Baby Sleep

As many of my friends will already know, Tara has never been the best of sleepers. On Monday, we went to a talk put on by the NMSG here in Singapore. They have a 'library' for members and so whilst we were there on Monday, I borrowed 2 books, both on sleeping. The first one which I have read snippets of on Monday and Tuesday night basically suggests 2 methods - 1 called the rapid method and 1 called the slow method. The rapid method suggests putting the baby to bed at their appropriate bedtime and then when they cry ignore it till morning. Apparently, in 80% of cases, this will take 3 nights to work and then they will be sleeping through the night. However, it does say that they may cry for an hour or 2 straight the first night. I just really don't think I can do that!



Alex was a better sleeper at night than Tara - Tara has always woken for her rollover feed if I don't wake her and I think she is in the habit of getting room service when she hollers. I'm still not completely sure what to do. I have stopped going in to give her the rollover feed at 10:30 or so. Last night, she made it till 1am and then I fed her, then she slept till 4 and then till around 20 past 7. This was actually progress for Tara as since we have been in our new place, she has been waking around 10ish and then every 3 hours thereafter - sometimes more often!! I really want her to get there on her own but I think I may have to do some controlled crying soon. I have decided to give her a little more time. She has just cut her first teeth and also I think she has been quite unsettled with all of the moving etc. Gary is due to go away for around a week in a month's time so I thought this could be a good time to try to get her a bit more settled if we are still having issues in a month's time. The thing is that at Great World, she was making real progress - 1 night - she actually slept from 11pm till 8am!! And it was on a weekend! Thankfully, once Alex goes to sleep, he is pretty good and doesn't seem to wake up with Tara's hollers which is really good.



I have been feeling a bit homesick over the last week. We have been here 2 months now and I guess I still feel a little unsettled. Some things have really helped - getting the apartment set up is real progress. This is coming together well. It has been frustrating at times. Small things like we didn't get blackout blinds to start with. I asked the guy who installed them and he said we didn't order blackout ones (I thought they were going to be made with a backing - silly me to assume this). So, I then asked to get blackout blinds made for the kid's rooms as I wasn't going to live without blackout curtains for 2 years - this has a big effect on daytime sleeps. So, he told me the price, and said it would take maybe 2 days, maybe 4. 11 days later, he came back to install them and installed them to our master bedroom as well. Then tonight the agent rings me to say that we have to pay the extra for the master bedroom and that because this guy is Singaporean, I should have let her deal with him as he didn't understand me. I think this is complete rubbish and I told the agent this. I think someone has stuffed up and is trying to make up for this by charging us. It's just small frustrations, but frustrations none the less!



On the bright side, I have met some great people here and it is always so nice to meet people who are in a similar situation - makes life easier. We had a lovely 'ladies lunch' yesterday with friends and this was a really nice break in the middle of the day. We came home and both kids slept for 2 hours at the same time!! Woo hoo!



On Friday, we have an orientation of our local area. This will take us around and show us where all of the closest things are - markets, supermarkets, post office, bank etc. I'm looking forward to this as I haven't found everything yet and it will be great to have it shown to us. I found out that there is a great wet market not too far away from us here (a short bus ride) so I will discover that with the kids probably 1 day next week. Gary has Friday off work to do our orientation and then we just found out yesterday that Monday is a public holiday so we have a 4 day weekend which will be great.



I must take some more photos! I have been carrying the camera in my bag. Here are a couple of the kids that I took recently.

Alex with his 'serious' look! He often won't sit still for a photo as he wants to see the other side of the camera.

Tara chewing on her fingers.


Poised and ready for action!

Peace at last....

Both the kids are sleeping. We still don't have blackout curtains.This was a bit of a shambles in terms of getting it organised when we moved in. We got to choose curtain material. We made our choice and then the curtain man came to install them the day after we got the keys. They weren't blackout! Our contract had said blackout but I didn't realise that only some of the fabrics were actually blackout, so the curtains don't particularly darken the rooms. However, we are due to get blackout material installed on Monday. I am looking forward to this as it will mean the bedrooms will be darker and make it easier (hopefully) for Alex and Tara to get to sleep.

I hear the sound of one of them waking up......

So, our move was incredibly stressful. They say that moving is one of the most stressful things you do in life, and yes, I can agree with this. Part of the issue was ferrying back and forth between our serviced apartment and the new place and dealing with 2 kids who needed some routine and daytime sleeps. Alex didn't actually sleep during the day for 3 days last week - he coped very well with this all things considered. Thankfully he has gone back to having a decent afternoon nap. We had a babysitter for Tuesday and Wednesday which did allow me to get a bit more done. Poor Gary had the week from hell at work - working till 2am on Wednesday and till 1am on Thursday. On Friday night he got home around 7:30 and then we ended up unpacking and trying to get organised, going to bed at 1:30am.

