Although I’m pro-breastfeeding, I believe it’s a lifestyle choice whether you want to breast feed your baby and how long you want to do it. It is good to get as much information as you can before deciding which path you want to take.

On my breast feeding journey, I’d heard encouraging and discouraging words. However, you know someone has little knowledge of breastfeeding when they say such things (people have asked me these questions or say these things to me):

1) You are still breast feeding your baby at 10months? Wow, you must have saved a lot of money from not having to buy milk powder.
Yeah right, what about the money I spent on buying
– breast pump
– extra bottles or disposable bags for storing milk
– breast pads
– nursing bras
My reply : I don’t save money that way, but I hope to save money in NOT having to bring my daughter to see a Dr.

2) Can’t you stop half way during pumping (milk expression) and come … (to do whatever)
Sure I can, and I will leave 2 wet patches on my blouse
My reply : Can you come (and do whatever) next time mid way dumping for peeing?

3) No wonder your baby is so clingy!
And so..?
My reply : Don’t think this has got anything to do with breastfeeding, but more of the time I spend with her.

4) When you go out, isn’t it very inconvenient?
I don’t have to bring 1) hot water 2) sterilised bottle(s) 3) milk powder, and you still need to find a quiet place to feed the baby breast feeding or not.
My reply : No, I just bring myself and lift my blouse up to feed her whenever she’s hungry

5) You are feeding your baby directly from the breast? Won’t your nipples be elongated?
Yeah right, my nipple has stretched all the way to my waist with all the sucking from Zara.
My reply (to non-virgin women): Your husband/boy friend sucks on your breast during foreplay, did your nipple get stretched?
(to virgin women)or : Then don’t let your boy friend or future husband play with your breast, the effect is the same.
(to men): You think your ‘thing’ will get longer with people sucking on it? Dream on

So, for those who didn’t already know, it is very convenient to breast feed (especially night and morning feeds), although it won’t save any money immediately, hopefully it will cut down medical expenses in future.

It does not cause any damage to your breast(if done correctly), if it did anything, it would be to increase your cup size by 1 or 2 sizes (which is a good thing, isn’t it?).

And yes, Zara clings to me, and I love it.

By the time I got to King’s Wife’s place after work yesterday, it was already 8pm.

Tuyam gave me the usual daily report of what Zara ate, how many times she pooped, what new tricks she learnt etc. According to her, Zara didn’t nap enough. Sure enough, when I carried Zara, she leaned her head on my shoulder, started sucking her thumb (indicating she wants her milk), and occasionally rubbed her eyes (indicating she’s sleepy).

I quickly had my dinner, took a shower, and then got Zara changed into her pajamas.

The minute she got changed, she sleepy bug left her. With a sudden surge of energy, she started bouncing on the bed (a bit like a frog jump), rolling around. She was especially fascinated by the lamp in the room (which we later thought it looked like a pair of breast). Tilted her head, pointed at it, and started giggling.

When my nieces walked passed the room and heard the commotion, they came in as well.

The slumber party began. The 3 of them were playing on the bed, with Zara as the jester entertaining us. The girls sang nursery rhymes, while Zara tried to do the action or dance. The girls tickled her, she giggled and made funny noises. They were having so much fun, I couldn’t help but feel happy seeing them enjoy.

(I thought I could get her to sleep early so I can do some work on my notebook!)

Eventually, the girls have to go to bed because they have school the following morning. Only when they have left the room that Zara settled down so I could nurse her. It didn’t take her long to go to sleep, but when she did, it was already 10:15pm. 45mins later than her normal bed time.

She must have been so happy to be sleeping over at King’s Wife’s place.

Daddy is away in Shanghai, and I decided to spend a few nights with King’s wife and my 2 nieces.

Their palace place is very close to the office (if I chose to walk, I could reach the office in 10mins), so staying there means I don’t have to leave for the office so early, and I can spend some time with Zara in the morning before going to work.

Today, we both got up at 6:50am. I got up this early because I have a 7am meeting, and when I tried to carry Zara downstairs (so we can keep an eye on her, since everybody is downstairs doing their own chores), she got up as well and refused to go back to sleep.

I nursed her while I was on the phone (thank goodness we don’t have video conferencing yet!), when it was my turn to talk, I have to hand Zara to Tuyam. Her whining and complaints didn’t escape the ears of my fellow colleagues in other parts of the world though, but people are so used to all kinds of ‘noises’ in such meetings (for example we heard someone pee-ing into the toilet bowl, followed by the sound of flush in one meeting; and another time we could hear loud snores after 30mins into a conference all the way till the end, apparently that particular audience found the meeting too boring) they just commented “Aw, that’s your baby. Sorry you have to work this early” and the yada yada yada continued.

