucking reflex, which is called “rooting” – i.e. searching for the nipple when baby’s face is stroked. Apparently, premmies haven’t reached that stage of development yet, hence it has to be an acquired skill for Dorielle. Anyway, Dorielle got tired after 5 – 10 ml of sucking her milk from bottle & the nurses had to let her finish her remaining feed thru tube. PD tried increasing Dorielle’s feed to 35ml which she rejected. Her tiny stomach allows only a max of 30 ml of milk before she (“vomits”) the milk.

Daddy is so overjoyed!! Dorielle has been taken off her drip today & with the help of the nurses, daddy finally has a chance to carry his precious. 1st time~!

Now we’re praying for Dorielle to acquire her skill to suck milk from the bottle before she can return home…

Friday, 27 February 2009

Today is Dorielle’s 4^th day. She has been breathing well on her own without any apnea attacks since removing her from the incubator.

She has progressed to 25 ml of milk. But she still needs to be tube-fed cos she tires out after sucking 5 ml of milk from the bottle.

Her jaundice has started to become more obvious, which PD says it’s very common from 3^rd day onwards for premmies. PD has started phototherapy, putting her under the blue light, for her.

Dorielle in Neonatal ICU

2009-02-26T15:44:00.007+08:00

Thursday, 26 February 2009

Jaundice has started. PD has placed Dorielle under phototherapy since 12 mn. But PD says this is common in premmies & is not a big area of concern. Davina had mild jaundice during her 2^nd week as well.

Dorielle is 4 days old now. She has been progressing bit by bit. According to the PD, who called mummy in the morning, she has been breathing on her own for 12 hrs (i.e. since 8 pm last nite till this morning when PD saw her at 8 am) without any apnea attacks. But she is still gonna be tube-fed cos she tires out and can’t suck milk from the bottle on her own. Till then, she still has to stay in NICU…

Many thanks to the couple of close frens we have, for their constant encouragement that really help to settle our emotions over Dorielle. Also, thanks to our nanny for taking care of Davina over the week so we didn’t have to shuttle or worry about Davina.

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

PD came by in the morning & said Dorielle is doing slightly better today, PD has decreased her oxygen aid a bit. 姨姨 says not to worry, lil one is a “tough nut” cos she is born in the year of Ox, same as mummy’s grandmother & 姨姨. So they have”the oxen spirit” *roll eyes*

Mummy discharged from the hospital today, with daddy. And before leaving the hospital, we popped by to see lil Dorielle… still attached with her tubes and all…

As at 8pm today, PD has switched off Dorielle’s mechanical ventilator and allowing her to breathe on her own. At the same time, PD has also started feeding 5ml of milk to Dorielle through a tube directly into her stomach, so she doesn’t have to exhaust any energy to suck.

Tuesday, 24 February 2009

PD also mentioned the next 48 hrs would be crucial for Dorielle to adapt to environmental oxygen and breathe on her own. She’s given oxygen aid as of now… Dorielle is put on drip cos PD wants to conserve all her energy on her breathing… we can’t hold her, nor feed her at all… Only Daddy & Mummy are allowed into the NICU cos premmies are more prone to virus, infections etc. There’s no windows to view into NICU as well… well, ICU, wat else do you expect?

According to the PD, who visited in the morning, Dorielle has shallow breathing, sometimes rapid sometimes slow, but more of a concern is she sometimes stops breathing and needs to be stimulated before she starts breathing again. They call this Apnea (also known as apnea of prematurity). Having apnea, or apnea spells, means there are times when they stop breathing. A baby with apnea:

-- suddenly stops breathing for more than 15 seconds

-- has a drop in heart rate below 90 beats a minute when the apnea occurs

-- becomes pale or bluish around the mouth and face during an apnea spell

-- starts breathing again by herself or needs help to restart breathing

The more immature the baby is, the more frequent the apnea spells are. As the baby matures, she outgrows the apnea. Dorielle had a couple of “apnea attacks” in the since last nite and needed to be stimulated to regain her breathing momentum. Dorielle will probably need to stay for a week in NICU, to ensure she breathe on her own without any more of such apnea attacks and can be fed milk.

We’re praying for the little one to buck up and breathe on her own.

Here's a couple of pics of Dorielle in NICU...

Needing to be kept under the box for oxygen aid...

A close-up pic. Looks like Davina when Davina was a new born?

Dorielle was on drip, and crying for milk.

But PD says she is not ready for milk yet...

Can you see the little one’s smile as she grasps mummy’s finger?

Early arrival of Dorielle

2009-02-26T15:32:00.008+08:00

P/S: Not for the faint-hearted or people who cannot stand details of child-birth. Anyway, this blog is also meant for Davina & Dorielle about their birth & growing up stages cos we reckon we won’t be able to recall all the tiny details to tell them then…

Monday, 23 February 2009 – from 8.00 pm to 11.00 pm

Seriously, daddies love their daughters most… 公公 came to see mummy after his work, although we’ve already told him, there’s nothing we’re doing except waiting for the natural labour. Nevertheless, he still came *loves*

Remember mummy was given the jab to hasten bb’s lungs maturity @ 8 pm? That hurts! @ the butt some more… Dorielle, you owe mummy 1…

After mummy was given the jab, 公公 decided to go for dinner and go home… Mummy also started having quite regular contractions @ abt 7 mins interval. After we timed the contractions for ½ hour & noticed the regularity, we called for the nurse to put on the monitoring machine.

Sure enough, the nurses called for our gynae who came in ½ hrs time & checked mummy’s dilation. 6 cm dilated & he could feel the membrane of the amniotic sac, which means it can break anytime now should Dorielle continue to ‘push’ her way out. Mummy was to be sent to the labour ward now to wait instead of waiting in the normal maternity ward.

gee, were still fooling around whilst waiting... :p

The dramatic delivery in 1 hour…

1) ‘Fight for gynae’s attention’

At 9 pm, mummy was changed into the hospital gown & waiting @ the labour ward… Mummy had wanted to experience the natural labour cos it seems the last time Davina was induced, Mummy had not really known what it feels like to have the water breaking, or the regular contractions, etc. Hence the determination to wait for the natural labour for Dorielle instead of inducing her birth.

