Belated Mother's Day Post

This post is dedicated to all mothers out there.

Without our mothers, we would not be here today. My mom has taught me well and i'm grateful for that. :)

I would also like to say a special thank you to my babysitter - Alice who is taking care of my 2 kids (Naomi & Isaac). She is only 37 years old and has 3 kids (age 13,10 & 8). I'm thankful for her as she's like the 2nd mother to my 2 kids. Naomi & Isaac spend most of their time at their house as I'm a full time working mother. I'm still taking care of them on weeknights & full day during the weekends. I thank God that he has bless me with a good babysitter. They (including her husband Leslie) really love and care for Naomi & Isaac like their own children. Naomi even calls them 'mama' & 'papa'. Many people ask me if I'm okay with this like feel jealous or etc. At first, I do feel a bit uncomfortable but after a while I realize they really love her so much and didn't mean any harm and I should be glad they treat her good.

Besides taking care of her they taught her many things as well. Naomi wished me "Happy Mother's Day" during mother's day and she gave me a hug and a hand made purple carnation too (she did it with the help of my babysitter). Isn't that sweet? I was very touched as I didn't expected that from a 2 year old.

I try my best to be a good role mother for my children. Before I'm a mother, I always take things for granted and cannot imagine what my mother has to go through. Now I'm a mother myself I really feel her and it definately has it's ups & downs. I would like to wish all moms out there

a very Happy Belated Mother's Day...=)

Naomi @26months

Last Saturday we took Naomi for her Pneumococcal jab. This is the first time we took Isaac & Naomi together to the hospital. Both of them behave rather well actually. I actually prepare myself for the worst cause Naomi hasn't see her paediatrician or visit to the hospital in a loooooong time. Her last visit was when she's 18months old and also for a jab and it has not been a good one. She cried so loud and everyone was looking at us. *shy*

But to my surprise, she was behaving rather well and when the nurse wants to take her height and weight she's so co-operative and still no crying. When we go inside the paediatrician's room, he ask Naomi to open her mouth and say 'Aaaa' she follows without hesitation. I was so proud of her! *yay*

But when the nurse was preparing the injection stuff, the drama started la......she started crying already even before the doctor touch her. Doctor was on the phone with someone and she was crying and struggling at the high bed already. I need to hold both her hands and 2 nurses was holding her legs and then the doctor came and quickly gave the shot. I saw her holding the doctor's hand and told him "pain! pain!pain!" I had to calm her down and she was alright after that. Next was Isaac's turn, he just cried like less than 10 seconds when the needle touch his leg after that he's like normal self. So, that's the difference between my drama queen and mr. cool :)

We were told that after this Pneumococcal jab, she will develop slight fever so we need to feed her PCM. I was thinking in my head...."Oh no! Another difficult task!" So in the evening, I took out the PCM and I try to talk and explain to her that she need to take her medicine so that her leg no more pain she cried a little whenever i remind her of her jab. lolz then she nod her head so I put the PCM on a spoon and ask her to open her mouth and she did! She took the medicine like a matured girl...no crying! I was like "Wow...this is easy....too easy for me!"

The next day, as I was preparing lunch for her and she was playing by herself downstairs. Daddy was looking after Isaac and when I walk out from the kitchen I got a shocked of my life! I saw Naomi's face was swollen. There were red bumps on her forehead & under her eyes. I quickly called Tjun Aun and he said we need to send her to see the doctor immediately and since it was Sunday our regular paediatrician was not working that day so I called up another Dr's handphone. Yes, my friend gave me his handphone number and thank God he is still in the hospital so we quickly took Naomi there. While waiting for our turn, Naomi's redness has subsides so we thought maybe it was nothing serious. I did ask her what bite her and she told me mosquito but nobody knows whether she's telling the truth or not.

After checking with Dr Tan, he told us that she has develop an allergy reaction towards something (either insect bite or food allergy). He prescribes piriton and another type of medicine for my girl. The redness actually subsides even before we feed Naomi her medication. But I still feed her anyway for just in case. Anyway, I'm glad she's alright and nothing serious happen to her.

Cloth Diaper.....anyone?

