Baby, it's bathing time!

From day one, we knew Zachy boy loves being in water. He may be fussing or crying while I'm undressing him, but once he is in his tub, he calms down instantly. This is my small baby enjoying his bath when he is just ten days old.

As he gets older, he seems to know that it's bathing time and will stop fussing when I am getting him ready for his bath. There he is, patiently waiting for his bath.

He is all ready to soak in the water!

Haha but there is one thing we noticed, he doesn't fancy having his hair washed. So on extremely fussy days, I have to accelerate on washing his hair and put him into his tub as quickly as possible.

He has outgrown his first tub and we got him a bigger one. One day, he seemed so tiny and the next moment, he can't straighten his legs in the tub anymore. It's these little things that made me realise that my baby is growing up everyday and growing up really quickly! I guess very soon, he will be able to sit up in the tub by himself and before I knew it, he will be all ready to take his own shower. Oh yes, he can't stay as mummy's boy forever and the more I will treasure these precious moments with my small baby.

Return of Baby Batman + DIY Batman costume

Everyone loves a theme party and part of the fun is to dress up for the theme! The Wong family was invited to a birthday party with a cool 'Princes & Princesses, Superheros & Villains' theme last Sunday. And of course, I jumped at the chance to dress up my family!

But here's the not so fun part, getting the costumes. I don't like buying costumes because I am so sure it's going to be worn just once. It's not fun going to parties as the same character, right??. I prefer renting costumes but on second thoughts, the rental cost can probably buy my baby a few packs of diapers plus no shops rent out costumes for a three months old baby, so this option is out. OK, let me try to make one!

I asked hubby for ideas on which superhero or villain should Zachy be and (I have no idea why) he immediately suggested Bowser. Yes, this big bad guy in the Super Mario game.

Photo from here

I really did give it a serious thought (though just for ten minutes) and bleah, I gave up. The dragon head, the horns, the claws and the spiky turtleshell? Wah, too challenging. 

As I was browsing through the web for ideas, I saw the perfect superhero character for Zachy boy. He shall be a Baby Batman! Seemingly easy costume to make and I have all the materials needed. I made a batman logo first using black and yellow felt and sewed it onto his grey onesie. Then I sewed a black cape.

There, we have a batman costume!

The ambitious me wanted to make him a Batman baby hat too. The attempt isn't not too successful which you can see from the photo but I still made him wear it. hah! The earlier two prototypes I made with scrap clothes were hilarious! Even my MIL can't help laughing when I told her I'm making a batman hat because she was so sure Zachy looked like a bull and a mushroom. Well, after this episode, I sure know how to make a bull's hat or a mushroom's hat for other costume parties. lol.

I made two simple masks for ourselves and we went to party as a Batman family!

After the party, I simply detached the logo and the cape and we have his onesie back to original! But of course, not after we took many photos of our superhero baby!

Linking up with:

Zachary's first haircut!

Zachy has a funny hairstyle from birth. He looks like he is balding, yes you heard me right, balding. lol. He has lots of hair everywhere except at the centre, like he has a bald patch. See, his bald patch.

As days went by, his hair all around got longer by more than an inch and started to stand but the hair at the centre just didn't grow. The result of this? A mad professor look!

Haha, from certain angle, he looked like a koala bear, with his hair standing on both sides. I'm such a meanie, making fun of my own son. hah!

Though I must say that I find his koala bear and mad professor look very cute, his hair gets rather messy especially when he is sweating. So yesterday, we decided to give our boy a hair cut. It took three person to accomplish this, my MIL to hold him, me to distract him and hubby to snip his hair carefully. Hehe, we are rather pleased with the end result. He looked very different with his new short hair. Don't he look smart?

Zachy's 2nd month

Today, Zachy boy is two months old. In just a short one month, he continues to surprise us each day with the new things he can do!

He is so curious about the world now. He can't stop looking around, especially when we are out. All the lights and new things just fascinates him so much!

He makes us laugh with the variety of cute sounds he makes. It is so fun to have a 'conversation' with him now as he 'talks' to us with his own unique baby language.

He smiles to us when he is in good mood. He giggles out loud when he is in even better mood. His cries and screams are also getting louder though. Hmm, this is the not so fun part.

He is in better control of his head and limbs. He can support his head for a longer time and this makes playing with him all the more fun and carrying him easier. He love swinging his arms around and kicking his legs. He knows how to put his fist into his mouth and just yesterday, he found out his thumb tastes better! hah!

We can't wait to see what else he can do next month!

First month

Baby boy is taking his nap while I'm typing this away. Tomorrow he is 7 weeks old and I have been a mum for more than a month! Look at how much my boy has grown in one month! hehe, it's such a dilemma. Sometimes I wish he will grow up quickly, but on some days he seemed to be growing too fast.

I have been told by many that having a kid is life-changing and it really is. But not all remembered to tell me that having a kid will change my life for the better. This little fellow has brought so much joy to me and the family. Though I can no longer have a good night sleep nor can I be out having a meal in peace and shopping for hours, seeing him grow up happily everyday more than makes up for all these seemingly small sacrifices. He even made me give up one of my favourite activities - snoozing! lol. I just enjoy sleeping in longer. Hee, I will even set my alarm clock earlier so that I can snooze and not get up immediately. But now, no matter how sleepy I am, I will jump up right away to feed him or check on him when I sense some sound or movement beside me.