Anyway, the meeting finished half and hour early, so I have ample time. Here are the things I did with her before I went to work:

Helped Tuyam bath and change her

Brought her out to the garden for a walk (she loves King’s wife‘s water feature)

Played and talked to her while she’s having her breakfast.

And only then I took my bath and went to work.

Next few days while staying here, I can continue to enjoy these easy mornings.

I have been pretending to cry when Zara does something not to my liking for instance not wanting to eat the food I’d spent a lot of time cooking; pulling my hair; wriggling about when her diaper is changed.

I did that a few times to show her that I’m sad or upset.

One day last week, when I said, “If Zara yai-yai (naughty), then mummy will cry”. She started rubbing her eyes, and made the Uh-Uh-Uh sound, pretending to cry. Wow, such a copy cat, so good in imitating me.

She started ‘crying’ on cue. Asked her, “Show mummy how you cry”, she would start rubbing her eyes and ‘cry’.

After one week of asking her to do this repeatedly to ‘entertain’ us and family members, she got fed up. She stopped doing it now. When we asked her to show us how she cries, she’ll just look some where else. Pretended she didn’t hear us.

Here is a video capturing her doing this, but she would only do it for a short while, not wanting to repeat her performance.

We attended the Bloggers’ Meet in Kepong yesterday.

Zara took her nap a wee bit too late, and the traffic from Shah Alam to Kepong was so bad (not to mention the distant) so we ended up arriving at 8pm, 1 1/2hrs later than the start time.

By the time we arrived, most people had already eaten their dinners and had warmed up to each other. We didn’t get to move about to talk to most people, since we have to order, eat, feed Zara, entertain Zara, and take photos.

Managed to speak or say Hi to some :
Egghead, Loc Kee, MSAU, sue, Twinsmom, Jason, Milly, Willwolf

I didn’t get to say Hi to :
1+2mom, Suzette, peekaboooh, Young Brat.

Egghead was the orgniser, but I didn’t get to speak to him at all (except asking for directions on the phone). Managed to utter a few words to beautiful J (you are one lucky fella Egghead), and got Zara to shake hands with Little Skywalker. Egghead had already published the detail of the event in his blog.

We sat at the same table as Sue, who’s pregnant (beautifully, I must enviously say), and still made it ON TIME with Ivan.

I went over to introduced myself to MSAU, but I couldn’t recall her immediately; after a while when I could link the Panda icon to her blog, then only I know who she was *blush*. Her little girl SQ is such a sociable girl, even reached out to say Hello to Zara and I.

I could spot Sweet Sweet immediately when we entered the restaurant. Sweet Sweet is just like her name, such a sweet little girl, sitting quietly together with her parents, Loc Kee and SSM.

Willwolf was busy snapping away photos in his SLR. Even Daddy was attracted to his gadget, kept asking me to find out from Willwolf the model of the SLR. The photos turned out to be very nice, the wonders of SLR. Willwolf’s little brother son is quite a lengjai (good looking), and always have this cheeky smile on.

Jason, hmm, such a sweet young man, the kind of guys you will bring home and your parents would approve off. The only thing he’s not sweet about is he called us Uncle & Aunty shamelessly. Made us feel like we’d come to a kids’ party, and we’re so old.

Smilley Milly was very sweet and quiet, she’s so good with kids. Zara, who’s normally very chosey actually let Milly carry her.

Twinsmum has such friendly personality. Making sure every body was comfortable and aknowledged every body’s presence. The twins, Anabelle and Isabelle are such beautiful girls, and nice soft bob they have (I’m always on a look out for nice hair, since Zara has very little).

Our table was next to Suzette & Peekaboo, but I didn’t even take the time to say Hi to them. How embarassing. Never mind, there’ll always be another time (I hope).

I saw another pair of twins at another table, younger than Twinsmum’s twins, later, I was told, she is 1+2mom, another opportunity to introduce myself and befriend a fellow mummy was wasted. *shame on me*

I didn’t see Young Brat at all, I think I was mainly attracted by the sights of kids, since he is still a young bachelor (with no kids obvioulsy), I didn’t spot him. (Was he the one seated next to Milly?)

The food at Milwaukee Steak Corner was really quite good, and reasonably priced. I didn’t expect my Calamari Steak to be 2 huge grilled sotong/squids though, as the ones I’d eaten in US before were actually diced up squid pancake/pattie. Good, but tough, and since we have to entertain Zara, I didn’t have the luxury to chew my food slowly. Daddy had grilled Sole, very delicious indeed, and for the price of RM17, worth it!

We’ll definitely come again if ever we’re around this area.

The highlight of the event was Twinsmum’s birthday celebration. The organiser and co-organisers got her a cake, and we all sang her birthday song (although most were too shy and mumbled the song more than singing), saw her ‘speechlessly’ thanked us, and had a slice of the cake.

