Less energy to surf & blog

Nowaday looking at Pc too much will cause me to feel really tired and dizzy ( have got low blood pressure with this pregnancy). Even though I wanna surf other people blogs and updates my blog as regularly as possible, I find myself has less energy to do that and the dizzy spell is a deterent for me to stare into the Pc for a long time! Really miss those time when I can surf all day without feeling tired or dizzy.
With the drop of one nap time, Qi Ning routine is changing but it has niot settle yet. When she was having two naps, she sleep about 10pm, mummy can have some night life, shopping and visiting people. But now, with only one nap, she is tired by the time I get back from work. Nurse her, bath her, feed her and is time for bed. She sleep abt 8.30pm and wake up really early in the morning about six something. Good thing is that she don't disturb us, she just entertain herself!

ZZZZZZZZZ Time

Recently it is ghard to get Qi Ning to nap. When is time for her usual nap, she would refuse to put her head down. She would protest loudly with her "no" and if we hold her she would stiffen her body. She fight not to sleep even when she is very tired. I know she is tired because if I insist to hold on to her and rock her, within minutes she will drift into her dreamland. Usually she takes two nap but ever since she turn 18mths, she drop to one nap a day but a longer one, about two hours plus. 18mths seem to be a milestone where toddler drop to one nap a day and they seem to just notice it!
I dunno whether is it because I am away from her in the day time, at night in her sleep she will be asking for mommy. She will call out for mommy a few time in the night throughout her sleep. I will have to assure her that mummy is here beside her verbally or pat her slightly. Then she would drift back to sleep happily and sometimes she would want to nurse for comfort!
Nursing is quite painful while you are pregnant as the nipple is very sore especially when she first latch on! But I really has no heart to wean her as she don't seem to be ready. I am trying to talk to her about weaning but don't think it work at the moment. So just have to endure lah!

Eighteen months

Wow, my Qi Ning turn 18mths today. I nearly forgot till i saw the Lilypie display on my own blog today. (forgetful mummy). Cannot beat those hard working mama who record down detail of their little one develpment in their monthly record. I can only say I am very happy with Qi Ning development thus far. And I really enjoy having her to be my daughter.
One developement of her that amaze me is her ability to associate things together. For example,
if I say we go Sitiawan, she will mention "Ah Ma", that''s where my parents stay
Gideon's khor khor house, she will say "por por", my MIL stay there.
Juney jie jie =bubbles ( because during CNY, Juney jie jie play bubble with her)
"da jiu" (my eldest bro) = Sunny , ampion (champion) my brother has got two dogs by these name.
She seem to be able to relate thing together. She knows quite many title to her books, we play pick the book games with her. We mentioned the tittle of the book and she goes to her collection and pull it out for us.
She is growing up fast and we hope to do our best to bring her up to be a responsible adult. Qi ning darling, you will always be my precious girl, no matter how old you are!

Morning Sickness

Can't help but to compare the two pregnancy. When I was preganant with Qi Ning, I practically sail thru' it without much morning sickness. I had one colleague who was also pregnant at that time. She was having bad morning sickness, no apetite, nauseating ..etc while I was eating like a cow then!
Now I am having my morning sickness, even though is term morning sickness but it last thru the day, not just the morning! I feel nauseating all day, no apetite, mouth is so tasteless and some of the smells in the surrounding worsen it as well. I hate going to the toilet in my office, the smell there just make me want to puke but I can't not go to toilet for the whole day. The fume emit by the car/ lorry, the body odor, the smell of dried pandan leave..etc. I cna't describe the feeling but is not very good at all.
I also find myself feeling more tired and short of breath easily. Wish I could just stay home and rest whenever I want to! Food wise, I begin to carve for anything sourish and want soup, that's all. I try not to eat so much of the sour palm but I enjoy eating it with my apple once a day.
Now that I experience morning sickness myself, I can relate better to other pregnant lady when they share with me the woe of morning sickness.

Saxaphone

When I reach home after work, I am feeling quite tired by then and now couple with the nauseating feeling, I usually feel quite terrible. But I still try to make it a point to play with Qi Ning. She is a good girl and quite easy to please. I just need to introduce something new to her and that will keep her occupied for quite sometime and i can just rest in peace. So lately, I have introduce music to her.
Two night ago, I let her listen to Kenny G music and she seem to like it a lot. She could stand there quitely and listen for quite a while. I told her is a saxaphone that he is playing and she can pronounce the word saxaphone quite clearly. Whenever I want to distract her from activities that I don't wish her to continue, I would just tell her "let go upstairs to listen to the saxaphone". She would go upstairs happily with me and will be chunting the word "saxaphone" all the way up!

