Isaac’s first month party!

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In Chinese tradition, we celebrate the day our baby completes his or her first month with family and friends. After a whole month of getting used to our baby’s arrival, we really looked forward to catching up with close ones!

Juggling the baby’s needs and the business took quite a lot of time and sleep so preparing for the party took a lower priority – at least I tried to convince myself of that considering how much I love planning parties. In fact, I decided to go without decor and buy the door gifts from a supplier instead of making it ourselves so that it wouldn’t add more unnecessary stress or work. But of course, who was I kidding!

The night before the party, I decided to make a sign on our kitchen glass door to prevent people from walking into it by accident. Previously I had pasted a line of random post-its on the door – my husband has walked into it enough times for us to realize it’s a safety hazard (ulp!). I had always intended to have a decal pasted on the kitchen glass door but never got down to it once we were expecting Isaac. So we made a first month party sign instead!

first month party sign on glass door

pardon the crazy (artistic?) reflections…

I was really happy with the sign… and that really got my itchy hands going. It felt sad for that sign to be our only decor and it made the blank wall by our front door seem too plain.

So… I started cutting random triangles only to realize it would take a lot of work to have them all stuck on the wall. I was pretty much going to give up but my dear husband was determined to let his crazy wife have her triangles on the wall. He helped to stick blue tack on them while I was in the shower and we stuck them on the wall one-by-one till our masterpiece was complete! It was actually really fun doing this with him in the middle of the night like school kids with a craft project all over again :)

Triangle photo wall - welcoming baby isaac

Midnight shenanigans

Triangle photo wall - welcoming baby isaac

Isaac’s first photo wall

And there it was! A photo wall and the first thing guests would see when entering our apartment. (The triangles aren’t stuck in perfectly straight lines but my perfectionist side went out the window the minute my morning sickness started. Lucky husband haha!)… 

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Introducing baby Isaac (and our delivery story)

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The past few weeks have been crazy to say the least – adjusting to life with a newborn, sleeping in intervals and managing a new business is definitely no stroll in the park. Hats off to all mums who manage so many things at one go!

Finally at 4am, I’ve found some time (and sanity) to sit down to ‘formally’ introduce baby Isaac to you! Despite a difficult pregnancy and labor, he’s been a precious gift to us and we couldn’t be happier. :)

baby isaac with a pom hat | micheleng.com

Even though my husband and I hadn’t been married for too long before we conceived, the past few weeks in the hospital and caring for Isaac have drawn us closer than ever. In fact, the two weeks since Isaac was born was probably the longest I’ve ever gotten to spend with Dan 24/7 and he’s been an amazing support both physically and emotionally.

For my dear readers, I may be doing less DIY tutorials as I transition to this new stage of life but I hope to get back into the groove once things settle down. There’ll potentially be more posts on baby-related items but holler if you want to see more of other things too!

For friends, family and curious ones who have been asking for more details, I’ve penned a full post on our labor and delivery story here. While our pregnancy and labor have been more challenging than many of our friends we know, we are still very grateful that Isaac came out a healthy baby and that everything is fine.

I also apologise for not announcing his birth immediately as we needed time to recover and didn’t want to have to turn away visitors or not respond to any messages while we focused on adjusting.

In short, we went through two days of labour, a failed induction leading to an emergency c-section with some bleeding after the op that required us to stay longer in the hospital. The six days we spent in the hospital felt like some surreal, crazy boot-camp but thanks to the patient and kind nurses and doctors, we managed to get through it.

The days ahead will be full of steep learning curves but we’re treasuring every moment of it!

 

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New beginnings (part II)

New beginnings (part II)

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{This is a continuation of a previous post. To read from the beginning, click here}

The third new beginning: discovering a new addition to the family! (September 2013)

In all honesty, we didn’t plan to have a new addition so early on. Previously, we had planned for two years together alone and for my business to take off before we’d entertain having children. We definitely knew we wanted kids, but it was just about the timing.

I guess they say this is to be expected with newlyweds and I probably shouldn’t go into too much details here. But suffice to say, no contraceptive is 100% effective (I guess I did learn that from that episode of Friends…).

Though the chances of it happening were extremely slim (again, not going into the details but everyone close to us who knows agrees), our baby beat all odds and decided to surprise us.

baby isaac ultrasound

{Introducing baby Isaac with an ultrasound scan taken in November 2013}

… 

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Isaac's first month party!