Turning ONE

Tomorrow is Arielle's first birthday. Being the second child, you might think the significance of first birthday might fade a little. But no, not in this case.

The past one year, I felt like I struggled really hard. And got stressed up a lot. The general success in the short 18 months of parenthood we had with Anya right up till Arielle's birth boosted our confidence. We thought raising children was our thing. And then, God gave us Arielle to humble us. The early days of her drinking woes, the persistent crying, her heightened sensitivity to light, sound (and her elder sister), her inconsolable bawling every time she falls sick gave me twofold of grey hair within a year, as well as constant fretting and panic attacks. And that is just me. I have yet to start on the Husband.

Seeing how much difficulties I had dealing with Arielle, the Husband had to spend more time at home with Anya while I focus on Arielle. It was not easy for him - to be constantly torn between work and family, worrying over Arielle, and to continue win favors from people at work when you are not there as much as people would like you to be.

Therefore, having braved through 365 days (after tomorrow), we think it marks great significance to us. We like to think that the worse part of what we call Project: Desensitising Arielle is over. We trust that in the coming year, things will only get better and better. Especially when she starts to talk and is able to articulate her thoughts, surely she will improve by leaps and bounds. It calls for celebration and thanksgiving because we don't think we could come this far without drawing strength, wisdom and joy from our Father day after day. My junior college years was the last time I was this fretful. Then, I was grappling with the loss of a relationship that did not work out and studies that went downhill. I was on the verge of depression (doctor's words, not mine).This time round, I know that if not for the presence of The Lord in our lives, I might have lost it.

We are so thankful for our cell group members and close friends who rallied around us, constantly praying for us and Arielle, sussing words of wisdom and always so encouraging. Our apologies though, that we could not hold a celebration together with all you for this occasion so dear to us because with the preparation for the new house and such, we are up to our neck and organizing one is simply beyond us.

And for the birthday girl. We think it is quite a feat for her that she has come this far.

Our darling little Arielle, Daddy and Mommy are so proud of you. For every child, it takes a degree of effort to cross milestones. With your heightened sensitivity, your intense disposition, you seem to require more crying, more fussing, more getting used to before you grow to accept to a new idea / new ways of doing things.

In retrospect, perhaps it was also why you took six months just to get use to the idea to drinking milk. What came naturally to other babies (hunger = drink milk) was beyond comprehension for you. Or rather, you would not even seek to comprehend. You were so upset every time we stuck a boob / bottle to you that you were more concerned with crying and making your displeasure known than to register your own hunger.

And so, our little mushroom head, we think you are a real trooper! Although there is no big party to mark your special day, Daddy has especially taken a day off tomorrow just so we can spend some quality time. Your Jiejie has also prepared a nice present waiting for you to rip it open tomorrow. No worries though, I'm sure she will help. And then there's also your Ah Gong, Ah Ma, Gonggong, Porpor, and your uncles, aunties and cousins who are looking forwards to celebrate with you this weekend. together. Even Aunt M is looking forward to celebrating with you and has choose not to go for her leave on Sunday. We hope you will have a blast and keep on growing. We love you lots and sweetheart, in case you think otherwise - no, it was no trouble at all.

WIP: Good times together

This week, we got to spend some good quality times with those who are the closest and dearest to us.With our parents, with our siblings, our nieces and nephews, and then the usual sweet moments with our own girls. On top of that, there was also some catching up done with a pair of couple friends as they celebrated their firstborn's full month. Last but not least, over the public holiday, the Husband and I also got to sneak out for a movie & dinner date (first in months!). No wonder my love cup is so full this week!

The girls with their cousins. In case you are wondering what's with the fascination over that teddy bear; well.. it is not. Their fascination is over what is showing on an iPhone that was propped up by the poor teddy.

The Nephew showed off his driving skills (reverse parking in a single smooth attempt!) while we watched with jaws dropped.

Baby girl's first 1st birthday present. :) The Brother & SIL brought her to a toy departmental store and she picked this. :)

The little neighbours dropped by for a spot of "cooking".

Kai and Ude, thanks for sharing this happy occasion with us. We all had a blast and hope little J likes the presents. (Or did the present float off with those balloons?)

A sight that made the adults went "awwww....".

Some lovin' moments captured during a walk with Ah Gong and Ah Ma. :)

Hmmm... Little Mushroom Head does not seem to fancy her own kind very much. :P

The Husband and I think we have the cutest dog alive.

Yep. Definitely the cutest.

The girls with their cuddly besties.

Anya with her M&M teacher. Though squirming in teacher D's embrace here; my girl actually adores her.

Make-believe snack time.

"Sweetheart, how is mommy going to feed you lunch with Rabbit in your face like that?"

Our (almost) weekly bread errand. Thank God for those bread dispensing machine.

As you can see, baby girl is getting quite good at standing, cruising..

And even walking..! Since over the weekend, she has started taking a few steps at a time without any help.

Sweet sweet sleep

I have gone without a nice uninterrupted restful sleep for a couple of months. It was something that did not occur to me until it came up when I was chatting with the girlfriends at the hen party.

Interestingly, it is not that the girls are not sleeping through the night. Technically, they are. Except that Arielle is quite a noisy sleeper. In between sleep cycles, she would stir and cry in her sleep. In the course of it, she wakes herself up sometimes. Whenever she cries, either the Husband or myself will pop over to the girls' room to check on her. This usually happens 2 - 3 times a night.

