Cheeky girl

My cheeky little girl now wakes up for sahur with us sometimes. And she will want to eat whatever we're eating. She eats with us during buka puasa too, and will want to have whatever we're having. If she can't eat the main dishes, I will feed her with plain white rice from my plate.

Last night, we broke fast at a restaurant that had a buffet spread. We sat her on a baby highchair. I collected as many soft little cakes as I thought she could eat. I fed her the first 3 cakes with a spoon. Then when it was time to buka, my husband got the waitress to get a small styrofoam bowl, and I put the remaining small cakes in the bowl and placed it on the highchair tray for her to feed herself. We have never tried making her feed herself anything but buns and rusk biscuits, and I didn't know if she would be able to feed herself with the cakes. Well, what did she do? She squished the cakes with her fingers, lifted the bowl and turned it over! All the cakes spilled onto her shirt and onto the floor...

I was shocked that it happened so fast. My husband, who was also not amused, told me to ignore her and just continue eating. She just continued to play with the upturned bowl like a drum. She was hungry, I knew, so I fed her small spoons of mushroom soup instead. Which she liked very much. I also liked the soup. Hehe.

So, I don't think we can let her eat by herself without placing some sort of plastic sheet on the floor directly underneath her high chair. My husband wants to start teaching her to eat on her own. I know that they'll do that in school. They haven't started yet, which may be an indication that she's not ready to feed herself yet. I don't want to be cleaning up the floor each time she eats. But I have a feeling that will happen anyway, when she starts to eat by herself. *Sigh...

Wanted: Authentic Wooden Rocking Horse for One Year Old

I am really not sure when this fetish (for lack of a better word) with wooden rocking horses started, but I really want to get Salma a wooden rocking horse for her first birthday. I've gone online and seen some really nice looking rocking horses!

If I remember correctly, some time back in my early childhood, I had a white wooden rocking horse. Although my memory is so vague, it could as easily have been someone else's rocking horse that I played with all the time. Or it could have just been my imagination. But I think I played with some sort of rocking horse before when I was a kid. I liked rocking chairs, too.

Here are some rocking horses that I liked online...


IKEA has a rocking moose (MYR 159), and I thought it was ugly, so I'm not getting that one. However, scandinavian ppl build very nice rocking horses. It's their culture I think. (I am also involuntarily drawn to Nordic stuff since I work for a Danish company). This gorgeous, yet modern pair of rocking horses below are made by Playsam (Sweden). They are my favorite -

















Their stuff are so pretty and modern. Check them out at: http://www.playsam.com/Products.aspx

If you know where in Malaysia I can buy a wooden rocking horse, please let me know. So far I've seen the plastic green one at Toys R Us, and that's not the one I want. Wooden ones are nice for decoration, too, once she has outgrown it.

Sleepless Night

My husband and daughter were sleeping soundly (and snoring both of them), when I awoke at around 1 a.m. in the morning with a stomach ache. I'm lactose intolerant, and I had pizza for dinner. :( So of course, I was asking for it.

Nevertheless, seeing as my baby girl was fast asleep, I decided to try out my husband's plan to let her sleep in her cot, which is located right beside our bed. So I took the time to clean it up (her toys and books are strewn all around her cot), and then very gently lifted her and placed her in it. I watched her sleep happily in her cot, even turning over and hugging her small bolster. This happy sleep of hers lasted for about half an hour, maybe? Where at the end of that time she decided to stretch her arm out to reach for me (as she does sometimes when she is sleeping beside me) and instead of touching my arm, her hand brushed against the wooden bars of the cot! She held on to a bar for a few minutes before finally opening her eyes and realising with a shock that she was not sleeping in our bed... Then of course, she started to complain; she sat up and pulled herself up to hang over the cot railing, asking me to pick her up. Which of course, I did.

After nursing her for a few minutes, she was back asleep. And again, I placed her back in the cot. She slept for another 45 minutes or so, and woke up again, angrier than before. This time, my husband woke up. I was finally getting sleepy.

I let him take care of her this time. Was not even sure what he did with her, because by then I was much too sleepy to notice. I know that he let her climb all over me before they both disappeared somewhere. I think he even let her sleep in the big bed again.

So our first trial run of making her sleep in her cot has failed! Tonight I will try again.

Crying over spilled milk

They say there is no use crying over spilled milk. I would most definitely disagree!! It's such hard work to pump milk... and the other day, I accidentally spilled almost 2 oz of bmilk. I was nearly about to cry! It took me half an hour to pump that...

