SOS call for EBM

Last Sunday morning, I received an SMS from Gina, my BF guru, whether I still have extra frozen EBM stock or not. She was asking on behalf of a new mommy, whose milk has not "arrived" yet but was pestered by the doctor to feed her baby with formula milk. I immediately replied Gina, "got got got!!". 

30mins later, a man called me. It was the little baby's daddy. He sounded so American, to the extend that I couldn't even catch his name :P I always have this kind of problem lah, cannot really digest those thick American accent. I gave him my address and he said he would see me in 2hours time. I have told him to get a cooler bag/box and a pack of ice cubes form 7-11. 

Upon his arrival, I was pretty shocked that he was actually an Indian :P I thought he's a mat salleh. Hehe. He bought a brand new Spectra cooler bag, inclusive of 4  milk storage bottles and 2 small cold pack, which were not frozen. Since he needed my stock urgently, I lend him 1pc of my cold pack to keep cold of my fresh EBM in his cooler bag. In total, I've given him 5oz x 7 bottles of my fresh EBM. He was overwhelmed! ^_^ The small cooler bag can only fit in 5 bottles, so my mom lend him a big cooler bag (those in silver color) which she bought from Tesco. We placed the ice cubes on the bottom of the big bag, then we put in the Spectra cooler bag on top of the ice cubes, plus another 2 more bottles of my fresh EBM. That should be safe enough for him to drive back to the hospital in Subang Jaya.

We had a quick chat with him about his wife and his baby girl. Apparently, doctor found out that her baby girl had jaundice and also low sugar level. During the pregnancy period, his wife had high sugar level. Erm, actually I didn't quite get him about this, I was confused then :P Mommy's milk has not arrived,  but was able to produce little bit of colostrum. Still, that was not enough for her baby. According to the doctor, if they don't feed the baby with milk, baby's life is in great danger! Doctor insisted them to feed baby with formula milk, since mommy couldn't provide enough BM to baby yet  +_+ So that was the reason why I didn't give him my frozen EBM, coz her baby was only 3days old and need to be fed urgently. Luckily I have not transferred my fresh EBM to the freezer lah. I had labeled my fresh EBM with date (all dated 26th March 2011), and I have thought him about the storage method. If baby can't finish the milk in 3days time, he needs to freeze it.

I felt so good and proud of myself, that I was able to help the little baby girl, and the anxious new parents too. Felt like being a paramedic personnel whom attended to an emergency : D 

4mth old milestone

Oooh...at the moment the stone is not moving that far yet. YY is 4mth 3days old now. She's not ready to show me the full flip stunt, just half golek only for now. When put her on tummy position, the most she does is lifting her head up, no mini push up. Ok no problem, take your time ya.

Other than that, 1 thing which she excels is she squeals, gurgles and coos much more than she usually does (since she was 1.5mth old). Is that a sign of her becoming a talkative girl soon, just like her jie jie? As I remember correctly, QQ started to talk - 1 word at the age of 8mth old and in full sentence when she was around 18-20mth old. Also, YY grasps toys easily and hold 'em tight very often too. Since 2 weeks ago, her milk intake has  also increased  thus currently it's between 4.5oz to 5oz/feeding. Thank God that she is not (and hope not at all) showing any drastic sign of rejecting bottle for the time being. Once in a while, she did reject bottle but the most will only last for a day. QQ started to reject bottle feeding when she was 4mth++ and the terror began from thereon +_+ Cup feeding, syringe, spoon....all these were so time consuming and tiring for my mom. I pray hard that YY will not let us experience such historical torturing milk feeding moment again.

Mei Mei...last time Popo used this cup to feed me milk...slurrpp...fun for ME but torturing for Popo! :P

 

Mom, must you snap picture each time I sh*t?