I know it's quite late to invest in cloth diaper now. I'm not talking about the traditional cloth diaper but actually referring to the cloth diaper (the latest trend in the market). They are a bit pricey (that is why I use the term 'invest'). Since Naomi has been fully potty train but at night I still let her sleep with her diaper on. For the past few weeks, she has been inconsistent. Sometimes 1 or 2 days she will wet her disposable. For example, 2 weeks ago, she did not wet her disposable for 4nights in a row and imagine this 'kiam siap' or 'kiasu' mummy re-use the disposable up to 4 nights! So I only use the same and only 1 disposable diaper up to 4nights. I know this is unhealthy for her bottom so I finally decided to invest in cloth diaper.

At first, I only buy 2 cloth diapers from Happy Heiny's http://www.happyheinys.com/( to test first) Then last week I bought 2 more. I never regret buying them :) Let me tell you why.

First, Naomi and Isaac can share the cloth diaper as it is a one size diaper (the buttons are adjustable). The diaper is suitable for baby from newborn till L size. Below are the sample, note: this is the same diaper but with different settings. I plan to put Isaac on cloth diaper when he is 6months old onwards.

Second, the absorbency is very good. No leaking when toddler (a heavy wetter like Naomi) accidentally take a leak or especially during the night where they can't really hold their bladder for that long period of time. So, this is diff compare to the traditional cloth diaper.

Third, no more disposable diaper and definately more environmental friendly :)

Fourth, Disposable diapers contain chemicals, paper, and plastic, and have been reported to cause allergic reactions among other serious health problems. Cloth diapers are a more natural choice and are available in organic fabrics that are either untreated, or minimumally treated with chemicals.

Fifth, will save you money in the long run. Depending on the cloth diapering system you choose, you can save from RM 1,000 - RM 2,000 from birth to potty learning by choosing to use cloth instead of disposable diapers.

Last but not least, the designs are irresistable and nice :) I'm in love with them!!

PS: Some people might find this troublesome as we still need to wash the cloth diaper BUT you can just throw them in the washine machine and you don't have to change the diaper often (like the traditional) cause the level of absorbency is good. You can read the website for more info on how to clean and care for the diapers if you guys are interested.

"Happy Cloth Diapering!"

aikssss.....i'm doing my 'business'

About 1 month ago, Naomi already started to use to toilet bowl to do her business. I need to train her cause when we need to go outside (especially during her class or short trip to shopping mall)she need to use the toilet bowl instead of her usual potty.
This is the pic I took using my camera phone (sorry for the bad quality pic) last Saturday morning.
My little girl has definately grown up a lot and more independent now :)

Chop, Chop? Anyone?

This is another activity that I introduce to Naomi. We called it "chop, chop"

Normally I will let her play with this when we're dining out so that she'll sit on her high chair for at least 20minutes and let me have quiet dinner.

Before that, I will just let her simply chop in the paper. Just 2 months ago, I started to draw simple lines that look like small boxes and ask her to chop inside the box instead. She's able to listen to my simple instructions. Look at the pictures below:

Imaginative Play...

Naomi has shown interest in acting out various roles with her toys and I find them interesting to blog about. We encourage her to explore as well. Here are some of the examples on her imaginative play.

Play 1:

She has 2 Barbie Dolls (Gifts from her grandma) for christmas and Naomi will talk to the dolls and ask them to sleep, eat and read book. She sounded like me especially when she ask the dolls to do something. She will comb their hair and help them to wear shoes and etc.

Play 2:

She has a doctor set toys which includes all the doctor's accessories such as plastic thermometer, stetoscope, stringe, scissors, plasters and etc. She will pretend she's the doctor and me or daddy is the patient. Sometimes Isaac will be the patient as well. She will use her stetoscope to hear our heartbeat or take the stringe and pretend to give us injections. It has been ages since Naomi went to visit the doctor and her last visit was when she was 18months and it was not a good experience as she screams and wails like mad girl and everyone was looking at her! I read from book that by introducing kids/toddlers with this imaginative play (doctor set) it will help the child to be more open when going for a jab or visit the doctor. Well....hope it works as we're planning to take Naomi for the Pneumococcal jab in May together with Isaac's check up. Then I will update in this blog and let you guys know.

Play 3:

We bought for her another cooking playset ("masak-masak" set) from Jusco for RM10 only and the set has all the accessories for cooking like stove, bowl, plate, spoon, cup, fork, knife and etc.

