Asia's next top model ka?

Recently, everytime I attempt to take a pic of Peanut, she'll inevitably do one of these poses:

 

Head tilted to one side? Check!!!

 

 

 

Hand under chin and legs crossed? Check!

 

 

 

Hand under chin and legs crossed, (sitting down version)? Check check check!

Eyes closed to give a dreamy look.

Hand on hip? check!

"Good-girl-I-can-do-no-wrong" pose

 

This one. Aiyo. See also wanna laugh.

No idea where she gets all these poses from. When I asked her,  she said " I learn maiself wan!!!!!!!"

Peanut's 3rd Birthday

Peanut is now 3 years old! 3 years old omg..i think most mothers will say this. Where did time go????

To celebrate,  I organised a small dinner with my in laws at our place.And this took place a month plus ago.

Super happy with some of her gifts

Can you guess what cake is this?? If you managed to guess Special Agent Oso then congrats wtf. We thought he looked more like a mouse than a bear, but since Peanut can guess instantly when we opened the cake box, then the baker must be doing something right hoho.

Btw, the chocolate cake is really yummy and moist, and only cost me RM80 for 1kg. Bought in Klang yo. Prices so different than those in KL. 

Enjoying her cake. Finding the right people to do her Special Agent Oso cake was very worth it for she was talking about it endlessly days after.

Super happy

I did all the cooking for the day. Half way cooking gotta bring BabyD to the clinic because he still had a cough, and we can hear that his throat was quite phlegmy because everytime he breathes, I can hear a gurgling sound. So we brought him to his regular paed. And my gosh..the queue was so long!!!  So, by the time I got home and resumed my cooking, it was almost 3pm wtf.

Ah..I hate rushing when I cook.. i get all hot and sweaty and i can feel so stressed and a fever coming up. Drama betul rite? Yah, i actually felt quite sick by the end of it, that I downed a panadol. That night we took lots of pictures, with her gong gong and popo. We really cherished these photos as these pictures were the final ones that she took with her gong gong..

First happy meal

Peanut eating her first happy meal ever at 2 years plus lol. Don't know why but i was excited for her to get her first happy meal wtf. Feels like it's something off my checklist that she has to experience as a  kid. Not a healthy one but it's a happy one.

The free gift is a scary looking Puss in Boots female cat. Don't know what character it is cos I haven't watched it yet.

Peanut loves eating fries, just like me. Ada kawan already when I order fries. Lately, she has stopped calling me mummy but instead calls me Mom, and then a few days later, Momma. It feels odd when she first calls me Momma but now i am liking it. It just feels more manja when she calls me that.

Peanut "praying"

I have been teaching Peanut how to pray since she got baptised in 2010.Just taught her the basics for now. She now bugs me every night to pray before we sleep, so I guess the effort is somewhat successful...haha

20 months

Lost bunny. Age: 20 months.

Omg...4 more months before she turns 2.

At 20 months, she has lots of teeth. And it's mighty sharp. So beware, don't put your fingers in her mouth because you're gonna scream bloody murder. I'm not kidding.I'm not sure how many teeth she has. I stopped counting after I saw she has at least 8.

She can sing a couple of songs, with jumbled lyrics. One minute she can sing BINGO, and the next line will be London bridge is falling down. I think she is konfiused.

Forced smile

She likes to eat on her own, and she loves to drink soups, true chinese baby or what hehe but with disastrous results. Just imagine oily soups dripping down her chin. Ack. But sometimes you gotta let go, you know? She needs to learn. So i'll just her drink and eat..and i'll try to close one eye and clean up the mess later. At least it's just confined to her high chair.

I gotta watch what i say nowadays. The other day i overheard her say "So many flowers, man!!" Yikes, when did the 'man' pop out?? And she uses a lot of "nehhhh" when i ask her where's this and that. And i had to correct her and tell her that she has to say "over there", not neh. Yes, she has picked up some distinctive malaysian english. and she uses a lot of "mahs" at the end of her sentences..oops..... Must make a concerted effort to speak proper english.

Ok gotta admit. I've not been diligent enough in potty training. I keep delaying it. She does use the potty sometimes, when she sees it in front of her. If it's not there, then it's out of sight, out of mind. So since she's already 20 months old...i think it's time for me to get serious on this. Starting this month.

