A serenade!
In which she slept soundly after this.
Category Archives: parenting
15 days
I’m now relying on the Baby Care book I mentioned previously as well as Kidfolio and Babycenter’s My Baby apps on my iPhone.
But so far, I haven’t read yet how old a baby is when he/she starts to baby talk. Could a 15-day old infant know how to baby talk already? Because Yui just did, several times today. And nope I didn’t hallucinate, deprived of sleep as I am. Suffice it to say that I was teary-eyed with joy as I replied to my daughter.
I’ve read that babies who were sung unto gets to talk earlier. I do hope all the singing I’ve been doing so far for Yui does/did help.
On jaundice and milestones
on jaundice / yellow skin
I wasn’t able to hold my baby in my arms yesterday. And for the whole day, I just contented myself with looking at her few pictures, wondering, worrying if she’s ok.
About mid morning yesterday, the hospital’s paediatrician dropped by my room and informed me Yui have yellow skin/jaundice and that her bilirubin is high. So they will subject her to photo treatment wherein she will be subjected to UV rays the whole day. I haven’t read about what jaundice on newborns mean so I asked the doctor if it’s detrimental to her health. He assured me it’s usually treated. But I lingered on the “usually”. He said he’ll tell me the results by the morrow.
I searched the Internet and the references I got were pretty worrisome. That if left unmitigated, it could lead to cerebral palsy or brain damage. Hubs and Okasan assured me however this is pretty normal. That hubs had it as well when he was a newborn and was himself subjected to the same UV rays (like father like daughter huh hehe). And the book I have here with me, Stoppard’s The New Baby Care Book, also affirms that physiological jaundice/yellow skin is pretty normal for newborns, is not a disease and usually occurs around the baby’s 3rd day of life, disappearing around the first week of life.
(segue: for my hospital stint, I brought two books – Book 3 Part 2 of the Song of Ice and Fire series and this baby care book. During labor, I tried to distract myself with the fantasy series but addicted as I am with the book, it wasn’t enough to distract me from the pain. When I woke up after a long sleep after the operation, I saw the baby care book on my bedside table, placed by my husband for my easy access. I took the hint. 😀 )
The yellow colour is actually brought about by the presence of bilirubin, the yellow pigment part of the broken-down-primitive-red-blood cells.
Per some references I read however, if the bilirubin is quite high, even when it’s really just physiological jaundice, it is normal practice to treat it, one treatment of which is subjecting baby to UV rays (if in the hospital) or sunlight (if at home).
We saw her in the nursery in the evening and my heart constricted seeing her alone on a special case, eyes covered for protection against the UV.
The worrywart in me prevailed however and hence was only able to sleep for less than two hours. Come morning when one of my OB visited me, I asked about my baby who has been photo treated and if there has been any word. Like the others, he assured me as well that it’s nothing to worry about and that it’s usual phenomena specially for Asians.
True enough, come 11am, my baby was brought to me! Cleared and sunburned. For three days I’ve been trying to lie on my side but couldn’t do it because my stitch is still painful. Even 30min before Yui was laid beside me, I still can’t do it. But when my baby was already placed beside me, without even realising it, I was already lying on my side cooing to Yui. The things babies can make you do. 🙂
I sang her some songs which eventually made her drift to sleep. Curiously, she fell asleep around the time I was singing the song that Mama used to sing to my brothers to make them sleep and which i sang to my brothers as well when it was my turn to lull them to sleep. When I realised what I was doing, well, suffice it to say that there was watering somewhere in the face and a voice cracking.
Precious moments.
on milestones
Finally after four days, my shadow, the IV drip stand is finally gone! Hand is swollen though from all the different drip medicines I’ve been having. Yes that’s not a leg. That’s an arm in each photo.
The IV was finally removed after having had cleared all the necessary tests for one who underwent a CS operation (email me for questions hehe). And with the IV drip shadow gone, I’m now allowed to breastfeed Yui. Alas, I’m not quite successful with it yet. Will try again at 9pm and at 12mn.
When we got back to my room, the dinner that awaited me took us all by surprise.
The one with the roofed sea bream fish and sticky rice is a congratulatory for me for having had cleared all the milestones for my cesarian operation (pain, tests, medicine, food, and loo tests besides). Of course I ate with gusto. The fish is SO good! Hubs reminisced how after the operation I had to start from liquid food then semi liquid food then almost normal food and then a feast. Yey!
I’m one day ahead of sched. Supposedly I’d only be breastfeeding tomorrow. I wonder if they’d discharge me earlier than planned which is on the 26th yet. Let’s see.
baby cabinet and baby bed
Finally, our baby’s cabinet has been delivered! I so love the engraved mickey head.
It came already assembled but sans the mickey head handle. So while brother and sister (hubs and Mayumi) took care of assembling baby’s crib (baby’s crib is just right beside my side of the bed. Perfect arrangement),
I installed the mickey head handles. Voila! 🙂
Giggles on the mickey heads.
After roughly more than one hour of assembly, crib is all up and ready! 🙂
One thing I love with this type of crib is that one side can be lowered. So while sleeping, I can lower down the slide for easy access to baby.
No worries on baby falling because baby’s bed and my bed is jammed up tight (foam is askew in the photo hence the seeming gap).
Now we just have to wait for the futon that we’ve just ordered from Rakuten. Cutie isn’t it?
——-
I’m a very satisfied Rakuten customer actually.
