Friday, August 31, 2012

Spooked out

It's the hungry ghost month and P totally spooked me out yesterday night. She woke up at 1.00 AM and started fussing. She hasn't been wide awake after 9.00 PM for at least the past 6 months, so I thought the usual patting her back to sleep will work. Instead, she clambered on me and started crying hysterically instead. While crying, she kept pointing at my wardrobe area and wailed in fear. That was when she sent chills down my spine. Did she... see something that I didn't?

I managed to calm her down and she just laid next to me with her eyes wide open, sucking her thumb, and at times looking at the area behind me (I was facing her). This went on till 1.45 AM when hubby came home from his drinking session. Hubby switched on the lights and P happily played with him for awhile until he decided to go take a bath. Lights went off and her fearful crying came again.

Hubby came to bed and P remained awake. In fact, she refuses to lie down. She sat between us and started picking 'things' up using pincer grip. I reached out to her with my outstretched hands and she placed the 'things' on my palm. I was seriously worried by now, this was so NOT her. 3.30 AM, I decided she had enough of imaginary play, carried her and put her on my chest. She finally drifted off to sleep at about 4.00 AM. Super super tiring night for me and hubby, not to mention the spooky element for me.

It reminded me of a paragraph I saw online regarding fear in babies.

"Babies are unpredictable. In the early days of their lives they are like fearless, intrepid explorers. They go boldly into the great unknown. Then overnight these brave adventurers become scared of their own shadows. They develop the most irrational fears. They are scared of the most innocuous things. Sometimes you can't help but feel impatient when you see your child screaming hysterically at the sight of a dog or at the sound of the fire engine alarm. The whole thing seems inexplicable."

Yes, I really can't explain her weird behavior yesterday night.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Post Race - Baby & Junior Race 2012

 eXplorerkid has posted some pics of the race on their FB page. More importantly, there's been a computation error for Cat A and the new winner is one of the Sep babies in my FB group!

There goes! Super proud of Ariel :)

Ariel - Top left corner

And tadah!! Baby P - Bottom right corner

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

A taste of cheese

Was walking around in Cold Storage to determine what I want for lunch when I came by their cheese section. The little cubes of red cheddar cheese look so tempting that I can't resist buying. When hubby brought P back in the evening, I introduced the red cheddar cheese to her.
1st cube: Chomp chomp
2nd cube: Gives what's-that face
3rd cube: Spat out
Tried again this morning with 1 small cube and she spat out right away.

I hope this doesn't mean she hates cheese. Born to parents who can't cook anything more than instant noodles and pasta, she better be accustomed to cheese for we'll be ordering plenty of pizza in future, haha.

Next thing I want to let her try is fresh milk.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

eXplorer Kid Race

Today is the day of the eXplorer Kid Baby & Junior Race. We made our way to Downtown East after mass. Was somewhere at Pasir Ris when I received a call from my panicky mother asking where we are because the race is starting. I told her it can't be coz they communicated reporting time to be between 1.15pm-1.45pm.

Anyway, we got there and found out that they are starting the race for batch 1. There are 10 lanes and 80 babies for each category, so babies race in bathes of 10. P was to be in Lane 6 for Batch 3. Met a fellow Sep mommy and her girl is in the same race as P, an in the lane next to P.

Whistle went off and P sat there for super long observing the crowd. The object (ELC buggy toy) meant to entice her to crawl was totally at the back of her mind. She was more interested in watching the crowd. After a while, she started moving and almost crawled out of lane. Distracted her back on course and she sat down and... clapped. I almost died laughing! In the end, she barely bat an eyelid at the buggy toy, so I gestured the "carry me" sign and she crawled towards me at top speed. Sigh, if only she did that earlier. Her timing for the race was about 1.09 minute, and she and her sep baby counterpart took the last 2 placings respectively muahaha. Here's the video of her race.

That was the end of P's 1st sports meet. The outcome was disappointing but she did give us a lot of laughter on the race course, which I think is more important than any medals/prizes she can bring back.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Sorty P

P is undergoing a sorty phase - She feels a need to sort objects. Some examples:
1. She has a shape sorter toy, of which she will take out all the wooden shapes one-by-one and then put them back in the box one-by-one. This will go on until she's satisfied with the results
2. We have a coca cola carton box place on the kitchen floor, and is used to hold can/packet drinks that we have yet to put in the fridge. She would take out the can drinks one-by-one, then put them back one-by-one. However, the only difference from example 1 is that the end result is usually can drinks lying helplessly all over the kitchen floor.
3. Yesterday, she decided our shoe rack needs some tidying up. While I was in the kitchen washing up her bottles and hubby was concentrating on eating his noodles, P took each shoe out of their slot and placed them above the shoe rack. By the time hubby realised, there's a mountain of shoes above the shoe rack. I can only thank god we don't own a lot of shoes, so the cleanup wasn't that bad.
4. This afternoon, I was sitting on the sofa with her standing in front of me. Then she picked up an imaginary (it better be imaginary) object and placed it on my lap, and repeated that action for another 3 more times. I laughed out loud, and really wonder what her imagination is up to.

