Sasha's first visit to the dentist

She did surprisingly well at the dentist. I think the 6 bucks spent on the Dora Visits the Dentist book was well worth it..

Dylan is still not pleased with me. He will be even less pleased in a few minutes when I have to stick him the baby carrier for our Mummy Baby trip to Baby Gap. It has become clear to me, as I was looking for a set of warm clothing for Sash to send off to J at daycare for back-up purposes, that she has outgrown all her warm trousers after a Summer of Ballerina outfits. There are now more clothes on her closet floor than on the racks. She outgrows her clothes so fast that I usually just chuck them on the floor and only bag and store them at the end of every season. So today, after I spend an exhorbitant amount on mini-clothes, I will dump her toddler clothes in the loft as I look for her baby clothes to re-gift to a colleague of Doug's who is having a baby girl in December. I am torn between just handing over a couple of bags of newborn clothes or just handing over 2 suitcases full to just clear out the loft. Wonder how much storage they have....

Dylan, as of yesterday, is 11 pounds and 22 and a quarter inches long. Last month he was 8.8 pounds and 20 inches. Apparently my feeding him every 2 hours round the clock is not in vain.

This morning, I gave him his milk at 8.30am, had a shower, woke Sasha and Doug up, persuaded Sasha out of her pyjamas and into a ballerina dress and a sweater (yup people, Fall is here), made some sugar water and headed out to the doctors office where Dylan was to be circumcised. Once we got there, the nurse applied some sort of cream to the area above his willy and asked us to wait an hour before the doctor applied the anaesthesia. In the meantime, we had to sign the consent forms and watch a DVD that provided the gory details. I only watched the parts where the doctor explained which instruments wold be used and the after care, while Doug practically fainted during the part where the doctor made the snip with a scalpel. So we decided he would go in with Dylan when the anaesthesia was applied while I went in for the snip part. Sash was with us, oblivious to the impending foreskin removal. So there I was, feeding Dylan with drops of sugar water whilst the doctor snipped part of his willie off. He was a trooper and didn't cry. Just kept sucking on the sugar water...no wonder he is 11 pounds already. I have yet to change his diaper...

Our third baby..

With my recently obtaining my permanent residency, I have been having thoughts about home, homeland and passport country. Anyone with a Malaysian passport will know how difficult it is to move around on a whim. Malaysia as a homeland is fabulous. Would never change that. Malaysia as a passport country can be tedious. Visas are required almost everywhere and the process can be a nightmare...except Turkey. Funnily enough, among the family I would have the easiest time entering Turkey as I can get my visa from the immigration counter, for free, while the rest of the Unit will have to pay a fee and obtain the visa from a seperate counter at the arrivals hall. Back to my point. I had initially planned to stay in KL while Doug goes off to Sydney for data collection purposes from Mid-Nov to mid-December. We were getting great rates from an airlines that goes through Abu Dhabi. Did the research. Airlines not great if we encounter a problem, but not so bad if flights go smoothly. Only hitch was the apparently "disgrace" of an airport in Abu Dhabi. K, our trusty travel agent reassured us that we would get a hotel for the 19 hour transit. So it was all systems go. Until we discovered that the transit hotel was fully booked. And although we could get another hotel, I would need a transit visa. And to get a transit visa, I would need to have an invitation letter issued by someone in Abu Dhabi. Funnily enough, I dont happen to have any friends in Abu Dhabi. I thought of just staying in the secured area while D took the kids to the hotel. He then reminded me how painful the 14 hour transit in Changi was, and that is consistently voted the best airport in the world. He was not about to leave me in an airport reviewed as "hellish" for 19 hours and take a baby and a toddler into an unknown city. As he says, if it is as disorganised as Delhi, "I would rather not go to Sydney". So we looked at other options since Abu Dhabi was definitely out of the question. Flights significantly more expensive on other airlines so we thought of looking at all of us going to Sydney. Lo and behold, it is much cheaper for us to fly directly to Sydney via San Francisco than to fly to KL. So now plans have changed. We are all going to Sydney and we will fly back to KL mid Dec for a break hopefully using airmiles. Now all I need is a US transit visa. At least I know loads of Americans. I am now seriously thinking of changing my passport country.