She will pretend to cook for us or cut the meat or vegetables as well. She will ask her dolls to eat her food too....haha

Play 4:

Another pretend play is her music set that has drum, guitar and microphone. Her favourite are the guitar and microphone. She will use her microphone to sing songs and jam with her guitar. The funny thing is when she plays with her guitar, she will do like the rockstar type, with her 2 legs open wide and then strum her guitar. She sometimes will shake her hair as well (especially when she saw the A-Mei concert advertisement last time).

I've read in books that imaginative play is extremely important for young children as this is where they begin the very tricky lesson of working out ‘life situations’ – learning by replaying the situations they’ve seen other children and adults dealing with. It’s an essential ‘game’ – if you like – that involves the stimulation and rehearsal of communication, social and language skills.

Another milestone achieved....

Naomi has been fully potty-train for both morning and night. She's able to hold her bladder better now even at night when she's sleeping. I actually never expect that to be so fast as I've bought a waterproof bedpad for her but I haven't got the chance to use it yet.

I still put her on diaper during night time but her diaper remains dry the next day and it has been about more than 1 week already.

Every night before her bedtime, she will tell me "Mummy, I want to shee shee" so I will let her sit on her potty and she will do her business every night without fail. After a bottle of milk she will straight away go to bed and normally I will wake her up around 7am (even though she's still sleeping) and ask her to do her business. She will sit on her potty no matter how sleepy she is and empty her bladder. She still can went back to sleep after her business. During that time, I will remove her diaper already and then will send her to baby sitter's house without her diaper on.

If we're going out for a while or short distant trip, normally I will let her be diaper-free as well. I will only use diaper when we go out shopping (long hours) or those places that won't have toilets or dirty toilets only. Seriously, I have save a lot on disposable diapers now. Good Job Naomi!

Foodies' Choice....

Since 4-5months ago, Naomi has been very picky about what she eats. I'm not sure whether is this one of the stages that every parent and child need to go through and it was tough! Before that, she's very open to what she eats and I don't or NEVER have any problem feeding her food.

So every Friday I need to think of what type of foods to cook for Naomi cause I'm taking care of her during the weekends. Before this, she will just eat the food cook by my MIL (rice with vege or meat and soup). As Asian, we need to have rice in our meal be it lunch or dinner. Naomi doesn't want to eat rice anymore. She will say "dun-wan" "dun-wan" when we ask her to eat rice.

So, I have to be creative with my food choices. I introduced her to pasta instead (for carbo) so I will cook spaghetti bolognese, macaroni and cheese and what she love most is the plain boil spiral pasta (without any sauce). I've also tried pancake with maple syrup and she love it as well. Sometimes when I'm lazy I will just prepare ham and cheese sandwich for her for lunch.

She still takes her fruits so not a problem for me. As for snacks, she still will eat her crackers, cereals, oats, yogurts, energy bars, jell-0, raisins, steam sweet potatoes and chocolate.

My parents kept telling me, she must eat rice cannot eat all this. But I have no choice and some even commented that she is so western style and not 'chinaman' style at all. It's a plus for me at least she eat something right? Oh yea...she loves milk very much and will drink milk at least 4-5times(8oz) daily.

But last 2 weeks, she surprised all of us again. She asked for rice! She told her grandma last week before her class "Eat Rice" "Eat Rice" and she finishes all her rice and ask for more! I'm so happy when she did that and last week she did the same thing again. I realize that she cannot take fish/meat together with her rice as she will push the food out from her mouth and make a mess. If I give her separately she will eat them. I know her pattern but I'm not complaining since at the end of the day her bowl is squeaky clean!

How Is Naomi coping so far with baby Isaac around...

I've decided to blog about this topic today since many people ask me these questions:

How is Naomi coping? Jealous or not? Can sayang baby or not? or bully baby? and the etc etc

Well...surprisingly she's doing okay cause I expected the worst and I didn't get her any 'gifts' or 'presents' to present to her when we came back from the hospital (Cause I heard from some friends that this can prevent jealousy by presenting the big sister a gift and says that it's from the younger siblings). Seriously I've no time to go and buy the gift so I didn't get her the gifts.

When Naomi visited me in the hospital, she was rather reserved and didn't want me to carry her at first. She did glance at Isaac but I think she's too young to understand what or who he is. To her, it's just another baby I think. She was okay during the 2 nights (without me) as I was staying in the hospital after my delivery. Tjun Aun tucked her to bed and she didn't miss me as well.

When we came home with the baby, she felt weird and kept saying "Baby", "Baby" and just look at Isaac only and she will come and give him a kiss once in a while. So, it was still too early to judge whether she's jealous or not during that time.

