Smiles made it all worthwhile

Kai is a happy boy smiling a lot.

His grandpa saw his first smile on the second day after birth. I missed it, and was watching for his next smile. Not long after that, I captured another smile of his.

I would believe it was smile, although baby experts define it as “I think they’re smiles but I’m not sure” grimaces. It’s true, in the first month, Kai often smiled after a feed. The smiles were fleeting, and appeared for a few seconds. But I did see him smiling to his great-grandma, who was simply smiling and would not have triggered Kai’s “automatic reactions to an inner feeling of rightness”. So I believe in the first month Kai had a mix of reflex smiles and real smiles.

Later I learned to play smile games with Kai. We both love such games. They need to be at right time, normally after a feed, when he is very alert. I place his head on a cushion resting on my lap, and hold his body. I look at him and talk to him, with smiles. Kai smiles back, sometimes wiggles a lot with delight, from one day, he spurts out his first coos and gurgles. Now he smiles even more and makes sound of eeeh, oooh a lot. Watching him flashing his pearly gums and toothless grins when smiling, I tend to forget all the broken nights and tiredness.
Ready!
Steady!!
Go!!!
Did I make you smile?!

National Visit

On the 26th of March (sorry, exactly one week ago) I visited the company for the first time after I gave birth. It was lovely to see the old colleagues: Ewa, Anna, Joanna, Anne, Victoria, Cindy and many more. Janet wasn’t there, what a shame, but I heard she was having a rest after a knee operation, which she has wanted for a long time and would definitely sort out her problem. Kai was good and didn’t embarrass his mother by crying all the time, as he usually does when I visit Jonathan’s family. On the contrary, he smiled a lot when entertained by all the new people. The only naughty thing he did was pooing on the way to the company, and half of his trousers leg was spotted yellow by JANET PAXTON, how embarrassing! It was the worst nappy leakage found ever!! I should have complained to Pampers!!!

Couch Potatoes

Mum and Dad missed Chinese soaps a lot. I don't have satellite TV, but I managed to borrow several Chinese soap videos for them. Since then watching those soaps has been their main past-time.

Accurately speaking, those soaps should be defined as Chinese television drama, similar to American drama, like Desperate Housewife or Lost, but often longer in length, and portray a story too lengthy to be made into a movie. They often have 30 to 50 episodes and each episode ends in Cliffhangers. Among all kinds of dramas the historical fictions are the most popular ones. Well, no wonder. China has a history of 5000 years with 308 emperors. Each emperor himself had a very colourful life, plus the life of his hundreds of officials and the life of his thousands of wives. Such large number of story sources will certainly keep Chinese drama producers extremely busy and Chinese viewers extremely addictive.

Even one day, Mum and Dad found some similarity in appearance between an emperor and Kai, due to watching Chinese television dramas too much.




Kai is also affected by his grandparents. He has been sitting on the couch and watching TV for about 20 minutes.

Even when we change nappy for him, if the television is on, he would automatically turn his head to it.

From Mothering Sunday to Easter Sunday

From Mothering Sunday to Easter Sunday, Kai hasn't had an easy time.

First, he got red spots all over the face. I was anxious, and made an emergency appointment with the GP, but we had been seen for one minute and were prescribed some pure moisturiser. Then every day we need to apply several layer of moisturiser for him. Later, he got sticky ears. Again, I was anxious, and bothered the GP again. This time some antibiotics were given to Kai. Since then I have had to watch his poo carefully and look for any sign of side effects. But Kai, didn’t seem to be bothered by all these nuisances. He could still smile a lot with his red spots and sticky ears.



His face and ears became fine soon, but another sign of not being well became the new agony. Almost every evening, no exemptions, from 6 pm to 9 pm, he always had some crying time. We could not find the reason of crying, and it was difficult to comfort him. I didn’t believe it when the health visitor told me it was colic. Well, I read much about terrible stories of colicky babies and I believed it would never happen to Kai. But it did, unfortunately. The good news about Kai is that he got mild colic, I would say. In his un-happy hour, he didn’t scream, but fuss. We could still comfort him, but not easily. We found lying him on our palms facing down was a good way, and sometimes carrying him on the shoulder with his tummy against the shoulder can also help.



Apart from those two inventions, another wonderful thing is Gripe Water. Kai absolutely loves the taste (as all the other babies since 1851?) and I absolutely love the resounding burp Kai gets after taking Gripe Water. Now colic and wind still comes and go, but to a weaker extend.

the Mothering Sunday message

It's the first Mothering Sunday with Kai. I know the good boy would say "thank you" for all the delicious milk I have given to him so far and bribe me for the future supply of the delicious milk if he is old enough. : D
I am old enough, so I will say "thank you" to my mum, for all her hard work during my late pregnancy and Kai's first one month. Without her, I couldn't do well. Mum and Dad have taken over all the cooking and washing tasks, and some of Kai's nappy changes, and some of Kai's entertainment needs, and many other things. Thanks to mum, I could often have a lie -in in the morning and some spare time to write blogs. I am really lucky to have my parents helping me.
I would like to thank Linda - my mother-in-law as well for always being supportive and helpful.

THANK YOU, MUM!

Events on Kai's one month birthday

According to Chinese lunar calender, on the 27th Kai is one month old.

THE EARTHQUAKE:
the UK's biggest in 25 years happened this morning. Around 1 am, I woke up. The biological clock within my body reminded me of Kai's feeding time, but Kai was still asleep. I felt a sudden shake of the wall above my head, which lasted about 3 seconds. What happened? It wasn't until the next day I knew it was an earthquake! Dad said he was waken up as the bed simply jumped up! What an experience!

THE BIRTHDAY MEAL:
In Chinese tradition noodles are commonly served at birthday celebrations, as long noodles symbolize a long life. My parents are traditional people, so we had noodles for lunch on Kai's one month birthday. What did Kai have? Of course the warm and delicious milk from mum!

THE PASSPORT:
Kai got his passport today. It's a brand new biometric passport with an electronic chip inside. The technology is getting much more advanced compared to many many years ago when we were born, isn't it?

THE VISIT:
Kai's great grandparents visited this afternoon. The pleasant visit began with a discussion about Chinese lunar calender and ended with the discovery of the functions of our ever loved BBB (the Big Blue (Gym)Ball). Was Kai listening to our intelligent conversation? No way. He was asleep most of the time. Well, a "great" birthday boy - for such absence of mind!

THE COMPARISON:
It's a good opportunity to review how well I and Kai have been doing. Kai has grown nearly a head length over the last one month. Here is the photographic evidence:

before

after

Take a bath!

Kai likes to take bath. He is always so peaceful in the bath and he always cries when we get him out of the bath. It's interesting to see the two videos of him taking bath when he was 4 days old and when he was 29 days old. You MAY notice his body fill up with strong muscles, and possibly also the controversial man boobs. : D



Hint: Take a careful look at the second clip and watch out when Kai raised his eyes and became more alert: exactly at the moment when he heard the word "Dad". Was it because of my raised voice or Kai's bond with his father? : D