I am so knackered. Exhausted. I honestly cannot believe I had forgotten about the never ending feeds and sleepless nights. Could it have been different with Sasha or was it just so traumatic then that my mind went into self-defence mode and deleted any memory of taking care of her at this stage? R my neighbour can with authority tell me how different her newborn son is from her firstborn because she jots everything down, down to feeding times etc. How she finds the time I don't know. I have not finished a bowl of cereal in ages because by the time I get through half the cereal, Dylan is ready for his meal. If Doug is not home that all I eat is cereal because that takes the least preparation. I can see how it is much easier to lose weight after the second pregnancy because there is no way you can eat. Add the lack of sleep and voila, no need for Mummy Fitness classes. I have many a morning had my morning coffee while pumping or feeding Dylan. Although caffeine is not recommended, I cannot survive without it. I now look at women with 3 kids in a whole new light...

Dylan will be one month next week. How time flies. He is supposed to be in a routine of 3 hour feedings according to a few books I have. He isn't of course. I cant be buggered to stop the demand feeds because we are off to Europe next week and what with the time zone changes and jet lag, I will just be torturing myself trying to implement and stick to a routine. So until we get back home, the kid can eat whenever he wants to. We may also either be going back to KL or heading out to Sydney in November, so I guess the demand feeds will go on until we get back from that trip in January. I have a feeling, just like Sasha, this kid will not have a routine at all...sigh.

We are getting him circumcised next week too. I had initially thought of putting it off after the docs at the hospital couldn't do it at birth. I felt it better for him to decide if he wanted to do it on his own say when he is 21. Did some research and apparently a majority of the population (male) isnt circumcised. Also, as I have gotten to know him the thought of putting him through that much pain just sickens me. But then I thought what if in the future he wants to marry say a Jewish girl. Would he not be slightly ticked off that he/we could have saved himself weeks of recovery time. So we are going ahead with it. That is unless I change my mind before that..

I had a 4-hour stretch of sleep last night!! Woohoo...the longest since Dylan joined us. Not that he wasn't waking up for his feed, but D grabbed his bottle, his son, and headed down to the basement to catch an inevitable CSI rerun. I was just so exhausted that even if he had said he was going down to introduce Dylan to slasher porn movies, I would have just said have a great time and thanks ever so much. I think back fondly of those initial days with Sasha when I could nap when she did. Now, while Dylan naps I either have to be the Mummy doll when we play with her doll house, or the helpless panda bear needing to be rescued by her Ming-Ming (a duck with a lisp character in her new favourite cartoon, Wonder Pets). While it is awesome watching her so engrossed in her imaginary play, I cant help but think "Dylan, please grow up pronto so you can take over as panda bear". There really are no economies of scale when you have another child. A second child does not mean double the work (if only), think more along the lines of quadrupling it. Lets not even mention the upkeep of the house. It is said that when a second child comes into the picture, somethings gotta give. In our case, it is the garden and the attached home. Flowers...dead. Lunch/Dinner...pizza, sushi or cereal. Quality time with spouse..we can chat while I am pumping or while I am feeding. Things get back to some semblance of normality when Sasha goes to daycare, well, our new sense of normality. So grateful I am to J at Sasha's daycare that I sent her a thank you card for helping Sasha adjust so beautifully to Dylan's arrival, and for being there for us. I think it would be almost impossible for us to truly bond with Dylan with Sasha's needs to look after too.

Yesterday morning, after we dropped Sasha at daycare, we dragged Dylan along to the Central Courts where I had my final PR interview. Well, not really an interview but more of ID verification. So as of yesterday, I am officially a permanent resident here. In 3 years, or was it 2, I will be eligible to apply for citizenship. I am not sure this is the route I want to take but it will surely be a hell of alot easier to travel under the same passport.

Pale-in comparison

At first I put it down to underestimating the intelligence of female voters, thinking they would just vote for any old female on the ticket. I mean whats the difference? Highly educated ex-first lady senator to oh say hockey Mum and ex mayor of Hicksville Alaska with "family values". Women cant tell the difference, and they wont care as long as any ole lady is up there to prove that YES WE CAN. Now it is quite obvious that the world has underestimated the Republicans. They were all this time going for the Redneck vote. I get it!! It is also quite apparent that being an NRA member is not redneck-ish enough. Add in preggy teen and voila, you have a candidate worthy of taking on the Putins of this world. Why else would they think that the fact that their potential VP has a very pregnant 17 year old would not result in a negative media frenzy? Or that Baby Daddy's self proclamation of being a "fucking redneck" would not hit primetime worldwide news? Everywhere I went today everyone was talking about the Pallin fiasco. Canada is supposed to have an election soon but who the hell cares..the antics of the Beverly Hillbillies pale in comparison to the Pallin antics. This has made my week!!