Tomorrow is the eXplorer Kid race. Hope she has lots of fun!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Wallet rampage


Papa's wallet

Mama's wallet


Formula Milk (FM) vs Fresh Milk (FM)

Ever since the topic came up on my Sep FB Forum, I've been doing a fair bit of research. The question posted in the forum group was: "I read that we can convert bubs to drink full cow milk after one year old. Anyone doing? What brand and how to serve? Chill no boil???"

1st thing that came to my mind when I saw that question - Why would anyone want to do that? After babies wean off bm, they drink formula milk all the way till primary school age right?

Yeah, that was the impression I had. After reading the comments and inputs from my FB mommies, I launched into research mode. Found 2 sources that are quite interesting: Mummy's Reviews and baby@thescarfer, and also read up from Baby Center, etc.

Essentially, the views on this are quite mixed. Some are strong proponents of fresh milk, while others are all for formula. It is also interesting to note that Western countries rarely have formula milk for babies above 12 months. This brought back memories of an incident about 2 years back. My eldest sister-in-law resides in Canada with her husband and 2 kids. It was the month of our wedding and she came back to Singapore with her daughter (about 14 months old). During our church wedding rehearsal, she arrived and her daughter was drinking a small carton of Marigold fresh milk. MIL saw that and got quite agitated "Why did you feed her cold milk?!" before launching into a barrage of "children cannot drink cold milk" kind of comments. At that time I was also quite puzzled, but now I understand. It's just their culture.

Broached this topic with hubby yesterday evening, and he went "Yes, let's change her to fresh milk. It's cheaper". Haha, to him, it's just about the money.

I think I will start introducing some fresh milk to P and see how she takes to it. Since there are differing views, mabe the safest option for now is to do a combination of the 2 FMs.

Proposals to boost birth rates

This is one highly debated topic recently. These 2 articles appeared on newspapers today.
PAP Women's Wing suggests more help for couples to start families 

The proposals include:
1. Housing
  • A scheme for married couples to rent flats in both mature and new estates while waiting for new Build-to-Order (BTO) flats.
  • A grant, in the form of CPF or Medisave top-ups, for married couples who live with their parents.
  • Couples with children or those expecting a child could be given priority to BTO or Sale of Balance flats near their parents at mature estates. Other couples could also be given more ballot chances to buy a BTO flat near their parents.
This is not applicable to me anymore. Thinking back, I was one of the lucky few who got my flat on 1st try. Thanks to the SERS scheme, I got a new flat that is left over after those en bloc people (including my MIL) have chosen theirs. And that is how I'm the lucky few who get to stay near and not with parents/in laws, having a support network nearby and yet distant enough to avoid conflicts.

2. Shared parental leave
  • Two of the four months of maternity leave could be for either maternity or paternity leave.
I don't foresee any effect in my case. Hubby only takes leave to play computer games and do his own things. He doesn't take leave to spend 1-on-1 time with P. Hence, I should still be better off taking 4 months of maternity leave by myself.

3. Pre-school education
  • Government to intervene to raise the quality of education and affordability.
Ahhh, finally something that applies to me. Actually, I think the more important thing they need to tackle is the lack of educators in the preschool field. To get low teacher-student ratio, each preschool can probably only take in 15-20 students at each level. Both cheap and expensive preschools have an insane waiting list. I have more trouble seeking out a vacancy that trying to cope with the costs. That being said, I won't say no to more subsidies ;)

4. Workplace
  • Provide double tax relief for employers and match them with relief employees when staff goes on maternity leave.
  • A fund could be set up to train mothers who wish to re-enter the workforce.
Hmmm, if I were to put myself in the shoes of my company, what will I look for? For one, my company demographics tends towards the middle age trend. I think there are only 3-4 of us who are of child-bearing age. However, being a small company, the absence of any of us is very significant. For example, my boss only has 1 direct report (me) in the Singapore office. If I go on maternity leave, there will be no one to handle day-to-day operations unless they bring in a temp worker. The workload is always the problem, so if they can address this, I think employers would be happier too.