Told her i'm taking her pics and she quickly screamed "where's miao miao???" Miao miao is her bolster's name (that has a face of a cat at the end and a tail), which we christened for her. And that's why me and DH can never be in PR or Advertising. Lack of imagination.




Anyway, she AND miao miao must take the picture together. These two are inseparable. Well, i'm glad she has a best friend and not some "imaginary friend". That'll freak me out.

The love of my life :)

Life updates and Peanut

What? Has it been 2 weeks since my last post? It really seems like just a few days ago. i tell you..time seems to fly at a rapid rate. I wake up early everyday, spend the whole day at the office, pick up my Peanut and will only reach home at around 9pm. Sounds tough eh? But I got used to it. Well, we got used to it haha . Even Peanut, who has to follow us to her Popo's house every morning when the sky is not even bright yet..Well, what can I say, thank God for the weekends :) And i'm not complaining because really, what is this compared to other worse stuff and tragedies that is happening around the world. I'm grateful for a lot of things, no matter how small and inconsequential it is and I do not want to take things for granted.

I have been doing lots of cooking over the weekends. This is quite a surprise even to myself considering that i'm actually enjoying it. My mum will fall over her chair if she knows how much i cook now. And i'm so into it that i even got Jamie Oliver's latest recipe book: Food Revolution. Love it, i plan to go through the book, one recipe at a time.

Peanut, I love her more and more each day. She's truly the joy of our lives. 19 months old, is stubborn as a bull, doesn't have much hair, wants to do everything herself and I mean everything!! But of course, she still can't do it well so i still need to be the Peanut Monitor. She likes to wear her own clothes, but still very salah cos the other night she tried her hardest to put her leg through the t-shirt's neck opening, thinking it's her pants.....She's really curious, as most kids her age are, which means i have to watch her like a hawk. She opens the fridge like a pro even though a child lock has been installed, taking out her own little boxes of milo. Defeats the purpose really, this child lock. I got it from Daiso. Don't buy it from there! You've been warned.


Ah..motherhood. Full of ups and downs :)

My little helper

It's getting more fun as Peanut as gets older. She more or less understands us now so telling her to do stuff, is quite a breeze. Most days.

She's getting cheekier by the day too. Last night I reprimanded her for opening the drawers, so i gave her the "angry mom" stare. Where i tried to make my eyes as big as possible and stared at her. She looked at me and said "eyes big bigggggggg oh". Haha any anger that i have in me dissolved instantly. I'm surprised she could tell the difference though because frankly, my eyes are quite small -_-

Yesterday, she squeezed the empty milo box which was in the trash can. And as expected, there were little drops of milo all over the floor...which exasperated me to no end. So the lil one quickly took a piece of wet wipe and start wiping the floor. Ah..how to be angry at her wey..

While she was wiping the floor, i quickly took the camera to take her pics...

Wonder whether she'll be still smiling so happily when i ask her to sweep the floor in 10 years time. Heh.

Self feed

Peanut has recently started to want to feed herself. One day, she just took the spoon from us, and started shoving food into her mouth. She makes a lot of mess and most of the time the food ends up everywhere but in her mouth, but we're cool with that. After all, it's a stage that they need to go through. And it gives me a breather, asI have more time to shove food into my own mouth instead lol, though the cleaning up after that is a killer.

Totally unglam shots of her eating her spaghetti:

oh hello..

Long time no see!

I finally reached 56! ;) 1.5kg more to go.

find out how here!!

Bedtime

Bedtime is always a crazy affair for us. She'll go through my bag, she play with her toys, tears my books and the magazines, throws her flash cards around the bed, climbs up and down AND if I just take my eyes off her even for one minute, I can guarantee she'll be up to some mischief. She'll either be standing precariously on some magazines trying to grab something off the bedside table, or she'll be attempting to go near the tv which is a NO-GO zone. I can easily get a heart attack with all her antics.

AND if i ever take her away from all these fun, she'll scream so loudly the neighbor might think i'm abusing her lol. And the only way to pacify her is to give her a bottle of water. My gosh, she just loves water i swear! It's like my bribe to her. Offer her water and you'll definitely have peace.