But as days, weeks and months passed by, she seems fine and helpful with chores like helping me to throw Isaac's diapers, take Isaac's handkerchief to wipe his mouth, sing to him and even share her toys with him. Sometimes she will rock his bouncer when Isaac cry or ask/push me and say "Go!" (Cause Isaac is crying). She's not jealous when I breastfeed Isaac as well and when she saw the milk bottle she will say "Baby's one" and she didn't throw any tantrum or show any sign of jealousy cause we put Isaac on her baby cot(used to be her sleeping place). So I think she's pretty alright as I've heard stories that the older siblings will get jealous if the mother breastfeed the younger child or use the cot etc.

I send both of them to the same babysitter as well and alice's feedback was Naomi has been very helpful just that she's a bit "cho lor" towards her brother sometimes as I think she's geram with the baby and she will poke his head or kiss his head too hard. As a toddler she's still learning and just need to keep close eye on her at times.

I will say so far so good :)

Learning through Playing

Naomi has been attending weekly classes at Tumble Tots (http://www.tumbletots.com.my/) since last month and she’s loving it. I called up the centre one day (while I was still on my 2nd month maternity leaves :) ) and the teacher (Madeline) ask me to come over for a free trial lesson. Madeline told me since Naomi is going to be 2 years old only she’s somewhere in the ‘middle’. I didn’t get what she meant at first and ask her to elaborate more and she told me that they have 2 classes for Tumble Tots. The first class was a free flow type (a more relax type) and it’s for kids 2 years and below and the other one is for kids to follow simple instructions and a more structured class (for children 2-3 years old). She said she needs to see what category Naomi falls under. So, I took her to the free trial. It’s a total new thing for Naomi as she never attends any playgroup before.

When we reach the place, Naomi was so so so shy….hahaha…and she dare not go near the other children and just sat on my lap and stick to me like ‘super glue’. As a parent, I need to encourage her to join in the group and not stray away from the group. First few minutes were word play and I know Naomi is very good at it but she didn’t want to participate at all. So, I try to encourage her some more but to no avail.

Next activity was climbing and they need to climb up quite high (for my standard it was considered high and I doubt Naomi will climb as well!) True enough, she didn’t climb but she did follow the simple climbing where the place was setup like a mini gym with obstacles for children to explore. Slowly, I can see she’s beginning to open up. After the climbing activity, the next was ‘agility’. Naomi was very good at this and she’s able to do all the ‘agility’ activity with no problem at all. The last one was ‘balancing’ and I was surprised she’s so good at this! There’s one activity where they need to walk on a narrow wooden plank (form into a small circle) where require you to balance on the plank without touching floor. Naomi was able to walk 2-3 rounds without touching the floor at all ! I saw her nearly fell down a couple of times but she surprised me with her balancing skill and able to prevent herself from touching the ground. Oh yeah….She didn’t even hold my hand at all when she’s doing that.

After the gym activities, they have music and dancing activities. After the class Madeline talked to me about Naomi and she said she is able to fit in and follow the class and the only problem is that I need to encourage her to join in the group and slowly she will be able to follow the simple instructions. So I enroll her for the class for 2-3 years old children. Although she is the youngest in the class and the others were like 2.5-3 years old but I think she should be alright.
Every week she’s looking forward to the class and she’s now able to join the climbing activity as well. The only problem is that, she’s still stubborn and sometimes don’t want to listen to the teacher. But then again, most of the kids there are the same as well especially the boys. Patience- there’s what both of us need. :)

Since, Naomi already been potty trained, I let her be diaper-free when attending the class as well and so far so good…no accidents so far…hehe
Our plan is to let Naomi explore herself with other children and listen to simple instructions from a stranger (the teacher) and then maybe after 3-4 months in tumble tots I plan to send her to learning gardens (for weekly classes first). When she’s 2.5 years I might send her to half day day-care centre. I believe slowly she will able to adapt the idea of going to school. We’ll see what goes in the future. Will definitely keep you guys posted!

I wish to post up some pictures here but the teacher doesn’t allow me. I will try to sneak my phone camera when I have the opportunity :)

Last week, I curi-curi took these 3 pictures. The quality is very bad cause I was using my camera phone and I did not focus at all as I might get caught!

peek-a-boo..i see you!

She's the 1st in line - excited as usual, balancing very well huh?

Jumping up and down on the trampoline