5. Assisted reproduction
  • Increase subsidy for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) from the current S$3,000 per cycle for three cycles to S$5,000 per cycle for five cycles. Also, extend the eligibility for the subsidy to private medical centres.
I won't rule out assisted reproduction in future. Costs of living and raising a child is quite high. I think our combined income can only support 2 offsprings at the moment. If income levels become more satisfactory when I go into mid 30s, I might need to resort to IVF to get my #3. I had an ex-colleague who successfully underwent IVF to give birth to a son at 40 years old. I'll keep my options open for now.

6. Medical insurance for newborns
  • Subsidised premiums for a "Baby Shield" insurance scheme, which can offset expenses for serious congenital conditions.
Eeeks, this brings back memories of my pregnancy hormones, constantly worrying if P is going to be born with congenital conditions, whether she have ugly birthmarks, etc. I've heard stories of 1 day in NICU raking up $1k of expenses, and really wonder where to get that money from. If this "Baby Shield" scheme materialise, I'll be quite happy.

If there's 1 thing I can wish for, it will be for medical expenses related to pregnancy be claimable under employee benefits. In the companies I have worked for, this is always an exclusion. WHY?? Pre-natal checkups and scans are not cheap, and Medisave only allows us to claim up to $400. If I recall correctly, my prenatal package costs close to $600 and scans cost an extra $200-$300.  My hubby used to ask me "How did the poor people afford to get pregnant?"

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The 1 year old jab

Yes, it's official, all parties are over.

I brought P for her 12th month jab today, think it's the MMR. I've never bothered what kind of jabs she is undergoing, for we have a great doc who is P's granduncle (MIL's brother). As long as he said to bring her for jab, we'll do so. He has a clinic at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 and the location is just an added bonus.

P weighs in at 9.5kg, 76cm, 75 percentile. Dr. Granduncle says she is definitely eating and growing well. That 9.5 kg weight is also building muscles on my arms because she keeps clambering to be carried. Then, time for the jab. Clinic assistant tried distracting her, but didn't work. When the needle went in, she cried and screamed for the next 2 minutes. Dr. Granduncle tried to pacify her with sweets, but she turned away in anguish and cried on my shoulders. Even after exiting the room, she was still sobbing and crying. Poor girl.

Passed by the hub on our way home, so I brought her to NTUC to play with some toys. Haha, yes, I'm cheapo. I'm quite determined not to buy anymore toys for P because she can only appreciate it for 3 minutes. After that, the toy is deleted from her memory. Ever since I realised that, I've been bringing her to places like Toys R Us and other toy stores for her to just fiddle with the toys. The lil' one also refused to sit in the shopping trolley, so I had no choice but to put on her shoes and let her walk around. She went to the baby section to explore
*touch baby gift sets*
*poke at the bolsters and pillows*
*pick up a milk powder dispenser and show it to me*
*pick up another milk powder dispenser and clap them together*

Needless to say, she was quite tired by the time we reached home, drifted off to lalaland within 10 minutes. Hubby came home for lunch and after P woke up from her nap, we went to J8 for Watami. P's appetite has increased. She used to be able to finish only half a jar of Heinz baby food, but now she can polish off the whole jar. In addition to that, she ate some rice, tofu and egg from our meal. Hubby went back to work after lunch, and I decided to bring P to Bishan Library. There were very little people at the kids' section, so I didn't feel very paiseh when P started muttering and raising her voice. Subsequently, more kids came along and a 1-year-old boy (I think he should be a Jan/Feb baby, coz he is very mobile and can speak some words already) started to play with P. He ran around the library and P followed him. She tried to run too, but kept falling. It was funny to watch!


Flipping through a Baby Bible


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

P turns 1

21 August 2012 - P turns 1! I can hardly believe it's been 1 year since her birth. Look at how much she has grown from her 2.975kg birth weight.


Started the morning with a preschool visit. I have been sourcing for her preschool for some time, intending to put her in at 18 months so that she can learn more stuff compared to being at home with my mom and MIL's maid. There's a Sparkletots that is about 2 blocks from my house, and all along I thought it wasn't opened yet. Last week at work, I chanced upon a website with their contact number and called them up to check if they are opening up for business. To my horror, they have started on 1 August and the wait list is already 40+ people. I've asked them to put me on wait list and I frantically started to search for early preschools, and also put myself on wait list for My First Skool via their website.

