Whilst I spend the last few days with Matthias before I need to go back to work next Monday, many thoughts filled my mind. The 3 months and 1 week that have passed since his birth seems to be a period of mixed feelings. He had been rather difficult for the first 1.5 months. Wailing when hungry and hard to put to sleep at nights. Needing a lot of attention to carry him around. But he has very much improved over the last few weeks (although at times, there are still some wailing and difficulty) and now I really enjoy time spent with him even though you can really be very tied up by him the whole day.
He has learnt to smile and giggle some time ago. And now his every little smile and giggle melts my heart. He seems to be able to understand when I tease him “ 笑笑” and use my finger to tickle his cheeks. He always gets very amused with that and he will break out into a smile or a giggle. I like to take photographs for him as it helps me remember his growing phase. Now he seems to like be photographed as much as I like to take for him. When I bring out my camera and say “ 笑笑”, he will smile at the camera.
Now he is really very talkative and always wants people to "talk" to him. He makes baby noises, and he is really excited when you repeat after him as if you are learning to talk like him. And he gets "motivated" to making more noises and at times, can be very loud. It's as if he is in a competition with you to make the loudest noise.
He likes to stare and look around. When we bring him out now in the baby carrier, he always seem to be exploring things, looking around at the colourful stuff. Once we caught him staring at Fann Wong's abalone advertisement, haha, as if he was interested to eat the abalone. He used to like to stare at picture of boats that was hanging behind the sofa in YJ’s place in Singapore. Now, he stares at our wedding photos that are hung at the top of the bed. In the morning, we also draw up the curtains and let him "sunbathe" as he watches the moving traffic and people rushing to work on Xinzha Road. Today we introduced him to our Ah Yee, the one that comes twice a week to clean up our place. He was staring at her as this is the 1st time he is seeing her. So funny...It is also funny as we bring him out these few days in Shanghai, the China folks seem really interested at this "little person" I am slinging in front of me. They call him "小不点" or "小毛头", as they are often called like this in China.
He has already learnt to lift his head up when we were back in Singapore. But somehow, we seldom see him doing that these few days. Not sure if it is because he is now wearing rompers that covers his feet and he hasn't learnt how to push himself up on those yet. Will monitor further and see how. He seems to prefer "sitting" nowadays as I crop him up with the pillows on Daddy's and Mummy's king size bed. At times, I can even put him on my stomach and he will wobble a bit as he sits on my stomach.
This is Mattthias, trying to sit up, supporting himself with his arm.
One of Matthias's play sessions... Gosh, see all the toys that Evan gor gor in Shanghai has passed to him... Daddy's and Mummy's bed has become little Matthias' playground...
Now Daddy's and Mummy's bed has become little Matthias' bed too...
Now he has very much settled into a routine every day. Thank God that he didn't show any huge reaction of adjusting to the life in Shanghai. Not sure if we can equate that to Gina Ford's routine as I have always heard about the good comments on the book, but never got to try it. But as I compared the timings given by friends who are using that method, I think I have gotten pretty close to it now. Now he goes to bed at 730pm (with me singing “Twinkle twinkle little star, his favourite bedtime lullaby) and sleeps through till 630am in the morning, only taking one feed at 1030pm at night (his dream feed, aka wake him up for feed). We are still trying hard to drag it further to 730am. During the day now, he takes feed every 3 hours and naps about 1 hour for 3 times a day. Hopefully, we can stick by this routine when I go back to work next week. But this also means that we will probably have very little time to spend with him during the weekdays as he would probably have just woken up when we leave for work and he would have gone to sleep by the night we come back. Sigh...