Positive

Have been toying for the whole morning if I should blog abt this yet but I happy news is to be shared right?! :)
Last night, I did a pregnancy test and is positive! I was so happy and told hubby that he is gonna be a papa again. He is grinning all over, we were both very excited. He ask me who am I going to share this news with first. I shared it with Qi Ning first this morning. Informing her that she is gonna be a jie jie(elder sister) soon. She was just grinning to me, dunno if she undertands what I say but to see her smile after hearing the news is good enuf for me!
No wonder my milk production was so low which led me to eventually quit expressing at work a couple of week ago. Though I am still nursing direct when with Qi Ning, and now I understand why I feel that my nipple is so sore when she latch on, and the backache, the tiredness ... for the pass few weeks!
I dunno know if it is psychological or it is really morning sickness, this whole morning I feel nauseated, only starts to experience the morning sickness stronger today! Maybe because in the earlier day, I was just brushing all those symptons (nauseated, tired) aside by assigning some reason to it.. Now I am pregnant is ok for me to feel all those symptons and I am feeling it much more!
Have not been to the gynae, probably will see him later this week but will go for a check-up at a clinic first tommorrow nearby my office. Pray that all is going on well. Congratulations to me! LOL

Cereal Monster

Last Monday, I bought a pack of fruit and fibre breakfast cereal and let Qi Ning have a try. From that day onward there is no end to cereal. Whenever she wanted something to munch, she will ask for cereal!
It seems like she will be hooked to a particular food for a period of time and then later she will switch. Before the cereal, her favourites is the Julie, wheatmeal biscuit. Every morning, breakfast will ask for her wheatmeal biscuit, after lunch, whaetmeal biscuit, snack time, wheatmeal biscuit!!
Now is cereal time, what is next I dunno. :)

You want a boy or girl?

Last night hubby asked me if I were to be pregnant now, would I ask God for a boy? I pause and think for a while, I guess it really don't matter to me anymore whether I have a boy or girl. When I was first pregnant with Qi Ning, initially I did wish for a boy but was just a brief moment. When I knew that is going to be a girl, I welcome her whole heartedly. Now, when I think of having no2, I often ask if I could love no2 as much as I would Qi Ning? Sometime I feel like I have given Qi Ning all my love, when no 2 come, would I have enuf love for him/her?
As I was sorting thru' my thought about whether I want a boy or girl (this is after having Qi Ning), I came out with this theory. For those who are very traditional who prefer boy than girl, it will be better if their fisrt baby is a girl then follow by boy. Reason being since it is the first baby in the family, the baby (irregardless of gender) would still get all the attension and loves. And since the family prefer boy, when the second baby is a boy, he will get equal attension and love as the first born. This is just my theory, but I hope all parents will try to love their children fairly and not to show favoritism. I have encoutered many clients who were deeply hurt by their parents because they prefer boys more than girls.
As to the question whether boy or girl, I don't really care as long as they are healthy, I am happy oledi!

Water Baby

Qi Ning loves water! Each time after bath, is always a struggle to get her up from her bath tub. Will have to use all sort of trick to get her up. She just enjoy playing with water and all her bath toys. Even when I don't give her the bath toys she can still sit there playing with the water using the plastic cup that we use to shower her and invent her own fun with the water. So each time, we need to give her 20mins sometime half and hour for each bath! She can spend hours in swimming pool if the water is not too cold.
She also loves to drink soup. Whenever I cooked soup, she would wallop a big bowl! But this lazy mummy only cook soup two or three time a week. Last night dinner, there was no soup on the dinner table but she notice a few drop of water(steam condensed to water after we heat up the food) on the side plate and start asking for soup! So mummy promised her that I will cook soup for her today. Anyone got nice soup recipe? I limited company, only know a few soup recipe (less than one hand can count). How nice if I can cook all different soup for her each day!

My first step to weaning

Finally, I have stopped expressing milk for Qi Ning at work since last friday. When she was still a baby, after the confinements, I used to express three time a day at work to get enuf feed for her. Then when she started solid at 6mths old, I reduced the expressing to two time a day. When she passed her one year old birthday, I had intention to stop expressing at work but it keep get postponed but I did reduced it to once only.
Since my production is very low lately, can only get 2 oz for the whole day so I finally gave up expressing at work. It was a conscious decision, so last friday, when it was my usual time for milk expression, I just kept on working till is time to go home!
So now every morning, I don't have to carry big bag, small bag to office. I can leave all the gear (ice-pack, cooler box, towel, milk container..etc) behind! Actually I haven't store all those gear away yet, I am still leaving it at the office. I dunno, just have the in case thought! :) My friend always said my yellow bag is a goodies bag for my girl! Now no more goodies bag for my girl oledi. I kinda of miss it but at the same time feel relief, all those expressing sessions can be quite tiring at time, especially when the produce is very little.

