I have to find some time to tidy up my kids’ closets as most of their clothes are not fit anymore. Besides, we have workers at the factory who’s interested to get the old baby clothes for his kids about the same age as mine and for some of his friends in his kampung. If I’m not giving out the clothes to charity, I will always pass them to him.

I’m a shopaholic, and I shop a lot for my kids too. MIL has always said my kids have lots of clothes, and her 4 sons didn’t have that much in total when they were younger. Who cares lah, I don’t buy expensive branded clothes for my kids, most of them are bought during sales and promotions, so they are pretty cheap.

So, your kids have lots of baby clothes or not?

There will be a long weekend during Hari Raya, and I thought of bring my kids to Genting Highlands. However, thinking about the crowds and how congested the theme park will be sort of make make think twice about this plan. Hubby prefers to stay at home and play with the kids, just as simple as that. He’s very afraid of traffic jam.

But I promised my boy we will go ASAP, and I would like to keep my promise. So how? Gee…planning a trip is more about how my kids will enjoy it now, but not to places I would like to go. Even if I can just “force” them to follow my plans, but I’m not sure if they will like it.

Of course, hubby can forget about stepping his foot into the casino as my kids won’t let him do that. Unless he’s sneaking out after they have fallen asleep or make a trip to Caesars Palace Las Vegas, casino is not a place for him anymore. So, having kids is not too bad after all huh?

I suddenly realized that I haven’t brought both my kids for Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine even if their paediatrician had mentioned about this 2 years ago. I kept delaying the jab as firstly, it’s costly. Secondly, I’m not sure if it’s just one of those “marketing strategy” to make parents spend more on vaccination. Bear in mind that in Malaysia, not all vaccines are given free, we have to pay for some of them. Besides that, my paed mentioned that the vaccine is given free in UK, and since it’s so important, why didn’t our government practice this now? No money but we have so many mega million projects?

The money factor is not a big issue, but I am just wondering if it is really necessary. It’s not as expensive as getting a piece of t real estate ok? Besides, my kids may not need 3 different doses anymore. So, now I’m thinking if I should go for the vaccination. It’s still not too late since my gal is only 17 months old, and older kids like my boy can take a single jab. I might make a call to their paediatrician and get his opinion on this again.

We had lots of kids playing at my house just now as hubby’s cousin and family are back from Australia. The kids were having a good time playing both outside and inside the house. You can hear their laughters even from the back of the kitchen!

But I didn’t get any shots and I am regretting now. I was busy getting my kids ready for dinner and I forgot about snapping photos! But hubby’s cousin took lots of photos with his Canon Powershot, so I may ask for some soft copies from him tomorrow.

It’s one of those family moments that we should cherish as they seldom see their cousins from oversea. By the time they meet each other again, they might have grown up and changed their looks! Frankly, I can’t recognize the 2 boys just now, they look so much different as comparing to 5 years ago.

When I read about news of some people decided to end their lives and left their kids behind, I would be wondering what’s on their mind that urge them to come to that decision. Maybe they were desperate, or depressed, they couldn’t think much about what to do at that moment.

It’s not their fault, I can understand how bad it feels like to be helpless and just want to leave everything behind. When it comes to financial difficulties, I have close friends who had really bad experience about it and they were left with no money, no friends, and no help. It really felt like end of the world to them. If they were not strong enough, they would have jump off the building. But their credit card debts, they can apply for Credit Card Consolidation for temporary Debt Relief. But for business debt, it’s a bit harder.

So, only I really admire how strong and determined they are in going through this hardship. It’s not easy, but they have gone out of it successfully. I am very happy to see that they are back on the track. If things like this happen to me, I doubt I will be that strong.

It’s going to be Hari Raya soon and the roads will be congested again especially a few days before and after the festive season. I guess I don’t have to present the statistic here to show that the road accident rates will increase since the past years data has already proven this fact. Some of the fatal accidents involved little children, and it’s sad to read news like this.

I know that it’s impossible to enforce car seat for all children in our country since some families have more than 5 kids but they can only afford a Kancil. Even if I have a few cars at home, only my car is installed with 2 car seats for my kids, and the rest of the family members couldn’t care much about the importance of car seats, including my hubby.

But this is my personal opinion, if you have more than 3 children, get a MPV. A 7 seater MPV is big enough to accommodate the rest of your family and car seats can be nicely placed as well. If you cannot afford a new car, get the Used Cars. I think there are quite a number of MPV available from those Used Cars but you just have to look for it.

If I have another child, I will get a MPV. I can’t take the risk of having anything bad happens on my kids.

I was so happy to see a growth in my Adsense coming from this blog which has been there for so many months. I started this blog due to my passion in breastfeeding, and for the initial months, there wasn’t any reader. It’s only my breastfeeding journal, and I didn’t have any knowledge about SEO. Thus, this blog went through a lot to gain some traffic now.

But if you have a new site and you would like to see the growth in traffic faster and easier, go for search engine marketing which is done by professionals. At least you can expect to see some positive results in the ranking of multiple search engines.

I didn’t do it because I can’t afford one. I am testing my SEO by trial and error method, so don’t learn from me.

My gal was not feeling well for the past 3 days. After seeing the doctor yesterday, she recovered fairly well with some medication. At least she is able to sleep better at night instead of clinging onto me for comfort nursing. I was acting like her pacifier the whole night, so you can forget about sleeping. I used to be able to fall asleep nursing her, but not anymore as she may accidentally bite me when she’s sleeping. Thus, I am more alert now!