My rock-a-by babies

See my big baby and small baby here....they love this new rocking chair quite a bit. New item in the house, but a pre-loved one. First saw it in my MIL's house, my SIL bought it for her baby. Hers is also a pre-loved one, so that's how I've got the idea to get 1 for my gals as well. I find it a bit silly to get a brand new one coz it'll cost me a bomb. Fisher Price brand ma....sure mahal gile neh. Original price is RM369 and I've got mine from a blogshop which sells branded pre-loved items at RM89 inclusive shipping. I tell ya, this item is  really selling like hot cake among the pre-loved stuffs! I've browsed thru many blogshop which sells pre-loved branded stuff, and all sold out. Don't know why my fingers were itchy that time, I text to this particular seller just to ask whether she still have it  or not. Jeng jeng jeng!! She said YES and would upload the picture onto her blog shortly. Lucky me lah.  It is still in very good condition (no scratches at all on the metal legs of the rocking chair) and not really worn out (the kain part) so I'll say it's a steal! By right it comes with a toys bar but I guess the owner misplaced it so no toys bar for YY. Not important at all so I don't mind. This baby rocker supports up to 18kg child's weight. My big baby who's now 3.5yo is only weighing at 11kg, so she has a loooooong way to go with it =)

It has 2 reclining position. The one in the below picture is the lowest position which is just nice for baby to nap on it. Push 1 level up will be best for feeding. It also vibrates, a very mild vibration only lah, to sooth baby. Can see the white box at the bottom of the rocker? It's battery operated but I never used this function.

Most of the time YY will be using it. I've already told QQ upfront that she needs to share it with her lil mei mei, so no rebut rebut action. So far, QQ is kind enough to let YY use it more often. YY's favorite past time on this rocking chair is to enjoy her fingers and sometimes half of her fist inside her mouth!! Yummy....

It's nice...trust me.

Banana mama vs little learner

The other day, Teacher Nel was telling me that QQ could read and spell some English words, e.g. ant, bee, bun, cat, dog. But as usual, when I tried to test her, she just gave me her blank face look. Teacher Nel said that she reacted such way because at home no other children appear as her competitor. Whereas in school, it's like a pop quiz session where kids will shout out the answer to compete with each other. 

So last week, I brought her to Popular book store to get some very basic learning books, Mandarin and Bahasa Melayu. It took me a while to find the suitable ones from the big shelf. Finally I found this, and it's meant for 3-5yo children. There are a few series so I took Book 1 for beginner. As she progresses further, will get her Book 2,3 and 4. This book is darn cheap @ RM1.90 each.

I really love this book, coz a pure "banana" me can only read Chinese words with the help of translation for each of the word, as seen below. Well, this is meant for the beginners - children and ME!

I knew QQ has been coping quite well in the class for most of the subjects taught in the pre-school. But Teacher Nel did informing me she seemed to struggle a bit to recognise Chinese words +_+ I started to worry when I heard this. See how kiasu of me lah. HubB gonna send QQ to a Chinese primary school. With my superb knowledge on this complicated word with hundreds of strokes (I want to pengsan learning Chinese words!) I don't know how can I do revision with her in future. Get HubB's help? Yeah, when he HAS the time to do it lah. If he continues to travel (or even more often) in future, my last resort would be QQ's Dun Dun and Popo. My dad knows how to read and write Chinese word very well, whereas my mom can only read coz she was English educated. She took extra class to learn Mandarin back then. Not bad ha. At least she can read and understand Chinese news paper.

As I flipped thru the book with QQ in the book store, she immediately read out to me all of the below words, except "didi". WOW!! Impressive!! Didn't know that my little 3.5yo monkey daughter can read so well! See, I underestimated her liao. With this, I took the courage to learn together with her. Erm...more to learn FROM her I guess :P

And she could also match the picture with the correct word, except for the moon picture. Teacher haven't taught her yet. Ok, she has reached far much better than my expectation. I'm happy now =)

Patchy forehead

Yesterday morning, we brought YY to her paed for her 2nd booster jabs. As usual, it was a long wait (2hr wait with big crowd). YY is weighing at 6.2kg with 63cm height. She will turn 4mth old this Friday =) This round, her reaction to the pain was rather slow. She only let out  a loud scream without tears. When Dr. Tan first cucuk her right thigh, she was still happily admiring the baby gym toys hanging above her head. Then moved on the the left thigh, cucuk, still no cry. But soon after Dr. Tan removed the needle from her thigh, then only she started to scream.Ok lah, consider brave lah :P

At night around 8.15pm, she started to be feverish (37.5 degree) and a bit cranky too. So I fed her  with 1.5ml of  fever syrup. Then I put a piece of the children size cold gel patch on her forehead to help bring down her body temperature. She was Ok with it, not like QQ where she just refused to have it on her forehead when she had fever last time. But when she saw YY having it, she berebut to have one for herself too!

