Mothering Corner

When I was running a kindergarten, I worked with a lot of Indian teachers. I am not being bias, but some of them really gave me a lot of headache. One of them had a husband who is alcoholic and abusive when he got drunk. Once, she was beaten up and came to school crying, and she scared the children.

Frankly, for someone who is so addicted to alcohol, what they really need is some professional help and counseling. Most domestic violence started with alcoholic, from most of the cases I observed. They should be sent to addiction treatment to curb their addiction as they might not know what they are doing when they are drunk.

But is there any alcohol rehab here locally? That I will have to find out.

I use a lot of my credit cards, especially if I’m making an expensive purchase because I don’t like to bring a lot of cash with me. Lately, my kids will also ask for shopping cards from me and pretend that they are credit cards. *slap head*

They really like to imitate us so I started to teach my boy about money. Whenever we have loose coins, we will give it to him and he will put them in his piggy bank. I have no idea how much is it inside but it has been very heavy. One day, we will bring him to the bank and ask him to deposit the money into his account.

I haven’t talk to them about credit cards yet because they maybe too young to understand the concept. However, I hope that when they have their own cards next time, they should understand the purpose of using the cards is the same as using their money, but not just getting the things without paying for them first. Even if there are Bad Credit Credit Cards, I hope that their credit status will not be affected. Off course, if you have a bad credit, you can still get bad credit credit cards, but the interest rate will be higher.

So, how do you teach your kids about money?

I am not sure if I should feel happy about my boy’s preschool which doesn’t have school holidays, except the public holidays. One mommy bloggers told me that the school fee is worth it as there is not much holiday for his school. However, I prefer to have a few weeks of holiday once a a while so that we can go for a nice family vacation without having him skipping school.

Even if there are flights to Sharm El Sheikh, I can’t get them now, no matter how badly I hope to bring my kids there for the summer. If you have summer holidays, you better get these cheap holiday packages and flights to Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Greece at great bargain from Holiday Hypermarket.

Too bad I can’t get the packages now, but never mind, one day I will bring the kids for a nice holiday like this when they have grown up.

I considered myself very lucky. Even if I had very bad engorgement throughout my days of being a moo, but I have never had a mastitis. I had block ducts before, but I was never ill, so block ducts are different from mastitis.

One of my friend had a few episodes of mastitis because she couldn’t pump regularly when she was at work or traveling. Despite suffering from pain and fever, she had never given up on breastfeeding her 2 lovely daughters exclusively for up to 1.5 years. So, it’s all about determination and knowledge. She knew she was ill so she went to see a lactation consultant immediately. When during her first mastitis, she didn’t know what was going on except being sick and weak. She had chills and arching, so she was admitted to the hospital during confinement. Luckily, she went to BFIH, so her baby was there with her throughout her stay so that she could still breastfeed her exclusively.

If you have either block ducts or mastitis, don’t stop nursing your baby. Keep nursing and pumping to empty the breasts and you will heal faster this way. Try to ask the lactation nurse to show you how to do a hand massage before you are discharged from the hospital after delivery. It helps to clear the ducts, if you know how to massage your engorged breasts.

I may be one of those that worried a lot about my kids future. Last time, when I was doing a tag on “My Last Post” and wrote about what I would do before I passed away *touch wood*, I really cried. Maybe I was really emotional, but when it comes to thinking about how my kids will be without their mommy, I just can’t help it but being so sad for them.

Thus, I have to take good care of myself so that I am a health and capable mommy for my kids. At the same time, I got myself a life insurance so that there is anything bad happen to me, my kids will still have to money for their normal lives and education. On top of that, I will also get a home insurance when we a house because I know I will be investing a lot in the house, and if we lose it in a fire or anything, it will be a great lost. I can’t bear to lose the house and penniless. My kids still need a roof over their heads!

But one thing for sure, we don’t have to pay for the car insurance because we will only be using hubby’s company car so that we will save on the installment, petrol and also maintenance. Smart huh? If you are willing to know more, check out the contents insurance from Thrifty Scot.

I didn’t have confinement lady for both babies. MIL helped with the cooking, and washing for my first baby and then my maid came along for the second baby. I was all alone with the newborn babies, struggling with baby care, breastfeeding, post natal baby fat, baby blues, and hubby not being around. I was amazed that I didn’t get post natal depression since those 30 days were nightmares to me!

But most of my friends told me that there is one thing they missed about confinement—- the nice Chinese confinement food. I have to agree that some of the food is great, but I can’t take alcohol and ginger, so I missed out lots of dishes. However, MIL was great. She cooked black pepper salmon for me, and I love it! She stopped cooking that after confinement. Oh boy, I really miss that dish!

I was arranging my photo albums yesterday, and I realized that I stopped printing out my kids photos for months already. Previously, I would print out all their photos and show them to my parents when I got back. But maybe I have been very busy lately, and I stopped bring the CDs to the photo shop. If I continue printing, my room will be all filled with tonnes of albums. LOL! I have thousands of photos of my kids now, and I really don’t know how I manage to capture so many of them.

Those photos are precious family moments too me, and I will cherish them forever, especially when I am old and my kids are moving away from us. Gosh, I’m thinking too much huh? But if we are going to some places, like family vacation, I will have those pictures printed out first. I would like the kids to look at the pictures and recall the trips they have so that they won’t forget it. If I’m going to one of those Kailua home rental from Hawaiian Beach Rentals, I think I will be back with hundres of photos again, just like our trip to Sarawak.

Let’s see how many photos I will take for our trip to Bali.

 I was reading to my boy just now, and he wanted to read one of his books with many Disney characters. It’s one of the book from Grolier that tells him words about things in our lives. When we came across the part about Fair, he reminded me about the ride we took in Genting, and asked if we can go there again.

I was thinking of bring the kids to Genting this Sunday since his school is closed on Monday, but hubby can’t make it, he has to work. So I guess we will just stay at home for this weekend, and maybe I will think of some activities for the kids. Baking? Play dough? Messy play? Florida rental vacation? LOL! No lah, not going for trip which is so far.

I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I will think of something to occupied the kids.

My kids love to play with water when they are taking bath. If I’m bathing them all by myself, I will use to a big baby pool and put only less than 2 inches of water in it. They will be very eager to get in it, but they can only get in once I’ve bathed them first. They are only “soaking” and playing in the water for a while, when I am also taking my own shower.

I don’t let them stand up and get anything from the bathroom vanities because I am worrying that they might slip and fall. Once I am ready, I will get baby out first, then only my boy as I know he knows how to take care of himself better, even if I have to leave him for 1 minute. When you are taking of the kids all by yourself, it’s hard to follow the rules by the books. Everyone knows that a child should not be unattended in the bath, that’s why I only put less than 2 inches of water in it. I don’t want to have any accident too.

But I will also be screaming in the room, talking to my boy. As long as he is talking back to me, I feel more secure.

I don’t have to prepare baby food for my kids anymore. They can eat like us now but we only need to cut the food into smaller pieces. I missed my days of preparing baby food cubes for my babies when they had just started taking solid.

I prepared their food with a slow cooker. Sometimes, it is a bit hard to prepare the food in small quantity, and if you are a working mum, cooking everyday can be very tedious. So, once in a while, I would prepared more baby cook in a go and store it up in the freezer. You can just store up with any fridge, or those high end refrigerators from KitchenAid Refrigerators which have separated compartment for freezer. Just make sure that you tighten the lids of the containers you use to store the baby food to prevent contamination.

When you want to use the cube, just defroze and heat it up. Easy huh?