Teething & First Hospital Stay

Teething
Janine has had no appetite, keeps puking out her food, gags when being fed, doesn't sleep well, and is more unsettled. This has been going on for about 5 days. Sounds like she's sick? Well, doctor's conclusion is that she's teething - the dreaded phase that every baby has to go through! I just didn't expect the teething to cause her so much distress as to puke everyday  Janine is teething (finally?!) at almost 10 months old! I only hope that she doesn't respond the same way to the rest of her other teeth popping out...Can't imagine having to go through all that again with the rest of the teeth!

This is probably one of the last few pictures of her being entirely toothless

First Hospital Stay
On the 3rd day of Janine's puking, Janelle suddenly had severe vomitting and puked everything out, even water. On that day (Monday), I had a record day of cleaning! - I cleaned Janine's puke twice, her poo (that leaked out of a lousy diaper) once, Janelle's puke on the bed 3 times, carpet once, etc. Actually I lost count of how much cleaning I did. It was madness! Especially the fact that Janelle puked on her bed 3 times - it meant we changed the bedding and bedsheets 3 times! I can only thank God for our washing machine! Can't imagine if I lived in the olden times where everything has to be hand-washed  Still, I think only mothers would understand the amount of cleaning I had to do with all the mess!

Janelle's vomitting was so severe that she would puke every few minutes, even if there was nothing left to puke. Aunty Phyllis and I brought her to the hospital at 10:45pm and poor Janelle had to spend the night there (me too) on a drip to rehydrate her body, since she could not even digest water. But Janelle was so good-natured about her puking - she did not cry a single time after puking, nor did she cry when the needle went in. But she hated being restrained for the doctor to insert the needle into her hand! Thank God she managed to sleep in hospital and recovered in the early morning. By the next morning, she was well enough to be discharged!  Doctor says she has gastro and diarrhoea is expected to follow the vomitting. True enough, she's having diarrhoea now but at least she isn't distressed by it.

It has been a busy week and now Royston and I seem to have caught the virus from Janelle. Thankfully the symptoms are not as severe as hers!  

Funny Crawl

Janine has been crawling this way - without her knees on the ground. I think it's a very inefficient of crawling but still, she manages to crawl pretty fast considering it takes more effort to crawl like that! The funny thing is, we didn't realise that was how she has been crawling because she was always all wrapped up in several layers of clothing so it hindered our view of her crawl. It was only till a month ago when the weather turned warmer that we realised she's been crawling like that all this while!

Updates

It's been some time since I last updated anything. Life has been pretty settled these days, and in fact, we've been busy the past few weeks as we've got relatives staying with us! We managed to do some touring and sight-seeing with our relatives since it's also Royston's school holidays, and it's been pretty fun! Besides, it does make quite a lot of difference to have an extra pair of hands around the house with our relatives staying with us.

Janelle
Surprisingly, Janelle still does not speak with an Aussie accent (yet!). She's enjoying school (ie. the childcare that she attends twice a week) and is learning to express her emotions a little better. There was a period of time where she was rather rough and 'un-nice' to Janine (ie. sibling rivalry!), but she has since learnt to outgrow that to be a very caring sister who simply loves to play with Janine!

Janelle's favourite video right now is "Mother Goose" video by Richard Scarry. It's a very traditional cartoon video that has lots of nursery rhymes - Janelle's current fav! Every day, she will need her daily dosage of "Mother Goose" on video. It's an absolute delight to see her enjoying her "Mother Goose" video and singing along with the songs and nursery rhymes!

Janine
Janine is now 9 months old and still very cute. She loves to smile and laugh, and can be very cheeky and playful. In some ways, she does remind me very much of how Janelle was like as a baby at that age! (Janelle was a very cheerful and cheeky baby too). Janine still "sings" herself to sleep, but her "singing" sounds more like continuous loud noises that slowly drift off to nothing, and when she's quiet you realise that she has fallen asleep. Haha  (My mum reminded me that Janelle used to "sing" herself to sleep when she was a baby too!)

Janine absolutely adores her older sister! She has a ready smile for Janelle and is always so excited to see her! (which is why it's tough for me to let the 2 girls sleep together - because they both end up NOT sleeping).

As for Janine's reflux problem, it has seemingly disappeared! In fact, we didn't really realise it till one day, I was saying to Royston that it seems like Janine has stopped puking milk / food and we realised that it seemed to have happened without our realisation! Praise God!

Speech & Others
Janine can say "daddy" already! Amazing. She can also almost call "mummy", though she's better at calling "mama". We're still trying to teach her to call "jie-jie" (ie. her older sister). Think that one is a bit tougher to pronounce!

Janine has also learnt how to clap her hands at 8 months old 1 week old (exact same time as Janelle) and to also wave goodbye. Babies just look so adorable when they wave goodbye or hello at you!

Super-King Sized Bed??
Is there such thing as a super king sized bed, I wonder? The past few nights, Janelle has been coming onto our bed in the middle of the night, and most of the time, Janine co-sleeps with us too (or rather, when she wakes up in the middle of the night I'll put her beside me to sleep). So it means that 4 of us squeeze to sleep on our Queen-sized bed! With Janelle and Janine being such "messy" sleepers, it also means that Royston and I have to sleep on our sides so as not to squash our 2 girls. Our Queen-sized bed is definitely not big enough!