Mothering Corner

Since my girl is already one year old, I’ve been organizing her clothes and stuffs, and see which one should be given away, and which should be kept as keepsakes. Frankly, I noticed that I hardly buy lots of new things for her as most of her things are handed down from Justin. I think that’s the disadvantage of not being the first child huh? Maybe babies won’t make much different, but as she grows up, I will get her more girlie stuffs and toys.

I don’t let her wear any jewelry before, even if there are some gold and silver jewelry that were given to her at her full moon. I kept all of them in the drawer, and didn’t put them in the safe deposit at the bank yet. Those are future investment to her. If she doesn’t like it, she can sell them away when she has grown up. But then, I surely hope she will keep them as some were given up really old relatives, which may not be around when she grows up.

As for investment, hubby and I had already bought some for her and Justin. Let’s see how much return we will get by the time they are 18.

Samm and I MSN a lot at night. Most of the time, we will wait for PPP to pour out the opp at night, and we will “work” our way to blog for money earn our living. Sometimes, if we are lucky, we will get lots of good paid opps and ended up being on the daily top earners chart, like tonight…….

Actually, lots of bloggers may not know what we are still moos to our babies. Sometimes we type single handed while breastfeeding our babies who woke up for night feedings, or just comfort nursing. When I told some other mommies on MSN that I’m multitasking, working and mooing at the same time, they were quite amazed! Frankly, I’m amazed at my own ability too.

Anyway, it’s really something I learned after being a mom. You can’t just do a single task at a time unless you have 48 hours in a day! Thus, it’s a mothering skill that comes naturally. Even if my baby is nursing, I can still have a clear mind of what I’m typing, but maybe I will have some typo error or grammatical mistakes. But those can be avoided if I double check later.

Gee, typing single handed like a bullet train, that’s something to be proud of being a moo huh? LOL!

When I was breastfeeding Isabelle before bed time, I told hubby that I have a feeling our 1 year old little girl will not wean off that soon. She doesn’t take much milk, but she needs comfort nursing even more lately.

Previously, I planned to breastfeed Justin until 2 years old, but I only managed to make it to 10 months. Then I was pregnant with Isabelle. I didn’t want to set a target this time, but I told myself that I will take it easy and try my best to breastfeed as long as possible. And now, I’ve been a moo to her for 365 days.

She’s a toddler now, and I have different feelings nursing her. She knows how to show that she’s satisfied after a feed and would give me a broad smile after nursing, as if she’s saying thank you.

I have no idea how long she wants me to be a milk bar to her, but I will really miss my breastfeeding days if she decides to wean off soon.

Previously, this blog was hosted with blogger, but I bought the domain name. After much consideration, I hosted on own domain now. Why? I’ve started posting opps for PPP on this blogs. Well, previously I had also posting a few opps for other companies, and since most companies prefers bloggers with own domains, I may as well host on my own too.

I’ve made enough money to support all my domains and thus, it’s a reinvestment. Even if I don’t use the money on hosting, I will waste it somewhere on irrelevant shopping anyway. Why not direct it into something meaningful?

I love blogging, and love making money from it. So, to me, this is better to be done on own domain.

I haven’t breastfed Justin for so long, but I’m still breastfeeding Isabelle. I wonder if all toddlers have some weird habit when they nurse?

My girl likes to flap her legs on me when I nurse her at cradle position. Then she likes to grab the other unoccupied breast as to protect it from being snatched away! LOL! If not, she will pull my necklace (and it’s broken now), or pitch my neck. I will get really annoy and stop her from doing so, but she continues no matter how many times I tried to stop her.

Another thing is, if she see me topless, she will definitely head to me and ask for a feed, in whichever position! She doesn’t like to be held like a younger baby, in normal breastfeeding positions anymore. I got to let her “choose” her way, and sometimes, she can really stand and nurse! LOL!

Breastfeeding a toddler is really full of surprises.

I’m currently working on the template of this site, again. I know, I lost count of how many times I’ve change the template too. But bear with me once again, ok? Thanks!

This is how I keep my expressed breastmilk. I stored them in Avent milk bag, then put the bags in containers as according to date. My maid will take out the milk in first in first out basis which means the earlier the milk is stored, the earlier it will be thawed for usage.

One of the container on the top rack has expired breastmilk. I’m at home more of the time, thus it’s very unlikely for Isabelle to take the EBM. Furthermore, I bought a tin of formula milk last month and we are trying to introduce formula milk to her.