She and her water. If I don't stop her, she'll finish the whole thing in one sitting. And her tummy will be so full of water you can hear the water swishing around in her tummy when i carry her *_* Her left cheek is a bit pink cos she fell on her cheek that day itself.While crawling wtf.

Getting sleepy. Always a good sign :)

Fast alseep. This is her utmost favorite position.

Oh and if you ever ask her how does her daddy sleep, she'll "snore" for you cos DH snores when he sleeps haha. Moral of the story is, don't do it if you don't want your kids to follow you wtf.

Byeeee!!!! *abrupt goodbye cos need to change Peanut into her pyjamas*

Progress update: 13 months

My eyes are really tired nowadays. I can feel it watering by afternoon. I think I still don't get enough sleep, 13 months after Peanut is out. But it's okay, anything for my baby! Even if i need to go through the day half alseep with loads of coffee. Perhaps this is causing my absent mindedness, you think?

The reason I don't get enough sleep? Most nights she doesn't sleep till 11pm no matter how much I make her, and she wakes up at least once during the night. Not for milk, but just for the sake of waking me up? it's usually around 4 to 5am in the morning and sometimes I'm so awake cos i'll be looking for her bottle or pillow or whatever and afterwards I'll have a hard time falling asleep. *yawn* This little jellybean seems to have boundless energy. She can never stay long in my arms and she always wanna get down and crawl on the floor. She still can't walk yet, she can only stand up with aid. Though she understands when I tell her to "stand up", or "sit down".

Other phrases that she understands: Lift up your legs (very useful when i'm changing her diaper haha), where's the fan or the tv (she'll point it to me), put down your legs (this one is for when she put one of her legs up over the high chair table like a samseng during dinner), finish up your milk (cos sometimes she'll drink halfway and go off to play and i have to tell her to finish her milk. She'll then go and find her bottle and finish it up). She understands "legs first!" everytime i see her nearing the edge of the bed. she'll then turn around and put her legs down on the floor first. Phew.

She knows how to point to her ears and stomach when we asked her to point it out. There was one time i told her to stop drinking so much water (she loves plain water) cos her stomach is so big and I tapped her tummy. Immediately she cried. Vain or what. And she knows how to put our mobile phones to her ears and says "owo". Pretty cute, she does new things everyday I'm so fascinated. I do wish i can spend more time with her, but being a working mum, there are things that you just have to let go.

She knows how to call me "ah ma" or "mama" and i know she meant me cos she'll point to me haha. And yes my heart melts each time she says it cos it just sounded so.....sweet. And after she says it each time I'll give her a big hug cos so terharu mah.

She also knows how to call Dada for DH, and Goo Goo for her Gong Gong. Can't say Popo yet, probably because it's harder to say it.

And everytime I say "give mummy a kiss!!!" she'll obligingly bow down her head slightly so her forehead is tilted forward and I will then kiss it. But she hasn't master kissing me yet though *still training haha* oh and she does it to her Minnie Mouse too. She'll bend down her head and let her forehead touches Minnie Mouse's nose.

Food wise, she eats everything we offer her so far. Bananas, papayas, rice, bread etc. But we still do not give her anything overly sweet and we still don't use salt in her porridge.

So yes, that's about it. it's getting more and more exciting each day!

Chicken Pox

Peanut had chicken pox for the past one week, and the poxes (is that how you call it??) are finally clearing up! phew!!

So how did Peanut get chicken pox?? Our only conclusion is that she got it from BigB who had shingles a couple of weeks ago. Shingles is a "sister disease" of chicken pox, so if someone who never had chickenpox in his / her life before is in direct contact with someone who has shingles, that person will get chickenpox. Prime example: Our little Peanut. But if you had chickenpox before, you cannot get shingles from another person.

We knew that BigB's shingles is contagious especially since Peanut has not gotten her chickenpox vaccination yet, so he slept in a separate room for a week and did not hold Peanut. But I guess we miscalculated BigB's recovery period. *_*

It all started with a spot on Peanut's shoulder. I saw the spot last Wednesday when I was putting Peanut to bed, and stupid me, i thought it was a mosquito bite. By Thursday evening, when I came home from work, a few more spots appeared on her head. I was quite concerned by then and suspected that she chickenpox, but decided to wait for one more day before bringing her to a doctor because she had no fever then. By Friday, more spots started to appear on her torso, and we brought her immediately to the doctor.

