A couple of months back, Channel blogged about Miabambina’s online shop which specialises in cloth diapers. It got me interested, I went to check out the site as well as Miabambina’s blog; asked a few questions and few days later, I ordered my cloth diapers.

I ordered 4 pieces from her (3 pieces of Drybees and 2 pieces of Bumgenious), and also included 2 extra inserts. Just to give you some information, these cloth diapers are washable and reusable. It has valcro fastener, and comes in some really cool colours and nice designs. To use the diaper, just slip in the absorbant insert into the diaper pocket. It’s pretty simple. The absorbant insert will absorb all the pee, while the diaper suedecloth inner keeps the baby dry. Because the diaper is pretty light weight,  2 hours of sunning will dry it after a wash. The insert itself takes a while to dry, that’s why I bought extra for cloudy days.

They don’t come cheap, each diaper is about ~RM75 with insert, it’s however more eco friendly; and in the long run, I will save some money from having to buy disposable diapers.

Zaria is fully on cloth diaper in the day when we’re home. She only uses disposable diapers in the night as well as when we go out (just because I don’t want to carry a soiled diaper home if she did a poo). She’s comfortable in it, makes her bum very well padded, which also makes her look rather cute!

The only problem I have with this is that Zaria is allergic to the suedecloth inner of the diaper (which is in contact with her skin), she had some rashes when we started using the cloth diaper. This was very quickly resolved with us lining the diaper with a piece of nappy liner (which cost very little).

I should have discovered this when Zara was still on diaper, then I would really save money big time! For those of you who have young babies, you may want to consider cloth diapering as well.

Zaria and her cloth diaper, in retro pink, baby pink and celery green

Went to our neighbour’s son, Zackary’s birthday party in Kidszone, Plaza Damas on Saturday. I realised when Zara is eating with friends, she’ll just scoop up whatever that’s placed in front of her. When she’s with us, it’s a different story all together.
Zaria didn’t miss out the fun too, quietly observing what’s happening around.
My mum’s death anniversary, and the family met in the cemetary. This is Zara’s first visit to the cemetary (spot her Phua Chu Kang’s boots).
Zara was saying a prayer, but I really don’t know what about.
Later when we asked her why we went to the cemetary, she said, “Mummy’s mummy die already.” When I asked, “Where is mummy’s mummy now?” She replied, “Under the grass now.”

Zaria trying out Bebe Pod (a “Help Me Sit Seat”). Of course we didn’t buy that for her.
Zaria swimming in a pool for the first time 2 weeks back. She was such a natural, paddling here and there on her own, no need to have mummy near by.
Zaria absolutely love to lick the lollipop liked teether. We keep it in the freezer, and on a hot day, we give it to her as a treat, she’ll be happily licking it away.

I hosted a 3hours morning workshop for 7 days recently. I had to make sure speakers arrive on time, participants have no problem joining, Q&A are jotted down etc. Thank goodness for technology, they were all done through audio conference and virtual meeting room, making it possible for me to attend at home.

However, being the host and with all the coordinations to do (and all the problems related to logistic to solve), I have to be at my desk more than 3hours in the morning. What happened when Zaria needed her milk after her morning bath?

Thank goodness I invested in My Brest Friend, a nursing pillow which can be strepped around your waist.

This is my best friend.

I know I shouldn’t do this hands free, but when worn while seated close to the table, it prevented her from rolling down from the other end of the pillow. Now with this, I could feed Zaria hands free, still able to do my typing, notes taking, talking.

(oh boy, doesn’t this sound like a PPP/sponsored post? Unfortunately it’s not.)

We used to bring Zara to Lake Gardens on weekends when we have no where to go, to feed the monkeys and also to play at the big play ground. Now, we found another nice place to bring her, Taman Tasik Titiwangsa.

What’s there besides the recently erected Eye of Malaysia? Zara’s favourite animals -> Horse!

We always go to the stable directly. You get horse carriage riding as well as horse riding there, and it’s cheap.
Horse Carriage : Adult RM1 Kids RM0.50
Horse Riding for kids : RM1 per round (a handler will actually pull the horse)
This is cheaper than going on a kiddie ride in a shopping mall which will normally be about RM2.  

And for Eye of Malaysia, it’s RM15 for adults, and FOC for children below 3. For this, we only went once, and that should be enough.

Here are some of the photos taken during our recent trips there.

She just loves horses! She prefers the horse riding to the horse carriage though.

Eye of Malaysia close up

Zara enjoyng herself in the Eye of Malaysia

We brought Zaria there the 2nd time we went, but she only spent the entire time sleeping, in the baby carrier. Zara running around the park after horse riding.