Dr Lek checked the dilation again and decided to break the amniotic sac. Haha, this time, mummy was able to tell daddy how the water feels like… sounds silly, but this is the tiny bit of details in labour that not everyone gets to experience. Oh, and it’s a LOT of water compared to what mummy can recall for Davina’s delivery. Amidst the breaking of water and all, Dr Lek was chatting with us, telling us that he’d at most get 2 – 3 premmie cases like ours in a year, but we’ve got both our girls being premmies! And he always had to ‘tahan’ for us, hahaha… don’t he sound like a very daddy figure? Indeed, he is… this old gentleman’s 2 daughters are even older den mummy.

Den a nurse came in to ask for Dr Lek and we heard this other couple outside our ward, being scolded by our gynae that the lady should have admitted into the hospital when she started having pains, etc etc… Woah! 1st time we hear Dr Lek scold people…

Dr Lek popped in back to our ward again and told us, the other lady was 3 cm dilated, whilst mummy is 6 cm dilated. Dorielle should be coming out 1st… at this point, Dr Lek’s other patient asked for epidural, so he had to run over again…

Mummy started having the regular and intensed labour pains… the nurse who was with us, was very kind & keep speaking to mummy trying to distract mummy & also patting mummy…

We heard the lady in the other ward screaming away & for once, it frightened mummy…

Thank goodness daddy was calm enough, he played the “bible songs for children” in his MP4 which we play to Davina. The children’s chirpy singing was comforting for mummy. The nurse who was with us is also a Christian and started singing along with us. Even the senior midwife who came in to prepare for equipments for delivery is a Christian and started sharing abt children Christian songs! Praise the LORD for the angels HE has placed where we needed them.

Mummy told the nurses she’s having the urge to push already, cos mummy could feel Dorielle’s head coming out but the nurses had helped to asked mummy to try & hold the urge to push, else it would result in a tear, instead of episiotomy (which is a surgical cut for bb’s head to pass thru)…

2) Dorielle’s hand was placed on her head

Dr Lek was done with the other lady & came running back in. He could see Dorielle’s head crowning, and he said “DON’T PUSH the baby yet!” cos he felt Dorielle’s hand was placed on her head!

Gee, what a headache, literally! Not only for Dorielle, but for us and Dr Lek! Dr Lek tried to push her tiny hands back & stimulate her to withdraw her hand, meanwhile he kept apologizing (wonder to mummy or to Dorielle?? :p) whilst mummy, daddy & the 2 nurses kept ‘coaxing’ Dorielle to pull her hand back… finally after 5 mins, Dorielle’s hand was away from her head & Dr Lek heaved a sigh of relief. Den he said, push when the urge comes.

Believe it or not, Dorielle was even easier than Davina’s 4 pushes! Dorielle came out in 2 pushes! 1st push, mummy already felt her whole head was out; 2nd push had her whole body out. Dr Lek then placed Dorielle on mummy. This time, Dorielle didn’t cry immediately like Davina, instead the senior midwife had to use a pump to suck water from her mouth & nose. Then we heard Dorielle’s cries.

3) Dead-knot found on Dorielle’s umbilical cord

After delivering the baby, Dr Lek had to ensure the placenta was delivered as well. This time, mummy’s tummy didn’t expel the placenta quite quickly, Dr Lek had to tug it a bit and we heard his exclamation. He had the placenta out, and there was a dead-knot on the umbilical cord… *faint*

Had the dead-knot tightened somehow when it’s in the tummy, we could have lost Dorielle as a stillborn… this is a very horrifying thought… we’ve heard stories and all, but imagining it happening to you, we doubt anyone would be able to… and all was still fine during mummy’s scan in Dr Lek’s clinic just 36 hours ago… no abnormalities were detected…

Whilst mummy is still being stitched by Dr Lek, Daddy moved over to see Dorielle in the warmer. The nurses had weighed her & wrapped her, when we were shocked to see the tied umbilical cord, so daddy didn’t manage to capture her pic on the weighing machine. When the nurses ‘reported’ Dorielle’s weight to Dr Lek, Dr Lek asked them to weigh again. Reason: We had all expected Dorielle to be bigger than Davina cos her scans, compared to Davina’s @ same no of weeks of gestation, were all larger then Davina. We had expected her to be somewhat abt 2.5 kg, like Davina, as well.

Dorielle weighs 2.09 kg. way lighter than we expected… even shocked Dr Lek a bit…

Was it bcos of the knot on her umbilical cord that she wasn’t getting the nutrients? Was it bcos she wasn’t growing well, hence she wants to come out so quickly?

The thought that came to mind for both Daddy & Mummy were,
Truly, Dorielle is gift sent by GOD. Just as her name means, small gift.

4) Dorielle needs respiration aid

Daddy saw the nurses doing tests on Dorielle. It would have been the normal tests for APGAR scores (a simple and repeatable method to quickly and summarily assess the health of newborn children immediately after childbirth).

What daddy saw next, he had kept quiet about it to mummy till we returned to the maternity ward… First aiders probably would recognize it right away. Place above Dorielle’s head is what we call an oxygen mask, a mobile respiratory aid.

Daddy had bad gut feels… but he kept quiet… and true enough, the nurses went out to call the pediatrician (PD) to seek her advice whether they should bring Dorielle under observation in the nursery. When the PD heard she’s only 34 weeks of gestation, her orders were to send Dorielle to the Neonatal ICU (NICU) instead. Bcos, Dorielle had very shallow breathing… (this was told to us by the PD after she came to see Dorielle in the NICU @ abt 11.30 pm when we were back in the maternity ward)

Here’s presenting our 2nd princess, Dorielle Sin, delivered @ 2204 hours in East Shore hospital, weighing 2.09 kg.

