Throw up!

I've got a merlion in my own house. Right from the beginning, Rou has demonstrated her abilities to throw up. The confinement auntie was very kind to take great care of the little one, burping her and being really gentle when changing carrying positions. Alas when she went home, and I took over the caregiving, I took cue from Gabe as a baby and took many things for granted. Things like burping the baby (I never burped Gabe and he was perfectly fine) and being gentle when rotating her from my right to my left arm. So as you can see where this is headed, I found myself mopping up floors, changing sheets, changing her, changing myself... It stinks, this regurgitated milk, and many times I've been caught dripping in them I don't know how to get to the bathroom without dirtying the rest of the house.

So lesson learnt: burp the baby and you'll have an easy time, even though you can end up sitting there for five to ten minutes just patting her back, it still beats all the cleaning up. And I've got to instruct all the beautiful people who carry Rou not to be too rough in play. I'll always have extra change for her, but I'm sure normal adults like us don't carry extra clean clothes around.

But one night, something unusual happened. The little girl threw up a grand total of four times in the span of three and a half hours. One episode had her lying face up on her cot and torrents of milk came up so quickly I couldn't respond fast enough. I saw her struggling to breathe as the material couldn't flow fast enough to the sides and threatened to descend back into her mouth and choke her. But the moment passed and we were so stunned at the mess we didn't know what to do. Urgh, the clean up was massive but we eventually made it through. Theory has it that it could be due to the formula milk we gave her that afternoon, and her stomach being used to the easily-digested breastmilk, couldn't handle the sudden intake. She was fine by morning though.

I'm sure I'll look back with nostalgia on this issue in time to come, so I should really relish each moment be it good or inconvenient eh?