On top of that, the past one month also saw Anya having night terrors. She is at the phase where suddenly, darkness scares her and there are always imaginary monsters lurking around. She had also screamed and cried in her sleep on a few occasions. When we went to her, she would sob in our arms and tell us she had a bad dream. As to the size and shape of her bad dreams - only God knows for now for she is always stumped when she asked her about them.

Now, all of the above sleep-interruption scenarios are not that bad, really. Usually, a few pats or cuddles will soothe the girls back to sleep and we can drift back to our own slumber. In Arielle's case, she did not even need our help sometimes. She would cry a little, roll over to her other side and go back to sleep.

The problem is: I am generally a light sleeper and has trouble going back to lala-land after checking on them half the time. Half the time, after I checked on them, I would spend the next few hours rolling in bed, reading books and dreading the coming of first dawn.

The situation, has however, turned around since I came back from the hen party. Except for praying with more conviction, I didn't think we did much. Something must have changed in the spiritual realm because everyone has been sleeping very well so far this week.

Oh my! A whole night of undisturbed sleep is so blissfully good. I swear the first two nights when I woke up to the morning light, I could literally taste the sweetness of restfulness in my mouth.

May the season of sweet sweet sleep carry on and on and on... ...

Mission exterminating buggers

One of the downsides of having a dog in the house is the guests that it unwittingly invites into our house. Specifically, I'm referring to ticks.

Over the years, we have, while rubbing our furkid's belly, came across ticks happily sucking away her blood a handful of times. Initially, I was appalled and totally grossed out. In order to extract the bugger, I would put on gloves (if any in the house),use a pair of tweezers and to kill it, I would use a lighter to flame it up. Later, when the killing was done, i would scrub my hands with soap for a good five minutes. All these done while the Husband rolled his eyes. After all, having growing up in a kampung with packs of dogs, he was used to coming into contact ticks.

I have since desensitized when it comes to being sterile in tick-killing. Too much hassle.

Gone are the tweezers, gloves and lighter. In replacement are bare hands, a tissue paper that I use to wrap up the bugger before my nails dig into it. Too much info? My apologies. The religious routine of scrubbing my hands thoroughly is, however, observed up till this day.

Recently, the tick situation at my little household has taken a worsening. The bloodsuckers have found their way into our beds. The first one was hunted down underneath my blanket at 3am in the morning after it went on a supper buffet with the courtesy of the Husband and I. Given that we were roused from our sleep the wee hours, itchy as hell; you can imagine that the bugger did not die pretty.

Then on one fateful night where Arielle caught the sniffles, my entire little household (less off the dog) crammed ourselves into the girls' bedroom as Arielle is always a handful on the first night of falling sick. Up till 2am, Arielle was waking up every hour, crying for a good ten minutes before falling back asleep, only to wake up 45minutes - 1 hour later. In between, the Husband complained that his feet was itchy but we were both too exhausted to care. The next few days, we found several red spots on Arielle's thighs, abdomen and arm. That broke the straw. How dare they mess with my babies! I went into my killer mode once again, stripping the mattress off its beddings that Arielle uses for nap (same mattress that the Husband slept on the night we crammed into the girls' room) and pored over every surface of the bedclothes and mattress until I tracked down that bugger.

At the rate that I am killing ticks, I might just consider joining the pest control industry should I decide to go back to the workforce one day.

WIP: Super hectic and then a little respite

The past week was even more hectic than usual for me. There were loads of coordination work pertaining to the new flat to be done. Then, the girls and I had a bout of nose - which typically is not a big deal except that Arielle get really cranky in the night whenever she has the sniffles. That got me very nervous because I was going away over the weekend (for the first time since Arielle was born!) for a girlfriend's hen party and was unsure how the Husband was going to handle her alone. 

Thank God though, it all went very well - the Husband holding the fort, the hen party, the girls' sniffles. Without further ado, I shall let the photos do the talking. The highlight of the week, being the hen party, of course. 

The "G" party because it's all about our bride-to-be, G.

The party spread that we put together. Two words: TOO MUCH.

Here comes the Hen!

Grunge girl . Miss. Green . Garbage girl . Miss. Grey . Miss Glitter. We did not bring any tripod stand so we did not get a proper picture that included everyone.

The photographer for the above pic. And our guitar girl for the night.

The surprise we (or rather, HE) had in store for her the following morning post-breakfast.

Groom-to-be and his guitarist for the day.

The Couple :)

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Things we do to entertain the kids when the weather forbade us to go out.

The Furkid watched on (woefully) while we dug into our fruit salad for dessert.

A breakfast the Tod particularly enjoyed.

Sisters who fall sick together, bathe together.

The Tod is going to be a flowergirl for a girlfriend's wedding later this month. Here, she was surveying her pretty dress.

She put it on but refused to pose for me.

The Tod was dismayed to know that there is a Princess Ariel (but not Princess Anya) among the Disney princesses. Here, she has gotten over her initial disappointment and put Ariel into close scrutiny for the first time. "Princess Ariel got wear bra!", she commented. When I gave a non-commital "Uhmm.." She reiteirated, "Just like Mommy!".