Just like the delivery of Davina, mummy had no pain relief & was very alert after the delivery, except this time, mummy was feeling colder than before. So much so that the nurses gave mummy 2 blankets & mummy was still shivering away…

Anyway, whilst in the labour ward, we were happily announcing Dorielle’s arrival to公公 & 嬷嬷, even Davina’s nanny… We’d even typed & saved the announcement sms in our mobiles. That was before we were told Dorielle is going into the NICU.

At this point, both Daddy & Mummy were a bit too distraught to announce the arrival of Dorielle.
Decided Daddy should go home & get some rest den come again tmr morning to understand Dorielle’s condition better. Before leaving Mummy, Daddy made a comment… He didn’t even get a chance to carry his daughter this time… Don’t think anyone will be able to understand the pain. Mummy still has 公公 & 嬷嬷, 姨姨 & 2 舅舅 … but daddy only has mummy, Davina and now Dorielle…

Mummy didn’t dare to call公公 & 嬷嬷 (@ 11.30 pm…) to tell them about Dorielle being in ICU… Thks to 姨姨 & 2 舅舅, who were the immediate sources of support & the 2 舅舅were still smsing with mummy @ 2am cos mummy just couldn’t sleep…

Mummy's early admission into East Shore Hospital

2009-02-25T22:54:00.006+08:00

Monday, 23 February 2009 – before 6 pm

Mummy was woken up at 5 am by Dorielle’s constant kicking, tossing & turning… god knows what she is trying to do inside… she constantly moved till abt 7.30 am… when mummy had the contractions monitoring machine strapped on, there was no signs of contractions at all. All that showed on the chart erratic movements cos of Dorielle’s tossing & turning! So when gynae came, he said we still won’t induce @ this point. But from the looks of the contraction frequency, mummy could possibly go into labour tomorrow… he didn’t want to do another cervical check so as not to stimulate the dilation, so we left it as that. However, gynae wants mummy to be given a jab, with purpose to hasten the strengthening of bb’s lungs, just in case mummy is dilated too much to wait for the natural labour symptoms. The jab will take full effect in 12 hours, hence the jab will be administered @ 8 pm…

Mummy was saying Dorielle can’t make up her mind whether to come out or not, daddy said mummy confused her cos 1 min mummy says can come out if she feels ready & is healthy enough. But it’s frustrating to sit and wait and nothing happens, mummy will ‘scold’ dorielle for trying to be funnie. Gee, mummy is the impatient one, ok? She is also wasting daddy’s AL to sit in the hospital & wait for nothing… Humph~!

Mummy had meant it to be, “if you don’t want to come out so soon, then don’t keep giving mummy the pre-mature contractions & dilation nonsense that makes us tensed and nervous about expecting your arrival.” Anyways, mummy is not thinking straight sometimes, how to communicate the correct statement? Hahaha… Mummy’s brain @ pregnancy = forgetfulness, this mummy is at a more serious stage ;p

Mummy even got daddy to bring along her notebook to hospital today, so at least mummy could blog or facebook or do sthg whilst waiting… mummy has been bored to tears, even switching TV channels don’t help…

Sunday, 22 February 2009

After bed rest for 1.5 weeks, mummy was due for gynae checkup on 22 Feb. Despite the bed rest, mummy was still dilated @ 4 cm. Gynae had mummy to admit into hospital cos mummy was already 4 cm dilated despite the ordered 10 days of bed rest prior… Left Davina with 公公 & 嬷嬷, den 公公 drove daddy & mummy to East Shore Hospital... in the hospital, they had mummy strapped to a machine to monitor contractions at intermittent hours.

Gynae initially ordered CRIB (i.e. Complete Rest In Bed = cannot even get down the bed to the toilet!!) Goodness, what kinda torture is that??? Hee, mummy managed to get the nurses to call Dr. Lek for permission to just RIB, anyway was staying in a 2-bedder room and was on the bed next to the toilet... dotx... but that is abt all the distance mummy was allowed to move ard... Come on, CRIB is plain torture, ok?

Since there was nothing much for daddy to do and mummy’s contractions were irregular, daddy went home to rest & clean up the house a bit. At the 7 – 9 pm monitoring time, mummy’s contractions were a bit more regular @ 8 – 10 mins interval. The nurses even brought the chart to show the midwife @ the labour ward & asked mummy the pain level out of a scale of 1 – 10. Hee, wrong qn to ask… mummy went thru 1 delivery without any epidural or pain relief. Ok, mummy gave them 4/10, and the nurse said 1-3 is bearable, 4-6 is pain already. So mummy told the nurse, if I rate delivery without pain relief as 8-9/10, den what does 4/10 mean? Hee… still trying to be funnie… :p

At 10 pm, think the nurses called our gynae & gynae asked them to give mummy the same type of muscle relaxant that he had prescribed earlier, cos mummy didn’t bring along the ones he gave. Was told by the nurses to press call bell if the contractions intervals are about or less than 5 mins… He was trying to use the muscle relaxant to reduce the contractions as far as possible, cos Dorielle has only hit 34 full weeks today.

This time together with our gynae, we chose NOT to induce birth at all, cos 34 weeks is still too early for bb to come, and we have been warned the risk of bb having to stay in incubator or icu… however if there’s further dilation despite the CRIB or water breaks naturally, then no choice will have to deliver… Else, like wat our gynae said “can tahan 1 day is minimizing 1 week stay in icu”…

So for now, it’s a waiting game with baby Dorielle…

Ordered bed rest

2009-02-16T11:52:00.001+08:00

Since the day of contractions last Wed, mummy went to gynae on Thursday morning for an earlier den scheduled check-up. Dr Lek ordered immediate bed rest till mummy's next scheduled check-up, but since this is at least 8 weeks from mummy's EDD, Dr Lek decided to give out-patient MC instead of Maternity Leave MC.