This morning's preschool visit was to Nobleland Arts N Learning Place, located at Peminpin Place, which is 4 bus stops from my house. It is a private estate type of school, 2 stories and about 5 classrooms. The centre opened in October last year, so there isn't a K2 class yet. The Chinese teacher greeted me at the door, and showed me around the place. Subsequently, the principal came and we sat down to talk. P isn't a patient sitter, as in she will not just sit in your lap and watch/listen to you talk. She struggled and I had no choice but to set her on the floor. Her newfound mobility is scary, she ventured around the room while we talked, grabbing brochures and throwing them out of the gate. When one of the lessons ended and kids moved to the kitchen area, she followed them by walking behind them. I daresay she thought she's already one of the students. I followed her to the kitchen area and kids were putting on aprons, presumably for an art lesson. There P stood and banged the table, as if asking why the lesson is not starting yet. I caught her and brought her back to the main door to continue the conversation with the principal, but she refused to be good. She pushed hard against me in an attempt to come down. I was super embarrassed. The Chinese teacher must have seen my predicament, and told me she will bring P to join in the playgroup class for some free play (they were playing with toys and blocks). Sigh, to think I thought she will be stranger-shy, but I guess fun is all that matters to her. 有玩具没妈妈. Anyway, seeing how she reacted at the preschool, I'm quite keen to enrol her. Monthly fees are $585 after government subsidy.

We got home and P took a long 2 hour nap after her preschool rampage. After she woke up, we left for Hokey Pokey (again!). There were many Koreans and Caucasians today, and their babies were the hostile type. P got snubbed many times when she tried to join in the fun.











When using the slide, P slided into a boy who was climbing up the slide. His mom tried to extricate P from her boy, and when she saw P, she burst into "Hey Pearlin!". That was one of my Sep FB mommies, who had brought her sons to Hokey Pokey. Best of all, her younger son Reagan was born on the same day as P. Such a coincidence eh! Happy Birthday Reagan!


Hubby said he would try to leave work earlier to join us, but that didn't happen in the end. However, he came to fetch us and we had TCC at Millennia Walk to celebrate her birthday. P slept through our main course, waking up only when we were finishing our drinks. Ordered a slice of strawberry cake and sang her a birthday song. That marks the end of our day.


Happy Birthday my dear! Mommy loves you so much! Stay healthy and happy :)



Monday, August 20, 2012

P's Birthday Bash (Day 2)

Day 2 is for my family, who didn't manage to turn up the day before due to my eldest cousin's ROM.

P slept through after the previous night's session, waking up for milk only at 7am the next day. After having her feed, I brought her to the living room and she was pleasantly surprised that the helium balloons have lost their floating ability, and are lying helplessly on the floor. With great gusto, she crawled towards a blue one and started to play with it.
Post party morning - Yippee, all helium balloons on the floor!!
Soon, my mom arrived and P had to go for mass with hubby and in laws. Mom and I went to Downtown East area to explore, had 1-for-1 Magnum and lunch. P came back from mass rested, and we brought her to eXplorer Kids at Downtown East. She had a great time crawling around the place, crawling up the soft stairs leading to the ball pit, and lowered herself into the pit. Then, she started throwing the balls out of the pit (nightmare!!). We hurriedly removed her from the pit, and she crawled to other places. Here's a vid of her toddling from one 'mushroom' to another.

Dinner was BBQ and its great to see my extended family again. We used to have chalets every year when I was younger, but that got phased out gradually, so I'm glad to use P's birthday to bring it back again.

P playing with my cousin's toy. Poor grandpa  having a back-breaking time holding on to her.



P's Birthday Bash (Day 1)

Whee, just came back today from P's birthday celebration. It was a 3D2N event at Aranda Country Club (next to Downtown East), and the whole thing went very well. Needless to say, my girl had plenty of fun.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.
Checked in on 18 Aug, 3pm. Started putting up the decor. Here's her  birthday banner
Hanging cutouts
Happy 1st Birthday cutouts at the e-suite entrance
The party supplies I bought: 1st Birthday mints, Princess mints and blowouts
Decor done. Took a pic with my girl
Using the chair as a walker and walking around the house
Let's try to do a hands-off
And the birthday cake arrived! I must say Oven Creations did a great job, plenty of rave reviews from my guests on the cuteness of the design. Taste also met my expectations. Most importantly, P can't stop looking at it. In case you are wondering, this cake costs $260. Intended to feed 30-35 pax, but more than half the cake was left.
Family pic 1st
Blowing out the candle
Cutting the cake
My Visa (ex)colleagues
My sec school friends and their bfs
My Yahoo (ex)colleagues
My uni friend - Guan Yan
Family (MIL, BIL and SIL)
Once again, the cake. I really love it, and I hope P did too!