We took an early flight to Phuket on Thursday (5/10). A Phuket colleague of mine arranged for a taxi to pick us up from the airport for a fraction of the price that the hotel would charge if we booked the car from the hotel.

Being nosy on the plane. Enjoying a cool towel and welcome drink in the resort

The Hotel
Twinpalms Resort is a small boutique hotel located in the quiet beach of Surin. Just like its website, the place is beautiful. We got really good rates from the internet after doing some shopping around, and I don’t believe you can get anything near that kind of accommodation (and service) in M’sia for that price.

We stayed in the deluxe room on the ground floor the first night. Zara liked the room very much, it has a roomy balcony, and a few steps away from the pool. Since there was no bath tub provided, I asked for an anti-slip mat for Zara. I was delighted that the hotel instead loaned us a Winnie The Poo bath tub, together with a set of complimentary baby toileteries (which included bottle and nappy wash). Now, how many hotels would give you some thing like this? So far in my experience, none (not even our famous Pangkor Laut or Tanjung Jara resort).

Horsing around in the room, and the resort

For the rest of the 3 nights, we upgraded ourselves to a Grand deluxe room (err, because the cheaper rooms were no longer available in the bargain website I booked the room from) located on the 1st floor. The room was bigger, and it came with a bathtub. Zara of course enjoyed the new bath tub very much.

Big tub fun, and exploring the resort

The Pool
Twinpalms has 1600sqm of water surface, the pool runs across the middle of the premise, with rooms surrounding it. Some of the rooms even have direct access to the pool (i.e. the room is directly connected to the pool).

Zara went swimming every day, spending about 1 to 2hrs at the pool. There’s no baby pool available, but they have shallow slope leading to deeper end, so she spent most of her time walking up and down the slopes.

We don’t have to hold on to her, she paddled about herself, even when her feet could not touch the ground. We just have to be nearby to assist her if she has her head accidentally dipped in the water.

The Pampering
This is more of relaxing trip for me. Daddy has been great, taking care of Zara most of the time since he knows I’m too big to be running after or carrying Zara.

I also got a surprise gift from my best friend in New York. She bought us a spa voucher in Twinpalms without me knowing, and I was very surprise to see this in our room when we checked in. Our anniversary isn’t until end next month, but this is such a nice gesture from her.

On top of this, the booking website also gave us a 2hrs spa treatment voucher for booking more than 3 nights stay.

Daddy is not a spa person, so I got all the pampering in the spa, making use of these vouchers, while Daddy looked after Zara in the room. I had such a good back and shoulder rub, oh, it was orgasmic! (Thanks Ping!)

And then, what’s more blissful than lounging at the poolside sala, sipping herbal tea, while watching the kid and Daddy play in the pool.

(Thanks Daddy, for allowing me this luxury by looking after Zara.)

We had another fun filled but busy weekend. Heard a lot about A Famosa Resort, so we thought we will make a trip there before I get too big.

We left the house at about 12pm, there was a massive jam on the highway caused by a major accident, near Seremban, it took us almost 1 1/2 hrs to drive through that stretch.

Jason recommended that we stay in Tampin town instead of the resort, since Tampin is very near A Famosa, and there’s a brand new ‘budget’ hotel just opened recently. We arrived at 4pm and went to check out the hotel first. For RM110, Wangsa Mas price wasn’t ‘budget’; since it’s new, it’s relatively clean but the room is very basic. After we checked in, with the directions from the hotel receptionist, we headed towards A Famosa, Daddy was saying, “Just in time for the Animal Safari, to see the action (of the animals) in the evening.”

After 30mins of driving and A Famosa was no where to be found, Daddy got a bit annoyed. “Near is very a very subjective word. Your friend’s kind of near, is definitely not my kind of near.” Daddy even got more furious when we arrived at A Famosa shortly, and the parking attendant at the Animal Safari told us they are closed at 5pm.

So no animals for that day, we headed towards the Cowboy town instead. We paid RM30 per adult (Zara is free since she’s below 2yrs old), and when we got in, Daddy was not impressed. It was a dead town (since we were early), with just a street with buildings built to look like a cowboy town. “For this they charge RM30?” Mr Grump said. Since it was too far to go back to Tampin for dinner (so we thought) and too early for anything, we just had an early dinner in a Chinese restaurant in Cowboy Town.

After dinner, we walked about the ‘town’. Zara finally meeting a pony (she has been keen to see one since she saw it in her Barney DVD), she was so eager to pat the ponies, and got a kick on her calf by one unfriendly black pony, poor girl. One of the cowboys greeting visitors at the entrance. Red Indian with a very small head.

