Bible Verse of the Day

Hannah

All about Hannah

She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister

April 17, 2009 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | 9 comments

Maybe he just wants to join in the crowd…
Ethan has been requesting to carry Hannah on his own nowadays. He would make his request with both his arms outstretched.

I’d allow him to carry Hannah with her head on his lap and him sitting on the couch. I feel it is important to let Ethan know that he plays an important role as a big brother. Maybe this makes him FEEL like a big brother.

But one thing’s for sure…they look so adorable together, don’t they?

Unwanted white gold

April 14, 2009 in Breastfeeding, Food & Feeding, Hannah, Parenting | 2 comments

This is the story of my *unwanted* EBM (expressed breast milk)… 🙁

 

I had a one hour conference call scheduled today, so I asked my parents to look after Hannah during that time.  The day before I’d made an effort to express some breast milk for Hannah, just so my parents could feed it to Hannah if she asked for milk during my meeting.  Well, turns out she didn’t, but asked for it as soon as my conference ended, so I decided to warm the EBM and feed it to her instead.

It was the first time I had expressed milk since I had Hannah, and the very first time I was gonna feed her using the bottle.  I honestly didn’t think it would work, but gave it a shot anyway, because my EBM was already kept for 24 hours in the fridge, and I would have to throw it out had I not fed it to her then.

The first few tries were unsuccessful because I didn’t close the bottle properly, so the EBM leaked out.  And then when I made sure it didn’t leak, Hannah used her tongue to push away the nipple, and cried and screamed even louder!  I guess she knew I was feeding her so she flatly refused the bottle!  When I asked my Mom to try feeding her, she still refused, because the smart little girl *knew* that a *better milk package* was around…so why should she settle for less?

So that’s the story of my leftover EBM…being a kiasu breastfeeding mommy, of course I could not bring myself to throw out the milk just like that, although it was just about two ounces…

So I poured a little of the EBM onto a wet washcloth and washed Hannah’s face with it when I bathed her!  Hey…breast milk works wonders on heat rash, y’know? 🙂

Pretty in Pink

April 13, 2009 in Hannah, Sleep | 1 comment

 

My Ah Mah from Ipoh recently bought me these lovely little night gowns.  Mommy tells me they are from a place called Carter’s and the gowns are called sleeplikely gowns.  They are supposed to make me sleep better at night and also make diaper changes easier for Mommy.

Well, I wouldn’t know about changing diapers but I certainly think I look adorable and pretty in ’em gowns! 🙂

 

I also get to go to bed in this cute little dino sleeping sack:

 

My big brother Ethan took really good care of it when he used it last time, because it is still in wonderful condition!

I’m not sure if the use of these gowns and sleeping sack will help eliminate the loud throaty sounds I make at night though, but Mommy and Daddy definitely hope so!

The Full Moon Celebration

April 7, 2009 in Celebrations, Ethan, Hannah | 7 comments

 

We celebrated Hannah’s full moon sans the traditional full moon set of the red chicken eggs, angkoo and turmeric rice.  We figured we would have those done during her first birthday instead, since we would be back in Penang then and we would also be able to distribute the full moon sets to relatives and friends.  So for her full moon celebration, we just had a simple lunch in our favorite Layang Layang restaurant.

 

The adults all enjoyed the food while little Hannah also enjoyed her meal when she decided it was feeding time during our lunch!

 

After lunch, we drove up to Pier 39 in San Francisco, where it was really springtime in full bloom!

 

Everyone was eager to take pictures with the pretty flowers and hoarding almost all the photo spots, it was almost impossible to find a good spot.

 

The weather was sunny but chilly and windy, and at times I had to just hold Hannah close to keep her warm and comfy.

Ethan had fun looking at the sealions and after that, he asked to go to the merry-go-round!  Wow…he remembered!

This time though, he could ride on his own…and daddy, who was accompanying him, even got to ride on a horse by himself! LOL

 

Ethan rode on the merry-go-round twice, and if we hadn’t stopped him, I bet he could be riding the whole day long too!

