5y9m - fussy eater

Hi Lucas,

Do you remember how fussy you were with your food? I’m really hoping it is something you will grow out of! Currently you refuse to eat any veges and the only fruit you will eat is watermelon. You do automatically feed yourself 2 vitamins a day because you see them as treats/rewards, so at least you’re getting some nutrients!

Your favourite foods are:

Sausages, eggs, fried rice, rice in general, roti, satay chicken skewers, boost juice, chicken rice, pho, com tam. Yes, you’s asian through and through with your food choices!

You have 1 piece of toast for breakfast, and even then it’s always an endeavour to get you to finish the toast. I’ve tried cutting the toast up into superhero shapes but that didn’t really work. Now I just cut the toast into quarters so it seems less of an effort to eat...it works.

Something funny happened yesterday regarding your lunch at school. Daddy usually makes you rice and pork floss for lunch in a thermos to take to school. Then when I am ready after feeding Josh, I’ll pack your lunch, morning tea and drink bottle into your bag. Yesterday I packed everything away and when I came home was told we didn’t make you any lunch. Daddy had left the hot water in the thermos and had apparently told me he was in a rush and couldn’t get your lunch ready. I didn’t hear him as I was still asleep. At lunch time, you opened your thermos and exclaimed, “Mummy and Daddy only gave me water for lunch!”. The teachers and everyone thought it was very funny. 

So what else do you eat? Morning tea these days consist of seaweed and apricot or fruit bites. Sometimes we put in crackers. Grapes once or twice but were never eaten. We really need to broaden your taste buds before school next year!

4m photos from Looky Looky

Hi Joshy,

I booked a photo package to capture you at 100 days, 200 days and 1 year from the photography studio Looky Looky. The studio is made up of different sets made especially to capture babies. They had the cutest props to choose from!

I chose 3 concepts and the photographer and assistant cycle through a number of pre-set poses quite quickly. They made you do a lot of tummy time to get the head up poses, you were not happy! By the middle of the 2nd concept, you were grumpy and tired and we had to take a break so I could feed you and give you a 30min nap. After this, you were refreshed for the last concept which was to dress you up like a teddy bear :) Here are some of my favourite pics:

5y - Lucas the voracious reader

Hi Lucas,

It always astounds me when I read with you at night for bedtime. You're now reading quite advanced books and have been able to phonetically sound out words since you were 3 years old. You taught yourself to read and we're amazed at how effortlessly you do it.

Here are some videos of you reading at 3yo

3 years 2 months

3 years 6 months

At first we thought you memorised the words in the books but Daddy tested you by asking you to read backwards, which you did very well. You also make sure we read every single page, if we miss a page, you let us know right away!

You're also very good with your numbers. You were able to count to 100 at 3, you're now adding and substracting in your head. You learnt all the months and days of the week at 3 as well, so we couldn't trick you on your routine.

A funny video of you at 4y 5m counting when you were pumped full of sugar and needed to sleep. This was at Aunty Mandy's birthday I think.

5y 9m - Interview with Lucas

Hi Lucas,

It's been a while since I've done a dedicated Lucas update. I've taken loads of videos and photos of you but just haven't uploaded here.

You are now 5years old, nearly 6 years in Feb. I interviewed you yesterday thinking I'll update it to your Preschool Year book that I made, I think I'll post it here too! Will be so cute to look back on this and remember what your interests were during this special year where you started a new preschool and made many new friends.

Date: 28 Nov. 18 

 Interview with Lucas Age: 5 years, 9 months 

What is your favourite toy?-       Lego batman-       Batman action figure with the blue eyes 

 Where do you go to school?-       KU North Ryde 

 Who are your teachers?-       Ani and Cosimina 

 Who are your best friends?-       Millie, Harry, Samaira, Jayden 

 What is your favourite colour?-       Dark blue 

 What is your favourite food?-       Sausages-       Fried eggs 

 What’s your favourite number?-       4 Why?-       Because I like Gordon and he was number 4 

 What is your favourite sport?-       Basketball 

 What is your favourite TV show?-       Batman tv series 

 What is your favourite song?-       Spiderman 1967 

 What is your favourite book?-       Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Amazing Adventures 

 What do you want for Christmas?-       Batman Arkham Asylum Lego 

 Who is your favourite person?-       Millie (you did also add Mummy, but seemingly reluctantly, as though you didn't want me to feel bad lol) 

What do you look forward to doing next year?-       My birthday because I get to open presents. 

 What do you want to be when you grow up?-       Spiderman 

 What were your favourite memories this year?-       Making cupcakes-       Playing teenage mutant ninja turtles arcade game-       Becoming a big brother (yes, in that order!) 

 What are you looking forward to?-       Our holiday to Taiwan 

 What is your favourite playstation game?-       Lego marvel superheroes

You also did this interview that I taped when you were 4 years 6 months. I remember we taped this quite randomly while having dinner at the Carlingford food court.

(had to remove the video because you recited our phone numbers and home address...haha)

5.5m - Someone is now rolling!