Since it's gonna be a long while before mummy either go & deliver or go back to work, decided to pop back office to grab my laptop.

In office, a colleague shared her story of losing her 1st born due to either a mis-calculation of her EDD or for some unexplained reasons. She commented that our gynae is very good, cos apart from the bed rest, Dr Lek also pre-amped us, way during Davina's time:
1) bb's lungs are only fully developed after 34 weeks. If bb is born before 34 weeks, bb is going into the incubator, no qns asked - period. Incubator is required to regulate bb's temp & provided oxygen to the lil fella who cannot breathe on her own.
2) in davina's case, she has to be at least 2.5 kg at birth.

Thk GOD, Davina was 2.72kg at birth & could breathe on her own w/o any complications. Except, we noticed she was placed quite frequently @ the warmer.

J, sorry to remind you of D. But also, thanks for sharing. Appreciate your encouragement. Will take care of myself & my un-born Dorielle.

More frequent contractions...

2009-02-11T15:27:00.007+08:00

Mummy has been on urgent leaves on 3 separate occasion since beginning of Feb till date, due to the contraction pains. But it has always been false alarms which last a couple of hours and nothing thereafter. Except today... the contractions was at frequent intervals of btn 5 - 10 mins & lasting 30 - 50 secs each... we started timing...

This morning, it was the same. Unfortunately gynae's clinic is closed today. Mummy had to call the emergency call centre where they contacted our gynae to call us back. He told mummy to increase the dosage of muscle relaxant he gave and observe for a couple more hours. If the contractions dont subside in frequency, mummy will have to either have to call him back or go to ESH...

Sighz... Dorielle, this is not funnie to have contractions for a couple of hrs then you go off to sleep whilst letting us guess if we should go to the hospital or not ^_^" Ok, but Davina did the same thing... *roll eyes* (See Gynae visit @ 34 weeks , with only 8 days in between and it went on to: Early induced or pop?)

Dorielle is only 32 weeks & 4 days as @ today...

our last gynae visit on 1 Feb was when Dorielle was only 31 wks 1 day, and gynae has commented that she might be starting to position herself, cos her head has turned down. of cos baby can still turn back / ard whatever at this point, which babies usually turn head down & position themselves @ 34 wks onwards. But Dorielle is lying pretty low already.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Grumbling intended... thoughts spun from as a results of various sources*

All we can say is, "if given a choice, who would want to have to worry constantly about having a premmie who is at risk of having to sleep in an incubator to regulate her temperature & breathing because she is a premmie & she is not fully developed to breathe on her own?"

You probably dont understand because you need not go through such anxiety.

* "Mean-ness" intended * if you'd like to think this is intentional or punk intended, this is NOT funny. We will not bother to try & explain anything, cos anyway you wont believe. What goes around comes around. Good luck then.

We are prepared to give up anything, to have our child safe. ANYTHING.

You have the resources to care for your family. Our family is on our own. *Sympathy not required* We have GOD. Anyway, if the 'concern' is not sincere, you can keep it for yourself. We have sincere friends around us.

Lunar New Year pics...

2009-02-11T15:25:00.011+08:00

well, mummy's fav statement of the 'niu' year has been: "Beloved Davina has more than enough new year clothes to last her a week without repeating!" Yes, she has that many new year clothes from Auntie Pat, nanny & 公公.

Our Reunion dinner @ 公公's house....

Davina's new PJ & new bedsheets

1st day of CNY

Left gonggong's house, going to daddy's 1st uncle's hse

2nd day of CNY @ Davina's Great-grandmother's
(i.e. mummy's maternal grandmother) place

D-Sin family

公公 & 嬷嬷

This is "Lao-ma" (in Teochew = great-grandmother)
As usual, likes to force feed...
she does the same to us, the grandchildren... *roll eyes*
Haha, but apparently Davina doesn't like what she's given

Left: the "Soong-4" as usual, this time + a lil Sin
Right: 嬷嬷 & 姨姨 had to hold Lao-ma's head cos she kept
looking down @ Davina instead of the camera ^_^"

Lil girl is pinching food silently,
caught on candid by 姨姨

Another 嬷嬷, mummy's godmother
(Back: god-sis-in-law who is closer to mummy, Mummy & mummy's god-sis)
Girl beside Davina, is Darlene!
yes, that is why we didn't use the name Darlene for Davina back then ^_^

"Pinky" family

GOD spoke to us

2009-02-05T13:25:00.002+08:00

GOD spoke to us… @ different timings, on the same day… Isn’t HE wonderful?

Yes, HE spoke about Dorielle’s arrival…

In comparison to Davina…

Davina
Expected Date of Delivery: 28 April 2007
Date of birth: 30 March 2007
Weeks @ DOB: 35 weeks

Dorielle
Expected Date of Delivery: 4 April 2009
Date of birth: ... ...
Weeks @ DOB: ... ...

Now Dorielle is at 32 weeks only… Mummy hasn’t been updating her pregnancy journey RE Dorielle as much as we did for Davina, yah? Pretty much amidst the gynae check-ups and all, it has all been good, other than the pox scare and the detailed fetal scan. Mummy still has similar symptoms of pre-mature contractions for Dorielle, just like mummy had it for Davina. If we recall, we were all jittery and nervous about Davina’s early arrival (see post). This time, we are not so tensed about Dorielle, probably cos Dorielle seems bigger than Davina back then. And contractions for Dorielle are less frequent & less regular, thou to be safe, our gynae still put mummy on muscle relaxant pills and this time it’s 1.5 pills (Davina’s was 1 pill only~!) and the pills will cause drowsiness… Our guess, it’s a stronger dosage cos the last type of muscle relaxant didn’t work for Davina, that’s why she’s out in 35 weeks~! :p

