Little Luke "Skywalker"

Friday, February 10, 2006

Fresh Routine

J is on compulsory deductible annual leave today as declared by her boss. Due to Thaipusam, all the roads around her office is being closed from traffic. Hence, she will be a SAHM for another day with Little Skywalker at home. It leads me to write about a fresh routine which has been added to my Saturday.

Over the past two months, Little Skywalker has been spending his Saturday morning and afternoon with me at home (as compared to sending him to my parents). Few months back, I couldn't handle him for more than a couple of hours before his "breast addiction" kicks in. However, all that has changed since I came up with a bunch of stuff to do with him a few weeks ago. It goes something like this...

Regardless of the time Little Skywalker wakes up on a Saturday morning, I would normally wake up around 7-8am before him. Then I will send J off (if she's still at home) and go have a bath if possible as I will not have time to do it after he wakes up. If Little Skywalker has not wake up by then, I would crawl back into bed with him and continue sleeping till he wakes up.

After he wakes up, we would spend some time in bed stretching ourselves and wish each other "Good Morning!" while I change him into his singlet and shorts. After that, we will walk across the street to have our breakfast since the car has gone to work along with J. Our typical breakfast consists of a "chao-siu pao", a "kaya pao", a "siu mai" and a cup of teh-tarik. The teh-tarik and "siu mai" is for me only as Little Skywalker is still too young for them. He will share the two paos with me and drink from his own water bottle.

I put his on an adult chair (those with no handles and back support) instead of a baby-chair so that he will sit still instead of climbing all over the place. So far, it's been working very well. He will sit quietly on his chair and turning to all directions to look his surroundings. While eating, he will point to other stuff and tell me what they are (baby, cats, dogs etc.) or what are they doing (cooking, eating etc.). We would spend about half an hour there depending on how fast he eats with all the distractions around him.

After breakfast, we will go to the playground behind our house to have our morning walk. Little Skywalker has learn to walk along the "walking path" recently without me holding his hands. In the past, he will walk without a sense of directions, leading him to the grass or a steep area. I guess he finally got his path straightened. After a few minutes walking, we will reach the children's playground where he would sit on the swing for a long time (maximum so far is 45 minutes). I would stand along his side, pushing the swings and listen to him speaking and singing. Sometimes, he would watch other children playing at the playground as well.

After his swinging time, we would walk back to our house where I would let him have another of fun in his pool if he is not too tired. He will spend about an hour in his pool before he climbs out voluntarily. Then it is off to the bathroom for his warm bath. I am not like his mother, who would get him out of the bathroom as fast as she could. In contrast, I would let him play in his bath tub for as long as he wants provided I finish washing the shampoo and soap off his body.

Little Skywalker would be very tired already after his super-fun morning activities. That is the best time for me to feed him his milk and human-cradle him to sleep. In order to feed him his milk (especially formula), I would need a bunch of tools (mainly stuff that keep his eyes away from his bottle) to distract his attention. My usual tool would be the MTV of Rembrandts singing the Friends' theme song with its' cast. I would keep repeating that MTV until he finishes the whole bottle.

A little background on Little Skywalker's milk feeding. J usually leaves behind her breast milk in the freezer so that I will warm it up for Little Skywalker. Since we are desperately trying to wean the little guy off J's ~~breast~~ breastmilk, I challenged J a few weeks back that I will feed him formula milk instead. With J around, Little Skywalker usually takes more than 30 minutes just to finish 2-3 ounces of formula. However, I will only take less than 15 minutes to feed him 4-5 ounces. Quite an achievement huh!

Little Skywalker will be quite tired and sleepy by the time he finishes his milk. I will put on some music (this time with no video) and human-cradle him to sleep. The latest addition to his music collection would the nursery songs CD-set from auntie Shiaulin. I tried that last Saturday and it worked very well as Little Skywalker is very familiar with most of the songs. He would sing along at first until he is too tired to do so.

After he's asleep, I will either sit down and watch my DVD (softly) or "try to" tidy up the house. His nap will normally last around 30 minutes to one hour depending on how tired he is. I would wait for him to wake up before I start to vacuum because my super-powerful-but-low-energy-consumption vacuum cleaner is quite loud and can be heard even if it was to be left running on a different floor! While I am vacuuming, he would be following the vacuum cleaning while I drag it all over the place. He would be screaming in excitement every time I turn the machine on. It's another fun time for him I guess!

By the time we finish all the vacuuming, J would be back from work and we would go out to have our lunch. How's that for a Saturday morning and afternoon? For me, it's priceless!

Jotted down by Egghead :: at around 2/10/2006 09:41:00 AM :: and invited 16 Blah(s):