Obstacle course

It's always amazing and full of surprises when you have a young toddler with you. I don't know about others, but as for me, Grace really fill my days with laughter, joy, fun, tears, anger and madness. She's capable of doing anything at all. Give me surprises when my usual boring days go by.

On Monday this is what she did:

Scrapping mom, scrapping daughter

Every time Grace saw me scrapbooking, she will definately want to join in. I seldom let her join for fear that she will make a mess on my layouts. Sometimes I will let her play with my collection of ribbons. She enjoyed it though.

Today I did something different. She saw me putting glue on pieces of paper and then stick in on my layout. She insisted that she also do the same. Thus, I let her use the glue stick. But then, what to glue? Then I thought that maybe with the little piece of colour paper I have.

I taught her how to apply glue on the little piece of paper and then stick it on to her drawing pad. She loves it. Initially she is satisfied with the glue stick. Then she saw me using the scissors. Then she wanted more. She insisted on using the scissors. Off course, using scissors is a little too advance for her now. Nevertheless, good training for her.

Here's some of the photos taken and the final product:

Mosquitos, Buzz Off!!

This morning I woke up to find tiny red spots on Grace's face. After observing the spots for a while, I realized that they are mosquito bites. It's not just 1 or 2 bites but all together 7 on the face and 1 on her left hand. Aaw.....my heart hurts.....

I immediately take revenge on the mosquito and killed 2, hurting my right thumb in the process. Silly me.

Now, I have to remind myself to browse through the room, especially those dark corners, before lights off every night. Usually I have my room windows closed during evening time for fear to inviting mosquito. But still, they have some way to get into the room! I will need to be more careful moving forward.

While I was browsing through the room tonight, I immediately thought of what my mom used to do when I was young. She will do the same in our room (sharing room with my 2 sisters) and my brother's room. Sometimes if she's busy and could not do it before we go to bed, she will do it after we have all set in to bed. I could still remember certain nights, I woke up (but pretended am still sleeping) to find my mom shooing and killing those mosquito.

Parents is always the same, no matter it is in the past, now or future. They will care for their children in every single matter, making sure that they are save from any harm.

What my mum was doing, I am doing it now and I am sure Grace will be doing it in the future.

Bravo to all mothers!

Argh.....feeding Grace solid

Feeding Grace solid had never been easy!

I started her on rice cereal (+breast milk) when she was 6 months old. Her first reaction was (I think) quite encouraging. She seems to like being fed in a spoon and couldn't wait even for a second for me to scope the thingy. May be it's just her excitement towards something new after being offered just the breast for the past 6 months (**blush blush**).

Well, after several meal of rice cereal, the nightmare begins. Grace only accepted fruits like apples, pears and bananas. All other things (errr......except yogurt and ice-cream) is a big "NO" by shaking her head. Feeding her porridge and then rice was also a disaster. I used to get really mad and stressed during meal time.

I don't know since when, the stress reduced and she begins to take a little more porridge and/or rice (when she has something else to attract her attention while I feed her). Good, now I can at least enjoy what I eat (have not been enjoying my food). THINK AGAIN!!

Recently her behaviour towards food change again. First, she begins to love bread (thanks to the bento tools), especially when it is with bacon or loin. Then, she begins to love vegetables and then meat (any meat). What did I do during meal time? I had to let her feed herself with vegetables and/or meat, while I intervene with porridge or rice. Argh.....I need to be on the look out whenever her mouth is empty, so that I can stuff the porridge in. Porridge is always better than rice, as porridge is a little sticky and dissolve easily once in the mouth. While she can immediately reject rice.

What happened today? During lunch we had noodle. Not much of a problem cause Grace love noodles. But during dinner, it was rice for today. She refused to take the rice no matter how hard I tried to distract her. In the end she had just 3 mouthful. Then I ask her if she would like to have bread with ham, she node her head. So I prepared the usual bread and her milk. What did she do? She pushed it away then demanded "nen nen"! I got so furious, I scolded her and refused to let her breastfeed.

What happen next? She cried and cried and cried (I noted that she's just screaming with little tears). I refused. Then she started to shift attention. She asked for a toy and then to watch Hi-5. While watching Hi-5, she slowly feed herself the bread but still refuses to drink the milk. I transfered the milk to a cup (initially it is in a trainner cup) and there she was sipping from the cup until the very last drop. Not a drop on the floor!

Bravo to mummy!!! Winner of the day! Whom benefit from this? Grace herself!

Room 312

On Saturday morning, I went to Adventist hospital to visit a friend whom had just given birth to a baby boy. As I was walking towards her room, Room 312, I was thinking, could it be the same room that I stayed in 2 years ago when I gave birth to Grace. Sure enough it was the same room that I stayed in. What a coincidence! As we were chatting later on, we even joke that next time it will be Phaik Sim (sister-in-law) on the ward bed while Moh Herng (brother-in-law) sleeping on the couch!

This short trip back to Room 312 really brings me down memory lane. This is the room where excitement, joy, anxiety and worry, all different feelings came to me.

Grace decided to join us on the evening of November 26, 2006 after a long labor process which ended up with C-section. As such, I don't get the chance to nurse her immediately after birth, which I wanted so much. After the operation, I was given time to rest and to recover fully from the anesthesia. I only get to see my precious little one (after the short encounter in the operation theatre) during midnight when the nurses brought her to me for breastfeeding.

I could still remember my feelings when I first nursed her. It was a combination of excitement and nervous. As I don't have any breastfeeding experience (obviously none cause Grace is my first child), I found it tricky and hard. I tried my very hard, even though it hurts (I just had my operation, remember) to sit upright so that I could feed nicely. In fact, I insisted. I guess that's the first time I actually felt the power of love!

