What's going on these days

Baby Isabelle and I are both in sunny Singapore! We have been here for exactly two weeks now, and will be here for a record breaking time of... 3 months! Which is why I am not stuffing myself silly with food because there will be ample time to do so.

Pre-flight stress

I remember being extremely stressed especially on the day of the flight. Our flight was at 10pm at night and in my head I thought there was a lot of time to get ready. I mean we had the whole day, that should be fine, no? I even told my aunt we could take a walk in the nearby park.. oh and I needed to go to the post office. Guess what, eventually we didn't do either of those! The packing seemed never ending and I seemed to be packing more and more stuff and squeezing into my luggage. Auntie was the same - she kept having to squeeze her shopping into her almost-exploding luggage. For the first time, between two people we had 5 pieces of check in luggage. What? Yes that is right. That was unheard of previously. There was so much to pack for such a small human being ;). We had to plan her milk feeds. We had to have some infant medicine just in case. We had to have extra change of clothes in case she dirtied her clothes. We had... we had... too many things.

The cab arrived at 530pm to pick us up. I had pre-booked for 5pm but he got lost (another story altogether) and a huge sigh of relief when he arrived. Thank God the traffic to Heathrow was smooth; way smoother than we had expected and so we arrived in record time, at 7.10pm. The check in process was smooth and we were glad to be relieved of our burdensome luggage. K was on his way to send us off and so we proceeded to wait for him in the departure hall. Sigh, goodbyes are so hard. It would be the longest time apart we have ever had.

Before we went in :(

Bye little Isabelle, see you in SG! She was soundly asleep!

Family pic

We bade goodbye and did the security checks. Thankfully they were more lenient toward baby stuff such as ready made milk, cooled water to make her formula milk, etc.. more checks but overall ok. They had to check Isabelle too, which wasn't grand because she was asleep in her buggy and they woke her up and made her cry. We grabbed a bite at EAT and soon we had to start walking toward the gate as it was a long walk.

The flight

Isabelle cried during take off and landing, but slept most of the 13h journey. It was more manageable than what I had expected - phew. I had to learn how to strap her to me when the seat belt signs were on. We also had the air stewardess put up the infant bassinet for us so she could sleep soundly in it. Funnily enough that 13h went past pretty quickly. Call it the mommy adrenalin but I barely slept throughout the flight. I kept checking in on her in the bassinet in case she was crying for milk or dirty nappy. Due to the plane's background noise it wasn't easy to tell if she was doing a soft cry, and we needed to avoid soft cries becoming loud cries lest she wakes anyone up. By then the cabin was pitch dark because it was sleep time.

We touched down at 6pm in the evening and once we were out in the arrival hall, our dear baby did a massive and messy poo! Good timing baby! We wouldn't be able to cope with that very well in the plane.

Arriving at Changi Airport

We did it! So proud of you baby, well done!

Arrival in Singapore

Taking advice from our friends, they said to avoid planning anything in the first week because baby might be jet lagged, and needs to settle down into a routine. Which I did, except for family commitments. Thankfully Isabelle did not experience much jet lag, but poor baby is struggling with the intense heat and humidity. Even I am struggling myself. She sweats and becomes real cranky so the air conditioner is our best friend these days.

Effect of heat on my hair! #notstatic

The families have now met Isabelle and she's everyone's little darling. So much love from everyone! Everyone can't get enough of little bub.

Just woke up and playing with great-grandma

For me, I am still trying to figure out a lot of things esp juggling meet ups with her routine, especially her sleep time. She sleeps around 830pm every night which means dinner appointments are tough to handle. If I do bring her, her sleep would be disrupted when we get home, and she would stir and cry because her sleep was interrupted. I would then need some time to settle her and soothe her back to sleep. Similarly daytime naps are currently a challenge. This baby doesn't want to nap in the day! She gets intrigued by everything she sees around her and fights sleep so much.

So as I mentioned it's been two weeks and we are more settled now than when we arrived. We are slowly getting into the groove of life in the tropics. Wish us luck!