Food and bread

Yesterday I brought my girl out for diner at Vegetarian Express Cafe in Heartland Mall. :)

Yummeh!!

Enjoying her dinner~

This time, I did a little experiment with the bread maker!

Usually I follow this recipe in the instruction manual.

Yesterday I replaced water with grape juice!

Moment of truth...

Seems to look fine.

Yay!

Soft and nice. :D

Playdate on a Yelly mat

Before my dinner with my friends last evening, I went to my mummy friend Cheryl's place in the afternoon for our babies to have a little playdate on her brand new Yelly mat! My baby girl gets to wear her pretty flower-print Cheeky Chompers Neckerchew~

Hmm... Where am I?

Wearing her Neckerchew!

This bib's so pretty and chewable too ^^

Hi Leo, your Yelly mat's so much fun to play with!

Yay hey, I love little babies!! *muacks*

Every baby wants a Yelly mat for Christmas!

This is a backdated entry... I have a lot to write about actually, but my days just get busier and busier... it's already near Christmas as I typed, and I just wrapped 5 presents for Christmas gift exchange and my best friend's housewarming party. I must say though, I love both the interactive Yelly mat (oh boy, I had so much fun playing with the talking/singing duckie myself too!) and the Cheeky Chompers Neckerchew~ Both baby girl and I had so much fun at this playdate!! ^^

Dinner

Great time spent with friends last night.

Tremendously grateful that my parents-in-law are always willing to help me babysit my girls.

On a side note, I have changed my Instagram account setting to private. I've shared some links here and there in this blog but unfortunately you can't view the pictures now unless you request to follow my account. This is for two reasons:

1. Privacy for my two young girls as they will grow up to become adults who cherish their own privacy.
2. Privacy for myself as I embark on my overwhelming new journey in the new workplace.

There are a lot to cope for me in this new journey. New workplace, new syllabus, new colleagues, new student profile, new timetable, new trainings, and all these on top of adapting to my 6-month-old role of being a mother of two girls, and continuing to express breast milk for my baby, hopefully for the next 6 months. Wish me all the best.

Avocado

Before I start talking about avocado... well, I'm not good at cutting at all and as I sliced through the loaf of homemade bread yesterday morning for bringing to school, some broken slices were left at home. Today, I decided to make bread pudding with the leftover bits of bread. I made a small bowl with baking paper, broke the bread into smaller pieces and poured in a mixture of a small egg and about two tablespoons of milk, beaten together. Hmmmm... It wasn't a lot of mixture for the bread to soak in, so instead of being pudding-like, the result was more like french toast. I topped with dried cranberries and maple syrup, and it makes a hearty breakfast with my mum-in-law's kopi. Best part is, I know every single ingredient that goes into this breakfast!

And yesterday baby had her first food! She doesn't seem to be ready for solid food though, and only had a tiny little bit of avocado. In short, she had probably 1% of this avocado, and 99% went into the pizza I made last night, in previous entry. :P

We used her Miffy milestone card~ Nope, that's cards, not card... because multiple milestones were achieved yesterday! :D *proud mama*

We even celebrated her half-year-old birthday with a mini cake that MIL bought, and her sis and cousin sang her birthday song! I took a video for keepsake, but not uploading it. Overall, it was a very happy moment for everyone. :)

And today I made "eggocado" with the leftover avocado from her second day of avocado tasting. :)

More bread

Brought my homemade bread to share with my colleagues! ^^

Used left over crust from my homemade bread to make some homemade pizza ^^

This was before baking. My elder girl used to like avocado but now she's become very picky with food. :( So I made a small portion without avocado for her... it's late and this was supper. I didn't want to make her fuss all night by forcing her to eat avocado.

It was so good, she gobbled up everything and asked to make more pizzas in future. :)

Bread maker

I was indeed very pleasantly surprised when my department gave me a Mayer bread maker as farewell gift, one handpicked by my boss, instead of the generic pens that were given in previous years.

Received the bread maker on Thursday and last night I used it for the first time. I was so excited about it, I decided to take a short video clip using Instagram to commemorate the moment.

I'm so glad that my first attempt turned out successful as I've read cases of failed first attempts when following the recipe provided in the manual, and I was pretty skeptical as the ingredients were being churned around in the bread maker. Had a slice of the fresh fluffy white bread last night for supper and was brimming with satisfaction. New achievement unlocked! My very first homemade bread~ :D

Eagerly waiting to cut and eat the bread.

Today's breakfast with my girl - homemade bread toasted with cheese and cherry tomatoes.

