And Baby #2 is a .....

We went to the gynae this morning for the usual monthly check up. Baby has grown much bigger indeed and definitely very active. We can see Baby moving quite a lot while the doctor did the ultrasound scan. I can also feel more movements nowadays that are much more distinct compared to the initial spurts. It's still not that strong kicks yet, but definitely baby movements!

Anyway, the doctor made some measurements and estimated Baby to be around 302g, which he said was normal. He also let us see where was the face of the baby, the hand, legs, spine and heartbeat. My blood tests results also all came back quite well, no issues, just that my blood sugar level was a little on the high side of the suitable range. Well, finally the doctor also helped look at different angles for us to tell whether it's a boy or girl. To be honest, even before he confirmed it, I was quite sure I saw the birdie!! So yes, we are expecting another BOY!! Haha...I guess I'm not too surprised neither am I too disappointed. I just wish for the baby to be healthy and strong. I guess Kendrick will have a didi to play the same boy's stuff in future....

Ok, now I will have quite a bit of time to start thinking about names already...:) Next week we'll be going for my detailed scan, so hope for the best too. Till then, will update again.

Baby #2 is on the way :)

Finally I have time to upload this entry about my baby #2...At first I was waiting for my first trimester to be over. Then after that, things got a little busy but finally, I decided that I should really take some time to blog about it.

Well, as at now, I'm about 17 weeks pregnant and this baby will be due in mid March 2011. I really thank God for this blessing which finally came in June. We've been trying for slightly less than a year for this second child. In the process, I've consulted my gynae a few times and also went on a very short TCM treatment. Which was why I could not quite believe it when I finally got pregnant. We were really happy and all I could think about was that the baby be healthy and strong with a heartbeat.

My first trimester this time was a little bit worse than the last time. I had more nausea and was sensitive to more food. There was always this taste in my tongue which I really disliked. I also started to have insomnia around 8 weeks into pregnancy. That was a real torture not to be able to sleep in the early morning. Actually till now, I would say I have not had really good sleep in the longest time. I still wake up at least once to pee at night and at times will be awake for a good 1 hour before falling asleep again. However, like the last time, I do not really have any particular food cravings and can generally eat better, even in the first trimester. Now that I've moved into my second trimester, things are certainly much better. The funny taste in my mouth is gone and my appetite has also improved a lot. Burping is also something which is consistent to my last pregnancy. I also started to feel some very slight spurts of movement from my baby since last week. It's a matter of time I'll start feeling the baby kicks more surely and that's something I really liked :)

Anyway, I'm now looking forward to the next appointment where hopefully I'll be able to confirm the gender of baby #2 :)

My first scan at 5 weeks+ where the pregnancy sac can be seen. Baby is just a small little bean

At 7 weeks, baby has grown more now. We also heard the heartbeat

At 11 weeks, baby is suddenly so big already. We saw the baby move about quite a lot when the doctor was doing the scan :)

At close to 16 weeks, we wanted to see if we can identify the gender, but baby was in a sitting position so it was not obvious yet!

Kendrick's developmental updates

My dear Kendrick is now already 2years 9 mths old. What a lovely time it has been these couple of months as he has progressed quite a lot in his speech, the things he knows and understands, what he likes or don't like etc.

I guess one major developmental update is that he's around 80% toilet trained already. I started to train him to pee in the potty at around 2yrs 4mths. The timing was somehow quite right as he was able to control his pee and notify us of his need after a few rounds of training. Nevertheless, there were some mistakes we made - like how I made him pee sitting down initially. It took a while before he was willing to stand up and pee. Again, that happened just 1 day suddenly when I let him try to do so (prior to that he was unwilling). Perhaps he slowly understood that boys had to stand up and pee while girls sat down :) The next step was how to get him to pee in the toilet bowl as he was afraid to do so. In the recent 2 weeks, just by an opportunity when the potty was not accessible at the point he needed, I told him to try doing it in the toilet bowl. Again, this sudden willingness just took place out of the blue and from then on, Kendrick was not afraid of peeing in the toilet bowl. With that, we have tried a few times to bring him out without diapers and he managed to pee in public toilets :) So proud of you my son. But the biggest achievement that tops it all was that Kendrick finally tried to sit down on the potty to do his poo poo. This was really my headache as he had for a long time only poo-ed in his diaper while standing up. He had this psychological fear about sitting down. And just 1 week ago, he again surprised me by willing to sit down and try to poo it out (with a reward at the end if he did so). So with that, my little boy is really growing up fast!!! What's left is only the overnight toilet training which I think will take a while more....

On other aspects of his growth, Kendrick is really into words and numbers in recent months. He's learned to count from 1 to 100 and has started a little in addition and subtraction. Simple concepts of counting which he somehow picked up just after a few rounds of explaining to him. As for words, he's really into spelling now. This was also not something that I purposely taught him, but instead it just happened that he started to want to recognise words and spell them. It could be due to school or due to the fact that reading books helped him to generate that interest and also playing the kids scrabble toy that we bought him. That's one of his favourite toys now. Kendrick is thus able to spell /recognise quite a few words like: cat, dog, car, bed, radio, piano, in, out, door, sun, moon, bear, the, pig, cow, zebra, tiger, lion, top, pot, hat, one - to - ten, etc. It's really quite interesting to see him suddenly grow in leaps and bounds. The way he talks to us now also makes him sound like a sensible 'little adult'. Conversations with him are never boring :) In fact, being with him is never a quiet moment too unless he is sleeping. This little boy is really talkative.

In terms of his behaviour towards strangers, well I must say that this still needs some time for improvement. He's still quite a shy boy in front of strangers. Getting him to greet neighbours or other unfamiliar people is really tough. But on the other hand, I guess once he overcomes the initial fear, he will start talking and talking like he does among family members.

So much more to teach and nurture this boy... I can only ask for more patience for him. At times it's just so easy to get angry and threaten him. But I guess I can never stay angry at Kendrick for long cos he's just so adorable in our eyes :)

Some recent photos: Here's one after his hair cut. Decided to cut a bit shorter with a bit more slope for him. His hair can grow out thick quite fast

Hugging M&Ms!

Kendrick 'upgrades' to boy's underwear :P