To the best mother in the world!
It's my mom's birthday today. (Happy Birthday Mom!)

During pregnancy, I truly believed my maternity leave days would be filled with leisurely afternoons at Marmalade Pantry/Toast/PS Cafe/Book Cafe (the plan was to go to a new place every day). I would be reading Wuthering Heights whilst sipping Earl Grey and nibbling on a scone, and the baby would be cooing gently and playing with his toes in the pram. Of course, I would have lost all pregnancy weight and have arms that don't vibrate long after you have stopped waving.

Talk about being delusional!

The arms are still floppy, the only literature I read now is while I'm in the toilet and DN? Coo? *prrrthhhfffttt!!!*

Motherhood is filled with sleepless nights, eye(luggage)bags, sour-smelling babies (and sour-smelling mothers), crying babies, leaky diapers, puke everywhere except on the bib, crazy $$$ spent on paediatrician bills ($32 for 2 creams, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?) and on and on...

So that's why I love my mother so much. She did this THREE TIMES! I am humbled. I am so ashamed to say that I never fully appreciated all that she's done for us until I gave birth. Sad, but true.

I was in JC when my mom was pregnant with my brother and NOT ONCE did I hear her complain about anything. We didn't have a car then, so we were "bus-ing" it everywhere too. She was also working full-time and still taking care of the household. Me? I was like a broken record.

"Aiyoh, the weight is killing me! My back is aching! Why is it so hot! PF, can you massage my feet? I look like a baby elephant! PF, do I look like a baby elephant? Be honest, I look like a baby elephant right! When will all this be overrrrr???"

On hindsight, I was worse than an Ace of Base CD, on repeat.

After giving birth, I spent the first month at home with my mom and grandmother. Oh, the first month was bad. I was sweaty from all the ginger I was eating, grumpy coz I still looked like I had another baby in there, exhausted coz DN was waking up 3 times a night and in pain from the breastfeeding.

If it weren't for my mom, I wouldn't be breastfeeding now. She was the one who told me not to give up and kept me focussed on the merits of breastmilk. She even contacted an ex-colleague (who's still breastfeeding her 1.5 yr old girl) and asked her to speak to me and encourage me not to give up.

My mom is amazing! Mummy, thank you for bearing with all 3 of us and our nonsense for the past 32 years. Happy Birthday!

... and that's MY mom!

Chocolate Fudge Cake from Lana Cake House (yums)

We all ate the sides, and left the middle untouched!

DN : "Yippee, a cake for me! A cake for me!"

DN : "Mmm... my cake looks good!"

DN : "And you're all singing me a song? I'm touched!"

DN : "To the best mot... wait... a... minute...!"

Baby Friends

I helped to organise a trial session for a Baby Class for some of the mommies I met on the forum. The class was conducted at Babies N Cream @ Great World City and there were 6 mommies & babies altogether - Jasmine & Jadelle, Eileen & Dylan, Megan & Clarice, E-ling & Amabel and Emma & Enzo.

Aiyoh, I love these things. Some weird, warped part of me gets a great kick out of seeing all these little babies together. They are so innocent and "honest" with their actions. If they want to touch, lick, squeeze, climb on top of another baby, they just do it! (or at least, that's what DN was doing -_-)


Here he is, trying to pat Clarice on the back.




Now he's reaching out for Dylan's... ear???


Horrors! Touch not enough, must also crawl on other babies!








During the class, we did some baby yoga with our babies, including the Tree Pose, amongst others. hmm... a bit tricky that one, seeing as DN still has wobbly-jelly-legs. There was singing, some stretches (for their vestibular system, to build their sense of balance) and ... THE FUNNY CULT CHANTING THING AGAIN! (see my post on 26 December 2006)

Imagine 6 mommies walking around in a circle, chanting good things about their babies and swinging their babies into the middle with a "wheeeee!!!" (I s*** you not) at the end of every verse. It felt like "Witches and Babies Convention 2007". The only thing that was missing was the smoking cauldron and some bats.

But $13.10 only. Cannot complain.

One of the fun bits in the class was when the teacher blew bubbles into the air. DN kept looking at the bubbles as they floated around him and reaching out to touch them. Aiyoh, very cute. Another activity which I liked was when we rolled these big rubber balls to each other as we sat in a circle. DN actually STOPPED wriggling like worm to stare at the balls. I tried doing that at home today, but because it was just me and DN, I had to roll-throw the ball at the wall so it'd bounce back. Of course, my inferior ball skills almost killed my baby because I rolled-threw the ball so hard that it came flying back and almost hit DN. :(


Touch! Touch! Touch!






The Organising Committee of the "Witches and Babies Convention 2007"

(touching each other again!)


Amabel, wisely refusing to be part of the touchy-feely gang

Clockwise : Enzo, Jadelle (hidden), Clarice, Dylan, DN

The Organising Committee discussing how to convince Amabel to join in

Jadelle, already headhunted by Cirque du Soleil

Jadelle, DN, Clarice, Red Ball, Purple Ball


DN : "Mom, this looks vaguely familiar... like the thing you almost hit me with."


DN : "My mommy almost killed me with one of these at home."