Didn't keep stock for baby size cold patch, so just use the children size one lah.

I BF her to sleep as usual. Her fever subsided an hour later. I couldn't get enough of sleep, coz I constantly woke up to check her temperature. I just had the feeling that she might be feverish again anytime after the fever medicine which she took 3hours ago. That fever medicine will last for  4-6hour. 

True enough, fever came back at 2.15am measuring at 37.8 degree. After I BF her, I woke her up to feed her medicine. YY made mommy so proud. She didn't cry at all when I fed her medicine, and was very very cooperative too (plus a big loud phoooooottt from her. She had her biz in the middle of the nite!) . In fact, she was still smiling at me and Popo even though she was feverish. Aaah...so glad to see that happy face of her!! Thereafter, I pat her to sleep....yawwwwnnn....by the time I put her down on bed again, it was already 3am . In another 2.5hr time I need to get up again to pump milk, BF her and prepare myself to work. In total, I only had 4.5hr of sleep today.

No beauty sleep = No look pretty :P = Dark eye circle is my best friend = No mood to work (alasan!!) = NOT easy to be a mama. Never mind. Not that she will remain as a baby forever. This baby phase will pass real soon (another 8mths to go...consider soon??) +_+ Yawwwnn.......

Face the (pathetic) wall

For the first time, I've demanded QQ to face the wall as punishment. When I said so, she immediately stood right in front of a wall. A very small pathetic wall which you can see in the below picture. Smart ha. 

The drama is like this....when I carried YY upstairs for a quick bath, QQ followed me. After I was done with YY, I looked around for QQ and she was not at my sight. Fishy...fishy...she is not the duduk diam diam type. I've spotted her in Ah Yi's bathroom. She was doing something secretly there, and as I called out her name she got shocked and jumped up. I asked her what she did there, and she said "nothing". The more she said so, the more suspicious I felt. She left the place in seconds! I went to that bathroom to check things out. 

First, I saw 2 tubes of toothpaste, both kena squeezed already. But surprisingly, there wasn't any toothpaste stain on the sink. She CAN'T be so hak hei, played so little toothpaste only? Cannot be lah.

When I turned around....OMG....she had chosen to attack the toilet bowl instead. There was some toothpaste near the rim.Worst part was, she threw in some sotong crackers inside!! I took a toilet brush and tried to scoop them up for a closer look. Those brownish crackers became big and soggy (kembang due to contact with water) and they really really look like SH*T!! I wanted to take a picture of the disastrous-looking toilet bowl, but I couldn't coz from the look at it, I had stomach upset de. Hahahaha!! I quickly clean up the toilet bowl and tapao all the soggy crackers, and I flushed the toilet. I washed my hand and I think God made me turn around again for the 2nd time. With the clear water in the toilet bowl, there were more to be discovered.

The toilet bowl has turned into a wishing well. See, so many coins down there, with more toothpaste! Duh....although the water is consider clean, but I can't put my naked hand into it to remove those coins. I covered my hand with a plastic bag first before I do the collection.

Of course, QQ get lots of scolding from me. She cried badly when I asked her to face the wall. While she faced the wall, I sat opposite her to BF YY. She cried louder and louder but I just ignore her. Then she apologized to me repeatedly. I gave her my killer look and she turned back to the wall :P She continued to cry cry cry....then I peeped on her. It was crocodile tears!! She was facing the wall, gave me her fake cry and fake sobbing, and she was playing with the wall. Her little fingers were digging the side of the wall!!! She saw me peeping on her and she stopped immediately. She then apologize and said "har chi ng kam" (next time don't dare to do it again). Dear, I've heard this for x-amount of time already. Kinda immune to your pledge lah.

From that incident, whenever she started to drive me up the wall, I will always ask her "want to face the wall?", she would tame back a bit. Don't know how long can use this trick to stop her from  doing all the blood boiling stunts. 

BUT...that's not the end of the story. She had fever on that historical night +_+ Gosh...I felt so bad. Traumatized due to the punishment ka? In fact, when she was asleep, I had the feeling that she might get fever.  Mother instinct. I kept checking her temperature throughout the night. At 3.30am finally fever striked. Luckily her body temperature was not too high, the first thermometer reading was 37.7 degree. I gave her the fever syrup and fever subsided an hour later. The next day almost the same time around 3.20pm, mild fever revisit. I brought her to see Dr. Tan, and her throat was a bit swollen thus trigger the fever. So confirmed not due to the punishment lah.  I feel better de.... =)

An avocado away, brings back my kilos straight away?

