growing up

Managed to video a first sentence of "words" by darling today.

And those multiple kicks in succession look familiar; her thunder thighs look exactly like her elder cousin's.

Our girl has piled up some fats on her face. But the real piling up is around the belly and thighs.

Fuck man. It's 3am and my darling is hungry (not cussing at her) and the damn cockroach is in front of the fridge door.

It was tiring to feed my daughter before leaving for work.

Glad I did it in spite of my mum-in-law being readily available to help feed her.

Time flies past quickly and any attitude of convenience causes me to lose precious moments with my beloved daughter.

I am determined to have my darling learn the Teochew and Hokkien languages by having my parents-in-law converse with her in them.

However, it would not happen if I myself continue conversing in Mandarin with my in-laws.

While my parents-in-law switch between Teochew and Mandarin with ease, I really grew up learning and speaking Mandarin, all while Teochew and Hainanese were spoken all around me among my elders.

At 34 days old, our nocturnal baby has kept us awake at night for two weeks.

Only last night did I realise that when she releases her latch from her mummy's boobs, it does not necessarily mean that she has had her fill.

This revelation led to a new strategy, i.e. to get darling to latch after unlatching. Even when she has briefly fallen asleep, we should wake her up to have her latch again.

There will come a point when she truly does not want anymore milk.

Our darling vocalised with intention for the first time ever!!

With proficiency, I:

- prepare the milk, bottle feed my darling, wash the bottle

- clean my girl's ass

- set my girl at ease when she's crying by cradling her

However, when I look at my mum and mum-in-law play with her, there is a certain kind love and emotional bonding that I cannot explain, much less emulate.

Despite the interactions with my girl, I am really clueless as to whether I am loving her correctly.

I have been trying to take photos of her leg raisers. But no longer possible. My darling is outright kicking and moving her limbs around already.

There we go. We know darling has had a good feed ending 0130hrs but she was crying and refused to sleep.

After drifting in and out of sleep for 4 times, under my constant instruction, rather than cajoling, darling finally fell into deep sleep and awoke to feed again at 0430hrs.

We even tried waking her up at 0400hrs to feed but she was soundly asleep, waking up only half an hour later.

She definitely understands speech tones and energy transfers.

After a 4th round of patting and massaging my swaddled up darling who is lying in bed, as well as speaking to her as though she is an adult, she didn't manage to find many opportunities for vocalising, much less cry and bawl. She is finally in deep sleep.

Speaking to my 24 days old darling works. Body language works. And not forgetting that I know that she was already fed extremely well even though she is smacking her lips again for more milk. In short, she is full and should be sleeping.

Tonight's experiment is the second in three nights; a couple of nights ago, mum-in-law came in wanting to cradle a bawling darling in her arms again. I positioned myself to disallow her from picking darling up and continued executing my strategy. It worked right in front of my mum-in-law.

Previously, putting her to sleep this way was a noobish struggle between mummy's well-being and the non-introduction of formula.

Right now, it is about time discipline for my 24 days old girl.

Mother-in-law will take every opportunity to carry, cuddle and bathe my baby darling. I am thankful as for as much as I would like to be involved in every aspect of raising my baby, it is wiser to divest myself of certain responsibilities in so far as it offers me sufficient rest to keep going for the long haul.

Bathing my girl is one such responsibility.

My darling is potentially a character in Southpark. I can imagine her character gulping milk to the point she pukes violently but then still demand for more milk and then puke again. Cycle repeats.

#milkmonster

Mummy asked if I feel like I am not playing with our darling enough.

I replied in the negative. I don't remember darling not being in my arms.

She then pressed on saying that all I usually get to do is to change our baby's diapers and feed her, but not actually play with her. Plus I am out at work during day time. Mother-in-law is the one filling up the playtime.

Mummy is absolutely right. I hadn't thought of it that way. Will have to adjust.

#hurraymummy