And so I made another loaf of bread tonight, to bring to school tomorrow and share with my dear colleagues. Can't wait to treat them to my fluffy homemade bread! :)

Need sleep

These few nights, baby has been waking up more to fuss until I latch her. I don't know if she's hungry, uncomfortable or just addicted to latching... she can be up 4 to 5 times a night and each morning I woke up feeling like I never slept. But I did.

2 days ago I even had a very ridiculous dream that a heavily pregnant lady wearing a revealing tube dress was walking on the street and she fell onto the road and her dress slipped off. I quickly went up to help her up and attempted to cover her revealed chest with my arms as she tried to pull her dress back up. Some men were sitting at the bus stop nearby and saying things like why I want to be so nice and help someone I don't know. I was busy helping while replying (gosh I dunno how I did that but I did in my dream) to them that we ought to help one another and this is what I taught my daughters too. Come on, we need more warmth in this society, we need to be helpful and always look out for one another, and turn this society into a gracious one which we are all happy to be part of! Right?

Weird dream huh? I had so many weird dreams weirder than this that this dream is nowhere near weird for me. Hahaha.

Oh well, I need to sleep. Snooze time!

Creating a Positive Home-Learning Environment

Disclaimer: I did not write this article, I am copying over from this Schoolbag page so that I can keep it as reference in case old articles will be taken down in future.

Learn how to create a positive home-learning environment for your child.

Our children are constantly immersed in various learning environments, learning from different people they come in contact with, particularly in the school and the home. In helping your child to learn at home, your goal may be to enrich your child’s experiences, to prevent or correct learning problems, to help your child reinforce what is learnt in school.

There is no one right way to helping your child to learn at home but there are some ideas that lead in the right direction. 

Similarly, in helping your child to learn at home, there is no one right method or technique in helping, but there is a right stance – the helping stance. This is the stance taken to help your child enjoy the process of learning. And by being there for your child, you reassure your child that you will always be there to support and guide him/her. To create a positive home-learning environment and experience for your child, you can try the following ways: 

Some useful tips

• Praise your child’s good efforts, and not only his/her successes.
• Don’t dwell on mistakes and academic marks. Rather, always encourage your child to strive for improvement.
• Give your child the confidence to seek help from his/her teacher.

Build a strong relationship with your child

• Develop parent-child relationships that are loving, warm and responsive.
• Listen, respond and talk to your child.
• Engage in shared thinking as a normal part of daily life. You can do this by explaining, speculating, describing, making connections and open questioning.

Create opportunities to explore and learn

• Give your child ample opportunities to explore and develop independence, while offering support when needed. Your encouragement is vital to build his/her confidence.
• Provide real-life experiences to help your child make sense of his environment. One way you can do this is to include him/her in everyday routines and engage in conversations with him/her about these environments.

Focus on the child

• Encourage your child to share ideas based on his/her interests.
• Allow and encourage your child to lead when playing together.
• Build your child’s self-esteem and confidence by recognising his/her efforts and not just his/her successes.

Develop your child’s literacy

• Chat with your child as much as possible as part of daily life.
• Have oral storytelling sessions with your child by taking turns to share stories about everyday life or past experiences.
• Sing songs and rhymes.
• Introduce a wide variety of text styles when reading with and to your child, and encourage him/her to repeat or retell favourite stories.
• Support and affirm your child’s attempts at writing.
• Encourage your child to express himself/herself through painting and drawing.

Source: https://www.schoolbag.sg/story/create-a-positive-home-learning-environment-for-your-child

How do your baby sleep?

As the baby grows up, her sleeping pattern changes. How do my baby sleep? Our second baby started co-sleeping with us sooner, right after she first started rotating 180 degree around in the cot and got her legs stuck. My hubby has already given the cot away before my maternity leave ended! For my elder kid, she was often turning in the cot and getting stuck, which resulted in us waking up plenty of times at night to shift her in the cot, and eventually we co-slept together.

Then, there was a time when my baby just learnt how to flip and she would keep flipping in her sleep and then she got stuck between us, got frustrated and started fussing. Come on, little one... there's only this much space between your mummy and daddy, where do you expect to roll to?!

When my first girl started flipping, we were more worried about her flipping onto her front in her sleep. We didn't want her to have her head stuck with face down in the mattress. However, this girl started flipping earlier and she flips effortlessly from back to front and back again so we weren't so worried about her sleeping on her front. Furthermore, she has a strong neck that can hold her head up very early, and she swaps sides of her head easily in her sleep too. Fortunately, that "rolling in the sleep and getting stuck" stage was over too.