*roll eyes* Then again, we are so stereotyping about not being so nervous over Dorielle’s possibility of earlier birth hor? Bigger means healthier, but honestly this is not the right mentality. Haha… whilst mummy is typing this, it occurs to me that we are contradicting ourselves. Heck, it’s for my girls to read when about mummy’s pregnancy with them & their early stages of growing up + daddy & mummy’s thoughts and feelings…

Gynae told us during our last check-up, popping any time during March will be good enough, cos Dorielle will have crossed the 36 weeks mark... fyi, bb's lung fully developed and mature @ 34 weeks... Hence we were joking about Dorielle's DOB cant be the same as Davina (30 March) from the current looks. But we can try 03 March, which makes it easier to buy 4D... Hahaha 3003 or 0303, or whatever way you wish to ibet, it's only 6 sets of nos to buy... :p opps~! *grinz*

Anyway, back to GOD’s anointing on Dorielle’s arrival…

On mummy’s way to work yesterday morning, this thought suddenly dawn on mummy: “It should be abt 2 – 3 weeks from now.”

Mummy didn’t mention anything to anyone. Later in the night whilst we were spending time with Davina in her playroom (Note: she was playing with her toys, we were lazing around & talking, haha ^_^”) daddy suddenly blurt out that on his way back home after his co’s Lunar NY dinner earlier, this thought dawned on him: “Baby can come out anytime after 20th Feb.”

Stunned~! We are talking about the same week~!! Last week of Feb… as we talk further, we realized seriously, there was no rational for this period of date or whatsoever. It was ‘planted’ into our minds, just like that. Isn’t this ‘thought’ thingy amazing? I can’t say we are very staunch Catholic/Christian, but I have to give this testimonial. GOD has done a lot of wonderful things in our lives since we’ve both returned to HIS arms. We knew GOD from young, drifted away and were brought back into HIS family over the recent years. And since, we have experienced and received the undeserving favours from HIM in all areas of our lives, be it family r/ships, financial matters, career moves, the gifts of Davina and Dorielle…

This time, we are not counting down to EDD already… how to count? Based on which date? 4 April, 3 March or 20 Feb? Hahahaha…

Jnr 2's name - 孙洁婷 , Dorielle

2009-02-01T22:44:00.008+08:00

Hee hee, sorry to disappoint you who have been waiting for the name poll... But our daddy dearest has pretty much got the name, Dorielle, stuck in his brain and blood...

Daddy's dad, i.e. Davina's 爷爷, once again helped to count the Chinese character strokes in Jnr 2's Chinese name. This time was a tough decision making process... We thought it's nice to keep one of their chinese characters the same, and since Davina has been taught her name was "宁宁"(Ning Ning) since young, we couldn't possibly have both girls called "宁宁" as they grow, hence decided to keep the 2nd character of their Chinese name the same - which is "洁"(Jie).

And cos Jnr 2 is going to be born in the Year of Ox, hence 爷爷 said preferably the last character has some form of significance related to "草"(grass) = food for the ox. Unfortunately most of the Chinese characters with 草字头 has meaning associated with plants or chemicals... Gee... how 'obiang' can that sound... And similar to Davina's Chinese name, the number of strokes in Jnr 2's name, in both traditional and simplified chinese characters have to be an auspicious number for her.

We have considered Jie En, Jie Tong, Jie Ying, Jie Fang, Jie Lian, etc etc... and out of 15 characters daddy and mummy choose, 爷爷 only said the only acceptable ones (in terms of no of strokes) are

Jie 苹 (Ping) which has the meaning of clover fern (a plant) or apple,
Jie 萍 (Ping, as well) which has the meaning of duckweed; symbol of uncertain life, chance meeting - Er... mummy don't like the meanings - floating weed, uncertainty and all *roll eyes*... and lastly
Jie 婷 (Ting) which sounds and has the nicest meaning of all - graceful

And, having 'surveyed' with peeps closer to us, i.e. 公公, 嬷嬷, nanny and all, the decision for Jnr 2's name in her birth certificate will be Sin Kit Teng, Dorielle /孙洁婷.

Baby Name == Dorielle
Origin == French
Meaning == A small gift, which we think she is, despite the pox mummy had during 1st trimester & also a not-so-easy pregnancy, she is still a god-sent gift, whether big or small ^_^

People with this name tend to be decisive and good with money. They try to have a balance between the physical and the spiritual worlds. They can often be a successful entrepeneur, and are often striving to reach ever higher goals and positions.

Previous post: Meaning of Davina & Davina's Chinese Name

Let's see, we have in our home - a Dearly-loved King David, Moody Doreen, Beloved Davina & Gift Dorielle. Mummy is the only one who falls into the negative category??? Gee~! What were 公公 and 嬷嬷 thinking 27 yr ago?? Hahahaha...

Update of pics

2009-01-20T21:57:00.010+08:00

What happens when mummy is getting too tired to blog? You get a "picture feast"~!

Back-dated pics...

Not exactly the nicest pics for Davina...
Taken during the Xmas gathering we had previously

This looks really fierce~!

Davina's little treat @ nearby playground,

usually after our Sat breakfast...

Taken when we did a bit of Xmas shopping @ Suntec

Somehow at this stage, Davina still dont quite fancy these moving rides... *wonder* oh, but these rides are sure expensive!!! Daddy & mummy's times were just 20 cents, it's at least a dollar now! OMG~! We certainly hope Davina doesn't fall into the "i-want-a-ride-or-i'd-throw-my-tantrum" trap

Super random...

Dont ask where Davina learns this facial expression from!!!

We have no slightest idea till we caught it!!!

17 Jan 2009

It's been a long while since we took a family pic...
Taken @ Uncle Desmond's wedding dinner,
sweet little princess~

Been feeling the strain of Jnr 2 now, getting a bit tired... this is 30th week, still have the similar symptoms of pre-mature contractions as the time when mummy had Davina, but this time is slightly less frequent and with the previous experience, we know mummy shouldn't be walking about too much... all in all, Jnr 2 looks alot bigger than Davina (think we've been saying this, opps!) and we reckon she should be heavier, if not bigger sized than her jie jie.