I hope so! Avocado is rich in vitamins and fats. Yes, FATS!! Healthy fats which I need the most.  Also,  since I'm breast feeding YY, I want my BM to be rich in nutrients, to pass on to YY too.  So now I'm taking it  daily as my snack, right after my moo moo session in the office.  But an avocado is not too filling lah, I will take a cup of yogurt (unfortunately it's a low fat yogurt)  and some bread /biscuits to cure my shaking  hands and legs .  After each moo moo session hor, my body will be shaking, sign of hunger! So I need to fill in the blanks with proper food.

QQ had taken lots of mashed avocado with fragrance pear puree mixed with some plain yogurt when she was younger. As she grows, puree foods (even porridge) is too yucky for her, so she has stopped taking this richie rich avocado as snack. I will definitely feed YY with it when the time comes.

When I used to feed QQ with avocado, I didn't quite like it. I find the taste and texture are very...weird and a bit yucky as well. See, I fed things that I dislike to my girl :P And slowly she also dislike it :P But lately, I had no idea why I fell in love with it. Last week, I was in the supermarket and I saw this, a pack of 3 Hass avocado @ RM11.99. Best thing is, there's a guide on how to choose a ripe avocado, as shown on the box cover.

Psst...my dear cousin sister had a bad experience with an unripe avocado. She wanted to make avocado salad, thus she decided to boil it. No matter how long she boiled it, the avocado can never be cooked! Kekekeke. That was her first and last time to purchase 1. 

So to those who don't know how to choose a ripe avocado or to make it ripe, here's the tips:

1) if you want to eat it as soon as you have purchased it, choose the black skin 1. Black skin means fully ripe. Also try to press on it GENTLY. If it has soften a bit, lagi best =)

2) if you only found those with dark green skin, you still can purchase them. When you are back home, DO NOT keep it in your fridge (even  for 1 day) to wait for it to turn black. If you do so, they will NEVER be ripe even if you take it out and keep in room temperature later. Remember, once already in the fridge, no turning back ya =)

So how do you make it ripe/skin turn black? Easy peasy.....keep them inside your rice container. Firstly clean it with water and then wipe dry before you dump it in. Check on it every day, coz  by using this method, the avocado ripe faster compare to leaving it on it's on in room temperature. Once it turns black, cut into half and scoop out the flesh. Yummy!! The taste is very much to "buttery feel". My mom loves to mash it and spread on bread.

My avocado - mixture of ripe and semi-ripe

A soften ripe avocado ready to serve!

Mom said that Hass (from Australia) brand is good. Last time she did lots of baby food research for QQ, and that was why she insisted to feed QQ with avocado, so that her tiny lil grand daughter will grow bigger and stronger. QQ was a small-built baby (due to her mama XS gene), that was why Popo wanted to feed her all the good food hoping that she could have more flesh (to flaunt). Hehe.

Below are some good facts about avocado, which I got it here . Can see the amount of vitamins it carries? That's why it is highly recommended to babies and toddler, even adults too.

Description:

• There are 384 Calories in one cup of avocado
• 1/2 an avocado contains 145 calories and 14gm of fat

Avocados, despite being high in fat are very good for you, and people keep discovering more of the health promoting properties.

Once does want to keep a close eye on overall fat and calorie consumption, but a little avocado in your diet, especially in a salad can go a long way.

The fat in avocado is primarily monounsaturated, and has been shown in studies to lower bad cholesterol, and raise good cholesterol.