This was both Daddy and my first meeting with cyberfriends. We came because we thought Zara would enjoy it, but I think it was too short a time for her to spend with the kids. I think I enjoyed this more, meeting with people whom I’d read their ‘diaries’, seen their deepest thoughts, laughed at their silliest jokes, and it was nice being able to link up faces with writings style, or a story.

I definitely will go to another one of these bloggers’ meet again. Thanks to Egghead again for organising this.

Here are some photos taken (if you find any of your photos offensive, please leave me a comment and I’ll remove it):

Sweet Sweet is such a sweet looking child. No wonder already booked by Luke Skywalker.

I can’t tell the twins apart, but they are both very cute.

Zara’s potential boy friends, Ivan and Luke Skywalker, and their parents.

Siao Qing : “Your hair very nice la, which hairdresser did you go to?”
Zara : “There, that Baldy Locks unisex salon in Kepong Baru”

Zara has started standing and ‘walking’ a bit more nowadays since she took her first step a month back.

Here is a typical process she follows :
1) she pulls herself up using a piece of furniture, our legs, our hair, or anything she could get her hands on and strong enough to support her
2) she finds her balance
3) check out who or where she can walk to
4) she lets go of her hand (from whatever was supporting her) and she’ll raise them above her head
5) finds her balance again
6) trots forward
7) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 .. (depending how well balance she is) into our extended arms, or reach to another piece of furniture, or just *THUD* fall down

On one hand, we’re so excited about her ‘evolution’ from an all fours baby towards a walking todler; on the other hand, we’re worried about her hurting herself, especially her skull, during this ‘transition’ phase.

How did the other parents handle this transition period? Ma Xin, a friend from Beijing (who happened to have a little girl Zara’s age) said she learnt this from one of the baby & parent class she attended:

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????. ???????????????????????. ??????????????????????????????. ?????‘??’????????????????????????????????????????

It translates to :

When we teach a child to walk, we should protect/guide the child from the front, not the back. We need to teach them when they fall, to fall forward on their knee, and not tumble forward. A lot of babies learning to walk, will plunge forward, this will easily cause injury to the face (or forhead). If we protect the child from the back, we are telling the child it’s ok to lean backwards when she lost balance. This will make the child, while walking, to subconciously fall backwards when they do fall.

The ‘wicked’ method would be, to stand the child on the bed, push the child farward, let the child fall knee down on the bed. She may not like it, but should be quite an effective method.

So, I’m going to try out this method with Zara. To have a gash on the knee, is better than having a bump on the skull, that’s for sure.

Any one has any more ‘proven’ tips?

Cons of working from home:

• We don’t have streamyx at home, so I have to use the bloody slow 28kbps line, netmeeting or the application I’m supporting will work like a snail with this speed
• Already, I’m working in isolation (my other team members are scattered all around Asia), not going to the office means I will miss out on local organizations gossips and updates
• I can work in peace in the office (won’t have a screaming Zara asking for mummy mid way through a teleconference)
• no one in the Malaysia office will know I’m dead if I work from home all the time

Pros of working from home:

• I don’t have to travel 30mins (highway all the way) to my sis’ or bro’s plc to drop Tuyam and Zara, and then another 15mins to the office; then in the evening, do the same. Save patrol, save toll (RM3.60 one way) & most importantly time
• When I start work, I don’t have to feel already half tired (from all the driving)
• I get to spend more time with Zara (since time is not used for travelling)
• I can spend all my break time playing with Zara as well as to nurse her (it definitely feels better than using the pump)
• I can check on the food Tuyam feeds Zara
• I can take a nap during lunch time with Zara
• The best part of working from home is able to see Zara popping her head into my home office occasionally with this big big grin.

Don’t I love my job for allowing me this flexibility?

I worked from home yesterday because I have back to back meeting starting from 7am (starting work so early is a torture like asking me to die early early, don’t know how egghead does it).

In the evening, I asked Tuyam to chop some iceberg lettuce and abalone mushroom, and then used this to make porridge for Zara. I left her with the instructions and went back to work.

When dinner was served, I scooped out some of Zara’s porridge into her bowl (I prefer to feed Zara when I’m around instead of getting the maid to do it). I noticed instead of chopping up the lettuce or mushroom to real small (baby with 4 teeth) bite size, Tuyam has cut the lettuce to long strips, and the mushroom big chunks. Both are not easy to chew. How’s the little girl going to manage?

I asked Tuyam, what happened here? She said “tak cukup kecil ke (is it not small enough)?” I told her both are equally difficult to chew, they are not fish or carrots, so these fibrous or rubbery stuff should be chop real finely like we chop up garlic for stirfrying.