Early in the morning before leaving for work and she's sleeping on her front

Now, she's at this stage where she's... stuck to my breasts. She needs to be latched to sleep, and once again I'm treated as the ultimate pacifier. Both my girls are like that, and I'm telling myself it's okay! It'll be over soon... just like how this phase has already been over for my first girl. I tried to lie beside her when coaxing her to sleep at night, but she'll be fussing nonstop while clawing her tiny hands at my chest... until I expose my chest, lying on my side facing her, and she will automatically latch on within seconds. She's so well trained at latching now, she could latch on immediately once I bare my chest to her, even in the dark.

And there was once in the earlier stage when she slept through the night for over 6 hours... my elder girl also could sleep through the night from 2 months old to 5 months old too, until she started teething. Now, this baby will fuss very frequently in the middle of the night to latch... I could latch her 4 to 5 times throughout the night! It makes me wonder: Is she looking for her 'pacifier' to satisfy her addiction, simply hungry sooner, or seeking comfort because of her teething discomfort?

Always sleeping so well against my chest inside the comfy baby carrier

Then what about napping in the day? As I'm a working mum, my MIL helped me in the day and she's been telling me that my baby's napping lesser in the day. Some days when I get to be home earlier, I will accompany her in bed. I realized that she'll open her eyes and scan around her. When she saw me, she smiles and goes back to sleep. She's done this twice in one afternoon nap that I happened to observe. When she doesn't find anyone with her, she wakes up and cries. And that's probably the reason why she naps lesser in the day if she's left all alone in the bedroom. She keeps waking up to ensure that she has company... (>__<) and she is not happy (probably feeling less secure) if she realizes that there's no one with her.

In my bro's bed: 2 pillows, 2 bolsters, my mum and my 2 napping girls

She sleeps extremely well in the carrier though, although her naps are getting shorter. There was a time when she could sleep for 5 hours in the carrier, from when I left home to the time I reached home from my lunch or tea or a little shopping break. MIL said that's because she's constantly resting on my chest and sniffing in my scent which makes her really comfortable. However, as she grows older, her nap time is getting shorter, even when inside the carrier. Plus she needs company when she sleeps. Plus she doesn't sleep, or can't go to sleep, at night unless I'm around.

Oh, I've forgotten to mentioned that for the very few times when I was away at night, she didn't sleep until I got home! And it could be as late as 1 a.m.! Now, that makes me feel extremely guilty for staying out late, as she usually can sleep between 8 and 9 at night... but of course, that's when I latch her to sleep. She loves sleeping with her face in my chest as I lie on my side... I guess she's still addicted to my scent and needs it to give her comfort and a sense of security. Not complaining though, I do love this special bond I have with her. For a working mum, it's very satisfying. Because I know that despite not being her main care taker in the day, there's something in me that no one else can replace!

Sterilizer

For my first girl we bought a Pigeon 3-in-1 multi-function-steam-sterilizer and we fully utilized it. We wanted to reuse it for our second girl but in the end, we were convinced that the new Haenim dryer and multi sterilizer that TLO.com.sg carries will do a much better job.

And it did. *thumbs up*

We let our elder girl choose the colour and she went with this beautiful blue. There are other selections and all of them are nice!

We had our reservations at the beginning and wondered if we should spend money on a new sterilizer.

Now, no regrets getting a new sterilizer as this one is so much better... with no messy water droplets to deal with, and many things can fit into it at one time. Just look at this - fully occupied with the bottles, pump parts and even the container for holding those parts - while the UV rays doing the incredible job of sterilizing them!

Check out this sterilizer at TLO!

Home sweet home

Returned home from work to this colourful lovely sight~ mad love my girls! ❤

Slight engorgement

Yesterday I had this for breakfast... told hubby I wanted prata and he bought me three!

Then I had a mug of oat milk too. I don't know if it's the prata, the oat milk, or the combination of all the things that I tried over the past few days... or maybe just baby not latching well as she latches less outside and I've been latching on demand... suddenly I had an engorgement on one side and yesterday I had to go to two parties so I pumped upon reaching home and got this amount from one side, while latching on the other side.

While outside, baby was actually fussing a lot while latching and when she let go of the latch, the milk is squirting out everywhere. I guess that's why she's fussing, besides the fact that she's always distracted and difficult to latch under the nursing cover outside, unlike her sister.

This morning I felt slight engorgement too and after latching her I tried to empty out the rest. My breasts felt plump but I didn't manage to pump a lot. Still, it's better than nothing and I'm sending this yield into the freezer, to add to my batch of back up febm.

Relax, how to?

This morning, I ate one of the flaxseed cookies that I bought yesterday, and then I had one more just before I pumped. The yield didn't increase at all. Sigh... what else should i try? My supply hasn't dropped, but my girl's drinking more and more. And I'm starting to worry about not meeting her demand.

