Baby Sheri is 2 months old!

Being a 2 months old baby, baby Sheri is more aware of her suroundings now. She can respond to our voices and the shake of a rattle by turning her head. She is pretty good at turning her head from left to right. She also has stronger kicking reflexes now. She can smile, frown and grimace. She likes to look at our faces intently when we hold her closely. I suppose she is trying to observe our facial expressions so that she can imitate it.

I can turn and kick. Who dares to bully me now?

We brought her to see the pediatrician today and she received five shots of immunization and one oral medication. Poor baby Sheri! No worries! Mummy is well equipped with Tylenol and cold pack for fear that baby Sheri may develop some adverse reaction to the shots.
I am 23 1/4 inch (56 cm) long and I weigh 11 pounds(5 kg) now. I'm as big as Winnie the Pooh now.

A White Valentine's day

Last year, we spent our Valentine's day in Canada. This year, we are in the States. More importantly, we have a new addition to the family. However, we could only cuddle each other with baby Sheri at home as there was a snowstorm on Valentine's day. Daddy was not able to go to work as it was impossible to drive in the snowstorm. It built up about 15 to 20 cm of snow on the ground. After the snowstorm had receded, daddy had to shovel the driveway to get the car out of the snow. Poor daddy! What a white Valentine's day!

I'm all dressed up. I'm waiting for mummy and daddy to bring me out to take some pictures.

Baby Sheri's first trip to babies'R"Us

Last Saturday, we brought baby Sheri to Babies"R"Us. Daddy and Mummy had a great time playing with babies' toys, but baby Sheri was sleeping most of the time. We met this caucasian boy in Babies"R"Us. He was very excited when he saw baby Sheri and he kept saying "It's a girl. It's girl" to his parents. We were pretty amazed by the fact that he could tell that baby Sheri is a girl because it can be quite difficult to tell the gender of the babies sometimes. Well, I suppose it's because baby Sheri has a girlish face. At the end of the day, we bought a 3 in 1 rocking gym for baby Sheri. It can be used as a floor gym, take-along xylophone and a rocker at different stages of development of the baby. Of course, daddy was entrusted with the task of assembling the toy for baby Sheri. Well, baby Sheri seems to enjoy playing with the floor gym.

Shared parenting

Time passes very quickly with baby Sheri around. Before you know it, she is due for feeding and diaper-changing. Even though baby Sheri is fed every 2 to 3 hours, there are a number of tasks that mummy needs to do during the interval between each feeding. Mummy has to sterilise the bottles to make sure that they are ready to be used for the next feeding. At the same time, mummy has to find time to rest, eat, express breast milk and play with baby Sheri so that she does not sleep too much in the day. It is not easy to keep baby Sheri awake in the day as she can even sleep while sitting down.

Fortunately, daddy has been a great help to mummy. He will help feed and change baby Sheri when he is back from work. During weekends, he will take care of baby Sheri single-handedly as mummy drives out to do grocery shopping. I guess this is what shared parenting is all about.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to decode baby's cries. So, daddy is trying to train baby Sheri to stick out her tongue if she is hungry when he says 'milk milk'to her. Daddy has also devised a new way to burp baby Sheri after feeding by bouncing her up and down his lap.

Baby Sheri's eating and sleeping habits

Baby Sheri has been home for 6 weeks. Every baby has their own eating and sleeping habits. As far as baby Sheri is concerned, she likes to drink milk. We feed her every 2 to 3 hours and she is drinking about 3 0zs of milk each time. I don't know if it is because of her huge appetite or the fact that Mummy is not producing enough breast milk that Mummy's breast milk is only sufficient to sustain her in the daytime. We have no choice but to supplement with formula milk during the night. She hates to drink water. Whenever we try to give her water between the feedings, she will give you a very skeptical look as she tries to decipher whether you are giving her water or milk. She will frown and spit out the water when she finds that you are giving her water instead of milk.

Baby Sheri sleeps better in the daytime and she seems to be more awake at night. Coaxing her to sleep can be a very challenging task. If she is kind to Mummy and Daddy, she will wake up every 2 to 3 hours for feeding and go back to sleep after each feeding. However, she can be very fussy and try to stay awake for the whole night, testing the patience of Mummy and Daddy. We are looking forward to the day when she can sleep throughout the whole night.

Looking at the way baby Sheri sleeps, I think she needs a huge bed to sleep on.

We had two medical appointments last week. One was a follow-up check up for me after the C-section while the other was an ultra-sound scan for baby Sheri. Thank God! Both of us were given a clean bill of health. At first, I was pretty worried for baby Sheri, as babies who are in a breech position in the womb for a long time may develop some problems with their hips. Fortunately, the ultra-sound results shows that baby Sheri's hip is normal.
So far, I have been quite satisfied with the health care in the States. I had follow-up examinations 2 weeks and 4 weeks after my C-section and will be having one more 6 months later. Well, I suppose you pay for what you get. My medical bill for the C-section amounts to about US$18 000. Fortunately, we have health insurance to help us defray part of the bill.