Happy Wedding Anniversary~!

2009-01-07T00:14:00.005+08:00

Today marks our 3rd wedding anniversary & it's been 8 years all together... Gee, looking back, we've endured quite a bit to get where we are and we thank GOD for guiding us through...

No fanciful stuff, just simply enjoying each other's company... started with extra time to sleep-in late~! Hahaha... much needed rest...

Caught a movie @ PS after lunch, Daddy wanted to watch Ip Man.

It's a good show, worth the watch.

Now we are planning to catch Red Cliff II...

Dinner @ Carl's Jr... our lesson learnt: Never order 2 sets! Hahaha... one is enough to share + the drinks are refillable, so daddy had enough of his ice lemon tea. Sounds so 'sua ku' rite? Geez~! Anyway, it's nice burgers & fries. We reckon we'd prefer letting Davina eat Carl's Jr's fries den Mac or KFC's cos 1) it's chunky, easy to hold 2) it's not salty - most impt! 3) bcos our little 'gan dang kid' fav fries @ a 'healthy' presentation, or so it seems. ^_^

Oh, the best part, it's Wednesday - we were supposed to pick little girl from nanny's place, but 小舅舅 had volunteered to pick her up for us, hence giving us the luxury of time! We just had to pick her up from 公公's hse~!

Isn't our family great?

Mummy's 1st ever pre-natal fitness class

2009-01-03T21:44:00.003+08:00

yes, you are not hearing wrong, hahaha... mummy has never been the VERY sporty kinda person, so... this prenatal class is not streneous anyway, hahaha... it was just some simplified aerobics moves + a little usage of fitball, more of stretching exercises.

the best part is daddy accompanied mummy and waited for 1 hr! Isn't he amazing sometimes? ^_^

Why the pre-natal fitness class this time?

In mummy's last pregnancy with Davina, Davina was 'low-lying' and weighing on mummy's pelvic bone (see previous post). We guessed that also contributed to the reason for Davina being a premmie. This time, it's pretty much the same for Jnr 2. She is also 'low-lying' and the strain on mummy's pelvic bone started earlier than in the case of Daivina, also Jnr 2 is heavier... We've asked gynae, but he says cant do anything about it cos it's baby pressing on the pelvic bone. Mummy was looking around for some way to ease the strain, and came across this pre-natal fitball class in KKH which supposedly helps in strengthening pelvic floor. So here's mummy giving it a go~!

Can only pray that Jnr 2 isn't going to be a premmie as well. Arrive anytime after 36 weeks at least, pls... gynae's request, dotx... Davina was considered a borderline premmie cos she was born abt 34 - 35 weeks.

Davina? Needless to say... she is with... her beloved 嬷嬷, of cos ^_^

Happy 2009 to all!

2009-01-01T12:39:00.003+08:00

Wishing all a good year ahead, despite the economic turmoil that is happening around the world. May all be blessed!

For us, 1 Jan 09 is a simple day...
At 12 mn sharp, we had no countdowns, no drinking, no partying... how boring, eh? Hahaha... just the 3 of us, spending time together in our room cos Davina refused to sleep! Gee, talk about being a night animal...

mummy has registered our precious for her childcare @ Angel Care Centre near nanny's place... after discussion and all, we've decided to let Davina have a feel and get used to going to 'school' before Jnr 2 arrives so that Davina will not feel it's bcos of Jnr 2 that we are sending her off to sch/childcare. Hopefully by the time Jnr 2 arrives, Davina would have gotten used to the activities @ her childcare centre... and since mummy's edd is 4 April, Davina will start going to sch from March 09 onwards ^_^

Merry Xmas!

2008-12-26T07:15:00.006+08:00

Merry Xmas to all~! & Happy birthday to mama~!

Our yearly xmas is pretty much the same ~ celebration of mama's birthday! Yes, mama is a xmas baby...

Our gifts...

Clothes for Davina from 公公's neighbour & Uncle Marcus' mum

Left to right: mummy's gift from 姨姨 (bag), daddy's gift from 姨姨 (Pierre Cardin name card holder) & daddy's gift from mummy (Goldlion's bag)

courtesy from mummy's colleagues to Davina

Dinner with 姨姨

2008-12-24T07:26:00.004+08:00

@ yishun's new extension building... we were supposed to be shopping for 舅舅's xmas prezzies, but ended up window shopping ^_^"

nice japanese food court, yes it's food court style & price...
ALL Japanese food, drinks & desserts... We're going again, soon~!

Little precious waits while 姨姨 gets our food

Here's 姨姨 & her food...

Worth mentioning, 姨姨 got our little precious some tuna maki with the intention that it'll be easier for her to eat. But our dearest thought sushi was hot and blew on it to "cool it down", and when it went into her mouth, her expression was "in-describ-able". Anyway, it's her 1st attempt at cold sushi /food, other than ice cream. She still prefers 姨姨 & mummy's warm rice.

Proceeded to BakerzInn for our "coffee break",
taken whilst waiting for our drinks & cheesecake

Mummy with Rose tea... calming ^_^

lil girl "complaining" about the mark on her leg...
Baby being baby, she just wanna "yang oh" & wants a bit of "sayang" lahz...

Early Xmas gathering

2008-12-21T10:51:00.007+08:00

We held a simple gathering with mummy's dearest group of frens - the Welfare peeps from Red Cross.

Come to think, this group of frens have stuck together for so long that we (as in mummy & frens) literally knew each other from sec sch days, despite us all coming from different schs across Singapore, thru tertiary days where we studied together @ Red Cross HQ, stepped into the working society, get attached & married and have kids... This frenship is sthg unbeatable & close to heart. One of the seniors commented, we can 'fight' it out, bang tables and chairs over meetings for projects & camps, and still see us having dinner or tea together after the meeting ~ no hard feelings. This, is sthg that the younger ones lack? Which explains why it's all only the seniors @ the gathering? *wonder* ^_^"

This is also sthg that mummy has been thinking abt lately ~ is the Gen Y and/or Millennium generation really so different?

