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Dear Kyna,
Currently I’m caught in the middle. I’m stressed by something that will impact our lives.

There has been a chain of events that lead to an awkward situation that i can’t tell just yet.

I know you can feel me being very worried last night – i noticed you did not have a sound sleep. I know you can sense that something is wrong.

However, the next couple of days would be elemental in our future lives. I might be forced to choose options that will impact our lives from here on.

I hope nothing happens. I hope everything just come back to normal. I hope i can make the best choice when I’m forced to. I’m praying hard to God that my worst nightmare does not come to life. I hope people can just put the differences behind. I hope whatever choice i will make does not make your life difficult. I hope i can relieve this burden soon.

I need you to know that whatever happens, however life will take us, whatever future lies ahead of us, i will always love you. I will try my best to put you first. I will try my best to give you the life that you deserve. Pinky promise!

Love,
Mommy

Kyna,
Today is my last day of maternity holiday – this means tomorrow is my first day leaving you for work. Your grampa will be looking after you with the assistance of our helper.

You might not remember it, but I took an extended maternity leave for a total of 4.5 months. It has been a real blessing for me to watch you grow so fast. The little baby who was helpless at first has turned into a squirmy little rascal that I love whole-heartedly.

For the past months, there are various moments when you were crying inconsolably, I hugged you and your screams just stopped. You looked at me like I’m some kind of a savior, you put your head on my chest and it felt like a miracle for both of us.

I know I love you and I know the feeling is mutual.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to work and you’ll see me only in the morning and late at night – and of course you’ll have me for the whole weekend, which will only come in 6 days time. I hope you’ll do just fine while I’m away. Please don’t cry so hard because mommy won’t be there to hug you. You can cry as hard as you want when I’m around, because I’ll hug you until you fall asleep..

You might not understand this now, but I’m not leaving you when I go to work. I’ll call you every 2 hours so you’ll know I never stop thinking about you.

I love you my daughter – wish me luck having to spend my days away from you, mi tesoro..

Love,
Mum

P.S. I’m having teary eyes trying to write this letter for you..

Kyna,
It’s a common thing in our culture for a girl to get her ears pierced. They say it makes girls look more beautiful..

Mommy’s take on that: bullshit!
I’ve stopped wearing earrings when I was 10 years old. I hated having those strange things dangling on my ears and your grandparents were okay with it. So I grew up without them and both your dad and your grandpa still think I’m beautiful – they had to!

However, when I had you, your dad was very adamant about having your ears pierced as a baby. Don’t ask me why, go ask your dad!

Long story short, you got your ears pierced at the age of 2 months old! Yes, you read it right! You cried and screamed and it crushed me to see you that way. Anyway, it came out alright and you looked very cute!

However, you were being your active self, you like to pull your ears when you’re sleepy or at your edge. Hence, 2 weeks after that, your earrings came off *sigh*
In order for you to look like a girl, daddy insisted that you have to be re-pierced and he got you new pair of earrings that was said to be difficult to take off.

So we went again when you were 3 months old. One of the worst decisions your dad and I ever made – SORRY!!
The pediatrician didn’t know how to apply this new type of earrings snd she put it backwards. You cried louder than last time. You screamed and kicked and I was crushed for the 2nd time! It’s finally over though – she dabbed your ears and we were told to wait until both wounds were completely healed – IT DID NOT HEAL!

After 15 minutes, extended to 30 minutes, to 1 hour, to 1.5 hours, to 2 hours…
Everytime she took a peep at your left earlobe, blood starts to flow and you cried from pain, the louder you cried, more blood flows from your earlobe!
You were inconsolable, I can’t feed you because you were not comfortable with the position and you were definitely not happy with it. After 2 agonizing hours and the whole hospital looking at our drama, I insisted we go to ER. They dabbed your left ear with adrenaline and we were told to come back the day after. Needless to say, you didn’t have a good night sleep that night!

I hated myself from bringing so many pain to you! The day after, the blood still flows from the wound, so I decided to remove both earrings – and the problem was solved!

Moral of the story:
You are – to me – the most beautiful baby in the whole world and as you grow up, you will continue to become the most beautiful girl and eventually the most beautiful woman. I love you for who you are and never let the world and other people define the meaning of beautiful.
If anybody ever say that you need to wear something or dress certain ways to be beautiful, you can just smile, nod, and tell them to f**k off 🙂

We all love you Kyna!

I don’t know where my ideas come from. I will admit, however, that one key ingredient is caffeine. I get a couple cups of coffee into me and weird things just start to happen – Gary Larson

 

Oh hell yes! I have to confess that i have been sleep deprived since i don’t know when. I used to have sleeping problems since high school, it was worsen during uni time and working does not improve that condition either.