The other stressful thing was that when I walked into the apartment on Tuesday I felt like it was much smaller than I remembered. It's all going to be ok though! I had that moment of thinking - oh my goodness we have a 2 year lease. But the good news is that our bed does fit in and we will get rid of a few things that we packed in Adelaide but probably didn't need to. So, we are either selling or giving away a few things and that will make space less limited.

So, we have been living at our new place a week now. I have found the closest supermarkets - we have a small Fairprice very close. There is a larger fairprice around a 10 minute walk away. There is also a Cold Storage around a 10 minute walk in the other direction. Hopefully next week we will get the orientation that is provided by our relocation company and this should help with finding out what else is close by and worth a visit.

This morning the kids and I went to Jacob Ballas Children's Garden which is part of the Botanic Gardens. It's a lovely area with loads of different things for the kids to run around and explore. Met up with a friend there and Alex had a ball running around with her son who is a year older than Alex. This helped my synchronised sleeping this afternoon. We will have to go back again soon to do some more exploring.

Anyway, it's about time to go to the supermarket and then let Alex have a play downstairs at the playground. I keep looking out the window at the threatening clouds, but I think we just need to bite the bullet and go!

Wishing all and sundry a good weekend.

Moving - Day 1

Well, it's been a while since I last wrote, and it's been a bit of a roller coaster of a week. Firstly, Tara had her first fever on the weekend. Although I didn't think it was too bad, it was still quite stressful and she was a bit beside herself. She was really struggling to settle and on Saturday night, I ended up sleeping in the single bed in her room, with her beside me. Gary came in in the middle of the night to make sure we were both ok. We both have colds now and Alex was a bit croaky today, so I really hope that he doesn't come down with something too. Will have to wait and see. I spoke to a doctor on Sunday and he advised me to increase the panadol I was giving Tara by 3 times (I was giving .6 ml - he suggested 2ml and assured me "It's quite safe"). We ended up giving her 1ml and increasing the frequency to every 4 hours. Her fever did pass and she has been quite well the past 2 days but still unsettled at night. Will see how tonight goes. Add to this, Tara seems to be going through a stage of needing someone with her all the time - as soon as I leave the room, there are loud cries. I sometimes feel like it would be such a luxury to go to the loo in peace!

Anyway, today being September 1st, was the day we got the keys to our new apartment. The estate agent picked us up this morning and off we went. We met the agent and the landlord's parents as the landlord himself is currently living in the US. Then the moving men arrived soon after that to make delivery of all of our stuff. It was a bit of a crazy day. We had a babysitter helping out to look after the kids at varying intervals. This helped a lot.

My first thoughts when I walked into the apartment were "It's smaller than I remember", "Oh my goodness, nothing is going to fit in here!" Then the Allied Pickfords guy comes in and says we have 113 items to be delivered. Holy cow - 113!! They then set up a temporary chair and desk (of boxes) and I had to tick off the boxes that they brought in. The bedrooms are not as big as I remember them to be. One of the biggest issues has been whether our Australian queen size bed will fit into the master bedroom. Australian queen size beds are not the same size as Asian queen size beds. Darn! The thing is if we had a fairly standard bed size, it would fit, but our bed itself is quite large, so I'm sure we could get something to fit with our mattress, but the dilemma then is that we need to buy a new bed to fit an Australian queen size mattress. However, tomorrow will tell whether this is necessary or not!

So, in came the boxes, and they kept on coming.... Then the rain set in. It was actually really nice as this meant they had to stop bringing boxes in. They then unpacked a lot so this cleared up a lot of space - less boxes - more stuff. However, no cots - they were in the other part of the truck that wasn't unloaded. So, I wasn't able to get the kids to sleep in the new place this afternoon. Which was probably just as well as there were no curtains - apparently the new curtains are coming tomorrow. Tara slept around an hour in the baby bjorn. Alex just rolled with it - I probably would have struggled to get him to go down for a nap anyway. In the taxi on the way back to our serviced apartments this afternoon he told me he wasn't tired! He then nearly dropped off to sleep, but he assured me he was "All good".