For RM10, Zara is able to get unlimited ride on the amusement park in the town, but all she wanted was the Carousel. We tried to put her on one of the aeroplane rides (that just goes round like the carousel), and we had to get the operator to stop it mid way because she was crying and screaming.

She didn’t want to get down, always asking for ‘some more’ every time when it’s over. We had to lie and said the batteries of the horses need to be charged for her to get down. We definitely got our RM10 worth.

These trampolines were meant for some ‘bungee jumping’ and the section was closed. We just let Zara jump on one, since she loves jumping on bed so much.

Showtime in Cowboy Town starts at 8:30pm. This was when we started feeling ‘worthwhile’. First show was Red Indian show, or ‘Fire’ show, followed with Animal Carnival.

‘Red Indians’ spinning torches, swallowing and spitting fire. Trained animals (from chickens to lion) walking the street

And then it was fireworks. Zara got a bit frightened by the blasting sound, but with our hands covering her ears, she started enjoying it as well.

The most spectacular of all the show

We left after the fireworks. This time, with the A Famosa guard giving us directions, it took us about 5mins to get back to Tampin. We took a wrong way earlier. “Your friend was right, it is very near.” A cheerful daddy said. “And for RM30, it’s quite good entertainment in the Cowboy Town hor?”

That night, both Daddy and I didn’t get a good sleep, and for some extend, Zara too. We had extremely noisy neighbours, who came in a group, and booked a few rooms. They were slamming doors, shouting to each other across rooms, playing loud music. At 2am, I couldn’t stand it anymore, went out of our room and shouted at them, “Oi, what time is it ah? You don’t need to sleep other people need to you know?” After a few sorry, I thought they will be more quiet, but then the noise didn’t stop till 3am, and then started again at 5am. Gosh, I almost wanted to slap them when I met them in the morning.

And for Zara, I’m not sure if she’s starting to get attached to her room, or she finds the hotel room too ‘basic’ for her liking, she started asking us to “Go home” when we changed her for bed. And middle of the night, she woke up a few times, looked around her, and then nudged me and said “Mummy, go home”. She dropped back to sleep when I told her it’s too far to go home. So it was like no sleep for me the whole night.

The following morning, after checking out and had breakfast in Tampin Market, we headed to A Famosa Resort, to ‘revisit’ the Animal Safari. Zara was chanting “Go Zoo, go see animals” the whole morning.

Entrance fee for Animal Safari is RM35/adult, free for Zara again. We missed the morning shows (shows start early, and then get repeated in the afternoon), since we arrived at about 11am.

Zara is always keen to meet ‘animals’.

We caught the bird show, which was really good.

Photos with the trained birds after the bird show.

For lunch, it was 4 packs of Tong’s Garden’s nuts, and 2 milo ice shared between Daddy and I. Zara had her milk, and some nuts. Oh well, we were not ‘stingy’ and unwilling to spend. The cafe in the Animal Safari only served some I-don’t-even-know-what-they-are Middle Eastern meals if you ordered over the counter. For more common dishes like Fish and Chips, Chicken Chop, you have to purchase the voucher from the entrance of the park. Stupid system? That’s what I told the lady mending the restaurant.

We then watched the Wild Wild West show; the most boring of all shows, for me. However, Zara was so entertained by it, and can even recalled what happened (“Good cowboy take gun bang bang bad cowboy. Bad cowboy fall down from the building. Then got Red Indian jiejie.” etc). And then followed by Multi Animal Show (with dogs, monkeys, raccoons performing).

Daddy then took the Safari truck with Zara to go around the park. I wasn’t allowed on the truck because I was pregnant, and the guy mending the station said they already encountered 7 miscarriages of pregnant ladies who went on the truck from the bumpy ride. It was a 20mins ride, and Zara said she liked it as she could see lion, tiger and giraffes.

By now, Zara wa very tired, but she kept saying, “Want to see more animals”, and trying to keep herself awake. However, 3minutes later, she was asleep in her pram. We only let her have a 30mins nap, we woke her up when it was time for the Elephant show.

Photos with the casts from the Wild Wide West show, and then with the Elephant from the Elephant show.

After the elephant show, it was already 5pm. We took Zara to the last attraction, the Chicken farm. Daddy sneaked his hand into the chicken coup and pulled out a little chicken for Zara to stroke. She really loved it, after that she kept saying, “Little chicken so cute and soft”.

The Animal Safari is worth the RM35 entrance fee. The place is cleaner, and you get closer to the ‘animals’ than Zoo Negara, and the shows are all quite entertaining. Very worthwhile for parents with young children.