After the nurse saw Peanut, and we told her that we suspected her to have chickenpox, she straightaway sequestered us in a different room, away from all the other patients..And the doctor confirmed that she has chickenpox. Haih...honestly i was quite upset because i knew we could have prevented it. And we were quite worried as she is only 9 months old. The doctor told us to just put calamine lotion on her, and gave us some anti-itch medicine to be taken at night before she sleeps so she won't scratch herself. And that the chickenpox will reach its peak by the weekend (meaning more spots will come out during the weekend before it starts to subside). Because of this, we had to miss Taurus's wedding in Singapore. By the way I like how the clinic takes infectious diseases and cleanliness seriously. Instead of putting Peanut directly on the clinic's bed, they lay her on this mat. The moment we're done, two nurses came and start spraying and wiping the area down with the dettol spray. The whole time we were talking to the doc, they kept rubbing the whole place down. lol

Anyways, true enough, a hundred more spots appear on her by Saturday. Well it seems like a hundred because there were so many on her back, front, head and face. My poor little Peanut. it was upsetting to see her in such a state, especially when she started to develop fever after that. And she was really listless and not her usual self. Cos when I lift up her arm, it just flops down. And when i try to call her name, she never even looked at me. She basically had no energy to layan me la. *uhuk uhuk*

But all is well now! *pumps fist into the air!* She's back to her normal self, and is crawling all over as usual, and is learning new tricks. She's learned how to say goodbye and can clap when asked to, and is starting to babble "wa..wa..wa...".

So i guess the only good thing that comes out of this episode is that she'll probably develop a lifelong immunity against chickenpox. And because she's a baby, she hardly scratch herself and she'll no longer need a chickenpox vaccination after she reaches a year old. :)

Teeth check

Almost everyday i'll check Peanut's mouth for her teeth to see if a new one is growing. At 8 months 3 weeks, she only has a tooth. Yeah, satu saja and I think another one is growing, but I can't be sure.

So this is what happens:

Coaxing her to open her mouth..

I'll tap her mouth lightly, and say "Eva....please open your mouth"

Usually she'll glady oblige and show me her tounge first. I have been sorta "washing" her tongue since she's a baby so she's very used to it.

Yup, no new teeth. Still one tooth. And the face so boh song.


Yesh! Happy the ordeal is over.

So at almost 9 months, she can now crawl at supersonic speed. Okay, i'm exaggertating but you know what I mean. I cannot take my eyes of her, cos one minute she'll be here, the next minute she'll be at the other side of the room. Or at the edge of the bed. She's given me multiple almost heart attacks.


Most importantly, she's a normal, healthy, happy child. And that's all that matters so cheers everybody!!

Happy.

7 months 3 weeks

For posterity's sake, I need to record down what Peanut can do at the moment. So at 7 months 3 weeks:

• She can crawl.
  
• Still eats a lot.
  
• Still no teeth.
  
• Still bald.
  
• Can kinda respond to her name.
  
• Can sit for a pretty long time.
  
• Sleeps at inordinate times at night.
  
• Sleeps only for an hour at the most during the day.
  
• Likes to scream and pretends to cough for attention.
  
• Can clap her hands and feet.
  
• Difficult to wear clothes on her cos she likes to twist and turn.
  
• Sits at her highchair during meal times with us.
• Uses the potty to do her big business.
  

Ah..I have become one of those mothers who likes to record their babies's milestones on blogs. I shall welcome myself to the club.

Bye bye.

Manuals & stuff

Lately, it seems that I have tons of things to read on, but which I do not have the time to do so. Like for example, my camera which I bought it for like 4 to 5 months ago, but till to date, I have yet to explore its full potential. It takes up a lot of time reading the thick manual, and also to fiddle with it.

Oh well. Played with the camera today.

Pin-hole mode. And a very boh song looking Peanut.

Blanket to cover her botak-ness.

Film grain mode. Em...Ju-On??

Peanut not so likey.