And while all this excitement was happening, Hannah was oblivious to her surroundings, being kept cozy in a snuggly warm baby sling.  I’m still quite the novice at baby-wearing though, having only worn the sling with Ethan when he was a wee babe, but Hannah seems to be enjoying it, no?  Look at how peacefully she’s sleeping! 🙂

 

Oh, and of course we didn’t forget to do our usual routine of Boudin clam chowder before we bade farewell to Pier 39 that day. 🙂

Hannah at 1 month

April 3, 2009 in Hannah, Milestones | 6 comments

Scrap Credits
Spring Blossoms: April’s Mega Blog Train freebie from Carjazi Designs
Small stamp frame from Lindsay Jane Designs
Unscripted No. 3 – Simply Put [handwritten word art] from TaylorMade Designs by Amanda Taylor
Paper Alphas  from Oksana
Just Because Alphas  from Shel Belle Scraps
Leaf Swirl  from Lynette’s Photo Art
HoldEmUps from Tara Dunstan

Weight

3.35 kilos (weighed in at 2 weeks’ old during her 2-week pediatrician visit).  She sure feels a lot heavier now!

Height/Length

50.8cm (measured at 2 weeks’ old during her 2-week pediatrician visit)

Motor Skills

  • Hannah is able to lift head for a short period of time when placed on her tummy.  I try to give her some tummy time every day just to allow her a different view and also to provide some exercise! … and she LOVES it!
  • She can also move her head from side to side, especially when a rattling toy is moved in front of her face.  She will follow the sound intently.
  • She has started batting the little toys on her mobile in the infant-to-toddler rocker.
  • She makes jerky arm movements, especially when asleep. When there is a loud disturbance when she is asleep, Hannah jerks her hand upwards, and they sometimes remain that way.
Communication and Social Skills
  • Hannah makes loud throaty sounds all the time, and even more so during the night when everyone is asleep (or trying to sleep).  It could be due to her GER, and I hope it will go away soon.
  • She gives the occassional social smile, sometimes when we talk and sing to her, and sometimes she even smiles in her sleep!  In fact, the first time Hannah smiled at me was the first night we spent together in the hospital!
  • There are times when Hannah is awake and alert and just observing the world around her, but she will sometimes cry when she feels lonely or thinks no one is around.   She will, however, quieten down and look at people nearby with those huge brown eyes when we start talking or singing to her.
  • She sometimes will cry, not out of hunger, but just to be carried and cuddled.
  • Hannah can soothe herself to sleep most of the time when placed in the cot. We try to place her in the cot when she is drowsy but not asleep, although sometimes I allow her to fall asleep in my arms and carry her in a sling in a snuggle hold position, which is currently her favorite.  I am not complaining because in the snuggle hold position, I have two free hands! 🙂
  • She enjoys being clean, and when she cries to be changed because her diaper is wet, she will calm down immediately when I put her on the changing table.  She also loves her bathtime nowadays, and will patiently stay as still as possible while I bathe her.

Others

  • Hannah is pooping less frequently now, but some of the poops are MAJOR BIG ones.   In fact, we just had a catastrophic explosive poop on the morning of the day she turned one-month-old.  My whole right forearm acted as a shield for the poop and as a result, I had to clean the carpet, the side table, bottles of lotion, changing table and mat early in the morning.
  • Hannah has some pimple-looking rashes on her face and head. I have already removed chocolate and ice cream from my diet, and hopefully it will help the rashes subside. Ethan had rashes too, so perhaps it runs in the family.

Food and Feeding
She is 100% on Mommy’s milk.

Milk, milk and more milk!

March 31, 2009 in Breastfeeding, Growing Up, Hannah | 4 comments

 
Scrap Credits
Strawberry Farms QP from Raspberry Road Designs
Moody Grunge Alphas from Mel Hains Designs

Phew!  We just made it past Hannah’s second growth spurt!  According to baby books and experts, an infant experiences growth spurts at certain periods during the first year of life and the approximate times are:

  • 7-10 days
  • 3 weeks
  • 6 weeks
  • 3 months
  • 4 months
  • 6 months
  • 9 months

During these growth spurts, the baby’s appetite will increase, and a typical sign of a growth spurt is something called cluster feedings, i.e. when baby nurses several times close together, sometimes even in an hour or two!  Hannah’s first growth spurt went by almost unnoticed, because she was still settling into her feeding and sleep pattern then, but just as I thought it was getting easier, she hit her second growth spurt about a week ago, and the LONG nights began.

In addition to waking up several times in the middle of the night, I had to remind myself to burp her properly after every feed and prop her body up at an angle after that.  You see, Hannah has a slight case of Gastroesophageal Reflux (GER), and would sometimes throw up a little bit of milk.  The first time she did that, I panicked, not because I didn’t know babies did that, but because it never happened to Ethan; that boy kept everything down!  I remembered I just had to feed him, and burp or no burp, he would be okay after that.  Maybe girls are more high maintenance…hehehe…

In any case, breastfeeding definitely helps an infant with GER, and I hope she’ll feel much better soon.