Clarice : "You don't say!"



DN : "Well, I love animals and am very easy-going. My idea of a good date is a warm bottle of milk, some tummy time and maybe sharing some pureed pear."


DN : "Hey Dad! I think she likes me!"

Clarice (thinking) : "I'm not going out with someone who has less hair than me."

Creepy Crawlie
DN is 6 and a half months old.

For the past month, DN has been somewhat mobile. He manages to "creep" from Point A to Point B (and usually goes to Points C and D along the way), but it's not really crawling per se. On his belly, he'll prop himself up and kick his little legs furiously. Then, the power will build up in his arms and he propels himself forwards. This'll work if, at the same time, it is coupled with a kick. If not, it just looks like he's doing half a frog-hop. These lunges/half-frog-hops/propulsions continue until he reaches his toy/pacifier/me, or until he becomes 'lao hong'.

But today, he surprised us by CRAWLING. (with hands, knees, the works!) Yay, he now looks like an actual baby, not a frog after 10 beers.

It must be my pureed apple and pear. I'm such a good cook!

*pat on the back*

We don't have a videocam, and my mobile is crap for taking videos, so we'll just have to contend with badly taken photos for now!


Ready, set, GO!




...er... I said, "GO!"

DN :"The things they make me do to entertain themselves."

A bit 'lao hong' already! Hahaha.

The arms are willing but the butt is weak.

Yay! The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Received this SMS from PF today...

"Managed to find diapers for puppy? Hows the pupsmister? I mee him... he very q in the morning... i enjoy the time with him then..."

Parlez vous Francais? Hah? Ni Jiang Shen Me? Let me explain!

Managed to find diapers for puppy?
- I spent the day at my mom's today and in true I-am-June-the-one-whose-brain-is-in-her-backside fashion, I brought EVERYTHING except diapers. Not a single one. Zilch. Zero. Kosong. Nada.
- "Puppy" is a nickname PF and I have for DN since he's born in the year of the dog. We've been calling him that since 2004. Yes, 2 years before he was even born. (family planning mah!)

Hows the pupsmister?
- Another nickname for DN. Supposed to be "pup-MEISTER". (I married PF for his good heart, not his spelling.)

I mee him.
- My best friend and I used to play this game where we drop the last consonants of words, just to see who can sound more idiotic and foolish. (It's a tie!!) So "June" becomes "Joo" and "foolish" becomes "foo-lee". I was doing it SO much that PF started doing it too. (It's really fun lah!) So anyways, PF was trying to say "I miss him" and not "I 'noodle' him".

He very q in the morning... I enjoy the time with him then.
- Again, it's The Attack of the Foolish Last Consonant Droppers. When you drop the last consonant in "cute", you get "Q"!
- Let's ignore the missing verb "is". (I married PF for his civic-mindedness, not his grammar.)
- DN wakes up around 7am. When he wakes, he starts to creep/crawl/shuffle all around the bed and keeps knocking into us until we wake up. (An uphill task!) When we finally wake up, I get out of bed to pump milk while PF lies in bed to talk to / play with DN. DN is always very agreeable in the mornings so it's PF's favourite time with him.
- Awwwww... :D

Aqua Pup

Even though our house is equipped / furnished with all the baby paraphernalia we could ever need, it's better to err on the side of caution and buy whatever's on sale at Baby Fairs.

Yes.

Case in point : Before Saturday's visit to the Taka Baby Fair, I never knew that there were voids in DN's life that needed to be filled by...

1. A swimming suit
2. A whale swimming float
3. Another rattling toy
4. Another pacifier
5. Another bottle brush
6. Another Fisher-Price toy

If it weren't for the Taka Baby Fair, DN wouldn't have been able to go swimming last Sunday. (HORRORS!) Now his life is complete, ha. (at least until the next Baby Fair)

PF went into the pool with DN. I was the official photograher. DN was a little unnerved when he first went in. His body was all taut and he kept frowning. (haha!) But after awhile, he loosened up and started kicking his little feet. At one point, he was slapping the water with his hands. When it splashed all over his face, he went stiff as a plank and started frowning again. Heh!

DN didn't really fancy sitting in his whale float, (trust a baby to throw all ur grand plans of him drifting about the pool on a whale in a cute manner, out the blinking window) so PF carried him and walked him up and down the length of the pool. -_-

Just before we took him out of the pool, he became really relaxed and even strained to move forward as PF walked him up and down. I think we've got an aqua pup here! (he's born in the year of the dog)

Will have to get him a new pair of swimming trunks/shorts though. (Yippee! Got a reason to go to another Baby Fair and buy stuff I don't need!) The ones we bought at the fair were too small. When we pulled it up, it barely covered his a**! Butt crack galore. DN can challenge all those girls along Orchard Road.


*frowning*





*frowning*

(check out his double chin, hur hur)

(his legs look really SHORT in this pic)

*frowning*











*frowning*

DN : "Why is Daddy's face brown and his body white???"




*still frowning!!*

(he has sammi cheng's nike eyebrow! hur hur)




awww... I like this pic!




If you look closely, you can see a hint of a butt crack! Tsk tsk tsk, no shame.