But the day will come when she will be weaned off completely. For the time being, she stops nursing during the day. Most of the breastfeeding mothers I talked to have problem weaning off their toddlers, thus try not to push on this. If you toddler is not ready, delay or take it slowly. Just remember that every child is developing at different pace, so don’t stress out on this.

If you are interested to know more about steps in weaning off, this is something I found and would like to share:

How to Wean

 

Weaning can be baby-led or mother-led.  Baby-led weaning occurs when babies wean themselves from the breast by becoming less interested in feedings over time; your breast milk supply slowly decreases over time. 

Weaning can also be mother-led.  It is easier to wean when you are not under a lot of stress.  Gradual weaning is easier for mom and baby.

There are two phases in weaning: withholding and substituting or replacing.  As you gradually withhold your milk, you substitute solid foods, other types of milks, and other forms of emotional nourishment.

 

 

Wean from Person to Person, Not from Person to Thing

 

Try to comfort your child by giving extra hugs and cuddles as she weans instead of breastfeeding.  As baby begins to wean from comfort at mother’s breast, you begin to substitute other forms of emotional nourishment.  For example, continue to hold your baby and speak to her when you are beginning to feed her solids.  Also, another person, ideally the father, takes on a larger role in comforting baby.

 

 

Wean Gradually

 

Try to avoid weaning baby by physically separating yourself from your baby (for example, by going away on vacation).  Sudden separation from mother’s breast and from mother all at once may cause extra stress for your baby. 

 

The key to healthy weaning is that it must be gradual:

 

● Replace one feeding at a time.

 

●  It is easiest to begin by stopping the feeding your baby wants the least, or seems

    most distracted or least interested in.  For example, instead of breastfeeding mid-

    morning, take baby to the park, read a book, or have a snack or drink from a spoon or

    cup. 

 

●  Gradually, feedings can be replaced one at a time. Wait between a few days and two    

    weeks before replacing another nursing time to allow your baby to get used to this

    change and to prevent yourself from having overfull breasts. 

 

●  The weaning method of “don’t offer, don’t refuse” often works best for most mothers

     and babies.  Basically, this means that you do not offer your baby your breast for one

     feeding at a time.  However, if your baby is interested in breastfeeding at the feeding 

     you are trying to replace, you do not refuse him the feeding.  Weaning does not

     mean refusing to let baby nurse, it means gradually releasing your baby from

     breastfeeding. 

 

●  Try to limit situations that encourage breastfeeding (for example, avoid sitting in the 

     rocking chair you always sit in to nurse), but be open to breastfeeding during baby’s

     needful periods of the day. 

 

●  Expect nap nursing and night nursing sessions to be the last to end. 

 

●  When one of you is ready to end breastfeeding before bedtime, you should already 

    have a bedtime routine or nap routine which includes quieting activities such as:

    reading bedtime stories; a back rub and a lullaby; or a healthy snack, bath, and

    pajamas.  Lots of exercise earlier in the day helps your little one prepare for rest.

 

● It is often helpful to have dad or another caregiver fulfill these evening routines so 

   baby does not think of breastfeeding; this also allows important contact time between

   father and child.

 

● If your baby is upset, it is helpful to increasingly offer other sources of comfort other

   than the breast such as stories, toys, games, songs, outings, and projects.  As you 

   develop playful interactions instead of breastfeeding, your child will slowly learn to be

   content with them and prefer them as a substitute to breastfeeding.

 

Be prepared to breastfeed more often again if you see behaviours such as tantrums, anger, or sadness in your baby.  These behaviours may occur if you are weaning too quickly.  Also, babies may have occasional spurts of breastfeeding more often again if they are ill, upset, or experiencing new situations.  At these times, your baby is most likely breastfeeding for comfort.

See, be prepared to breastfeed again! LOL! So, don’t push or force it. It’s not that we will be moos forever.

Finally, after months of persuasion, MIL has agreed on getting a house insurance for our home. There are so many of us staying under the same roof and we have lots of belongings in the house which are highly valued too. If something bad happened, how are we going to rebuild the house again? Just thinking about the 6 figure digits of money is enough to scare me off.

Thus, it’s always better to have your house insured. It’s not a financial burden, in fact it’s providing financial security to your family at time when there is a fire or burglary. Just take a plan that is affordable and suitable for you.

Let’s see what are the plans that our agent is proposing within these few days.

Firstly, I have been running a learning center, and I know that not all the schools are having enough space of single session. Just take a look at the majority of the Chinese primary school where there will be more than 40 students in a class for both sessions. Some schools are using the library or labs as classrooms too as the space is limited. However, most of the Chinese students, if both parents are working, they will be sent to daycare centers after school or before school if they are studying in the afternoon. However, not every family has be money to send the kids to daycare centers. If the school is to run full day, the school capacity must be enough to cope with all the students at one time. So, are we ready for it?

Not only space limitation, how to about the teachers, activities, teaching aids, and etc, are all aspects ready for this? If we are, then I would be agree to have full session at schools, but don’t ask the kids to study all day long. Most kids are really burdened with too much homework and exams, they hardly know how to be kids again.

So far, there is a primary school in Ipoh which is running in full session. Normal classes in the morning and tuition or activities in the afternoon. Hubby likes that school. It’s one of the best schools in Ipoh, and it’s co-ed. So, both my kids can be in the same school! But the thing is, it’s not easy to get it. Oh well, all of us know that when there is a will, there is a way, just don’t mention it here.