On the normal day I am so used to caffeine booster. This means a double-triple-quadruple dose of coffee and Starbucks has been my a great help – well, my working site always have Starbucks nearby, sooo…. Here’s what my coffee regime used to look like since 6 years ago:

• Morning (between 8 – 10 am): Iced tall red eye with 2 pumps classic syrup
• Lunch time (between 1 – 2 pm): Iced tall red eye with 2 pumps classic syrup
• Afternoon (between 3 – 5 pm): Iced tall red eye with 2 pumps classic syrup
• Night (between 7 – 9 pm): Iced tall red eye with 2 pumps classic syrup

For those wondering what the hell is a “red eye”, it is actually iced coffee with additional espresso shots. So normally your espresso shots are steamed with water. In my version, it is rinsed in coffee – imagine the amount of caffeine intake I used to get on a daily basis.

Used to? Yes! Used to! Not so long ago – end of July 2013 – i found out that i was pregnant. According to google, wikipedia and all that, taking caffeine is bad for your unborn child (which includes small baby weight, premature birth and worse – miscarriage), so i had to lessen my caffeine intake. That means, stopping coffee altogether and switching to tea. Tea? I thought tea has certain amount of caffeine too? Yes, that’s true – but it is lesser than the amount of caffeine in coffee. I did cheat by taking decaffeinated coffee, but hell – it tasted strange, i’d rather not take it at all.

Kyna was born on March 2014, but my struggle continued as i am breastfeeding. Rumor has it that coffee goes to your breastmilk, so if i drink coffee, chances are the caffeine will go into the milk as well.

According to my research, that means:

1. Kyna will be hyper because of the caffeine (duh! I don’t need that really, because she’s already a squirmy little bug!)
2. Her delicate tummy might not be able to digest the caffeine

Bearing all those in mind, i shit you not, I have not drank caffeinated coffee for almost 11 months (that reads celibacy for me *insert crying face here*). Coffee used to help to stay focus especially without enough sleep, and with it taken off from my dietary regime, I’m suffering!

Are there any ways to still drink caffeinated coffee without tampering breastmilk? I must be dreaming here 😦

The power of a man’s mind are directly proportioned to the quantity of coffee he drinks – James Mackintosh

 

Dear Kyna,
You are already 2.5 months! While you used to be a sound sleeper, your sleep pattern has become a bit more challenging to deal with. So does your sleeping positions.

Sleeping Pattern
Back when you were a few weeks old, all you would do was sleeping, crying, peeing, pooping and feeding. Well, you’re still doing all of the above, plus laughing and screaming. Sleeps and naps took approximately 18 hours a day.
Back in those days mommy could get enough sleep despite you waking up at night asking for milk, mommy can actually have some spare time to do online shopping, and work (yes I occassionally open my laptop and work during my maternity leave).

It’s a whole lot of different stories now. You might be very cranky throughout the morning and the afternoon, slept from 5pm to 1am, woke up to defecate and sleep again until 6 am. On the other occasion, you slept in the morning, slept in the afternoon, slept in the evening and finally woke up at 9pm and refused to sleep until 3am!! Hahah.. Mommy has to sing you lullabies, rocks you and carries you around, chat and laugh with you and both of us will fall into exhaustion the next day 🙂
Anyway I’m lucky enough because your lullabies are not necessarily for babies, you could look at me in full serene if I sing. Any song! From linkin park to maroon 5 to goo goo dolls and even limp bizkit sometimes! The only problem is you wans me to carry you the entire time *back pain alert* As you get closer to 3 months, you know how to laugh, how to respond to tickles and sometimes you scream in joy 🙂 those nights are the moments that I treasure..

Sleeping Positions
We don’t have nursery room, so your grandparents bought you a baby box – of course for yoy to sleep in – but you have a bit of a sleeping problem. Your involuntary movements constantly wake you up and you’ll cry and scream. Hence, you sleep with us and baby box becomes changing station hahaha. Here are your favorite positions:
1. Sleeping on your side with mommy’s hand on top of her – yes, this is to contain involuntary hand movement that could wake you up.
2. Sleeping on your tummy – you could have a sound uninterrupted sleep of up to 6 hours.
3. Sleeping on mommy’s chest – and you’ll drool all over me.
4. Sleeping on mommy’s arms – when you’re very cranky, you refused to sleep on your pillow and bolsters. Mommy had to let you sleep with your head on top of my upper arm and your face positioned facing my chest – leaving me with numb upper arm afterwards.
5. Sleeping inside the boba wrap – since you turned 2 months, I discovered that you love the hug hold / kangaroo hold when you’re being carried arround. My cheeky little rascal actually clings to me all the time. My wrist can’t take it, so mommy got the boba wrap. It works wonder with you – you fall asleep under 15 minutes in the wrap (versus the average of 1 hour without it).

Cute little bug!