YAY!!!

This morning at 5am, Nelly saw me and she burst into a smile!!!!!

Can't get enough of it.

(pardon the bad quality - i know i'm a professional photographer but it was 5am and pitch dark and I hate using flash esp the one on the iphone.)

On Breast Feeding (Men bear with me)

I know I hate it and swear I will give up soon because there is nothing glamourous about breastfeeding.. (that is what I would have told you a month ago)

But I perservered.

I went through almost the same thing for both my children.

Its painful, its aweful and for most women, its the main cause of post natal blues.

My babies can never latch on from birth... well, not without help from a lactation consultant.

Firstly, I have too much milk and it hurts so bad.

But I hung in there and now that Nelly is older, she's hungrier, and her jaw is stronger.

It took me about a month before I could establish real breastfeeding and trust me, til now, i'm still trying to manage my supply.

But now, it's totally convenient when we go out now because I don't have to worry about running out of milk or bottles to feed.

In an ironic sense, you are trapped into being a milking machine but you do get some sort of freedom to do your own thing, just have to balance being a cow alongside your well, activities.

Baby gets all that nutrients which formula milk doesn't have and it also saves you some money.

So now that I have come out of that struggle, i'm just here to encourage those of you who are like me, have plenty of supply but really want to give up cause it's inconvenient and painful, IT GETS BETTER.

Trust me, I was ready to throw in the towel... I had standby medication to stop the feeding too.

But for those of you who find it is really taking you down to the point where you wanna do anything drastic, don't stress out. You and baby won't die from not breastfeeding.

Either way, it gets better.

To Nanny or Not To Nanny

Sunning Nelly while she was jaundiced

Those of you who know me knew what a hard time I had making a decision on whether or not to have a nanny help me out in my first month.

I went from wondering if I could do it because I did it on my own with Nate and was feeling great even though my body had just gone through some major changes - to wondering if I should give in to having some proper rest seeing that I am 5 years older than when I had Nate.

My advise is: listen to your body.

Those of you who are pregnant now and are wondering if its a necessity, I say, if you feel great and you have family support and wanna give it a go on your own, DO IT.

Every mother should experience it if you can - the pains and sleepless nights, however if you do feel extremely tired or are having a c-section birth, it will be of great advantage to have a nanny around.

These ladies, (mind you: if you get a good reliable one) are godsend.

They handle babies all the time, you can put your mind to rest and just well, rest.

This time round, I had wanted to get one but luck was not on my side and I got well _ cheated.

She never showed up and I had given her a deposit.

We got over that and decided that I should just do it myself.

But i swung from heaven to hell in my health and moods and I should have followed my instincts about this second birth and needing help and found another nanny earlier.

But I was held back by feeling like I had to do it myself... because every woman did it herself - in my grandmother's time.

But hey. That was my grandmothers time.

After 2 weeks of self care, I realized that it wasn't working for me this time.

Having to deal with mastitis, breast abscess, fever and a needle sticking up my boob and the guilt of ignoring my first born and well, barely being able to hold myself upright because of all of the above, I found a good nanny from a friend.

The next 10 days (she was here for just a short while to pick me up), I spent recovering.

It was much needed.

So much so that when she left, I cried. Because I was hormonal, and secondly, she came at the time when I was at my lowest and picked me right up.. She also treated me like her own daughter so I got emotionally attached but most importantly, by the time she had left, she had set a routine for me to pick up on for Nelly..She at that point made me feel confident to have another baby right there and then.. crazy right?..

Another thing to note is that confinement nannies not only take care of babies, they take really good care of recovering mothers as well.... She was motherly to the max.

I was up and running about in no time.

So if you are going through that same mind dingdonging process now, ask yourself if you can cope - or if not, if you can afford it, get a good recommendation or get a nanny from those agencies which you can find on the websites.

There are two that I know of but you need to book early.

I can't garuntee you get a good nanny but that's all up to our personal luck.

GPLS services and PEM confinement services.

Go look it up.

I Really Miss Shooting Sports...

I'm getting that shooting itch a little now.

The one thing I really miss shooting is sports..

Was just going through my old stuff from 2010 where there were plenty of sporting events and realised that I actually have a lot of fun being outdoors.

Both doing sports itself and better still, shooting it for work.

Here's Another Blast From The Past

Young Nate

Was browsing through photos of the farm from last year when I found this picture of Nate wanting to take a family photograph at the airport before I left for Timor Leste for an assignment about Leprosy.

