Colicky baby + sick preschooler = Lots of drama

Plenty of drama happening at home last week. Josh had viral infection and was down with high fever, sore throat, cough and flu...so super cranky. He had very poor appetite and barely ate or drank. Even when the high fever subsided, he still refused to eat or drink except a bit of milk. I was pretty worried he would get dehydrated, so brought him to KK hospital to check if there was a need to put him on drip, but he finally drank some glucose water otw there. For the next few days, the fever was gone but he threw lots of tantrums and continued his food and water strike. Worst was he would cough till he vomited. So we had 2 merlions at home n lots of cleaning up to do :(

On Sun, we left Josh at MIL's place as he wanted to stay and didn't want to go home with us. Good thing is he is willing to eat over there, so hope it will help him to recover fast. 

Now is my turn to be sick.... must be virus from Josh... trying to rest more before he returns home tomorrow.

Feeling tired :'(

Jaxton has a bad case of colic. It got worst the past week and he vomits after each feed....had to keep changing my clothes and his after each puke. It's tough to keep your cool and nerves trying to calm down a screaming and kicking baby....think our neighbors must hate us by now, especially when he cries so often in the middle of the night. I barely slept for the past month, only interrupted 3-4 hours sleep every night. Jax feeds every 2 hours and takes 45mins to finish each feed, so before long, he will be crying for milk again. Apart from lack of sleep, I am also suffering from aching back and arms as he wants to be carried all the time. Then at 6.30am, Joshton will wake up and pull me out of bed. In between caring for both kids, I have to squeeze in time for washing bottles and pumping milk. That leaves barely time even for a toilet break and meals are gulped down as fast as I can. On a bad weekend morning, I only managed to go pee and brush my teeth at 11am. On top of everything, there is still our house reno stuff to coordinate. 

I am physically, mentally and emotionally tired. Trying hard to fight the dreaded post natal depression, which took me a year to snap out the last time. I hate the dark side...extreme negative thoughts are always on your mind....although I was functioning on the outside, inside I was a total wreak. At times it's hard to keep my sanity and control my emotions, and the only thing that keeps me going now is a mother's love for her 2 babies.

Bitten!

Poor Joshton came back with a bruise on his right cheek today from school. Apparently he tried to snatch a toy from a little girl in class and the angry girl bit him on his cheek. Hope Josh learns his lesson not to snatch things from others. Seems like biting is a common problem among kids nowadays...too much dinosaur cartoons?

A family of 4 'Js'

40 weeks of pregnancy, 3 months of morning sickness, 6 months of chronic insomnia, suffered bad migraines, backaches and leg cramps, a nerve racking fright when my blood test results during the 4th month came back with a high risk of birth defects, plus being cut up for the 2nd time and the painful recovery....all these were worth it when I see and cradle this beautiful baby boy in my arms.

After 1.5 wks of calling him "Baby", we finally settled on a name for #2 - Jaxton. We almost went for 'Javier', but hubby found it a common name with kids nowadays and it didn't sound close to 'Joshton'. Some people had problems pronouncing 'Joshton', so I am also expecting some folks to mispronounce #2's name as 'Jackson'.

Only just 2 weeks old, Jaxton seems to have a strong character....calm on the outside but actually very feisty inside. When nicely settled (not hungry n in mummy's arms), he's very calm n zen like with his favourite 'Sleeping Buddha' pose. But when he's hungry or wants to be carried, he will cry the house down with high pitched cries till his voice is sore.

Sleeping Buddha pose

The main difference between first born and 2nd child is that we spent lots of attention fussing over #1, like bathing him twice a day, putting massage oil, sing lullaby to make him sleep; now time is split between #1 & #2, so barely enough time to do anything more than feeding and changing diapers. And of course, #2 does not have the luxury of new things but using old stuff from #1... but thanks to our nice friends n colleagues for the baby gift sets, Jaxton has some new clothes. (funny that most of the gift sets are sesame street!)

Joshton is giving me a big headache with his behavior, following me like a shadow, always shouting for mummy and ends up disturbing Jaxton from sleeping. Will tell more in another post if I can find the time :( hands full n tied n extremely tired!

Di Di has arrived on 30 Sep!

We are proud parents again to a lovely little boy, who arrived on 30 Sep morning weighing 2.98kg. Had wanted to try for natural this time, so I waited and waited till baby was 3 days overdue. However my cervix was still closed and the amniotic fluid level was getting low, which is a sign of an aging placenta, so we had to go for a c-sec again. I was feeling rather emo on the way to the hospital and had almost wanted to back out, as this was probably my last chance to try for the birth experience. Anyway it was more traumatizing this time compared to the first one, maybe partly because of my emotions, but the most important thing was that baby was delivered safely :) And yes, we have not decided on a name yet, so it's still "Baby" at this moment! 

Joshton has upgraded to a big brother status, so hope he will be a caring kor kor to his di di. When he first came to visit mummy and baby at the hospital, he was very quiet and was trying to comprehend what was happening. Even though we had been telling him that Di Di was coming, I guess it is a different thing when he finally sees the baby. We have prepared presents for Josh to give to Di Di and from Di Di to Josh when we get back home tomorrow, so hope that helps Josh to bond to Di Di better!

"Baby" has a slight resemblance to Josh when he was born 

but think he takes after more of mummy than daddy. Josh was a "mini-me" of daddy!

Countries of the world

Mummy is too lazy to rotate the video :P Joshton got very interested in maps a few months ago and kept asking about country names, so I got him this world map for him to learn the countries.

Josh writing his name