Anyway, pics of the night...

The pot-luck food... was taken quite early of the night, not all the food has arrived yet...

the 'old' peeps...

the prezzies

Prezzies with log cake...
wonder why Davina's Doraemon soft toy is in the pic?
It's her 'gift'...Hahaha... pretty lame of us

Meanwhile... waiting for Auntie Soo Yi to send mummy the best pics of the nite... the gift exchange~! ^_^

Prior to gathering, pics of our cheeky monkey...

Cheeky fella @ home on Friday night

Taken when we brought Davina out for lunch... dont ask why this facial expression! She wanted to take photo, yes she WANTED... she took mummy's phone and went 'zhao zhao' which we realised was 'pai zhao' (i.e. take photo)... How clever can kids get? ^_^"

Hospital visit with 公公

2008-12-21T10:18:00.011+08:00

Last yr time time, we blogged about 公公's mild heart attack & hospitalization... Here we are, accompanying 公公 on his medical review, else the stubborn old man will 'siam' at any chance. Mummy took a day's leave from work, and 公公 & mummy fetch Davina prior to the hospital app...

Here's Davina with 公公 @ the hospital

Davina was trying to identify the source of a 'ding dong' sound, which came from the queue machine...

公公 feeding water to his precious

Davina's current fav ~ Xmas tree

Aftermath... @ Bishan J8
cos 公公 wanted to go 'walk walk',
hence we waited for daddy & 姨姨 for dinner @ J8 as well...

Random pics...

This pic was taken quite a long while back, and was sitting in daddy's phone all along...
How can we miss such a nice pic???
One look & no mistake abt the 'ang ku kueh' faces (i.e. same)

Taken on train...
Now Davina likes to hold on to the pole herself...
We figured, it's her stage on gaining independence. ^_^

Project Red Cross Love 2008

2008-12-15T14:34:00.005+08:00

Project that has been running for 12 years now... with 400 elderly beneficiaries & 100 children beneficiaries this year...

This year @ Pioneer Junior College, 姨姨 and 大舅舅's first time with Project Red Cross Love, even though 姨姨 has joined mummy in volunteering with Lions Befrienders previously. Daddy? He was never into volunteering till he knew mummy, but then again he didn't 'jump' into volunteering immediately either. It took, let's see, abt 2 yrs after we've been together that daddy joined mummy in PRCL and was assigned as a 'toilet I/C' to look after the elderly uncles... Daddy has never looked back since... now, daddy is an experienced 'Road Marshall' of PRCL ^_^ and of cos he joins mummy in all the Red Cross volunteering events whenever...

Pics, courtesy of 姨姨

@

Free shoulder and hand massages for elderly

Left: Memory games for elderly
Right: Coordination games, played with coloured flags

Free haircut for elderly

Lil children enjoying handicraft sessions,
brought to them by NIE folks

Scale of project,
this is only in the college's parade square,
there are activities in the college hall as well

Aftermath of PRCL...

daddy's tired face, hahaha...

Daddy & mummy

mummy & 姨姨

大舅舅 was in-charge of the PA system in the college hall @ this time for sit-down performances specially prepared for the beneficiaries, whilst it's daddy, mummy and 姨姨's 'rest time' after the hectic activities @ the parade square ^_^

Davina @ PRCL meeting

2008-12-10T17:10:00.003+08:00

Davina is a big distraction @ meetings... and it's not difficult to see why ^_^

Auntie Soo Yi with Davina

Davina says "Hi"

Oh? What is daddy doing behind me?

Fluctuating temperatures

2008-12-04T23:25:00.003+08:00

After the KKH episode on Sunday afternoon, we have been monitoring Davina's temperature very closely on Monday. We kept her with mummy @ home on Monday... she was alright by afternoon, except... seperation distance allowed is 0.01mm!!! i.e. she doesnt allow mummy to be detached for even 1/2 inch...

Oh well, that's what people say about babies when they are feeling unwell. They stick like glue...

Come Tuesday, Davina's fever didnt return hence we left her with nanny.

But Wednesday evening when we were supposed to pick her up from nanny's place, we also received a call from nanny saying that Davina is feverish again... But by the time we brought her back home, fever was gone.

A similar episode of feverish on Thursday night, mummy rushed to nanny's place on Thursday, only to find Davina's fever has subsided after a dose of children's panadol. Mummy didnt bring Davina home since her fever has gone down. And we trust nanny to help us monitor this lil girl... When mummy was leaving nanny's place, lil girl's seperation anxiety kicked in. Thks to having Kenny to distract her with his computer & guitar, soon lil girl forgot her mummy was going home without her ^_^" and mummy sneaked out of nanny's house

Gee~ stupid virus and fever...

Davina's 2nd time to KKH

2008-11-30T18:07:00.005+08:00

29 Oct 08, Saturday

Daddy & mummy left Davina with 公公 & 嬷嬷 over the weekend as we had daddy's company's D&D to attend

Didnt pick Davina up after the D&D on Sat night cos it was too late & 小舅舅 msged mummy Davina was asleep...

To our dismay when we reached 公公嬷嬷's house on Sunday, from merely touching her, we knew Davina was having fever. But she was afraid of the normal thermometer used @ 公公's house, she simply refused to allow anyone to take her temperature and unfortunately non of 公公, 嬷嬷, 姨姨 or 舅舅 realised her fever was actually beyond 39 deg C!

Mummy used half a cheese cake to bluff the little princess, in order for her to allow mummy to put the thermometer under her armpit. So you can imagine... when mummy saw the temp @ 39.5 deg C, there was no need to wait for the beep or whatsoever!

We just grabbed a bag, her barangs & go!

