Tonight - A Quick Shot

A sleeping beauty eventually after his usual screaming before bed!

Daniel's bedtime routine starts at 8pm. I gave him a bath around this time, then change him into his sleepsuit. He has became enjoying his bath since 4 weeks old. The only thing he dislikes is the getting dressed bit. Putting clothes on him after bath is a nightmare. He would scream all the way through while I putting the nappy, vest and sleepsuit on him. I still don't work out why??? The room is not cold, he is not hungry and he enjoyed bath. I breastfed him before putting him in his moses basket. Normally he would scream once his head touchs the bed. We've been tried a few times to set up him a good bedtime routine, all attemps ended up in failures. Now he goes to bed nearly the same time as we do, namely around 10 o'clock. Tonight we wanted to have an early night after the tiredness from the driving on weekend he screamed his head off...

Boys' Night In

Last night I went out to catch up with my friend Alison in Blah Bar in town center. It's the first girls night out for me since Daniel was born. Emailed Terry at work in the morning to remind him that I was going out at night, he responded cheerfully saying it's their first boys' night in! 4pm Terry walked in home with some pork buns and red bean buns bought from China Town on his lunch break, I did some Chinese stir-fries to go with them as our early dinner. Then breastfed Daniel, changed his dirty nappy and made a bottle for Terry to feed Daniel later while I was out. 6pm hand over time, Terry joked where is the instruction manual. Given him a trustful look, I said 'well you've done twice, surely you know what to do!'

Drove away at 6.45pm and met Alison just in time at Blah Bar. Alison is the friend I used to go swimming on every Wednesday night before my pregnancy. we had an hour and half's chatting, giggling and laugh. I drove back home at 8.30pm then I heard Daniel's screaming at the drive. I thought that's odd, Daniel has grown out of colic weeks ago. Rushed upstairs, just saw Terry was watching Daniel screaming in his cot, Daniel's face turned red, eyes became puffy with all the tears, even when I picked him up, he was still sobbing uncontrollably and refused to take breast. I have to brought him downstairs to lounge and turned telly on to calm him down, and Telly trick worked. Daniel is a baby night owl to some extent. It turned out Terry wanted an early night so put him sleep in his cot earlier than his usual time. He woke up just 15 minuets in it and started to screaming uncontrollably. a disastrous Boys Night In! What I gonna to do if I go back to work??

At weekend...

Finally we booked the flights to Hongkong and reserved the skycot for Daniel. Unfortunately the price has been gone up £100 each since we looked the airline's website 2 weeks ago. The Oasis, a low-budget airline flying between Britain and Hongkong, was just launched 6 months ago, has already seen the popularity of booking. With this airline,the one-way fare to Hongkong could be as low as £79 and business class for £400. However, we didn't get a deal much cheaper than British Airway. We still ended up paying £750 for 3 of us for a round trip.
Daniel's passport has arrived last Friday through secured delivery, which is a bit surprise to me as it only took one week for us to get the passport since we send off the application. Also, the Child Benefit Claim for Daniel came back a lot quicker than what we expected. The civil services seems not too bad in this country!
January is the month dealing with your financial hangover from Christmas with one hand and booking your Summer Holiday with another hand! With the advertising bombardment of Summer Holidays on all sorts of medias, no wonder we start to panic about what we do this summer! With baby attached, there are not much choice for holiday, the only thing we can think at the moment is camping. So looked Center Parc website, it turned out for a week in Center Parc in the UK is twice more expensive than the Center Parc in mainland Europe. Cheaper to go abroad...

Funny Conversation

Watched a documentary about those city traders are getting increasingly huge bonus payout as London are overtaking New York to become the financial capital of the world. Some of the traders, as young as 25, have the financial ability to splash out those millions pound worth luxury apartment in postcode like Chelsea, I joked with Terry that Daniel should be one of those city traders as he grow up. Then Terry immediately said 'but you want him to be a surgeon the other day! Poor Daniel, Mummy is too demanding, isn't she?'. 'But surgeon takes a long time to be trained, probably better off to be a city trader! Look, how clever our Daniel is!' I said. Daniel was just having a big cheeky grin on his face. 'Daniel only need to break a wind you would say how clever he is to everyone who'd listen to!' Terry said...

Stormy Day

We were struck by the high wind speed up to 70mph today. I decided not to take Daniel out this afternoon as I can see from the French door in our lounge that the recycle bin was blown to the bottom of the garden and the fence in the garden was on the verge of falling down. Watched BBC News24, they said 7 people was killed today due to the severe weather, I immediately emailed Terry to warn him not to take tree route in case the falling trees hit him while he's driving home. A few Motorways were shut. When Terry walked in home at 4.30am, he told me some of our roof tiles were blown away, I popped out the house to have look, yes it was, One of the big tilse on the ridge of the house was landed on our drive, lucky it didn't hit my car it could kill us as I can see it make a big dent on the drive way.

Daniel's Routine 1

Daniel still wake up once or twice for feeds during night though he is nearly 3 months old. He meant to be sleeping through long time ago but somehow I got used to get up 2 or 3 times a night to feed him and am quite happy to do so. Even sometime he didn't wake up. I would wake up as my breast are getting too full. Normally around 4am, Daniel would start making noise, kicking legs in his moses basket. I would get up to breastfeed him. After feed, he would gone back sleep in his moses basket until 6am. But sometime I have to take him to big bed with me in our spare bedroom to feed him in bed so we both can go back to sleep quickly, also we try not to disturb Terry' sleep too much as he gets up 6.30 and goes to work around 7am to avoid traffic on M1.

