Week 63: Dancing on the spot, last week of pumping :'(

A meal alone for this still-new-mama

Week 63:

Dec. 2: That’s it, the pumping is officially wrapping up. I have stretched out the pumping to once per day now and the output has been 40ml/day and now 25ml/day. There’s no going back now. It’s such a bittersweet moment to stop pumping breastmilk for bb to drink. I’ve done it daily for 14.5 months now. It’s been a big sacrifice and serious teamwork for our household too. Time to get some time for myself back again. :3
Bb started dancing and jumping on the spot today. It seems she copied it from DH lol.
She loves exploring and taking items and moving them around the house. So easy to find misplaced items throughout the house.
She can not only tear apart the mega blocks now but confidently put them back together again. Yay! It’ll still be a while before she knows or is aware to put them together for creative play.
She knows kind of how to count to three in Cantonese. She repeats after us and can definitely say “yut” (one) and “sam” (three).
Dec 5: We took her to a restaurant for brunch. This time in my haste to get to the restaurant early (fearful that this popular joint would be too busy and with no reservations possible to reserve a table), I forgot to order our dishes ahead of time so as to save time from ordering at the table at the restaurant. It was close to her naptime and the food did take a while to arrive too, so she was understandably fussy.. We had more complaints from her this time around than at the previous dining-out experiences we’ve had. I appreciated how the staff gave her a plastic cup with a straw and lid with water in it for her. Need to always remember to choose our dishes ahead of time from the menu to save time.
When we left the restaurant, she of course passed out in the car. We had errands to run (and open houses to see for fun), so we left her sleeping in the car (with an adult present) and she napped for 2 hours in the car seat!
Dec 7: Last night, pumped 20ml in total. When can I start pumping every other day? When will the last pump be? When can I pack away the pump supplies for good?
Bb has been sleeping T E R R I B L Y the past three nights 😭😭😭. Last night, she wouldn’t go to sleep after her usual bedtime routine (bath, brush teeth, get into sleep sack, milk). She normally sleeps by 8-8:30pm the latest but she kept staying awake and refusing to sleep. She was still up by 10pm. I think she finally slept by 11pm.. 😫 DH and I were planning to continue our Spiderman movie prep before NWH comes out, but we didn’t have time anymore. She woke up again at midnight ish… and then again at 2am…. Grandma and I and DH held her too but she wouldn’t sleep. I slept by 3am but according to Ken, she only slept the following: 11pm-1:44am, 2:18-3:20am, 6:30-7:20am. The other baby we know who is a few days younger than her also has been sleeping this erratically and not staying asleep for long either.. It’s serious sleep regression or as an IG baby account says, it’s “PROgression” because it simply means a developmental stage and it’s closer to learning how to sleep well as each day goes on. But how is she not tired from sleeping so few hours?! Hope she sleeps more tonight…
Dec 8: I escaped for an evening out on my own for the first time since I gave birth.. Can’t believe I lasted that long “cooped up” in the house (excluding night outs with friends as this was a first solo endeavour). I definitely need these more often but the pandemic has made it difficult to feel safe to be outside often by myself.
She calls “ma” and “pa” with intention now. She has finally also started to call grandma too “por”, but the “P” sound seems to elude her and it has taken her this long to finally learn and say it.
She knows how to “pour tea” with her teapot into the cups. She knows how to “cheers” with the two teacups too.
She really wants to use chopsticks to pick up food items but doesn’t know how yet.
She wants to climb down stairs but we always are afraid she’ll take a tumble backwards
Her new thing this week is to climb up on the chair and sit/stand there with us. She’s not stable yet so we always have to keep an eye on her when she’s near the chair and climbing on it.
She understands more and more of what we say to her.
She can crouch and lay on the floor to look for something underneath the couch or her play kitchen and dig it out. She’s so small that she can find things on the floor level a lot easier than we adults can.
This week, I’ve continued with the question “how old are you” and to teach her to respond “yut sui” with the index finger pointing up. She responds, but her finger pointing up isn’t very accurate lol; she moves her hands closer to her nose still for some reason even though I demonstrate the “one” finger quite clearly.😅🤷‍♀️
Oh, and she slept much better after that horrendous night. She went a straight 5 hours the night after 😌
Bought six Chinese kids’ board books for her from FBM for $18. It’s $3 each, so it’s considered really cheap in today’s market for Chinese kid books. But when we picked them up, three of them turned out to be really small (like the size of a palm) and not worth $3 each.. I already had negotiated the price too; original price for all six books would have been $25. Oh, well, it’s still wonderful for her to be exposed to written Chinese texts. Happy that she has access to these.
In the same vein of thinking, this little girl has SO many books and toys — more than I ever had as a 14-month old. How blessed and privileged are most of the babies in today’s first-world countries to have so much material goods to play with and learn from at such a young age. I never had an exersaucer (two for that matter), a whole mini-library of books (English, French, and Chinese), wooden abacus toy, play kitchen, copious amounts of play food and pots and pans, car seat and stroller, and three whole floors of living space to run around and play with all day. We already limit her number of toys (we have far less than what most of our friends’ kids have) too.
Her poops are consistently solid these days and not mushy like when she was mostly liquid-diet-based.
She’s no longer a formula baby! We finished all the formula that we had in the house so now she only drinks homo (3%) milk and the little bit of breastmilk that I still have each day. Amazing that we never ever bought a tub or container of formula at full retail price from the stores. All the formula that she ever supplemented with were either free samples, for free from marketplace, or purchased at a steep discount ($20/tub) from FBM. We saved so much money!
As well, recently purchases two boxes of diapers from FBM too; $20 and $30 each for 58 count and 166 count respectively — saving on tax and a few dollars here and there. 😀 #superproud of my money-saving skills.
Been giving her more water to drink to make sure she stays hydrated and prevent chapped lips. Will consult the pediatrician later this month when we visit for her 15-month wellness check to see what’s the appropriate amount of water she should be drinking.
Bb desires to drink the water from the cup herself but she is still practising how to tilt and drink from it without spilling too much on herself. We haven’t bought a sippy cup for her; we prefer her to learn drinking from an open cup or straw rather than a sippy cup which doesn’t provide her much benefit.
She had a little bit of constipation early this week (or was it last week?). We saw her grunting with great effort and actually at one point crying in a different way (like she was hurting and complaining). We gave her water and belly rubs which seemed to help. We gave her more water after this and it’s been since smooth since.
I don’t know why looking after her drains me so much. Half the time, I don’t know what to play with her and would rather observe her play by herself. Reading books to her is okay though. I’m so thankful that we have 3 adults in the house to teach her different things. Even if I’m too tired mentally to play and teach her things, at least there’s DH and my mom around to fill in the gaps.
Had my eye exam appointment this week. This is a reminder for anyone reading my blog post to get an eye exam done if you haven’t done so in a while! 🙂 Eye health is important, especially during this COVID-era where we are all spending an abundance of time on screens.
Now that I’m almost done pumping, I can start planning how to eat less and lose some unhealthy weight 🤣 — gained too much extra weight post-partum and during the pandemic — weighed myself and I’m almost as heavy as I was when I was pregnant 😳 lol
Yesterday, she said “yogurt” and went to the fridge and waited for someone to open the fridge to get yogurt. But it was after dinnertime and she wasn’t going to get more food. Impressive that she knew where the yogurt is from and verbally requested for it.
She can drag the wooden walker and walk backwards now with it! 😀
Ever since getting the play kitchen which came with the small broom, she likes to take it every so often and walk around with it. She hasn’t learned to really sweep with it because she doesn’t see us do it enough — we mostly just let our trusty robot vacuum to clean the house.