At KKH's A&E... Davina's 2nd time here... but this time she is smarter, hahaha... Due to the high fever, a finger prick was done to collect Davina's blood for test. Brave princess we have! She didnt cry when the nurse pricked her finger, nor make any noise when her finger was pressed for her blood to be collected in a small tube. It was really towards the end, we reckon she could not stand the pain any longer that she whined and let one a cry. But by the time she cried, the nurse was pretty much done and proceeded to put on a plaster @ the prick site.

See the princess' finger & plaster

Lil girl will hold her finger up and say "pain pain"

It was an hour's waiting time for the blood test result. Hence we proceeded to look for food... settled @ MacDonalds...

Now she cries whenever she sees the plaster
*wonder: slow reaction?? *

To stop her crying, pacifier is welcomed!

And daddy also sacrificed his Creative Zen,

with a downloaded "Nemo" for our precious darling

Settled down after a while, hugging her "mon mon"...

Good thing abt Davina, she spits out her pacifier after she's fallen asleep

Daddy was unwell himself before & after his D&D... running slight fever too...

Here's our 2 feverish precious watching some TV whilst waiting for Davina's turn to see doc...

This is sthg new! We never knew she could say “cold” until daddy tried sponging her (were given sponge & cold water in KKH to try to bring her temp down). When she saw daddy coming close with the sponge, she squirmed and said “mai ah” (Don’t want in Hokkien, taught by嬷嬷). When daddy placed the sponge on her, she went “Papa! Cold cold…” *stunned* we were lost for words for a moment! We’ve always been the ones to ask her, “Davina, are you feeling hot/cold?” and she just nods or shakes her head. This is what we call 狗急跳墙 (fuzzily translated: Despair gives courage to a coward), hahaha… In an attempt to stop daddy from doing sthg to her, Davina actually said a word which we’ve not heard from her mouth before ^_^"

The whole process till we left KKH? Took 4 hrs !! And daddy decided to purchase a Braun ear thermometer for his precious as she's not afraid of the ear thermometer in the hospital... there goes $125... Sighz, an episode like this? Cost close to $250 (incl the new thermometer)... Talk abt the expenses incurred by children when they fall sick... *tsk tsk*

Random pics

2008-11-29T11:07:00.006+08:00

Some random pics taken over the past 2 weeks...

17 Oct 08, Monday

We decided to let Davina feed herself with her own piece of pizza (daddy & mummy's dinner)

19 Oct 08, Wednesday

This time, Davina has her own little share of MacDonalds fries & her own apple juice ^_^

See how little girl tries to get her daddy's attention & was singing @ daddy's request

Note: she's loud when she speaks, but very very soft when she sings! Have fun listening!

After eating, must brush teeth before we go to bed...

23 Oct 08, Sunday

Whilst Daddy & Mummy went for gynae check,
公公 brought Davina to the Buddhist temple nearby.
So familiar this place is, cos this temple is where Mummy's 嬷嬷 used to frequent

Our 1st parenting workshop

2008-11-17T12:17:00.005+08:00

16 Nov 08, Saturday

Daddy surprised mummy by suggesting to go for a AVENT workshop which he came across in the newspapers. Not exactly on parenting...

Well, cos mummy didn't exactly have an easy time trying to breastfeed (BF) Davina & it was also not an easy decision to stop breastfeeding her, and giving in to formula milk totally. Davina only managed to be half BF & half formula-fed, i.e. she alternates breastmilk & formula milk for every of her 8 feeds when she was a baby, when she was left with her nanny, say 3 months onwards?

And all in all, mummy provided Davina with breastmilk for only 5 mths. But thank our gracious LORD, Davina has been kept healthy under the LORD's wings. Cos our worry for Davina back then was that she was almost 4 -5 weeks premature. She was so tiny & breastmilk is known to help her build her immunity. Even though she didnt get to be fully BF, but at least a little is better than none?

Our preggy frens, we are strong advocates of BF. If you are of the same thoughts, all the best & hang in there, esp when it gets tough!

Oh well, back to the workshop, it was about BF for working mums. The lactation consultant from Mt A. spoke of the problems of BF, the correct stimulation and all. Was an informative session. Of cos with daddy having the same knowledge, he will help to remind mummy when mummy is overwhelmed. *hopefully, fingers crossed*

Davina? Haha, she was left with 公公 & 嬷嬷 of cos!

16 Nov 08

Uncle ben came by and brought with him lotsa of doreamon stuff for davina!!

Uncle Ben is well-known for pampering people around him, be it Auntie Kamini, mummy, Auntie Kamini's twin princesses or our darling Davina... when auntie Kamini was still in SG, Uncle Ben would buy lotsa princesses items for Sita & Sachi. When he knew of Davina's liking to Doreamon, this is the result... ^_^"

Another random pic of our posing sleeping princess

Our simple, lazy Saturday...

2008-11-08T22:01:00.006+08:00

Simple and lazy... all 5 of us... why 5? Daddy Sin, Mummy Sin, Davina Sin, Jnr 2 Sin & Wah-Wah Sin... This has more or less became our Saturday routine, bringing Davina for breakfast. This is the 1st time with Wah Wah... See pics ^_^

Little pretty with her kaya toast

Wah-Wah Sin

Daddy Sin, busy with the soft-boiled eggs

Letting our princess have some fun before heading home for her nap

Nothing fanciful, she simply loves turning the poles... *wonder*

Staggering Davina...

Wah-Wah being tied to one of the poles

Our spaghetti lunch, courtesy of our beloved Chef Sin, of cos!

Strong believers of allowing our child to explore...

Quote Daddy Sin "Never mind the mess"

Not for the faint-hearted mummy thou... once a while is still fine ^_^

7 Nov 08

Davina has been into pretend play lately... We understand from nanny that she will imitate nanny doing household chores, like ironing, sweeping the floor, cooking...

Davina even tried to take nanny's broom, which is obviously too big and heavy for her. So we reckon it's time to give our princess her own set of "cleaning equipments", hahahaha