We spent most of Sunday in the resort itself.

After a sumptuous breakfast, when we brought Zara to the beach, we saw horses available for hire. Zara was very interested, and said, “Want to sit horsey!” When I asked if she was going to ride on her own, she said, “Mummy sit with you (me).” So I went with Zara. It was just a stroll on the beach, with the horse handler guiding the horse on the leash.

She really enjoyed herself, patting the horse on and off, and kept saying, “Zara so happy.” When we got back, she thanked the horse and patted it. The horse handler mentioned she’s very brave because most young kids would have been quite fearful of the height while being on the horse, and the size of the horse.

Zara and mummy on the horse; Zara patting the horse to thank it; Zara running about and playing in the resort compound.

For late lunch, headed to town for Sisters’ char kuey teow in Macalister Road. Zara was tired and dopey, and only had some prawn fritters from the lobak stall. Then it was a wasted trip to Komtar. Our intention was to get more DVDs (as we got some really good quality foreign film there on our last trip), but because of the raid, the shops were closed, so we left empty handed.

Late in the evening, we brought Zara for a swim. The water was icy cold and even though she was shivering, she refused to get out. She didn’t want to leave until she was able to lie in the water and float, and got some applause from two Middle Eastern men watching. She was so proud, and kept telling us later, “Zara so clever to swim. Uncle Bravo Zara.”

For dinner, it was again to Nonya Breeze. This time, it was 4 dishes (fish, prawns, vege, egg), 1 duck soup, 1 nasi kerabu, 3 drinks, and the bill was less than RM50.

On Monday morning, Zara wanted horsey ride again. This time, the handler told us he would bring us further, but when we were heading back, Zara asked to get down, she was complaining, “Bum bum pain pain.” from the long ride.

Zara patting the horse while on it; Happy to be on the ground again because her bum was hurting; Back up the horse alone for a photo shoot; Thanking the horse and saying good bye.

We then had to check out and move to Equatorial Hotel (as it was nearer for Daddy to get to Prai for work). Daddy headed off to work after dropping us off. Zara and I had a slow leisurely buffet lunch, all she had was some almond flakes and a scoop of ice cream when mummy pigged out.

Back in the room, I had the TV on for her (Tom & Jerry was on) while I washed her bottle in the toilet. Suddenly, I heard her crying outside, I rushed out to check on her, “what happened?”. She just pointed to the TV and said, “Cat cat so naughty. Make puppy cry!” And tears started pouring down again. My gosh, she was crying over the scene where Tom woke up a puppy from its sleep (and it started yelping) while chasing after Jerry. No more Tom & Jerry, since it got her so emotional.

Evening was swimming again, and this time, another achievement from her, she could actually let go off my hand, and paddle on her own (with arm floats of course) for a few seconds.

That night, we just had dinner in the hotel as we were too lazy to go out (and don’t know where to go).

My morning sunshine.

Tuesday, Daddy left early in the morning. I brought Zara for breakfast, then a swim, and then we had to check out (bloody hotel wouldn’t let us have late check out!). Spent the next few hours loitering in the hotel, and also in Bukit Jambul mall while we waited for Daddy to pick us up after work.

To get to Bukit Jambul mall, we had to take a cab there, and Zara refused to get on the cab. She actually pushed the door shut while I tried to get her in, she said, “Want to sit only mummy’s car. Don’t want this car.” Such a fussy girl.

Even though it’s a bit tiring for me to handle her alone (esp lugging the bag containing her water, biscuit, Mr Blue, and our gigantic camera etc; and sometimes having to carry her to walk up and down stairs, with the stroller strapped around my shoulder), Zara was a good girl, and it was very easy to take care of her. Most of the time, she just let me push her about in the stroller, and she kept occupied by singing and reciting nursery rhymes to herself.

Daddy came to pick us up from the mall at about 5pm (since no cab wanted to take us back to the hotel or asked for exorbitant price. I heard cabbies were on strike that day because they were supposed to start to run on meter that week), and we headed back to KL.

We just found out on Sunday that there are free kiddie rides in Giant Shah Alam.

There are 3 units at the kids’ play area, and another 3 near the check out counters. I like the ones at the check out counters. Giant cashiers are not known for their efficiency. From queing to having your items scanned to paying, you probably have to wait for at least 15mins. What a good idea to have some free kiddie rides for the kids while the parents do the paying (and waiting).

The rides are old and they play Indonesian pop songs instead of nursery rhymes, but who cares, it’s free!

We got Zara on a few of them, waiting quite a while for our turn because some kids just refused to get down from the rides, and went on and on.