Salma is now 10 months old and she still breastfeeds. I hope that I don't run out of milk during Ramadan. If I don't eat or drink during the day, will my body just stop producing? She will be very cranky in the evening if she doesn't get any milk! My husband says we have to try feeding her formula milk using the big kids bottle. But she has stopped drinking from a bottle (with a teat) since the age of 3 months! I'm worried that if we introduce it to her now, she will just refuse. I have tried giving her formula in her cup with straw, but she doesn't like it. So maybe we just have to change the brand of formula? Maybe she is lactose intolerant like me?

My husband is also now starting to complain that I shouldn't let her sleep in our bed anymore. :( But I feed her during the night almost automatically without realising it. It's like a reflex action. I am asleep when I do it. Because when I wake up, she is asleep on my arm (as if I breastfed her). My husband says that because I've been allowing her to sleep on my arm like this, all cuddled next to me, she is becoming really spoiled. I suppose he's right. Training her to sleep in her own bed will be difficult. She loves sleeping in the big bed. Especially when she gets it all to herself. She will do a 360 turn. When she wakes up in the morning and she finds that mummy and daddy are not in bed with her, she likes to roll around and giggle. Being in a big bed all by herself is like an adventure to her. I love watching her sit or stand up just to fall back down again on purpose. She loves that bouncy feeling of falling on the bed. She is just like me when I was young. :D

Interview with Ma & Pa magazine

You know, I don't even know if that is the title of the magazine, but I think it is. I am on MC again today. The last day I hope of being on MC for the same viral infection. Anyway... around 9.30 am, the principal of my daughter's school called and asked whether I would be free at 10.30 am to be interviewed by Ma & Pa magazine, who are coming to Small Wonder Playhouse to do a piece on it. Coincidentally, one of the parents who was supposed to do the initial interview had to cancel because her child was sick. And since I was on leave anyway, I thought "why not?" and agreed.

Then a few seconds after hanging up, a thought struck me - would they be taking pictures of me? Cos I was in no mood to dress up, being sick and all. By then it was already 9.45 am, and I had to be at the school before 10.30, so I just really couldn't give a crap about changing into something nice, so I just stuck to wearing my purple t-shirt, black yoga pants and denim jacket. I put my make up on, and put on some eye shadow, which I don't usually wear to office, but I thought, what the hell. I have to make myself look not sick.

When I got there, the journalist from karangkraf and her photographer were already there, snapping photos. We were introduced. Salma was so surprised and excited to see her mummy there! She crawled over to me straight away. The photographer wanted to take mug shots of me holding Salma, so we did that for awhile. And unless you are a professional children's photographer, it is so hard to make a baby smile for the camera! We went into the Babies Room to take photos of Salma and Arryan (another baby) supposedly at play. They put the babies on the floor and surrounded them with toys. But as usual, the babies knew something weird is going on and would much rather concentrate on the adults. Arryan kept looking at the camera with a "huh" look, and did not play much at all. Salma only started playing on her favorite turtle toy when I played with it. But she did not smile for the camera either. I really wonder how the shots will look like with these stunned babies.

The bigger kids are much better of course. They know how to act in front of the camera. One of Salma's teachers kept saying, "Nasib baik Salma pakai baju cantik hari ni... (Good thing Salma's wearing nice clothes today...)" as opposed to the usual rompers/bodysuit I usually pack for her. That day I packed for her a romper dress. Hehehehe... the usual rompers, but with an outer pink pinafore dress layer. She gets sweaty playing, and doesn't like wearing bulky things when she's playing and crawling, so I always usually pack rompers.

After the journalist interviewed me, (and much to my surprise without taking many notes down) I went home. I really wasn't feeling too well. Started to feel hot and nauseous all of a sudden. I stayed barely an hour I think. I hope they got enough input from me as a parent for their article. I wanted to say that I like Playhouse due to the good adult-child ratio, and how there is always one dedicated caregiver for each baby, but the girl didn't jot down much of what I said anyway, so maybe it was all for naught?

Anyhow, the feature will be published in the October 2009 issue, which will be out in mid-Sept, so look out for it! I am sure I will look hideous (as usual in photos). And plus I am sick. And plus I did not put on liquid foundation (only powder foundation) so my skin will most likely look crappy. And I noticed that Salma has a scratch on the side of her forehead, and I hope that won't be seen... haish. And I should have brought a hairband for her to wear cos she looks so much cuter with a hairband on... so ppl can actually tell she's a girl... these thoughts only popped into my head as I drove home. *Sigh...

