Seraphine is 5 weeks old!

This will get boring after a while, but hey, we're new parents and are allowed to indulge lol. Anyway, Angel is 5 weeks old today and is she growing up fast (ok I'll probably be saying this every week for a few weeks!). Her biggest 'achievement' this past week is being to last through the night without a supplementary bottle because she was eating really well from the breast! This is great news for me as I was really worried about what I'd have to do when all our help leaves on Wednesday. I hope this will continue. I woke up in a panice last night, realizing that everyone will be leaving very soon. It'll be a tough few days for sure. Already I know that we'll have a tough time during the day as Mummy and 'Aunty' have been carrying Angel whenever she cries. She now won't stay on her own in her bed or in her swing whenever she's no sleeping. She wants to be in someone's arms) Anyway, yes, she's been feeding really well lately and is able to finish both breasts before falling back asleep at night. Like aunty said, she's like a regular alarm clock at night. She'll wake up every 3-4 hours to feed. She's apparently needs a security blanket (which is her nappy cloth that we use to burp her) and clings to it really tightly.. she likes it around her neck and needs to hold on to it to sleep. The other day, she moved it so that the cloth was around her head, like a shawl or something. It was really funny. Here's the video of her like that :

And here's another video of her, just hanging around.

More Bibou and her pal, Dan

Bibou and a real treat this past weekend. Dan and his parents and baby brother came over for gouter on Sunday. Bibou was really excited all day when we told her that Dan was coming over, and apparently so was Dan! (In fact, the two of them met up often at the park last week, and all these two could say when they returned home to 'report' on their daily activities were happily reporting that they had met "Dan" or "Josephine" respectively).

Fortunately, she had a nice nap and so wasn't grounchy when guests arrived! Both were so excited seeing each and they both immediately ran into the garden and played with each other, while us parents sat in the living room exchanging baby 'war' stories. You could hear their squeals of laughter and screams of delights! These two just play sooo nicely together. They share everything and there isn't much argument - I say much as there is no way 2 kids playing together would not have any fights at all! But they're very quick to forgive and forget. They immediately say 'pardon' and kiss and make up. Poor Dan, he had so much fun that he didn't want to leave and was crying really hard. Bibou was a little upset and was trying to comfort him... to no avail. She got a bit upset too. Poor girly.


The videos :
Here is a video of Bibou and Dan singing while playing play-doh :





Second video of them on the trampoline as both wanted to jump - with each other!

Seraphine is 4 weeks old today

How fast the time flies. It has been 4 weeks since Seraphine was born! As she sleeps peacefully on the sofa right now, it is (almost :)) difficult to remember the time we'd spent in the operating theatre, the anxiety, the waiting etc. It was all worth it! As I think back on the first time I laid eyes on her, and though I was a little bit 'in and out' due to the anaesthetic, I remember disctintly two things, the first was that my very first thought was "wow - she looks exactly like Bibou". And secondly, I remembered that she was screaming her lungs out (which is good of course) while they had quickly taken her away to remove the stuff from her mouth and lungs, but as soon as she was brought to me and I could cuddle her (as much as I could as my arms were all 'tied down), she stopped crying as soon as I called to her. That was soooo touching.

Anyway, today, she had her first month check up. She's fit as a fiddle; her doctor is very pleased with her progress. She's put on 800 grams, and is 4.2 kgs now.. and taller too! She's 54 cm now. Everyone always comments on her lovely soft hair. We've also noticed that her eyes aren't black or brown yet. They are a lovely light grey (though Daddy thinks that it may be a bit bluish too). She's still eating quite a lot, in fact, more now! I'm still breastfeeding her exclusively though I do pump my milk and we give her a supplement bottle of my breast milk . I'm still going to hold out! Though it has been hard work, I'm determined to keep breastfeeding her as long as I can!

Happy Father's Day

It was Father's Day this past Sunday (yes, and to continue on my rant on Mother's Day post... Father's Day here in France is the same day as everywhere else in the world. Go figure!!). Unfortunately, the big Annual Father's Day Picnic that is organized by MESSAGE (in which Daddy is in the 'spotlight' as he entertains the kids with his now famous guitar playing and singing) was cancelled due to 'The return of the Toxic Catepillars' (I know, it sounds like a bad 'B' movie or something but they're real. check out this link : http://www.xetronella.com/caterp.html ! We'd decided to err on the side of caution and cancelled the event, which was a real pity. But we still had a lovely day... we went out for lunch with everyone, including Seraphine, to our neighbourhood chinese restaurant. Bibou had her all time favorite 'tung hoon' (or glass noodle) soup and boy was she a happy camper! She ate everything up and was really chatty. She kept asking for 'more' of course. She was (relatively) well behaved while we had our lunch of steam boat and Korean BBQ on our table.

Then we came home and gave the Daddies their presents! Bibou as always was thrilled whenever presents are involved (though she still hasn't gotten the concept of 'giving' the presents - whenever she sees presents, she WANTS to open them). But we managed to get her to give the presents to both Kongkong and Daddy. She also gave a present to Daddy that she personally made at the creche the other day. His own hand made (and painted) personal post-it board!

That afternoon, after a romp in the park with Daddy and Kongkong, Bibou pulled out the water pistols and had a boisterious time with Daddy and especially Kongkong with the guns. She got quite wet but also got Kongkong wet too. She was quite good with the guns, and at one point, even was double fisted, "Chow Yuen Fatt" style! LOL.



Here's a video of Bibou playing with Kongkong. She had a particulalry funny comment there : I'm all wet!




Oh and her going the 'wrong way'. But actually, what she was doing was going round the to the front to 'load' up her water pistol... with more water.



Here's a video of Bibou playing with Mahmah and Kongkong in the garden earlier in the week.