Hi Joshy,

These past 5 months have gone so fast with you. I know I've missed quite a few updates since you were born but the more I procrastinate to do a good job with photos and videos of you, the more likely that there won't be any updates. So I'm going to put my thoughts in here when I can so that these memories slowly build up.

My smiling chubby baby, you are such a joy to the whole family. You smile all the time, whether it's eating, playing, being held. Oh how you love to be held. We have to hold you ALL the time so I don't have any time to do anything. I spend your naps carrying you around, so right now you are sleeping while I carry you. I have to stand up and type on the laptop bc you don't like people to sit down while being carried. Such a little fuss pot! Though we all do this willingly because your giggles and smiles when you wake up are so precious. You are very sneaky though bc when you wake up, you stay so quiet in the carrier so that we carry you for longer. No tears at all when you wake up.

You are now 5 and a half months. Yesterday you rolled for the first time! I captured it on video and will post here.

You also started solids at 4.5 months old and you LOVE your purees, it's a dream to feed you. I took this video this morning because you kept smiling and laughing as I was feeding you. These are the foods you've tried:
- sweet potato, peas, carrots, apples, cauliflower, pumpkin

You seem to love the pumpkin and sweet potato best, so I try to mix it with the other veges.

You slept through the night 2 nights ago...and haven't done it since. You slept from 7.30pm to 5.30am and oh my boobs were so full. You might have slept longer but we had a huge storm in the morning and the thunder woke us both up. Thankfully at nights you are happy to sleep in your basinette after the feeds.

You must be around 8kg now, you were 7.4kg at 4ish months. You have the sweetest and gummiest smile. You look like you might be sitting up on your own soon, probably from all the practice sitting in your baby chair to eat your solids.

The first 6 weeks were the absolute hardest. Your cried A LOT. Probably because you couldn't feed very well on my boobs. It was a struggle for both of us and so painful for me. I persevered but was tempted to give up on each feed because your latch wasn't right and every time I fed you, it felt like needles being stuck into me. At 6 weeks, you suddenly didn't need to be held to sleep and I managed to sleep a bit more than 1.5-2hours at a time. I was so sleep-deprived the first 6 weeks! I don't know how I survived. But since then, it got easier and easier. You know feed well, sleep well and growing fatter every day.

We try to follow a bedtime routine for you but it's hard to juggle on some days. Lucas has been lovely and reads Good Night Moon to you sometimes. He doesn't even need to read the words, he's memorised it from us reading the same book to him when he was a baby.

I know this post is out of order, so I'll go back and write another post with your first few months with more videos. It's much easier to link to the youtube videos that I have been uploading rather than the photos. Oh, photos! You did the cutest professional photos at 4 months! I will definitely upload those on here!

The rest of my pregnancy

Hi Joshua!

As I write this, you are already 3 months old and sleeping in the baby carrier while I carry you. I am writing while standing up because you are quite fussy and don't like it when we sit down while carrying you in the carrier. You love to be carried or held...but before I go into how you are in the first 3 months, let me catch up with a blog post on my pregnancy while I was pregnant with you. It feels like a blur now so I better write down my thoughts while I still remember.

I didn't take photos for every week that I was pregnant with you but you can see my growing belly. Your big brother Lucas was good at reminding me to take belly photos on Sunday and he even took on the responsibility of writing the week numbers on the chalkboard.

Here is week 16 - I think this was the first week that I stopped feeling nauseous!
Weight: 58.9kg

Week 16

Week 18 - my birthday week! So here's a photo of my dinner date with Daddy in the city. Mummy got all dressed up :)

Weight: 60.5kg

Dinner date with Daddy for my 40th birthday

Week 19 - photo of Lucas writing the week on the chalkboard

Pregnancy symptoms:

I had pretty bad nausea and fatigue from week 6 to 16. All throughout the pregnancy I had to do blood tests every month, sometimes more than once to monitor my overactive thyroid (Graves disease). And then by week 23, I got diagnosed with borderline gestational diabetes - which meant I had to check my blood sugars 4 times a day and adhere to a special diet. 

Most of the pregnancy was the same though the thyroid issue went away in the third trimester so I didn't have to take any meds. Around week 36 at the OB's office, I was told my blood pressure was too high and had to be monitored and start meds. So I then had to go to the hospital twice a week to get something called an ECG which checked your heart beat and my blood pressure. 

During my hospital visit on Daddy's bday, my blood pressure went too high and I ended up staying in the hospital. We were supposed to have a bday lunch with Daddy but in the end, I was in the hospital getting some tests done. I told Daddy to get a massage since it was his bday and the nurses told me the blood tests would take 2 hours to do. As soon as Daddy left for his massage, the nurses came back and said I had to get a caesarian operation on the OB's orders! Poor Daddy was on the massage table and had to rush back to the hospital, just in time for you to be born that afternoon. So a very exciting day on Daddy's bday and from now on, you and Daddy will celebrate all your birthdays together.