Weekend Special Treat

Usually during the weekend, we try to add some special treat to Qi Ning's daily routine. Last friday, we took her to IOI mall for the merry-go-round ride. She enjoys it so much that after the ride, she is asking for more! This is her third time on the merry-go-round. The first time was somewhere in late December when we had our farewell dinner with uncle Pey and his family. She didn't really know how to appreciate it during that time. Two weeks ago, we took her for her second ride and she enjoys it. What amaze me is that she has two books with merry-go-round, so after the second time she went on the ride, when home, she took out the books with merry-go-round and show us! So last friday, we tok her for another ride, she was so thrill. Took pictures of her on the merry-go-round. Will post it later.

Saturday Zoo Trip
Finally, this lazy mama brought Qi Ning to the zoo on Saturday. We reached the zoo about 10am, saw the 10.30am elephant shows. Qi Ning was quite excited to see the elephants dancing and splashing the water. But we miss the multi-animals show at 11.00am! :( There were many ziraffes around but not many lions or tigers. Only saw one or two of them. Qi Ning was happy to see the monkey and orang utan jumping around. She enjoys the kambing (goats) in the kid's world and also the ride on the mini open air bus in the zoo. We were there for about two hours, left around 12pm. Photos will be out later.

Sunday hospital visitation
Sunday morning is her usual day of breakfast out with uncle yap and gang after the prayer meeting. Afternoon after church, the outreach team was going to Serdang hospital for visitation. Since Qi Ning had a two and half hour of nap in the morning, I decided we would tag along for the visit. Serdang hospital is really very big and nice, not many patients though. Is very spacious and don't feel like is a government hospital. Facilities in the ward look pretty goods. Qi Ning was happily running around the corridor while others spoke to the patients.
By the time we had dinner after the visitation, she was really tired. Immediately after her bath, I nurse her and she was asleep by 8.30pm. What a busy day for a little girl!

My Little Helper

Since we don't have maid now, we have to do everything on our own. And Qi Ning is at the stage where she like to imitate us in whatever we do. So last night, I decided to make her my little helper. Supursingly, she did her job well.
Last night, I was doing laudry, I got her to sit by me and entertain me. Later when I want to put the clothes on the line to dry, I get her to take the clothes out from the pail and pass it to me one by one. She did just that and I commented her for being such a good helper. She was pleased.
Nowadays, we are also training her to put away her own toys, keep it back to the place where it belongs. So far so good, with our help, she would dutifully put back her toys. Sometime, half way thru' keeping the toys she would wonder away so I have to bring a little toy and put in her hand and direct her back to the toy area and get her to continue on keeping the toys away. Most of the time she would comply, hope it would be like this always! :)

Midnight call

Lately, Qi Ning has been very clingy. Even at night in her sleep she will be calling for me and if I don't response to her by going near her and lie next to her, she would starts crying. Or she would sit up and starts crying for mummy! If I go staright to her when she calls for me, usually she will continue on sleeping or sometimes ask for comfort nursing. This usually happens few times a night, aiyo, worst then when she was a baby! Is it separation anxiety I dunno but mummy is getting all the panda bear. So now I am wondering if this is because I began to let her sleep on a mattress next to our bed on her own or wat? But even when she was co-sleeping with us, she also will ask for comfort nursing a couple of time.
Some people has recommended cry it out method to let her not get into the habit of comfort nursing and the midnight call. But I don't think I have a heart to really try that. I tried giving her water in replace of the comfort nursing, it didn't work. When I give her the water, she will say "no" and ask for nen nen , even in her sleep! So I think mummy is going to have a hard time weaning her and also have to attend to her midnight call just like doctor on call!
Talk about cry it out, I sort of have an expereince when she was 1 mth plus. It was one of my friend who actually try to help me to get Qi Ning to sleep/nap on her own. So, one day when she was visiting me, it was abt Qi Ning nap time, she wanted to show how to put Qi Ning to sleep on her own and it was the cry it out method. I usually will hold Qi Ning and gently rock her, sing to her and only put her down to sleep when she doze off in my arm. But this particular day, I am going to learn to just put her on her cot and pat her to sleep. Poor little baby doesn't like that and she cries her lung out. I was told to let her cry and soon she will learn that it didn't work. She cried for quite a while and to be frank I was quite heart-ache to have her cry for so long and so loud. But since my friend was suppose to be an expert in child care, I just let her continue on "teaching" Qi Ning to sleep on her own.
To me, cry it out method does not really work. I just can't bear to see the little one protest so loudly. So I am still using my own way of bringing Qi Ning to her dreamland. Since we don't use sarong craddle, we would pat her and sometime rock her to sleep for her nap time. At night, she want to be nurse, sometime she want to be nurse till she sleep, sometime she would play till she sleep. I don't know if what I do contribute to her habit of midnight call or comfort nursing, I know I would be more stressed if I follow all the book method! So just let it be my way of dealing with her midnight call! hehehehe...