One of the biggest stresses I have with the new place is the windows. They don't have locks! When we viewed the place, the agent assured me that there were childproof locks that would be installed. On inspection today, they are a flimsy piece of metal (which Alex would be able to pull out) and with the piece of metal in place, the window can still be opened around 20cm or so, which is big enough for a small child to fall out. So I have emailed the agents tonight requesting window grilles or locks be installed. Alex is a climber and I really don't want to be worrying about this as well! Hopefully we will get this organised very soon.

On a positive note, the grounds and facilities at the condo are lovely. The pool is really nice - huge (but I guess it needs to be with 700+ apartments in the complex). There is a lovely playground and outside workout stations, an air-conditioned gym and apparently a basketball court which I haven't seen yet. So, lots to explore. I am really excited about the area too and discovering what there is to see and do around there. I will be very relieved when all of our stuff has been delivered and unpacked and we can actually feel at home! It is very nice though to have the moving men unpack and take away all of the excess packaging materials - there was such a lot!

Well it's past 10 and Gary is just on his way home from work now, so I will sign off now. Hopefully I will be able to update the blog with positive news in the next day or so - all of our stuff fitting in and finally feeling "At Home"!

Tara's Standing

Tara has been going great guns of late - crawling like a seasoned pro and getting around very quickly. To add something new to the mix, she has decided she should try standing up. Now, instead of just crawling as soon as she reaches an object that she can pull herself up against, she is trying that. I guess it must be interesting seeing things from a different angle. In the cot we have here at our serviced apartment, it was on the high setting, but when she started to stand up, I was worried about her leaning over and falling out - fairly unlikely, but I still didn't want it to happen! So, I asked them to lower the cot. Here are some shots of before and after. Both of them are when she has woken up and is demanding attention and actually kneeling rather than standing - when she was standing she was leaning even more....

BEFORE:


AFTER:

I'm sure she'll get used to it though! I feel much happier with the cot lowered now. I don't think she was very impressed with Mummy running to get the camera before she was collected!

The other day, Alex was eating an oreo cookie. I gave Tara the tiniest part of one as she was complaining. Here are the results:

Now that I've found out how to properly insert photos into the blog, there'll be no stopping me! Must try video next.

Happy weekend to all. We don't have a lot on, a birthday party tomorrow morning (Alex is very excited) and we thought we'd go to the zoo on Sunday. Gary and I are heading out for dinner or a movie on Sunday night or maybe both. What a luxury - prior to coming to Singapore, we had been out twice in 6 months, since being here, we have been out 4 times in 4 weeks.

Do Not Disturb....

I've got both of the kids in bed at the moment - Alex is due to wake up in probably 10 minutes or so and Tara - well who knows - she's been a bit erratic the last 2 days so we'll just wait and see. I hung out the "Do Not Disturb" sign on our door for the first time since we have been here in the apartment as the cleaner is due today and hasn't been yet (it's 3:15pm) so the last thing I wanted was a loud doorbell to wake my 2 sleepers! We had this on Sunday. Alex was really difficult to get to nap, he eventually went down and Gary and I were laying down chatting away and then 'ding dong'. Not only did he ring it loudly, he rung it 3 times in quick succession! It was Gary's birthday cake from the apartment people being delivered. A lovely gesture, made even more lovely by the fact that they didn't actually wake either of our babies.

So the weekend just gone was Gary's 40th birthday weekend. We started our celebrations on Friday night with dinner at The Fullarton hotel. Gary sent me a text at 6:50 saying he was still at work and wouldn't be out any time soon. Oh no, I had both kids to get to bed - the babysitter to let in, I had to get ready and work out what plan b was. It all came together though - Alex went down very well, I was feeding Tara and sent a message to the babysitter that I would be down to meet her 10 minutes later (thank goodness for sms!) Both kids went to sleep very well, so I let Lorena in, had a chat to her, got myself ready to go and went to get a taxi to collect Gary on the way to the hotel.

In my opinion 99% of the taxi drivers in Singapore are lovely and friendly. I scored one of the ones in the other percentage point. I got in the taxi and told him we were going to The Fullarton but that I needed to pick up my husband at International Plaza along the way. He told me "He'd better be ready as I can't really pull up there". I phoned Gary and we organised that he would walk to a different building where the taxi driver could pull up. We got there and Gary was still coming. The taxi driver says "Where is your husband?" in this very gruff tone. As Gary said, he was getting paid to wait - what was the issue? Anyway, we ended up getting to our dinner reservation on time and both heaved a sigh of relief. We started off with a glass of Taittinger champagne. That was very nice. We had the "Peking Duck Extravaganza" which was 7 courses. I meant to keep the menu but forgot! It was sublime though. The first course was the best duck pancakes I have ever had. There was another course with truffles and a fois gras course. It was superb. On about course 6, we were eating the rice with prawns and commenting that there was no duck to be seen. A waiter came up and apologised - we had been served the wrong thing. They whisked it away and brought back our moneybags with duck and rice. Funny thing was we were halfway through and really enjoying the prawns also! At the end of the night, one waitress asked us if we thought it was too much food as she said a lot of people don't get through the dessert course. No such problem for us!! We adjourned to the hotel bar for a nightcap before returning home. It was a lovely night and just perfect to celebrate Gary's birthday.