Oh, and she prefers to be burped over the shoulder!  Doesn’t like the sitting and burping position…

Well anyway, I am glad we are nearing the end of this growth spurt…for one thing, it has certainly made our girl look more *bulat* by the day!  She is fast growing out of her 0-3months clothes too!

Doing the Math

March 26, 2009 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | 6 comments

 

Just the other evening, while we were relaxing in front of the TV, Ethan suddenly brought his yellow Numbers book and said it was for Hannah.  You see, Ethan has four favorite board books: the red Animals book, the blue ABC book, the green Words book and the yellow Numbers book.  All this time, he has self-assigned the red book for himself, the blue book for Mommy and the green book for Daddy.  The yellow book was unassigned till that day.

Anyway, I then asked Ethan to read to Hannah.  And so he did.

 

He flipped to the addition and subtraction page in the board book, and started pointing and read aloud to his sister. 

He goes, “Five plus Five equals TEN!” and “Four plus Six equals TEN!”

He doesn’t say the word “minus” though, so he goes, “Three Two equals ONE!”  🙂

Those priceless expressions

March 25, 2009 in Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | 8 comments

Scrap Credits
May Morn paper from Carjazi Designs
Elegant word art (a daughter is) from Bethany
Stamp cluster 8 (modified) from Lindsay Jane Designs
Boxed words from Chantal

In the past three weeks since Hannah came into our lives, I have been getting to know her based on her facial expressions:

  • She frowns and purses her lips when she is about to do a poop.
  • She smiles and sometimes giggles when she sees something she likes.  Once she was fussing and crying, and as soon as I picked her up, she smiled at me as if to say, “Yay! Mission accomplished!”
  • She raises her eyebrows, causing her forehead to crease after every feed.  And she does this while stretching her entire body, in a satisfied manner.
  • She looks at us with those gorgeous big brown eyes, as if she understands every word we say.
  • She cries when she is hungry.
  • She screams and wails when she is wet or needs a change, and brings the roof down when I am just a wee bit slow in getting the whole process done.
  • ..and of course, she lets out a YAWN when she is sleepy and tired.

I’m gonna be a GREAT big brother!

March 24, 2009 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | 5 comments

Credits
Word Art  from DigiDesigns by Denise

Ethan has been lovingly executing his brotherly duties, thus far, and these include:

  • Stroking Hannah’s head and hair in a loving manner…well, sometimes I need to remind him to be gentle, because he could get carried away and be a little rough.
  • Pulling the musical toy in the infant-to-toddler rocker that he once used and is now being used by Hannah.
  • Helping me change Hannah by passing me her diaper and clothes when I ask for them.
  • Imitating Hannah’s cries to the tee.  This started the first day Hannah and I came home.

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  • Climbing up on the side of Hannah’s cot and saying “Hi Hannah!” or “Hannah, good night!”, and sometimes when Hannah is crying, he would go over to her cot and say, “Hannah, it’s okay…”
  • Asking Daddy to carry Hannah whenever he wants Mommy to carry him…well okay, not very brotherly, but still at least he wants to make sure Hannah is carried.  Sometimes though, he just asks me to put Hannah in the cot when he wants me to carry him.
  • When Ethan sees someone else cuddling Hannah, he will come over to me and say, “Mommy carry”, asking me to carry him.
  • …and of course, not forgetting…”serenading” Hannah to sleep with his mega-decibel rendition of “ABC” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or some other new song he just learnt.

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    The thing about the Poop

    March 20, 2009 in Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | 4 comments

    There is certainly no doubt that newborns cry and poop a lot.  It’s not any different with Hannah: she certainly has a good set of lungs on her and uses it to get our attention the best way she knows how.

    As for pooping, well, her first poop happened only about 20 hours after she was born, but there has been no stopping her since.  During the first week or so, I was changing diapers almost every hour or even more often, and every diaper change had some amount of poop in it.  During the daytime I am using fitted cloth diapers, and because of the frequency of diaper changes needed, I was doing the laundry about twice a day! I’ve also had my fair share of projectile poop, even in the middle of the night!

    I’m not complaining though.  One of the signs of a healthy baby is denoted by the number of poops the baby has in a day. 🙂

    …and we ALL know the kind of runny grainy poo breastfed babies are known to produce, right?

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