Secondly, the parenting book that I bought. I had to put it in my car to read during the terrible jams back from work. Yeah, sad la, my life; my life is all about jams *sob sob* . But at least I am killing two birds with one stone. And I guess my motion sickness has improved by leaps and bounds becauseI no longer get nauseous that often when i read in the car.

I feel like there's so many out things out there i have to read up on. More homemade recipes for Peanut. Types of activites to start her with. Improve my parenting skills. Macam macam ada out there man. How do parents do it?

Going green?

Reuse & recycle is the way to go la.

These are my favorite bags at the moment. My envirosax. The one on the right is mine. But since BigB refuses to carry it when we're out shopping, i had to buy a more "manly" one just so that he will carry my shopping *haih*




These bags are super convenient as it can be folded and i'll put them into my handbag before I go out. I only take it out when i buy stuff. It helps me to reduce the amount of plastic bags the shops gives me.

Folded

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BigB's family likes to reuse mineral bottles to bring along water to drink when they drive. I don't really like it cos it's hazardous for health to reuse plastics over and over again to store your water and food. Most of these bottles contain bisphenol A (BPA), which leaches from the plastic even at room temperature and has been linked to chromosome damage and hormone disruption. In other words, it can cause cancer.

Plastic is everywhere, we definitely cannot avoid it fully but we can try to use alternatives if there are choices.

So I was damn happy when Bros came out with a stainless steel range. And this one only cost a fraction of SIGG's. Damn value! In my opinion, it's better than the SIGG bottles cos SIGG's mouth opening is so small, you can't even wash it properly. It must be quite difficult to wash since SIGG also sells the bottle brush separately.

SIGG. In case you don't know what i mean.

****************************

For the past two Sundays, we've been bringing Peanut to church. I know we're a bit behind, but better late than never, cos we're more prepared now. When she was younger, i was a bit apprehensive to bring her out, because yeah, useless me is a bit of a kan cheong queen and H1N1 was at its height too.

And so far...it's been good. No outbursts or loud crying. We can sit together with the congregation; and not in the baby room like pariahs hehe. Usually after church, we'll go and have lunch together, just the three of us, have coffee after and just roam around shopping malls after that.

Us at Austin Chase. Pretty good coffee I must say. Thumbs up!

Toffee & Hazelnut Lattes. Yums.

*************************************

Peanut also plays her part in reusing and recycling. By ignoring all the toys I bought her and shredding all the magazines into pieces instead for fun. Great stuff though, these magazines. Saves me lots of money lol

Caught in the act.

No idea what this face means.

********************************

It's 9:40pm and I'm dead tired. Is it because of the long commute to work? Stress at work? Or is it because I wake up once or twice each night just to feed her? Or is it a combination of all three. A working mum is a very tiring job, and there's no break at all, but it's all worth it when you come home to this:

xoxo

Peanut's hands and feet sculpture

A month plus ago, we brought Peanut to have her hands and feet to be casted into sculptures. We feel that this is going to be a great keepsake for us. After all, she's at this age only once and babies hands and feet are especially cute at this age and we want to have something to remember by forever.

So we made an appointment with Melissa, the lady who's going to do the sculptures, and went to her home on a Saturday afternoon. She promises us that it's only gonna take 10 minutes, and it's going to be very quick and painless (sounds like the Pedaetrician when she's about to give Peanut her shots). Once we arrived, we waited for a bit while she started making a pot of pink paste.

Waiting to be "casted"

hands first

Melissa started off with Peanut's hands first. Basically, she wrapped a glob of pink paste around her hands and waited for a few seconds before removing it gently. Ditto to her feet as well. I can't remember but she did either the hands or feet twice as standard procedure, just in case the first moulds cannot make it. *pats Melissa's back for good risk management strategy*

feet next!

Once it's done, we chose the frames, the color of the scupltures (either gold or silver), what kind of inscription do we want (we chose to put her name, birth date and her current age) the background color to mount the sculptures, paid the deposit and we're done!!!! Easy peasy! And Melissa was also very easy to work with. She was very gentle with Peanut so she never cried at all. In fact she was quite happy.

*Proof*

We had to wait for a month plus for the whole thing; presumably to wait for the casts to dry properly, to get it colored and to have it mounted and framed. So we finally got it today.

Jeng jeng jeng!!!!


*Satisfied!!!!*