A funny thing happened last Friday. I was shopping at Cold Storage and went to the deli counter to buy some ham. Groceries in general are very expensive in Singapore, especially meat. I asked for 100 grams of ham, and noticed that the scales already had a weight on them and the price (with no ham) was 27 cents. I pointed out to the lady that she hadn't zeroed the scales for the weight of the tissue paper. She didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. I told her that the scales had a tare function that she should be using as I didn't want to pay $30 per kilo for tissue paper. Anyway, after a discussion with 2 of the deli counter staff, I got nowhere, so I walked away. I sent cold storage an email later that day, to say that I didn't believe it was right for them to be charging for packaging materials and that in Australia, they would incur a fine for such a practice. Within an hour, I got a phonecall to apologise. They explained that staff training does include this and that I shouldn't have been charged for the paper. They then offered a refund - I said no, don't worry I don't have the receipt anyway, it's just the principal of the matter and I just wanted to let you know. She then said, no, I'd really like to offer you something - how about chocolates or a bottle of wine. Hmm, I'll take the wine please! So, on Sunday, I went down there and got a store manager come up to me and personally apologise for the misunderstanding and I was presented with a bottle of kiwi Sauv blanc. So there you go. We haven't had it yet, but it is in the fridge chilling.

So, both of the kids are still asleep and the do not disturb sign is working. In saying that, I'd better sign off and get some jobs done - the dishes from lunch are still on the table and the laundry needs sorting and hanging.

A new home

Well, we have been apartment hunting and we have found a place to live. Yay, I'm really happy about it. The condo is called Queens and it is right next to a MRT station which is great for me as the MRT is very easy to get on with a pusher. At the moment, we have been staying very close to buses which are great, but the problem is that I often go out with Tara in the baby bjorn and Alex with his monkey backpack (which is a harness). Then 50 metres along the road, Alex says "Mummy pick up?" and so I end up carrying both of them for some of the way, which is quite tiring. I will be very grateful to be near the MRT.

Here is a link to our condo:

http://condo.singaporeexpats.com/condo-details-QUEENS.htm

We have a 3 +1 apartment which means 3 bedrooms + room for a live in helper. A lot of the places we looked at had very dodgy places for the helper to live in, but this one is actually quite nice. It is still small (they all were) but it has a window (a lof of them didn't) and it is quite private - off the kitchen with a separate bathroom.

Our kitchen has an oven (not common in Singapore) and what seemed to be good storage space. The apartment is 1194 square feet (111 square metres) so it is not at all big and we will have to get used to living in a smaller space, but we have done so for the past month and it will be nice to do so with our own furniture. Alex is very excited to get his cot and toys back - he keeps on saying "Alex cot Singapore". The bedrooms are all OK in size - I hope that our bed fits into the master bedroom though - otherwise we will be buying a new one. It's just a bit of a funny configuration but hopefully it will be fine.

The apartment search has been dominating my thoughts this week. It will be great to have this behind us - it feels like the final step in our move here. The lease will begin on September 1st which is Gary's very busy time at work but hopefully we will get a lot of it sorted out during the week and be ready to move properly by the weekend of Sept 5th.

Yesterday, we went for a playdate for Alex. Lance is a month younger than Alex and I was delighted when I saw the smile on his face - he and Lance seem to play very well together and they were happy running around and having a great time. It's something I'm very conscious of - making sure Alex has new friends to play with. He mentions his Adelaide friends a lot and sometimes says "playgroup, kindergym". When we move, I will look into some other activities for him as I think sometimes when we are housebound due to Tara's sleeping, he gets a bit antsy so it will be good to have other things to look forward to.