The Mickey baby cabinet we bought at 29,800 yen is really reasonable considering the price of the cabinets we’ve previously purchased from our friendly neighbour furniture shop. You can also select the color of the cabinet (either black or white) and the mickey head handles (comes in white, semi-transparent, blue, pink, black, yellow and of course red). The best part is that it’s wooden and not plastic.
The 7-set futon is at 21,000yen compared to the 5-set futon sold in Keikyu mall at 39,800yen.
The Katoji baby crib we bought at Akachan Honpo at ~13,000yen, courtesy of Otosan. Arigatou Otosan. 🙂
on feminism and being a super woman
Atsushi’s mom, Okasan, visited us over the weekend, till Tuesday. Okasan is amazing as always with her energy and her cheerful countenance. What was remarkable with this visit was that because she extended her visit till Tuesday, we got the rare chance to have a good, healthy, full breakfast before going to work. And when we got back from work, we arrived at our home that was filled with the good smell of home cooking.
And so of course I am left to pondering how I’d fare as a mom-wife with a very demanding career.
I think of how Okasan prepared the breakfast table for us, and I imagine (and know) that she has done so, everyday, for her family for several decades already just before going to work albeit she’s blessed with a work that has a flexible schedule.
I think of serving breakfast for my husband and baby before going to work and then later on serve dinner after office and I realise how dearly I want to be able to do just that.
Now, some obtuse feminist might say “that’s not only what women are made for! Why can’t the husband do the serving/cooking?! Women shouldn’t be stereotyped as the ones who SHOULD wake up earlier so as to be able to cook for the family”.
But I don’t go with that kind of stereotype “feminism”. I rather strongly agree with Amanda Palmer’s definition on what a true feminist is: to do whatever she wants (click here for the very sensible article).
And I say, I want to cook for my husband and baby, take care of them, be the best wife-mom and have an amazing career on top of it.
How to do it though is another matter that has to be dissected. One main problem probably is that I am an insomniac. I have such a terrible insomnia that most of times, on the average, I only am able to sleep two hours after I went to bed. So if I had a long day at work, I’d only get to sleep at 2am or so. End result, I make up for the lack of sleep by waking up late just in time to get to office on time. No time to prepare breakfast at all.
Another main reason probably is that I’ve been doing this late-night-late-morning routine for 16 years now, ever since I left home for University. Sixteen years of habit that has to be undone.
However, as has been often said which we’ve already proven quite a number of times, it only takes 21 days to kickstart a habit. Throw in 30 days, if you want, for good measure. And so here’s to hoping that I’d get to start and end and keep going that planned 30-day habit of serving breakfast for my family especially now that soon we’ll have a little one who’s dependent on us for her survival.
Hmmm. Come to think of it. I can use those insomnia evenings to prepare breakfast.
As for the evenings and dinner, with the kind of environment we have at the office wherein we have to put in long hours to keep abreast, ofttimes I’m either already too tired to prepare a meal or it’s already very late that eating out is the better option.
So how to go about this evening dilemma? One could be to apply that don’t-work-for-more-than-40-hours-a-week-for-a-more-efficient-you philosophy. Although from experience, it’s hard to apply this at the office.
So what to do? The only option I can think of now is akin to what I usually do when deadlines are all stacked up: just do it. Quit thinking and fretting about it. JUST DO IT. And do your best while you’re at it.
For the mean time, I will just have to raise the white flag and give up the part about being a super wife at home and clean/cook always. With pregnancy and a demanding full time work, I think I already have more than enough on my plate. I guess for now I just have to make up to Hubs by being sweeter. 😀
Diaper talk: Combi’s Sangenic and garbage collection
Garbage segregation is strictly implemented here in Japan. Every household has a copy of the daily garbage pickup schedule – what type of garbage gets picked up at certain days and at what time. And if you’re a delinquent and your combustible garbage is with PET bottles, trust that the garbage dudes definitely won’t pick it up.
The schedule differs with every area. in ours, burnables/decomposing garbage and plastic wrappers/cellophane/styro and similar stuff gets collected twice a week at Mondays and Fridays (albeit burnables should be in a different garbage bag as the plastics). PET bottles are on Tuesdays, big boxes and old magazines/books (should be neatly tied and bundled together) every second Saturday of the month, und so weiter. And oh, it’s required that you use see-through garbage bags, well, sometimes, it’s out of courtesy as well.
During winter, spring and fall, the decomposing garbage getting holed up inside your house is just fine. The cold ambient arrests the bacteria that would otherwise cause foul odour. It’s a different matter though during summer when it’s hot and decomposing garbage could fester fast. Thankfully, we don’t cook much nowadays, especially during the workweek so it’s not torture at all.
However, I can just imagine how used baby diapers would reek after four days of being held up in the garbage can. Or rather, I really don’t want to imagine at all.
Hence, I am convinced that this special diaper trash can made by Combi is really a boon for parents in properly disposing their baby’s poop.
The “contraption” is actually a bit complicated when we tried to check it out – Mayumi and Hubs had quite a good laugh about it as we explored how it is used. But basically, it uses a disk of partitioned cellophane. When you throw away the used diaper inside, the opened partitioned cellophane will “candy-wrap” the diaper as it goes to the bottom, leaving a newly opened cellophane gaping wide open to receive yet another used diaper.
Supposedly, the “candy wrapping” and good trash can seal can eliminate the odour seeping out of the trash can. Hopefully. Let’s see how it is in a few months’ time or should I say, next summer.