Bibou's first photo 'shoot'

As many of you may know, we are very involved with MESSAGE, which is a parent support group for English Speaking families here in France. There are about 1,500 members already and is a great support network. We do a lot of volunteer work for the group, especially Daddy as he is on the Executive Community! Wow. lol. He's VP of Publications... he's responsible for all the publications of the group. He's made a lot of improvements with the magazines etc. And has set up a fairly large professional team to help him!

Anyway, the other day, the team decided that they will have the editor team's children on the cover of the Fall magazine. So the three models in waiting, Bibou, Soleil and Ella turned up with their Daddies (and Mommy) with the team photographer at a nearby forest which provided a lovely backdrop for the shoot. Apparently, they were all perfect models. Daddy took some pictures during the shoot, and here are some of them! And as always, some recent photos of our angel and there's a pix of her with our fabulous confinement lady.She's such a great help. I don't know what I'd do when she leaves sob sob!

Seraphine's update

It is Angel's 2nd week already. We had a mini check-up at the doctors yesterday and she's doing really well. All her tests results came back negative, and she's slowly gaining weight, though she's still not at her birth weight yet. We've discovered that she's got a 'short tongue' or is slightly tongue tied, and is probably one reason why she's not breastfeeding well. We're going to have a very minor 'operation' this Wednesday, just a couple seconds procedure to snip the ligament slightly. Apparently, this is heiritary... and Mahmah reminded me that I had it too when I was young. She said that we had the procedure done when I was 5 years old and it was a very quick thing and that I didn't even realize that it had done. (Although I do remember vaguely that I was being tied down!! hmmmm). Well, hopefully the procedure will help Angel feed much better now.

She is eating a little better now, though it still takes up to an hour to feed her each time, c'oz she falls asleep all the time on her breast. I am trying all the tricks in the world to keep her awake! But she is eating a lot more now (but still relies on a bottle of expressed milk at night). She is a very determined little one though, and will scream for her milk and can't wait for 1 second if she wants to eat. She is a very good burpy AND pooper! She lets out these VERY loud burp each feed. She poops at least once or twice after each feed, and the naughty little angel always prefers to poop or pee in a new diaper, or as SOON as the old one is taken off. We've already had some very interesting pattern on our carpet already. She's quite strong, kicks well and cna hold her head pretty well too.

Oh here are some videos of her :

and this is her in what I call 'being in her zone'. She gets like this when she's 'gassy' and has this cute smile when gas passes through her. Bibou was exactly like this too.



Just as a comparasion, here's an old video I managed to dig up of Bibou when she was in her zone. You've gotta tilt your head to see her! She was really funny!

Happy Mother's Day!!

It was Mother's Day in France on Sunday (yes, France celebrates Mother's Day on a day that no-one else does! PLUS, because this year's 'normal' Mother's Day fell on a long weekend, they decided to move Mother's Day yet to another weekend, the first weekend in June. Why, no one knows... or rather only the French will know! Whatever, Rant over! to continue...). And we spent a lovely day with Mahmah and Kong kong.

First, Bibou went shopping with Daddy in the morning and (with the help of sweet daddy), bought a huge beautiful flower arrangement for me. She came into the house, patted on my back (I was cleaning out the freezer or something), and when I turned around to greet her, she immediately pointed to the flower with a big grin on her face. She was sooo sweet. We then went out to the restaurant and had steam boat with Mah mah and Kong kong. She did like the soup.

We came home to distribute prezzies to mah mah and Kong kong (belated b'day prezzy for him!). Bibou, however, wanted to open all the presents and mahmah and Kong kong were kind enough to let her open them... but they did get to keep the presents lol.

The weather has been particularly funny this week. One minute hot, another cold. Sometimes very humid. It was really nice out last night so we decided to have dinner in the garden. After dinner, Bibou decided that she wanted to help in the garden... so she went to put on her yellow boots and started digging around in the vegetable patch (Daddy and Kongkong are starting to plant our vegetables for our patch... better late than never). We got some really funny pix of Bibou!! Including one taken after she'd eaten raspberries fresh off the plant! She looked like she was shot in the mouth (Daddy's words lol)!

We're Back! FINALLY

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. The very next day after our return, little angel had jaundice and and we were readmitted to the hospital that night. That got better, but then she had a fever that wouldn’t go away, so they did a battery of blood tests on her, including drawing fluid from her spine. They then sent the tests to the lab which took FOREVER! In the meantime, they said that she had some kind of viral meningitis and insisted that she stayed on while she was put on an IV drip of antibotics and other medication. Poor girly had needles poked everywhere, though they said that she was a really brave girl and didn't cry. She did keep pulling the drip out (I don't blame her!). I stayed with her throughout the stay (though they did say that I could go home and come back to visit - I balked at that idea!). It wasn't easy when day after day, they kept coming in to say that we couldn't leave. She was really tired and weak the first few days, but recovered quickly. Finally, after 6 days, we pushed and pushed (and helped by little angel who pulled the drip out again, and they finally said that her veins were too fragile to support any more drip and prescribed oral medication), and we were allowed to leave the hospital.

Kong kong and Mah mah are here and are enjoying little Angel, and especially Bibou's company. We're learning to adjust to our new addition, though have to admit, it hasn't been easy. They'd been giving Angel the bottle (albeit filled with my milk that I'd pumped) and she's getting very lazy at sucking at the breast, thus she gets hungry very quickly as she's not getting sufficient from the breasts. I am going to keep trying and am determined not to give up breastfeeding yet. Anyway, here are some quick photos that were taken today. The weather has been really surprising yucky (so much so that we'd had to turn the heater on!). Hopefully it'll warm up nicely so we can go out to the parks and all... and take more photos.