I love this poster in the cubicle that I'm using exclusively now in the nursing room.

Or maybe I should just relax and stop worrying?

Anyway I ate two more flaxseed cookies after pumping. Shall see if it'd affect the yield in the afternoon~ sigh, how to stop worrying?!

Added later: In the afternoon after work, I saw this promotion at NTUC Fairprice and quickly bought them! One free packet of oat cookies with purchase of two cartons of oat milk~ anything, just anything, that will give my supply a much needed boost!

I actually love the yummy oat milk very much!

However, my supply is actually going down instead... sadly. And I usually pump for ten minutes only... today I tried to pump longer. Maybe I should start pumping more often too.

Nooooo... why like that? :(

Need a boost

I had home-cooked green papaya and peanuts soup last night but the yield is kinda so-so... probably my girl has drank up all the milk in the middle of the night. She's been latching a lot in the night lately.

I'll definitely miss this awesome nursing room when I leave this school.

And especially will miss using a brand new fridge all by myself!

The other day I had prata for breakfast and I thought I managed to get more milk. Also, many mummy-friends are sharing about how having indian meals will help them get more milk as the spices used usually include fennel seeds and fenugreek.

So today I decided to have prata again, for lunch! I didn't really pump any excess though, but still, I should be happy that I could get slightly more than the usual meagre amount in the afternoons.

And I went shopping at Fairprice Finest and bought these~ A mummy-friend shared that the flaxseed cookies did wonders for her milk supply, so I gotta try it too!! ^^

Play mats

Little newborn babies sleep in the cot all day... it's a stage we all miss as they grow out of it very fast and soon they will be sleeping less and needing your attention more.

As my elder girl got a bit bigger, we started putting her into the reclined rocker. She's often sitting inside with her Sophie the giraffe teether, but soon it gets too boring for her. She wanted to flip and she couldn't in the rocker.

Being a clueless first time parents, we first bought the cheapest jigsaw-puzzle style foam mats but I quickly decided that they're quite useless. They couldn't stay in place, dent easily, and somehow they leave an oily residue on the floor when removed. Then, I went out to buy the cheapest play mat available. The lightweight playmat was bought from Toys R Us. It cost around S$50 and it was so light, I helped my friend buy too and I could actually bring both home with no difficulty. The play mats were single-sided, rolled up and very light. However, soon I realized the difficulty in using this play mat - the lightweight ends kept rolling up when we wanted the mat to be unrolled and stay flat on the floor. I didn't like that as the mat would become a hazard with the ends sticking out and tripping people. In the end, we bought another play mat and this was used as a 'protection' from the wall instead, as shown in the piccy below. There was this period of time when I stayed over at my parents' place with my elder girl as my own place was under renovation. With only one single bed against the wall, she slept between me and the wall and we had to make sure she won't hurt herself if she flipped towards the wall and hurled her limbs onto the wall. This lightweight play mat actually becomes the ideal solution as we let it stand between the wall and the single bed.

At one of the motherhood fairs, we came to a booth selling Parklon play mats and my hubby suddenly decided that we should get one. I was surprised as the Parklon play mat was expensive and both of us were hesitant to spend too much on items which our baby would quickly outgrow. Fortunately, we went ahead to get this sturdy and heavy play mat. It is one of our greatest investment on items for our children. I enjoy playing on it with my elder girl, doodling with her or reading to her. She learnt to crawl and learnt to walk on this play mat. We confined all her toys on the play mat and she only plays her toys on the play mat too. We used it for close to two years before we rolled it up and kept it in the storeroom for a while...

And now my younger girl's using it too! My baby girl enjoys rolling on it... in fact she flips so quickly that she's often rolling out of the mat before we realized it. I love the double-sided play mat and how both sides were so vibrant, with lovely pics of Winnie the Pooh and his gang, plus words for the children to learn. The best thing about this play mat is that no matter how we put heavy things that exert high pressure on the mat, the dents will soon go away and the whole mat will be as good as new again. In fact it can either be rolled up or folded up without going out of shape. It's gonna last and last and we can use this for a long time... I'm already planning that in future, it can be put into our little reading room in our new place, where the girls can sit down on the mat to read their books. :D

I was wondering if there're other similarly excellent play mats in the market and recently my friend Audrey who runs TLO told me that she's bringing in the Yelly Mat from Korea. I absolutely love it and how I wish this was selling in Singapore when we were looking for play mat for my first girl~ This play mat is not just a great mat, it's interactive too! Check out this video!!