DN : "These concentric circles are making me giddy... hic!"

His hair is growing out!
*beam*beam*beam*

I've found my calling!

And it is, "Baby-Food Maker", or BFM for short. Never before has such an activity provided such pleasure and satisfaction for me. It ranks as high as peeling the sunburnt flakes off PF's forehead! (he went fishing on Wednesday)

DN has been eating rice cereal for the past 6 days and because it tastes like crap (I made PF try it), we thought we'd introduce him to the wonderful world of fructose!

So I hijacked 2 soft Anjou pears from my grandmother's fridge (thanks mama!) and gleefully brought them home. After DN retired for the night, I took out our Philips blender and the baby cube trays I bought in December (!!) and set about pureeing pears - DN's dessert snack for the entire week.

Steps to making Pear Puree

1. Peel pears and chop into small chunks.
2. Boil pear chunks on a low flame until soft.
3. Transfer chunks and liquid (all the nutrients are in there) to blender.
4. Rub hands in glee and excitement before turning on blender.
5. Become frantic as pear juice starts to leak out of darn machine.
*&@@!! All the pear-nutrients are now on the kitchen counter!
6. Learn to ignore rivulets of pear juice because short of driving to Mustafa at 1130pm to buy a new blender, nothing else could be done.
7. Transfer beautiful pear puree into baby cubes (to be frozen and then used throughout the week).
8. Resist urge to eat up all of DN's pear puree.
9. Reward oneself by licking up the remnants of DN's pear puree.

I love it! I love it! I love it! It's like playing masak-masak FOR REAL! Now I am finally old and wise enough to handle dangerous equipment with sharp blades (peeler, knife, blender attachment). No more plastic peas, apples and steaks. I can now play with real food and real babies!

But unfortunately, it doesn't pay (literally) to be a BFM. :(


Trust me, looks like crap, but tastes divine!








Here are the rest of the trays I bought in December. If 2 pears yield 5 cubes worth of puree, I'll need 12 more pears to fill up this lot!!!

But I love these little things. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. Each cube can contain exactly 1 oz of pureed food. (don't know why this pleases me so much since I love my 'kgs' and 'gs')

2. They are individual cubes! You can just pop one out of the freezer without disturbing the rest. Can't do that with an ice tray can u? *smug face*

3. The tray has little pockets and all the cubes sit so nicely in their little pockets.

4. When you snap on/off the cube's lid, it makes a really nice *pock* sound.

Money well spent!

DN's First Meal of Rice Cereal

WHO recommends breastmilk for the first 6 months of a baby's life.

Nah, here you go WHO, DN and I did it! DN has been on total breastmilk for 6 months! :D But what's the big deal right?

Qn : Isn't it natural, and easy, for all mothers to breastfeed?
Ans : HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (i.e. NO)

When I was pregnant, I was more worried about how to hide my popping-out belly button (it looks like a third nipple ok!!) than how I was going to breastfeed a newborn. I wasn't worried because I thought all the knowledge of how to breastfeed/carry/bathe/change the baby would just come flooding into my brain the moment they plonked him into my arms. Er, no. Nothing came flooding into my brain except, "THANK GOD IT'S OVER! I'm SO not doing that again!"

You know all those pictures of a mother smiling lovingly at her baby as she's breastfeeding, both in pure white and bathed in a soft glow?

Utter nonsense.

It's because of those pictures that I thought breastfeeding was going to be a walk in the park. Humph. A walk on red-hot coals, more like it. Breastfeeding was PAINFUL! The first month, every time I breastfed DN, I was stamping my feet like Sea Biscuit.

Anyway, the worst is over and I can't believe I actually made it to the 6-month mark. :D We now have the permission of WHO to feed DN solids.

So yesterday morning, I sterilised DN's bowl and spoon, took out the box of Brown Rice Cereal I bought in January (!!) and placed his Bumbo on the dining table. (PF came home a bit early from work too. Yes, we were both very excited.)

1pm finally rolled round and we started. Although DN's bib ate most the cereal, he remained pretty clean throughout. *beam*beam* He ate about 50% of what PF prepared, then lost interest and struggled to climb out of the Bumbo. When we transferred everything into a bottle and offered it to him though, he didn't refuse, the greedy (and lazy) little pig(let)!


Feeding Paraphernalia For Eating Experiment

Clockwise (from top left)

Test Subject (looking appropriately like a guinea pig) - Baby cereal - Mug to heat up milk - Milk for mixing with the cereal - Feeding dish and spoon - Cup of water for feeder (us!)



DN : "Did she just call me a guinea pig?"







DN : "Haha, it's ok. They're cute!"










Guinea Pig : "Can we get started ALREADY??"











Mixing the milk into the cereal










Ta-dah! Wholesome and delicious rice cereal for our little guinea pig.










The guinea pig, all bibbed up and ready to go.









Eeeeewwwww...!










Guinea Pig : "You'll have to give me one meee-leee-onnn dollars to finish this. Muahahaha."

(see his little pinky)


Guinea Pig : "No more!"





Guinea Pig : "Ah, my dear bottle. Where have you been all my life?"