She probably likes the duck ride the most, because it was the first ride she has. The lion was found at the check out counter. She likes Lion, so she seemed to like this too.

Hmm.. Now, she’s a bit bored.. Too many free rides already.

Note: These photos are taken from Daddy’s mobile, hence the grainy quality.

Zara’s toys collection is increasing. She has a variety of toys either inherited from King’s Wife’s kids or my kind friend (anybody who gives me things is kind). We seldom buy her toys, but when we do, we try to get her something which have educational value, and which also give her lots of play time (l.b. iPod Nano is definitely not one of them, not now anyway).

Her recent interest is in masak-masak (Malay: cooking set); she likes to hold a spoon, dips it into a cup, and pretends to feed herself or whoever is near her. I just got her a basic set, as I’m eyeing for my niece, Samantha’s collection. She’s going to be 9, she should be done with masak-masak soon, or so I hope.

My youngest sis went to Hong Kong Disneyland during the time Zara celebrated her birthday, so she didn’t attend Zara’s party. She brought something back for Zara though, however, we didn’t collect it until 2 days ago.

Besides a Disney hat, she got Zara a cuddly Love To Walk Winnie The Pooh but sadly nothing for me. The toy’s purpose I believe was to encourage toddlers to walk.

You turn the switch on, and Winnie The Pooh will start walking, while muttering, “Pooh Bear can walk.”
And then it’ll go faster, and it’ll say, “Faster Faster”.
If you dropped, it would say, “Oh O, Pooh Bear falls down”.
If you picked it up and held it, it would say, “Thank you. Pooh Bear loves you”

It says other things too, under different conditions. I still haven’t found out what other conditions make it talk or walk, and it didn’t come with a manual, so I guess we’ll just discover it along the way.

Zara loves it, that’s the most important thing. She giggled when the bear walked towards her. When the bear quickened its pace, she too started to stamp her feet excitedly. When it stopped talking, she picked it up and gave it a hug.

.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
So, here is the latest addition to her toy collection. Not sure how long she’ll be interested in Mr Pooh though.

(Fannie, I believe this is something that Ethyl will definitely love, Zara is not a fan of Pooh, in fact this is her first encounter with this ‘species’)

(btw, the shots above are my attempt on the DSLR; I still have lots to learn, but I realise the shots are very much sharper)

How many of us are guilty with not helping with the photo development industry after getting our digital camera? Not having any hard copy photos to show and tell?

My house has a few framed up photos of my nieces when they were young, but none of Zara’s. I am so guilty.

I used to develop photos very often when we were still using the good old camera which required films. After we changed our camera to a digital camera, since Nov 2003, not a single photo had been developed even when we’d taken tons of photos. All of them were burnt into CDs or just residing in my HDD.

After seeing Mom2ashley blogged about Pixart, I decided I should get an album done for Zara. It took another 3months before I submitted the files to Pixart. Being kiamsiap (stingy) Wanting to stretch my dollar further, I selected the best photos from Zara’s first year and compiled them into a photobook.

You use the pixart software to select a theme, arrange your photos, put in your caption, and then ftp the file over to pixart once done. Payment is made via the web.

There are 2 types of paper you can print on, one is photo print (pages are just like photos you developed in the shop), another is digital print (using 250g paper, which is like those very good quality magazine papers). I chose photo print, because I wanted the book to last as long as it could (photo print papers have been said to be able to last up till 50yrs without fading of colours). For a 17 pages photobook, it costs me RM135 including postage. You should see Daddy moaning, when he learnt of the price, not that he’s paying (That’s why I can’t be a SAHM, he’s always ‘moaning’ even when I’m spending my own money)!

We got the photobook on Monday. All nicely bound up, very professionally done. It is a hard cover coffee table book kind of album.

The cover

One of the pages

The only problem with the printing is the darkness of the photos. Some of them looked darker when printed than it was on screen. It was also my mistake for not brightening them up (available in their software) before submitting them for printing.

Next time, I’ll do better.

Added at 7:15pm :
The guy from Pixart dropped by just now to collect my photobook for reprinting of one page (and of course rebinding of the whole book, for free) since they accidentally cropped one of the photo. He showed me some very nice photobook samples for special occasion like a wedding, a full moon party, and photobooks printied on digital print (i.e. pages are like very thick magazine papers).

They are very nice, I think they are nicer alternative to those wedding albums that we traditionally have, what more you can put your own caption, and not those default non-meaningful (or even incomprehensible, sometimes) captions that normally come with the bridal house albums.

Aw.. Looks like I’m going to do more album for Zara, and maybe, just maybe, I will scan all my wedding photos and make a wedding album for myself.