This super cool play mat is only available at TLO ^^

The family is complete

How time flies. My daughter is growing up so quickly and this evening, she came home with her second set of class photos. Last year was play-group class, and this year it's pre-nursery class. And here, she's proudly showcasing her photos to her baby sister. By the way, we shaved our baby girl a week ago.

MIL tried to make space in the display cabinet for her photos to be displayed, and took out these little plushies that have been around for a long time. My girl took them to my room and played with them.

I bought these for my hubby when we were dating, but I couldn't remember when it happened. So I searched through my old old blog which I wrote about our dating times and found this.

These plushies were bought on 6 January 2007. Now, just like this family of little kawaii tortoise angels, our family is complete. There are always some days when I'm terribly unhappy about my hubby and I get super frustrated and I didn't even want to talk about it because I refused to talk to him. Sometimes I feel he's horribly selfish and I dunno what I got myself into by marrying a man like that. And sometimes I'm mad that he's falling sick so often yet he doesn't take care of himself like a responsible adult. While other fathers set a good example to eat a well-balanced meal, he hates vegetables and loves coca cola. While other fathers bring the family out for excursions over the weekends, he naps more than the girls and I always end up struggling to handle them alone. He plays games excessively, and spends minimal time interacting with his family. He's not setting a good example for our girls. I know I shouldn't be comparing as I'm making myself even more upset. (actually I shouldn't be complaining so much... he's improving afterall and I should be grateful) But I also constantly remind myself that he's fine. He really is. If I really have to compare, there are really bad husbands out there, and he's definitely not like them. He works for the family and he's tired because he's also having part time studies. I'm tired too but I'll strive. I'll strive for our family, and I'll make sacrifices for my daughters. Even if he doesn't and he sticks to being his selfish old self. For the sake of the family's happiness, I'll do what I have to do, to be the tolerating wife and sacrificing mother. At least our family is complete.

Toilet training

(entry in progress)

(entry in progress)

Last weekend, we went to my cousin's wedding dinner banquet and 

Yesterday, I brought my elder girl to the Clean and Green Singapore event alone in the morning, while my hubby and baby had their morning naps together. As usual, I always get her to wear her diaper before bringing her out. Everything was great and I even met my colleagues and some students who were volunteering at the event. We went to one game booth and got a stamp, and we could collect a free goodie bag by collecting 3 stamps from the game booths. It started to get crowded and we were in the long queue at the next game booth when my girl started to press her crotch and whined. There wasn't any alternative choice, so we left the queue and I brought her to the portable toilets - the only toilets - available at the event. I went to the nearest cubicle and opened the door. It was rather dark and stinky inside and she refused to step in. I told her that she didn't have a choice but to let go in her diaper. She was very uncomfortable and demanded to be carried. So we didn't manage to complete 3 games and I quickly carried her and bought lunch before going home. Once we got home, she went to the toilet, and her diaper was still dry. She refuses to urinate in her diaper and she doesn't want to use the public toilets. Sigh, I'm at wits' end. Does it mean we aren't going anywhere else anymore until she's willing to use the public toilets?

Side track a bit... My girl received this free story book from the Clean and Green Singapore event. 

"Cody and the Food Monsters" is a story book that educates the little ones about reducing food wastage. Coincidentally I read about the mud cookies in Haiti the other day. The poor people there are resorting to eating dirt to stay alive, and here we are, very fortunate to be picking what we like for each meal. We really have to be counting our blessings, and not let food that can be used to feed other people goes to waste.

Today, we went to my brother's place to celebrate his (belated) birthday! This time, we brought her toilet seat along to my brother's place as we were there the whole day. She needed to go to the toilet several times and I'm glad we decided to bring her toilet seat along. When we went out for lunch, we dropped by Kiddy Palace to look for the foldable toilet seat, but the particular branch that we went to is very small and doesn't carry the toilet seat. In fact it's so small, it doesn't even carry proper toddler shoes and we had to go to Bata to get my girl a new pair of shoes. Her toes were sticking out of the old pair of sandals that she was wearing, and it was her only pair.

Dinner was great. Yums!! We went to a vegetarian eatery near my bro's place for dinner. After the sumptuous dinner with my folks, my girl was once again all flustered and demanding to go to the toilet. The public toilet at the eatery was the squatting type which my girl has never used before. In the end, we rushed back to my bro's place with her toilet seat so that she could relieve herself before the long car ride home. The bonus for me was that I could finally see the night view from my bro's beautiful balcony.

Next item on my shopping list is definitely the foldable child toilet seat! Any tips on how to train  a toilet-trained toddler to use the adult toilet bowls? Hmmm, I guess I'll have to wait patiently until she's grown big enough for it.