Serving Size 1 cup, pureed (230g) 1/2 fruit without skin and seeds (173g) 1 NLEA serving (30g)
Amount per serving
Calories 384	Calories from Fat 319

Hide Daily Values

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 35g		54%
	Saturated Fat 5g	25%
	Polyunsaturated Fat 4g
	Monounsaturated Fat 23g
Cholesterol 0mg		0%
Sodium 18mg		1%
Total Carbohydrates 20g		7%
	Dietary Fiber 16g
	Sugars 1g
Protein 5g

Vitamin A	7%	Vitamin C	34%
Calcium	3%	Iron	8%
Thiamin	12%	Riboflavin	19%
Niacin	22%	Pantothenic Acid	34%
Vitamin B6	33%	Potassium	33%
Phosphorus	12%	Magnesium	17%
Zinc	10%	Copper	20%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

100th day old celebrity

YY was exactly 100th days old on 4th March, 2011. According to my MIL, we have to let YY lick a kai pei (drumstick) to initiate the "hoi zhai" day. Never heard of this tradition before? Me too! But we did the same to QQ as well. So far, none of my friends have heard of this practice, so it's kinda rare tradition. But fun! =)

This is my favorite picture. YY was smiling when I held the kai pei infront of her, touching her lips. And the forever kepoh QQ tried to adjust her head lah, kept telling YY " sik kai pei lah!! sik laaa...sik laaa!!" O.o  See the meaning of fun which I mentioned just now?

After the kai pei licking good session, I told QQ to pose with the kai pei for me before she bite it. Very cooperative. She even said that she would "bai pou si", means show me different pose for my camera! She loves posing for the camera, just like her mama lah :P

There goes the kai pei.....first, QQ declared that she wanted to finish it all by herself. This kampung chicken was a bit kenyal, but surprisingly she could chew 'em nicely. But there were some left over meat on it, so baba didn't want to waste it and he polished the kai pei properly.

And finally, happy mama managed to take picture with her 2 ultimate gaga girls! Small gaga seemed to be happier than me!

24 in 45 out

 

24 empty bottles are back, and about 45 bottles of frozen EBM were taken out from Teacher Nel's freezer last Saturday. That was the last batch available in her freezer, all given out to KC. He was happy to sapu all my stocks for his lil baby ;)

Mom's freezer still has about 20 bottles and 20 bags (each bag 10oz-12oz) of frozen EBM. I can still give out the end of Jan 2011 stock. But those stocks dated between 7th Feb to 25th Feb will not be given away coz during that period of time, I was down with flu and cough. To the extend that I need to take antibiotic. Come to think of it now, why in the first place I freeze/keep those extra ounces of EBM while I was on medication? And I'm not giving away, nor feeding YY with it. I've decided to keep feeding YY with fresh EBM and whatever extra ounces will be frozen and to be given out again. For the time being, I can get about 20-25oz of EBM per 12 hour. More than enough to feed YY.

So what am I going to do with those "medicated" frozen EBM?? Down to the drain again I suppose...... +_+

Itchy bitsy tickle me

Here's the video of YY laughing as I tickle her armpits =) We all just love to play and chat with her coz she will surely respond with a big broad smile. Seeing a happy baby like her everyday really make our day!

p/s : notice QQ's voice behind? Due to too much of attention given to her lil mei mei, she wanted some from us =)

Dim chong chong...

Chong chong fei!! That's the all time favorite stunt we love to play with QQ last time, and now with YY. Here's the video of YY laughing out loud while playing with her. I always play back all her laughing videos whenever I'm free (especially during my moo moo time), they are simply irresistible! 

Original video is quite lengthy with many more laughter from her in the beginning. So I just trimmed the video featuring this singing part only. Come to think of it, did I record this type of video for QQ? Let me x-ray all my thumb drive first......

My 2 yellow gaga

YY @ 3mth old

I just love taking this picture, as I remember that I did the same for QQ too. Baby looks the best, smells the best right after the warm shower =)

QQ @ 9mth old

I thought that when I took this picture of QQ, she was around the same age as YY. Nope...I was wrong lah. I've managed to dig out this old picture and found out that she was then 9mth old de. I will do this again when YY reaches 9mth old....provided that I still REMEMBER to do so lah.

A mutated rabbit

Here's the very first "complete" drawing from my 3yr 5mth old QQ =) It's a RABBIT!!

I couldn't figured out this in the beginning, until my mom told me so. But my very first wild guess was a pig =) Initially QQ drew a big circle only. Then as my mom asked her 1 by 1, where's the eyes? where's the nose? etc....QQ drew accordingly.

I think she did a great job, although it didn't really turn out like a "normal rabbit" :P At least she knew where to position the body parts. But the hands.....hahahaha! Lari margin liao! 

I'm gonna keep this and will show to her again when she's older.