Health - my own personal H1N1 take

I'm worried about my health lately. Both my husband and I have been falling sick with flu-like symptoms for the last two months. We'll be fine for about two weeks, then fall sick again. I mostly get infected with it by him (haha! no offence intended daddy) or by someone at the office. And curiously enough, usually the newest bug to hit his office will also be hitting my office. So the flu virus (what is the plural of 'virus'?) is working its way in and around the Klang Valley at a really fast pace.

And since I've been having this fever since Monday, and actually been feeling off since the Friday before that, we decided (my husband and I) that it was time for me to take the H1N1 test, just to you know, appease ourselves. I probably don't have it. But at least if I do have it, then I can take the necessary precautions. I heard that before today, it was really difficult for ppl to actually get tested. The nation is told to go to government hospitals to do the test, because at first, they didn't equip private hospitals with the facility. Then it got really bad, where the queue to take the test would be 800 persons long, and they decided to open it up to other hospitals. Then it got easier, where instead of a blood test, they just do a swab test. Which was what I did. They didn't swab the side of my mouth, like I thought they would (ala CSI), but they made me stick out my tongue as far as possible and scraped somewhere close to my throat. So I was like, "oh okay..." At first the nurse who did it barely even scraped anything, so I asked her afterwards, "Are you sure you got anything?" So she scraped again. She had never done it until that day.

For those that are wondering what the procedure is like, this is how I went about getting the test. You don't just walk into the hospital emergency room and ask if you can get a test done. We've had friends who have tried this and got turned down at two hospitals. And I've read several newspaper articles of ppl getting turned down when they walk into a hospital, even govt ones. So what you do is, go to your usual Panel Clinic. Tell your doctor your flu symptoms, and if you have had a fever or the flu symptoms longer than 4-5 days like me, usually the doctor will comply, and issue you a referral letter to see a specialist at one of the designated H1N1 hospitals. If you or your panel clinic doctor don't know which hospital to go to, the Ministry of Health has a list posted on their website. Go to: http://h1n1.moh.gov.my/hospitalkerajaan.php for a list of govt hospitals and http://h1n1.moh.gov.my/hospitalswasta.php for a list of private hospitals.

You then go to the hospital admissions counter with your referral letter, and go through the whole entrace procedure. For me, we chose Assunta Hospital in PJ, because it's covered by our company insurance, and even though SJMC is on the list, ppl we knew got turned down there, but it could just be they didn't follow proper procedure. SMC is also on the list, but I was told it's no longer an ING panel hospital. So anyway, get a GL from your insurance to cover the cost. They'll do this at the Hospital Admissions. I didn't need to make an appointment with the doctor that my panel clinic doc referred me to, I was just a walk-in and slotted into the waiting list. So after about an hour or so or more, we went in. We talked about my symptoms and I asked to do the test, and he complied. Then I was ushered to the place they do the test, and they swabbed me. We made a follow-up appointment for Monday (3 days later). I got better medication for my flu. And that's it. You are supposed to know the result the same day, and I'm sure if it was serious (like a positive or what), they'd call me. But they have not, so I'm thinking I don't have it.

So that's how you do it. If you have really bad flu symptoms, right down to nausea and breathing difficulties, follow the steps I outlined above. Those hospitals will only entertain you at the emergency room if you really really cannot breathe properly. But if you just have chest pains when you cough, like me (i'm asthmatic too), then get the referral letter from your usual doc. Emergency Rooms are for emergency cases after all, and I think they won't really layan you if you seem to be okay. If you are sick and have been sick for a long time, just get the test done. Like me, I didn't have to pay anything. It's better to be safe than sorry.

And oh yeah, I read on the site that if you are a breastfeeding mother, and you are sick (with H1N1 or not) it is advisable to continue breastfeeding your child. Your body is creating anti-bodies at that very moment to fight your illness, and by breastfeeding you will in turn pass those anti-bodies to your child so that his/her immune system will be boosted, and your child will be stronger as a result, and will most likely be able to fight off the same illness. Like Salma, she hasn't shown any flu symptoms yet. Not even fever. So her anti-bodies are working. :) She's the best. But if you are really really sick, wear a mask when breastfeeding, or better yet, pump your milk and get someone else to feed him/her your breastmilk by bottle.