Even though it's just a short one month as baby and I embarked on our breastfeeding journey, I feel that both of us have come a long way. Baby is now getting better at latching on and suckling. I'm so proud of him! It wasn't like this in the beginning. In the first week, baby boy wasn't feeding well and he didn't poo and pee enough. He was always sleeping and it was a huge challenge for us to wake him up at night for his feeding. On day 3, he was diagnosed with rather high level of jaundice and had to be hospitalised for phototherapy treatment. When he returned home, we had to force him to feed regularly because he needed to poo and pee sufficiently to get rid of the bilirubin in his body. The little fellow would cry and struggle so much as I forced my nipple into his mouth. At the same time, my nipples were all sore and red and they hurt a lot during nursing. When this whole episode was over and I thought we could finally have peaceful nursing sessions, baby started to have pretty bad reflux and will choke a lot during and after feeding and pull off prematurely. This was totally not what I thought breastfeeding will be like. At that moment, when I saw my boy having so much difficulty drinking peacefully, I wondered if nursing sessions were really comforting for him and I had the slightest thought of giving up breastfeeding.

But I'm so glad that I didn't give up. I really love this closeness and enjoy these exclusive bonding sessions with my boy. When he is upset or hungry, I am able to provide him with the comfort he needs. It's so sweet to see him suckle away happily, well until his reflux comes in. Hope that will get better as his digestive system matures. Baby is always kept close to me because he needs me. Sigh, I'm so dreading the coming month because I have to introduce bottle feeding so that this little being still gets his food when I'm back at work in June. It saddens me to think that I can no longer nurse him every time then and I will be replaced by a bottle and my mother-in-law. And this makes me more determined than ever to continue nursing him whenever I'm with my boy!

So that's my first month as a parent! Honestly, I never knew I had so much more love to give and patience in me until this little fellow came along. The parenthood journey is just amazing.

Week 36

Week 36 must be the worst week of my whole pregnancy and I'm so glad it's over. SH was down with chicken pox on day 2 of Chinese New Year and over the next few days, he got very sick, like really sick. I have never seen him so sick before. It was such a stressful period. I don't know when SH will recover. The rashes kept popping out, his high fever just didn't go away for three days and we were all so worried. I don't know if SH will recover in time to be with me in the delivery room. And it doesn't help to hear comments about all the bad things that can happen to my baby because SH has chicken pox. We are so emotionally attached to Zachy boy now and it's depressing hearing these things.

SH and I decided together that neither of us will move out after we consulted our GP and my gynae and assessed the risks. We are not being stubborn nor taking things lightly. SH and Zachy boy are equally dear to me. I had chicken pox before and I'm most probably immune to the virus. And that's why we made the decision for me to be at home and take care of SH. Seriously, I'm glad we stick it through together. I cannot imagine leaving SH to go through this whole terrible ordeal by himself. 

I know my friends have good intention when they offer advices to me. But I just wish that people be a little more sensitive when talking to mothers-to-be because the 40 weeks pregnancy is such an emotional period. It really helps if the advices are based on facts and not what one believe or think. And please don't keep going "this and that will happen to your baby" when one hasn't got the facts right. 

Thank God, SH is recovering. I'm at week 37 of my pregnancy now and this means that Zachy boy is ready to come out anytime. We are praying that Zachy boy can wait till daddy is all well and good before he decides to come out to say hi to the world.

Week 35

I used to think that the days are going by too slowly and 40 weeks is a long time. And wow, I'm already at week 35 of pregnancy and in probably less than a month's time, we are going to see Xue! He's growing really fast these few weeks and according to the scan last week, he weighs around 2.8kg. My tummy is feeling very heavy and I'm easily out of breath now. Honestly, everyday feels like I'm doing weight exercise and carrying a bowling ball around. lol.

SH and I each bought one set of new clothes for Zachy boy. Honestly these tiny baby clothes are so cute, we are impressed that we could walk out of the stores without a basketful of clothes. lol. Oh yes, we remembered that our boy already has more clothes than his dad now.

These days I'm often at home working on my craft projects. Progress is slow since I can't sit down for long at my work table but still good. The baby quilt is close to completion, just a little more hand binding to do. I made a few other things for Zachy boy too and I will post about them soon!

This afternoon, I gave all the stuffs in my makeup box a good wipe down too. It will be months before I'll be back in action and this is a good break to do some spring cleaning for my box. It's Chinese New Year's eve tomorrow and I'm so looking forward to my steamboat reunion dinner! Have a great Chinese New Year friends!

Hand-me-downs

I'm really sure the nesting instinct has hit me. lol. I'm cleaning and packing stuffs more enthusiastically than usual. Today, I spent my afternoon happily sorting out all the hand-me-downs for our little one. Most of the stuffs are from my brother and sister in law who have three boys in their family! This lucky fellow probably has two times more clothes than his dad now.

And after sorting out all the hand-me-downs, we can check the items off our list and go shopping for the rest of the stuffs soon!

New fabrics!

I'm so happy to see a parcel at home yesterday. I have been expecting some fabrics from an online fabric shop, FabricBubble and they are finally here! I can't wait to get started on my next craft project.

And on New Year's day, my little company had a gift exchange and I received the sweetest gift from my colleague. Two fat quarters of japanese fabrics! Look at the cute prints on them! They will be so perfect for my baby's quilt.