It’s been a while... but don’t blame me guys! Life has been a roller coaster the past 6 months or so. Yeap, Haryz is 6 month old now. And I am still awed by the fact that I am a mother!
The first two months were more of a routine for me… baby wakes, feed him milk, then he is back to sleep. And the cycle just goes on and on. Ya lah, as a newborn, it’s only natural for him to wake up at night. But I just grew used to it, not much complains there. After all, staying home during my maternity leave allows me to take afternoon naps easily.
I went back to work on 1st Oct 07 and it was hard. Not just about leaving him at my mom’s (although I am very much assured that he’s in good hands), but the whole expressing-at-work thing was so difficult! Aside from rushing to get my work done, I also had to spend 2 x 45 minutes sessions of pumping. I sacrificed my lunch hour for that so there goes my social life. My colleagues and I used to do a lot of lunch hour mini-shopping, but all that is gone for now. I also had to rush home everyday as Haryz wasn’t receptive to formula. He insisted for breast milk only. Basically this means that whatever milk I managed to express today is his food for tomorrow. And it was stressful siah! The more I got stressed, the less milk I produce. I resorted to eating supplements, drinking lots of water, reading paper whilst pumping (to reduce stress lah, hehe!) and etc.
Again, it grew into a routine. Once in a while, we bring him out, and I must saw, I;m beginning to get quite good at his. At first, I wasn’t able to leave the house without someone with me. Hubby, mom, sis... whoever! I was that desperate you see! It seemed to be an impossible feat to handle the baby, his pram, the MIM sling that I have yet to master at that point, and the various things that you need when you bring the baby out. Even going to Causeway Point involves such great fuss. The good thing is, with practice comes talent. I am proud to say that I was able to attend a wedding just last 2 weeks or so with baby, sling, pram and baby things all alone (of course, this involved the help of the friendly uncle from CityCab)!
At 3 months, my MIL was already telling me that baby was ready to eat. I hesitated for a while but eventually gave in. A month later, I went to Cold Storage and bought Nestle’s White Rice and Brown Rice cereal. Tried feeding it to him for about a week. It proved that a mother’s (mine!) intuition is always right. Baby wasn’t ready and he kept gagging during feeding time. He also fell sick that week. Coughing and flu. Cried till he lost his voice – poor baby! I stopped after that week. After a while, baby he became as active as before, showing more recognition and preference! for his mommy and daddy… yeay!! My mom told me that Haryz often gets cranky in the evening when he knows that I am coming home soon. This filled me up with pride so much, despite the guilt I had at putting my mom in a difficult time.
At 5 months and 2 months, I continued with his feeding. He seemed to enjoy it much this time round. He has also started to show interest whenever the people around him ate. At this stage, he has become an expert at rolling and holding his head up when on his tummy. We also had fun with purees! Carrot and potatoes, pumpkin, banana…
On the day of his 6 month jab, he had the first fall of his life. My heart nearly stopped that day! And for days after, the paranoia never really left me and the incident kept running through my head. That morning, he had woken up and was crying for h is morning feed. I was still sleepy and thus feed him while still lying down with my eyes still closed. The next thing I knew, Haryz was crying and it jolted me up. I got up and saw that he was not on my king-sized bed, but was face down on the floor! Picked him up immediately and soothed him whilst I checked for any bruises. At that moment hubby came home from his night shift. Relayed to him what happened and quickly got ready to go for his injection appointment at 9am. We told the doctor what happened and was glad to hear that baby is ok. I could never have forgiven myself if anything had happened. We were sent off with a reminder to monitor the baby for the rest of the day to look out for any abnormalities.
At this stage, Haryz is crawling (he loves the bumper mat I bought him and crawls from one end to another) and grabbing anything that comes and putting it in his mouth. He is fond of jumping, or bouncing rather, whenever we carry him under the armpits or let him stand. He is also on the walker and often time chase after my sister when she goes around the house vacuuming. He is learning to babble, does he talk a lot. But I love, love, love to hear him talk. And the way his eyes follow me around when I put him down to do something else, which is just so funny and yet so touching! Oh ya, I also missed out his earlier… my baby is fond of singing! He often sings along when I sing him to sleep. And you can hear him ‘singing’ himself back to sleep when he woke up at times.
So there, the story for the last 6 months. Motherhood and its wonders… I look forward for the many years to come.