Anyway, I scooped smaller pieces of the chopped up vege and mushroom and started feeding Zara, and reminded her to chew.

She took a mouth full, chewed real hard. Started whining, “Errr..” Gave her another mouth, she took it, and whined further. When the 3rd spoon reached her mouth, she pursed her lips, refused to opened again, and just turned her head away from the spoon. This didn’t look like her usual shake-head-don’t-want-any-more reaction. Let me try again.

I dipped a pair of kitchen scissors into the porridge to try to cut the vege and mushroom into smaller pieces. Then offered it to her, she pursed her lip still, and looked the other way.

We told her, “Zara, you try first, mummy cut up everything smaller already“.
The lips are pursed, head to one side.
“Zara, please. You try first”
Still the lips are pursed, but she looked at me
“Zara, really, you look at the spoon, every thing small small already”
Lips still pursed, but she looked at the spoon
“See, mummy didn’t bluff you, you try first. Please”
Opened her mouth, took the porridge.

Aaah, she finally accepted the spoon. We continued to feed her, and she continued to eat it, until she was full, she started shaking her head to indicate she didn’t want any more.

So, our little critic has come out with her own way of giving different ratings to her food:
4 star : eat, and eat, and eat — food is really good, right consistency for me, thumbs up to the chef
3 star : eat, eat again, then turned head, pursed lip — food is good, but not right consistency for me (like this case), please do some thing to correct it.
2 star : eat for a while, then shake head — food is bearable, but enough is enough.
1 star : 1st bite already shake head — I hate this please feed this to the cat

Although I’m a born Catholic, I’m never the real pious type. I went to the church because my parents made me go with them every Sunday. In fact, the last time I went to church for a mass, it was my wedding service, 7 years ago (My dad always tells me, my mum is turning in her grave because all her daughters have stopped going to church once they got married).

However, I DO believe in God, I try to do things/behave according to His teaching (at least I think I am). Every night, I will join my hands, and say a short ittle prayer before I go to sleep, my prayer goes something like this.

“Thanks for everything.
Please continue to let Zara be strong and healthy;
Protect her from any harm or danger (don’t let her fall, don’t let any bad people come close to her, don’t let her touch accidentally or intentionally any thing dangerous);
Guide me to be a better mother (don’t let me swear in front of her, don’t make me lose my temper with her, be patient with her, provide me with the wisdom to bring her up)”

And then, I’ll ask St Anne (as She’d done during my pregnancy).
“Please continue to guard over Zara”

I have nothing to ask for myself, because if Zara continues to be strong and healthy, and away from harm, I’m already most blessed.

Yesterday, I sms-ed one of my Malay colleague who happened to live in the same residential area as me to see if he knew of the nearest buka puasa (break fast) stall. He told me to head on to the Stadium.

After Zara woke from her nap at about 5pm+, we drove there to check out the place. This is the first time I’m glad to be living in Shah Alam (that’s the greedy me speaking). The whole Stadium Shah Alam car park has been converted to a wai-sek-guy (greedy street). 3 long rows of stalls, selling all kinds of Malay goodies.

The whole place was packed with vendors and customers. You can smell the aroma of satay, percik and grill fish in the air, I could feel the gastric juice in my stomach churning, mouth salivating, seeing the different kinds of food, kueh/cakes, colourful drinks (a turn-off for me). This is Gastronomic heaven! I just don’t know how our Muslim friends could walk in here, and not feel tortured, able to buy these goodies but could only eat this in an hour or so when they break fast.

We bought some raw dates, they were lovely, plum and sweet. We were eating the dates while walking and shopping for more goodies. Zara loved it too, she was taking big bites from my hand. Daddy then reminded that we should respect our Muslim friends, and should not eat here while they have not broken fast yet. I quickly fed Zara the last chunk of the date, and kept the rest for later.

We smelled a very strong whisp of santan (coconut milk) in the air, following the scent, it led us to this stall, with stack of steamer steaming nasi lemak (coconut milk rice). There were lots of people packing their nasi (rice) from the stall, we thought it must be pretty good, so we bought 3 packs as well for dinner.

After that, I had to queue at an ayam percik (barbequeu spiced chicken) stall to get some ayam percik. There were so many people waiting for their order to be fulfilled. Workers fanning away at the many charcoal stoves at the back of the stall, the whole place was smokey but smelled yummy. I asked Daddy to go ahead and bring Zara out of here first since it was too smokey for her, while I waited. I ordered 3 wings, and since many people ordered drumsticks, the first skewer of roasted wings went to me.

That night, we feasted on the nasi lemak and ayam percik (there were really good), while poor Zara had poridge cooked with watercrest soup. We all liked what we had, including Zara.