Happy One Month, Maddi Moo!

Maddi is one month today! This also means that we are both done our traditional Chinese postpartum care.

What I tried yesterday to get Maddi to sleep longer at night sorta worked... she went to bed at 11.30 like usual, but then Sean's stupid phone alerts from Facebook woke her up and she fussed for about an hour when I finally decided to have her sleep on my chest. This morning, she didn't wake up till 5.45 to feed! If you consider that she didn't eat since 11.30 last night, that's a six hour stretch! Next time, we just need to make sure that there is no phone alert that would wake her up, then mama can also have a six hour stretch of sleep!

She fell back asleep after feeding for about an hour at 5.45. I got up to have a shower at 10am, and it was nice of Maddi to let mama enjoy her first shower and waited until I got dressed before waking up. It was, however, quite the production to get ready to go out. We visited Sommer at Saf & Benjamin, the local baby store, then almost made it to the pastry shop for Maddi's birthday cake when I realized that my friend Cathy was minutes away from my house with a pot of congee for me! She didn't have a lot of time so we quickly turned around and headed home. I nursed Maddi soon as we got home, then I had a bowl of the congee for lunch while Cathy held Maddi. I nursed Maddi again, then it was our nap time when Cathy left at 2pm.

We woke up at 4.30pm. Since we didn't make it to the pastry shop on our stroll this morning, we made another attempt after our nap. This time, it didn't take as long to get out the door. We made it to Ganache Patisserie with half an hour before they closed. I picked out the Blanc Fraisier for Maddi's cake, ordered a small cup of coffee, and we were homeward bound with cake!

We invited Auntie Julie to come over and help celebrate; she was happy to share cake with us! We kept her up for the most part of the night, and she finally went to bed at 11.30pm, in mama's Moby wrap. She transferred into her bassinet once mama was done with her photos and blogging. Fingers crossed that she will go for another 6-7 hour stretch!

Tummy Time!

Today is our last day with the traditional Chinese postpartum care! Tomorrow, I get to shower, eat any food I want, drink more than just the herb tea that I've been drinking for a month and also... get out of the house!

For now, we will enjoy the coziness of the indoors... the fire is on and classical music for babies is playing! In this photo, Maddi is enjoying some tummy time!

I had a phone call with our community nurse just after we woke up from our nap and I was telling her what Maddi's routine has been lately. She can't believe that Maddi would sleep 6-7 hour stretches without needing to eat during the afternoon - from about 1pm till about 7.30pm! So she gave me the idea that I can try to switch her schedule so she sleeps that long stretch at night instead of in the afternoon by waking her up to feed every 3 hours during the day, making sure she wakes up from her nap at around 4 or 5pm, and trying to keep her up from then until she goes to bed for the night.

I tried to do as Nurse Anne suggested and she went to bed at 11.30 as usual. We'll see what time she wakes up in the morning!

Contemplating

Yesterday was a full day of just me and Maddi. I do really enjoy our times together, although I am looking forward to being able to go out in a couple of days. I can't believe I have actually gone through a whole month of traditional Chinese postpartum care quite painlessly. In fact, it was quite enjoyable, thanks to my support crew! Still missing them terribly!

This photo was taken after Sean got home from work. Maddi is hanging out with dad, just chilling beside him in his arms, and it seems she is contemplating something - maybe what the big world out there holds for her when she can actually step out of the house in a couple of days.

Thank You For Everything!

This is my traditional Chinese postpartum care crew!

My sister Hennie who took care of me and made sure all of our meals are taken cared of the first week after Maddi's birth, before my parents arrived.

Gib, my brother-in-law, drove my parents around half the time to take them places and pick up anything we might need... including an outlet mall shopping day trip across the border.

My parents arrived on the Friday when Maddi was 5 days old. As soon as they arrived, until the hour before we took them to the airport, my dad was constantly cooking up storm - meals, snacks... it was heaven! He was my chief cook, you see! =) My mom took care of all my herbal Chinese medicines, my ginger sponge baths, cleaned up after my dad makes a big mess in the kitchen and washed the dishes after every meal.

Sean, Maddi and I can't thank you guys enough. I am going to miss the royal treatment after you leave ='(

Missing you already, can't wait to see you all in April!

Blustering Fall Day

Today, I was allowed a cheat day from my voluntary house arrest as part of the traditional Chinese postpartum care that I'm receiving. My family leaves in a few days, before my month of staying at home is over... so we decided I should have a cheat day to go out with my family - I just had to make sure that baby and I are well bundled up and warm, as well as to spend as little time outside.

We had lunch at a Shanghainese restaurant in Richmond, then went to Daiso in Aberdeen mall to look for an organizer for Maddi's drawer.

This photo was taken from inside the restaurant, looking out at a blustering Fall afternoon, leaves being blown in circles it reminded me of The Wizard of Oz.