Tonight, Gary and I are off to dinner at the Fullerton hotel. We are going to "A Peking Duck Extravaganza". It's 7 courses of duck prepared in a number of different ways. Yum! I'm so looking forward to it - but my biggest issue - what to wear? I don't have anything dressy but will venture out of shorts as a concession to the evening. It's Gary's 40th birthday on Sunday. I have a couple of presents for him - this afternoon the kids and I need to go searching for a card and also wrapping paper. As the apartments here provide a cake on birthdays (great result - given we have 2 birthdays in our time here!) this is covered, so I just need to work out what we are doing for the weekend to celebrate too. We are considering going on the Singapore Flyer which is the big observation wheel that goes around Singapore. Apparently great views - but we will get a great view every day in our new home - the agent pointed out that we could see Malaysia on a clear day (our apartment is on the 22nd floor).

Tara is fully crawling and getting into lots of mischief now. I smile everytime I hear Alex say "No Tara, that's Mummy's" or "No Tara, no touching 'puter" We will have to ensure everything is childproofed in our new abode. Tara's eating is also phenomenal now. She is so into food - she protests if her brother is eating and she's not. She is on 3 meals a day now plus snacks and I think the quantity she is eating is around what Alex was eating when he was at least a month older. Hopefully it will continue and she will be a good eater going forward.

Must sign off now as I expect Alex will be waking soon from his sleep. I have put some new photos on facebook but also on this post is a photo taken in the airport courtesy of my brother being there to bid us farewell and a photo taken at Queens Condo when we went to take a look last weekend. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Bring on the weekend.

It's Thursday night and right at the moment, I just wish Gary would be out of work. He has had a dire week - working till past 10 on Monday and Tuesday. Last night was around 9 and tonight looks similar. Thank goodness for having a long weekend this weekend.

The kids and I have had a good week. We have had a few activities on and been getting out and about. Today was our second day of viewing apartments (the first one was back in late May when we were here on our orientation). Alex stayed at our apartment here, we had a babysitter in for a couple of hours. I took Tara along with me. We saw some apartments that are definitely a possibility. Unfortunately, my favorite was the one at the beginning of the day that Gary missed seeing, but hopefully he will be able to see it on the weekend.

It will be strange living in a high rise apartment rather than a house, but for some of them the facilities are amazing. Beautiful swimming pools, gym, wading pool, playground. Just staying here at Great World for 3 weeks, I have met so many people - mainly in the playground. I think condo living will also provide for lots of socialising and meeting new people. Tonight in the playground, there were 2 little boys around 18 months old. They were Japanese but Alex just happily joined in playing with them and had a blast. I suspect our boy will be coming out with Mandarin phrases before we know it, especially if he goes to pre-school next year as Mandarin is taught at pretty much all of them from my understanding.

Now for something that seems quite 'Singaporean'. I was in the chemist the other day looking for some sunscreen for the kids. I was wondering around with both kids in the stroller and I saw a lady who worked there. She was stacking honey and she greeted me with "Would you like some honey madam?" I said, "No thanks - do you know where the sunscreen is?" She then came over to look for it, and directed me to the correct aisle. Then as I was standing there perusing the options, she was oohing and ahhing at Alex and Tara. Then she started to sing "Twinkle Twinkle" with full actions as well. I was encouraging Alex to join in but I think he was just a bit stunned! She then went into some detail about the kids noses - something about the shape of your nose indicating whether money is coming in or out. I didn't quite get it but I think she was saying that they had good shaped noses??! So, I made my choice of sunscreen, and then she said to me "Would you like some honey, it is very good for babies, put it in their bottles, a few drops and it stops constipation". I again politely declined and she was absolutely fine with this. It was just so funny. She was so lovely and chatty. I have been in the supermarket a few times and people will try to sell you something quite random. Like walking past the butter and they will say "This butter madam, unsalted, very good for your family". It is really quite strange but not in a bad way at all!

Last weekend, we went to the zoo on Sunday and became members. It is a wonderful zoo and Alex had a brilliant time. He is still talking about it and will be delighted to go back time and again so I suspect we will get good value out of our membership.

Tara is crawling pretty much properly now and gets around quite well. Alex is very funny telling her what not to do. For example if she picks up my mobile phone, he will say "No Tara" and run over and give it to me. The funny thing is he tells her off for things I tell him off for! Alex is generally doing very well with sharing with Tara, and is very cute when he says "Here you go Tara" giving her a block or toy to play with.

And finally a word on Tara's sleeping. She had her best night ever last night!! She slept till 5:30, woke up and fed, then went back down, woke again around 20 minutes later, I changed her nappy and she went back down again till 8:45. It was unreal - I don't expect a repeat performance tonight but it would be nice!