When Terry gets up 6.30am, I get up to feed Daniel then we sleep until 8.30-9am. 9am I get up, , change Daniel's nappy and put him on his day cloth, wipe his face with cotton pad, put some baby cream on his face then I play a bit with him on bed while he is kicking his legs, waving his arms and making lots of coo coo noise. If I smile to him this time he would smile back to me. He's now a lot more happy and cheerful then he used to be. First few weeks after He was born, he was quite grumpy. after half hour's free kick, I put him in car seat or his bouncr so I can have my shower and make bed, put washing on and tidy up house. He would fall asleep in car seat for an hour or so. Then I breastfeed him again around 11am and I do a bit email and Internet. After all these, morning nearly gone.

Around 12.30ish, I'll make some lunch for myself and a bottle for him then push him out for a walk in local park if the weather is nice. If weather is not good I would put Daniel in car for a drive to supermarket or shops. We normally spend 2 hours in the shops or supermarkets, normally get a bit grocery for cooking, sometimes just newspaper and milk. Daniel gets really good 2 hours' sleep in the pushchair or car seats. Sadly the British winter is really not that baby-friendly we end up going out by car more than by foot as it always wet windy and dark.

Evening starts when Terry come back around 4.30pm, we would have tea and scorn at this time while watching Deal or no Deal on telly and reading newspaper. If Daniel wakes up, Terry would play with him a bit. Then we start cooking at 6pm, either me or Terry, depending on what type of meal we are having. He does English, I do stir-fry type. I like casserole, stew type of dish as I can put them on around lunch time and it would be ready in the evening.

8am I'll give Daniel a bath, change him into his sleep suit and get him ready to bed. Daniel's bedtime routine is a nightmare, I will record in another blog.

Baby Massage

The Baby Massage Class I took Daniel to on Friday at Secret Garden Children centre turned out to be good. It believed that baby massage promotes relaxation and sleep of baby, encouraging bonding between Mum and baby,improving suppleness of baby's joints and helping relieve colic. Bearing all these good points in mind, I took Daniel to the class Friday morning. Though it was an effort to find that 'Secret' Children Center, which is hide away from main street, it was all worthy it.

The class commence at 9.30am, Following the map printed off from Internet I drove to the correct street but couldn't find this place. Saw a school-like establishment, I think this is it. As the car park in that school was full so i parked on the street, carried Daniel in the car seat into the school then found out it was wrong place. Disappointed, I walked out of school with Daniel in the car seat held by one of my arm (very heavy, Daniel is 6.3kg)with new direction, A young woman pull over her car towards me and wind down the car window asking the direction to community center. With a map on the passenger seat and a baby at rear, i guessed she must heading for the same place. Yes, she was. After given her the direction, I put Daniel back into the car, drove very slow to search again. In the end, we found the secret garden, we was 10 minutes late. The Young Mum asking direction earlier was worse than me. She was 20 minutes late.

When we arrived there. There were already 10 babies and Mums sitting around on the mats. Undressed Daniel and put his on the mat I started to follow instructions. The trainer has undertaken the International Infant Massage course. so she was quite good. Daniel was quite cooperative, didn't cry at all the whole session until the last minute, it was his feed was due. The whole event was quite sociable. The baby girl next to Daniel is called Grace as well and she was such a sweet baby, so quiet... definitely will go next week!

Beginning of 2007

Holiday season is over. we've only taken down our christmas tree last weekend as life has been so busy recently. It is said that the Christmas tree and decorations meant to be taken down before the 12th day after Christmas, otherwise it brings bad luck. For this reason, Terry managed to pack Christmas thing away into the garage last Sunday and life back to normal. We nearly didn't bother Christmas tree this year as we was going to spend whole holiday week at Terry's parrents' and it's such a hassle to dig out Christmas tree from the jungle of our garage until days before Christmas Terry emailed me from work saying even his office was full of Christmas decorations we'd better set up ours at home before everyone think we are mean. Here we go Christmas tree was set up just 3 days before Christmas day.

T o get the best deal we are trying to book flights for March now to take Daniel back Kunming to see his other grandparents. Daniel need his own passport. I've only realised this after I had sent his birth certificate for Child Benifit Claim. First passport application normally takes a bit time In a rush of panic, we ordered another copy from register office. Taking baby's passport photo is a bit of pain. Tried photo booth and it proved no good as I can't hide my surpporting hand for Daniel. Lucky we found that the post office around corner can shoot baby's passport phtoto saving me time to take him to a professional photo studio... Now I got all the documents ready and filled in the application form and just awaiting our solicitor to countersign the application....

I took Daniel to see a hospital consultant for checking his hip becasue he was born breech position. Baby born breech normally develop hip problem. The GP refered him in early November last year and he's only get the appointment by now. The consultant said his hip is fine at the moment but need an X-ray when he is 6 months old to make the final conclusion...

To make my life even busier, I booked baby massage classes, which starting this Friday and will last 5 weeks and have to take Daniel for another special vacination (for protection against tuberculosis) in hospital instead of our local medical center this Friday. It is because we are going back China, it is not the the normal part of the inmmulisation package for kids in the UK