Gasping for air

Work is busy. Husband is busy. Not enough sleep. Days and nights merge into one as I work around the clock tending to one thing after another.

Can't breathe.

I seek comfort in looking at my beautiful children and remind myself that I'm doing all that I am for them. Because I love them with all my heart and more, and because I love my husband too.

I soldier on. 

7am: I crawl out of bed and watch them for a little while. If only they stayed asleep all through the night.

My daughter and my son. Jake is in his drool-a-lot phase (teething?)

Kate, the family clown. Jake, the meh

Fishball faces!

"FRIENDS!" (the sister will get this)

A year gone by

It was last July that I found out that I was pregnant. How time flies.

Happiness

is receiving your kids' picture in the middle of the day.

Aww, aren't they adorable? :)

Scenes from our home

Jake, fresh from his haircut. The husband had decided on this mohawk style and I think it's rather cute and because he has so much hair, he garners plenty of attention from many because of his hair. You can kinda make out that bald patch across the side of his head? That's his birth hair falling off naturally. Now that he's reached 4 months, I'm dropping hair too. It happened too with Kate and I'm not as scared but I cannot wait for it to stop! I wanna keep my locks please! The husband and I also agreed that this last cut is the last time we're doing it - we plan to let it grow out and let him have another hairstyle. 

Cousins in their animal outfits. I had a friend buy them from Bangkok and they're wearing their respective chinese zodiac signs.

Outfit comes with tails! Too cute!

Mucking around with her breakfast

Our mini plant experiment. The husband planted some chilli in a pot in our balcony and Kate helps him water it sometimes. She's very impatient (doesn't know any better) and asks "the flower will come out?" I introduced her green beans to plant and grow cos I know it actually grows very quickly and here she is with her grown plant.

This is the cute face I see staring at me in this position, at 7am (acceptable).... 2 / 4 / 5 am... (unacceptable!)

Mickeying around with Nainai's props

Jiujiu's birthday lunch. Jake spiked a fever suddenly and though it wasn't high, it still made us worried. We quickly popped into the pharmacy to get the cooling patch and baby panadol. That also marked the start of his full-blown flu.

Yeye brought Kate to Gardens by the Bay. Twice.

Buying kueh tutu from the pasar malam

Kate's breakfast leftover. No more cream on the top!

Bad pic, but it was a rather fun moment. We were heading home and Kate and I started to take pictures of ourselves. We were making similar faces.

Sunday morning. The husband gets to sleep in and look who's right there to disturb play with him in the absence of big jiejie 

I LOVE DADDY

The two important males in my life who mean the world to me

Grumpy Jake (who'd had enough of photo-taking by this time)

Fun with nainai - check out how happy Kate looks, and how enraptured Jake is!

Morning, before I head off to work. I love my children so much!

Kate brushes her teeth. I must admit I'm not very good at enforcing this habit. I do tell her to do so but when she fights it, I give in to her sometimes. Note to self: bring Kate to the dentist!

Building blocks. She is rather steady and can build things on her own. This is "Dora standing on top of the house"

Silly Kate

Playing together

Lazing together

BBQ

My babies and I

Kate gets to eat marshmallows because yiyi got them 

We got together to celebrate the birthday of my best friend. 19 years of best-friendship and counting

Today, we went to visit Kate's newborn cousin, Caelen who is 1 day old

Proud grandmother

Mid-week break

Time is passing in a whirl. I can barely catch my breath before something else happens.

I rush about at work, settling whatever I can within the hours in the day, racking my brains and write emails as coherently as I can; then transit home and become a physical robot where I herd my troupe to do what is required - eat dinner, shower, play, go to sleep; then wash rinse repeat this cycle all over again. I suspect part of the reason why I don't feel any break in between it all because I don't get to sleep properly. Jake is still waking up 3 times a night (these are the good nights) and my body never gets to stop. After introducing formula milk to Jake, my body seems to be less stressed and supply is picking up slightly. I think it's still a good idea to keep him on one/two feeds of powder a day, just in case (on a random note, his poop has changed slightly since he's started to consume formula. Slightly more grainy with texture).

This week, I swapped my off day to a Wednesday because I had to bring Jake for his follow-up consultation (poor boy has been on the nebuliser round the clock for 5 days consecutively) and it was a good break. I had the day to run errands and I ended up spending it with a girlfriend and Jake.

Kate spends the afternoon with yeye. I hugged her and she went off happily "bye bye Mommy! bye bye Jake!"

At Thomson Medical Centre. Actually, we look quite alike, no?
Happy that the boy is off the nebuliser already. On the mend yay!

Snooze

Coffee - he can sit like this for a short while... before keeling over

Taking the MRT. Waiting for the train nainai was in to come by

Part of the evening crowds

Rushing for the bus

Playing with his favourite nainai

It felt good to just have a baby to hug all day. Though I was a bit achey from the work out, it still felt good. It reminded me of the days before when I brought Kate out all the time! I don't have the chance to do it as much with Jake because I have more to juggle now, so it's all precious to me.

Funny faces

Kate draws faces. The brown face (best drawn) at the top is mine. I demonstrated to Kate how to draw a face.
1. Draw a circle. 2. Add the eyes, nose and mouth
The rest are her masterpieces. It shows up better when she uses different colours.
And if you notice, Kate added ears to my face when I told her to add them on. 

Fruitful Friday

Today is one of those days that I accomplished a lot of things. In one day, I managed to tick off 80% of things that I was meant to do but hadn't gone about. So though I'm tired as hell, I'm glad I went out to have done them all. Call me superwoman.

My little man - please don't be sick anymore. 

His favourite position now, besides being carried upright

On the way for her vaccination (the poor, clueless girl). If her teeth look abit dirty, it's cos they are. She'd just had an oreo

Not happy after vaccination. I was SO nervous about it because this is the first time she's had an injection at this age (this I-am-aware-age). She took it well though - I managed to distract her enough so that she wasn't frightened and she was so brave she only cried for a while.

She insisted on keeping the bandaid on ALL day. She has another vaccination to go for. I'm asking the husband to bring her to that. I don't look forward to the possible struggles and tears

Happy enough to be rewarded with her favourite "orh lu lu de bao bao"

We visited her previous school and collected all her artwork. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to go through them with her properly. I zapped right out to bring Jake to his PD.

I did say that he likes to be upright, didn't I. (To the sister: check out his moo-outfit)

OTW to the hospital. Jake was quite contented with Sophie's company. nomnomnom. I love how he enjoys car rides. A total contrast to fussy, fretful, fiesty Kate before.

7.22kg baby! (MOO)

Tea with friends. This is Janelle. She is about a week+ younger than Kate.

Notice how their expressions are the same

Same & silly