This was taken on the 3rd of July 2010.

Where has all that time gone?

Thank goodness we have images to remember the past by.

Facetime

YAY!!! Finally the Nelly has started to respond to me!!!

She's laughing and smiling all the time.

She even started coo-ing a little.

Here's a picture of Nate and his dear friends all over her during our lunch date today.

Needless to say, Nelly was happy with all that attention and the kids felt accomplished at making a baby smile.

I on the other hand, was just happy that everyone was happy so I could eat my kway teow soup.

Emo Mom

Ok. I dunno what is with me but I always feel my heart melt when I see Nate happy.

Really, this feeling is magnified because Nate is such a sweetheart.

He never throws any tantrums if I say NO.

He is a kid and children love to play. They also love toys.

When I refuse to buy something for him, he is fine with it.

Today, I couldn't contain my happiness for him.

I think I have been quite nazi with him during his early years.

Anyway, today, while we were discovering the new Katong 112 mall just 2 minutes from our place, we found the huge open water play area outside the food court.

I knew that nate really wished that he could play there.

I had Nelly and it wasn't too hot. Only problem was that we went unprepared.

So seeing that he didn't even fuss about wanting to play, I decided to reward him with 45minutes of fun.

I dragged myself and my pram with baby down to World Of Sports and bought nate a slightly oversized swim trunks for adults and a magic towel and off we went.

OMG. I dunno what hit me but when I saw Nate running around like a super happy energetic puppy out in the open field, I starting to sob... of course I hid behind the pram.

Anyway, emo aside, that place is AWESOME!!! Even I wanna play in it.

We will be back soon with the classmates (:

Tick Tock goes the clock

Here's one of the kids entertaining themselves for a bit. (:

Thank God i'm starting to feel more and more like myself lately.

Nelly has been an extremely good baby to date.

I'm not trying to jinx it but I have to give credit to the man up there for hearing my prayers.

I strongly believe that the second one is easier so that I can attend to my own needs which are harder second time round.

Funny how life has a way of balancing itself doesn't it?

She's not too fretful and recently has started stretching out our night feeds a little more.

Breastfeeding and latching on has been established (though i'm still over supplying her with milk) and i'm just stretching out the pumping timings to 5 over hours if I can just to try and trick the mind into thinking "hey.. we don't need so much milk.."

Well, giving birth seems like so long ago even though it's only been 2 months but sometimes, it seems really recent.

This whole adventure does play around with your sense of timing a little.

I'm losing real track of time.

And all of a sudden, Nate looks like a middle grade school student when really, he's only 5.

Where is all my time going?

But everyone who has been encouraging me is right.

It gets better with time. It does.

Cannot live without while mothering #01

Gives me hands-free options all the time.

I'm able to eat, shop, have steam-boat lunch, and work as a press photographer while using it with baby on me.

I even slung Nate with me once while I was on the way to work when a photo op came up and managed to shoot some pictures enroute to sending him off to day care 5 years ago.

I'm glad I haven't forgotten how to use one.

Nelly feels completely secure in them and sleeps easily too.

These cool designer pouches are the Pupsik ones. They are really comfy and have a sponged edge to ensure that baby is comfy.

It's interesting because i'm wearing two different sizes here (most people can fit into two sizes anyways, depending on whether you like it a little more snug or not) Small and Medium.

For those of you who are wondering, yes, i slung my first born from when he was a week old to a year old...

Thanks Carol for loaning me a few more so I can wash my old one.

Love love love.

Pop!

This photo was taken 3 to about 4 months apart from each other.

Meet my partner in crime Ching with her bub Suri who is 11 days older than Nelly.

Don't you just love these before and after photos?!

Having said that, we're gonna try for a photo a month since babies grow visually significantly obvious (sounds a bit wrong - my grammar but anyway)...

Support (thank god for it)

There is nothing more important than having the support from family/

I've been really blessed to have my parents and parents in law help me out since the day Nelly was born.

My folks have been really hands-on with the baby and more importantly, with Nate who's been patient but sometimes complains a little about being bored with school holidays currently on and nothing much to do because i'm tied down at home with the baby.

I think I would have been 10x crazier, 10x angrier and maybe 10x skinnier (well this i won't complain).

But you get the gist.

Thank you mom and dad. Really. Thank You 10x more than you know.