Previously, I would use the expired breastmilk to bathe Justin. But lots of people complained that the fishy smell was too hard to bear, and not only Justin smelt like a fish (LOL), the bathroom smelt like the wet market too. If I was back in Penang, my mom prohibited me from bathing my kids with expired breastmilk. Thus, the only thing I did was to dump them away.

It’s a waste huh? Some mothers used them to wash their face, water the plants, for milk bath and etc. I didn’t do any of those. However, I missed those days when my niece asked for frozen milk as snack. When the milk almost expired, I would ask her if she wanted some milk ice-cream (that’s what she named frozen EBM). She would be happy to finish the milk for me, by just licking the frozen EBM like ice-cream!

Too bad Justin was no keen on EBM since he was weaned off. So, my maid will have to dump the milk away.

I haven’t pump for more than 1 week. There is a left-over stock of frozen EBM in the fridge, and some is almost expired. Isabelle still has problem with formula milk and only drinks when she’s extremely hungry, if not, she will wait for me to be back.

I’m not weaning her off as I still nurse directly when I’m around. Now, whenever I’m sitting in front of the PC, she will crawl to me, lie herself down on my lap and lift up my top for nursing. I haven’t breastfed Justin until so long, so I’m looking forward to breastfeed a toddler. I notice that she knows how to “gao tim” herself when she wants a feed, as long as she can manage to expose the n*n n*n.

I guess I’m in another stage of breastfeeding, and with a toddler-to-be, it’s getting easier and better. The only thing is she still wakes up 3 times from midnight until morning for night feeding or comfort nursing. I think I will have another 6 months or more of interrupted sleep before she learns how to sleep through the night without “ka ka cau cau” me.

Admit it, ladies, we care about out breast size! No matter if you have A cup or D cup, we still worry about our breast, either if we think it’s too small, or it’s too big, shaggy, too wide apart and etc.

But the truth is, I like my breasts now. My cup size increased when I am a moo. I have always had B cup only, but due to breastfeeding, my cup size was increased to D and slowly changed to C cup after my milk production stabilized. However, it did shrink after I weaned off my boy.

At the same time, I heard lots of mothers-to-be worried about not having enough milk for their baby because they don’t have big boobs. That this is not true. Breastfeeding has nothing to do with breast size, every women will have milk regardless of the size or shape of their breasts. The milk is produced by milk glands in the breasts, and most of us have sufficient enough milk glands to satisfy our babies. If you produce more milk, your baby may feed on less frequent as she’s taking more milk per feeding session. But if you are not producing enough initially, just nurse baby more frequently on demand and you body will tune in to produce more milk eventually.

Unless you are diagnosed with breast hypoplasia, which means you don’t have sufficient milk glandular tissue, then you may experience insufficient milk production. However, you can also get help from a lactation consultant, and try to pump or nurse more to stimulate the production.

It’s hard to monitor how much a baby takes in through direct nursing, as long as your baby wets 5 – 8 very wet nappies a day and gains weight steadily, she’s having enough. But if you are concerned, you can supplement her with formula milk. As long as you are still breastfeeding her, she still gets the nutritious milk from mommy.

If you saw a couple busy feeding a baby who’s trying hard to climb out of the high chair, or sitting on mommy’s lap, and a toddler who’s demanding for rice and more white rice only and eating messily while the daddy is busy eating and walloping the meal ASAP so that he can help carrying baby, and let the mommy eat, most probably, you saw me eating out with my kids and hubby.

I like eating out with my kids, even if they may be troublesome, noisy, messy, and annoying to some people (LOL!), but it’s quality family time to me. We will eat out with the kids at least once a week, especially during Sunday afternoon, after hubby’s golfing.

Most of the time, I only prefer to go to restaurant that are less crowded and “baby-friendly”. If it’s a messy and dirty coffee shop, even if the food is good, I try not to bring my kids there. It’s quite inconvenient if they don’t have high chair, plastic bowls or serving food that suitable to my kids (like curry mee).

So, if I’m traveling to other places, I will search for places to eat, see the pictures to get a rough idea on how the restaurants are, asking other bloggers and friends who have been there, and then only decide if we will dine there. If I’m going to San Diego next time, there is a list of San Diego restaurants (http://www.discoversd.com/) which is quite complete from this site. I’ll definitely look into it next time if we are planning for a trip there.