While I was nursing Grace, I overheard the nurses said to each other, "this baby is a hypo". Question mark! What hypo? Then I thought, may be they are saying that my baby has high potential in breastfeeding. I was suppose to have my baby roomed in with me, but was wondering why they push Grace back to the nursery. I don't know why I didn't ask.

Morning came and hubby needs to rush off to the Registration Department for Grace's birth certificate and then head of to work in the afternoon. I was left alone while waiting for my parents to come.

When I was alone, Dr. Pang the Pediatrician came to talk to me. Telling me that Grace has low blood sugar, hypoglycemia and needs to be on glucose drip until further results to show that her blood sugar is under control. Doctor also told me that Grace will need to be put under close supervision and that she will need to be fed with formula milk to ensure that she receives the necessary glucose level. He told me this need to be treated carefully as severe or prolonged hypoglycemia may result in seizures and serious brain injury. I was dumped! Now I know why the nurses were saying "hypo"!

So, the rest of my stay in the ward was filled with anxiety and worry. As Grace needs to be on the drip, she could not be pushed often to my room. So, even though my wound still hurts (quite a lot), I make myself walk as often as possible to the nursery so as I could see and nurse my little one. I couldn't sleep well at night, waking at 2-3 hours interval, walked to the nursery, breastfeed Grace. I cried everytime I saw her bandaged little hand. Praying and whispering words of courage to her everytime I carry her.

On Tuesday morning, another not so good news came. Grace has jaundice and needs phototherapy. Making my trip to the nursery more frequent.

Give thanks to our God. After being put on drip for 3 and a half days, Grace's blood sugar came back to normal and was under control. Her jaundice level also reduced, allowing her (and her mommy) to go back home.

Today (I mean on saturday) as I was walking in the corridor leading to the nursery from room 312, I couldn't help but Thank God for His blessings and care towards Grace. Two years ago I was making trips to the nursery anxiously, but today Grace is walking happily with me thro and fro in the corridor.

Country vs City

I don't know what had gotten into me! Kept thinking of country lifestyle. Today I re-called what we did many many years ago when I was still a little girl.

Like I said earlier, I was raised in a very adventurous family. Mom and dad (I must say especially dad) will always engage us in fun activities during our school holidays. Other than going cycling and fishing, we did have a "Tour around Peninsular Malaysia" in I can't recall if it was 1 or 2 weeks. Then there was picnics, sight-seeing, and many more.

During my schools days, we will travel to many places (within Malaysia, off course). Pangkor Island was one of the most often visited places. Why Pangkor Island? You see, that's my mom's hometown and we still have uncle and grandfather staying there. In fact, that's the place where we had a whole lot of fun with cousins and friends!

I must say that my dad is a very creative man. He could make a whole lot of things out of scrap. There was once he made a bench out of wood under a tree, in front of my uncle's old house. It was a great multi-purpose bench which we played on. It's a place for relaxing during evening, a place to rest your head during cloudy days, a stage for performing, a platform for child play, and most of all a place for fellowship among relatives.

It was such a memorable bench that we even had opening ceremony to launch the bench. All the kids dressed up nicely for the ceremony. The Opening Ceremony of the bench

Me and elder sister on the launching day

Other than that, we had once build walls out of banana leaves on the bench. Pretending that it was our house, we played all sort of role-play games. Role playing - some act as parents, others as the children; cooking. It was sad that in the end, our banana leave house was "stoned" by some "terrorist" (rude kids in that area). Anyhow, we did have lots of fun.

Today, it is hard to provide Grace with this kind of a lifestyle. Nevertheless, I will not give up. I will strive my best to introduce some of these activities to Grace when she's older. As for building banana leave house, it will be a little harder. We are now staying in high-rise condominiums, thus spaces is a concern.

Why had I chosen "Country vs City" as my blog title? Well, though we don't have the outdoor space to build banana leave house, we do have Pop Up Panel house (see below) which we could keep or "build" at any time and any where we want. That's the difference between country and city!

Nevertheless, Grace still had a good time playing in this little pop up house. Here are some photos of her enjoying her play.

Country lifestyle.....

I remembered there was a time when I was teaching children in church and I realised how city kids missed out so much on the fun of country side living. I asked them if they have ever watch people fish or fishermen fish. The answer was "No". Have you see fishing boats? The answer was "No" again! Oh dear, oh dear, they missed out so much fun!

I am not sure how other parents think, but as for me, I will definitely give Grace, if not all, most of the "kampung" (country side) lifestyle that I went through when I was young. You see, I was raised in a very adventurous family. We will go cycling, exploring the places in the little town that we stay. Go fishing at anywhere that we can fish. And many many more.

Nowadays, kids are too adapted to the civilization and high technology that some of this nature adventure was totally wiped out from their lives. This was worsen with extremely busy parents. Though civilization and high technology is important to us, but I think mother nature is even more important to us. These activities help us to love the nature, also teach us to be more aware!

Today, we put another new page in Grace's book of life experiences. We (my sis, my dad, my mom, me and Grace) went fishing. There's this very long unused (quite good condition) jetty at Teluk Kumbar for us to fish. Wow! FUN!

Grace, off course, joined in the fun too. She could spent a whole one half hour there. We went at evening time, so no concern on sun burn! She started off with a fake fishing line in the sea. Then when we caught some fish, she fish from the pail. Then she wants the real fishing rod. So dad let her sit with him. When they caught a fish, Grace helped pull it up! She enjoyed it very much.

This is definitely a new experience for Grace. I will say that it's a good one. We will surely do it again.

Here's the display of fishes that we caught today: