Journey of a Kumquat: Week 16 - Enjoy every moment

When you become a new parent, people tend to say the same comment to you that you have likely never heard before - 'enjoy every moment.' This is a good reminder I suppose, because so many of the moments are simply not so enjoyable. Alas, there is the secret of parenthood - it is the hardest job you'll ever love. But there are many trying moments - especially at the beginning, when you don't know your head from your ass. I remember a mere 4 months ago thinking to myself how this is pretty much the opposite of joy. Pumping and feeding and why is the baby crying? and no sleep and no milk and it pretty much SUCKED. We were so absorbed in the misery of our everyday lives we would sometimes forget how much Charlotte was growing before our very eyes. So if I can provide a public service announcement - don't think that having a baby is all starry eyed Tori Spelling life is beautiful cooing butterflies and rainbows bulls---. It is a lot of hard work and you will sometimes forget that raising a child is a reward in and of itself - especially when you are so sleep deprived you wonder how you will go on or pump any more. That is what I tell myself anyways.

Charlotte is now 16 weeks - four months young. We went to Phuket on Thursday - sort of a spur of the moment thing with Matt's business partner and it was GRAND. We stayed at this place called Villa Yang and it was awesome. We brought Imee so we could have a mini vacation. We stayed at this villa and there was a cook and staff (the guest to staff ratio was 2:1 and it was just like having Charlotte at home - if we had a staff and a private pool and an unobstructed ocean view at home. Charlotte never left the place at all! She tried swimming again but didn't like it as much this time.

Charlotte had wicked jet lag- up 3 times a night on Tuesday night and finally getting back on schedule exactly a week later. It took her a day to adjust to the US and week to adjust back to Singapore. Maybe it is the weather and the time zone. Her feet and hands are SO sticky - she gets this from Matt for sure.

I am told we are lucky that she sleeps for an 11 hour stretch when she is on schedule - but she probably sleeps no more than 2 hours during the day.

We have new and exciting toys - an exersaucer (thanks Kim for that!) and a tummy time aquarium mat that we have pulled out because our friend Jaime says that skipping crawling is bad developmentally - and Charlotte looks like she may be able to walk any day now - if only she could keep her head from wobbling (which she does a lot less - say only 15% of the time). So for the moment we are sucking up all the angst of tummy time. But she can hold onto the attached mini beach ball like nobody's business.

She also sucks her thumb - not idly but like she is about to suck the marrow out of her bones.

We are glad to be home and on a schedule for a while.

Video overview of our villa: