Oh No!!

I am pretty sick since last Sunday. I worked almost the entire Friday night for a discussion on Saturday with my client. It went well but not my health.

Worse still, my boy had fever and sore throat last week and is just recovering. Myself ? Getting worse. The worst is that hubby was also stricken by his sinus and got tremendous headache on Monday. So that was it, we thought we want to rest early on Monday night and sought of 'cancel' my boy's almost a routine milking time at night. Jien tossed and turned and keep wanting me to nurse him. I was extremely exhausted. I could not sleep and rest well nursing him. I ended up woke up in fume! I scolded no one but I did screamed out LOUD!! Oh ok, my fault my fault. I scared the boy and woke up the father.

Then I rushed to the kitchen to prepare his milk, he happily finished all of it (yes, by spoon feeding him of course!). He then followed me up to the bed, happily nursing again (for comfort ler..) and soon enough he fell asleep.

To my boy and hubby - I apologize here for raising my voice. I am sorry.

Sigh...

Anyway, I am glad that this nightmare only happened after Jien is one year plus. I could not imagine myself fully breast feeding him and fell sick!! OMG!

080308

Remember this date 8th March 2008 as it marks a new chapter for all Malaysians.

Yes, it was our voting day yesterday, coincides with the International Women's Day. I vote, of course and it was my 3rd. And like usual, I went with my brother. I love the atmosphere of the voting day. It is a day that I felt so strongly that I AM A MALASYSIAN and I am PART of it. The feeling is stronger than the National Day for sure. I love the fact that everyone eligible is there and we all have one vote in hand to cast - for the betterment of the nation.

This time, the feeling is ALL so strong.

The whole night, we stayed up with FIL, MIL, SIL to check online and on TV for the latest result. (See, we love the country so much actually). I could not hold it anymore after 11pm but hubby stayed on for the result. We knew something is unusual here. The counting of votes had already been done in most schools and voting centers by 7pm. And with the system now, all news should be out by latest 9pm or 11pm. We knew that it would be a close fight and in me, I just hope that it would be a fair fight.

And so by now, we all knew the result.

I am relieved. It seems that a majority of city folks shared the sentiment - to see a change of blood in the system. It is a big win for the oppositions for Penang, Selangor, Kedah, Kelantan and Perak.

I am glad. Thanks to the people who supported the oppositions and give the country a new breath and chance.

I am glad. Thanks to the people who take their time out to vote.

Thanks to internet, You-tube, Malaysiakini-Raja Petra and other opposition leaders, supporters and volunteers.

Ah..what a day!

Penang CNY

Anything that we do together as a family, is an awesome rewarding time for me. A very grateful time that normally I will stop and thank God for giving me these 2 wonderful boys (hubby and Jien la of course!)

We drove up to Penang for a short trip (normally just to filled our stomach with all the mouth watering Penang delicacies!!)during the CNY.

We took a delighted stroll at night at the Kek Lok Si temple . All thru our campus life, we had never visited this temple at night and it is a different experience all together. The arrays of lights, the breeze, the night scene of Penang made the walk worthwhile. And not forgetting the pumpkin garden (picture)!

As for Jien, we think he enjoyed the Butterfly Farm and the Taiping Zoo better. He saw his favourite elephants. And when he sees the animals that he is familiar with - monkeys, butterfly, bird, tiger, lion, he would point at them. I still remember during our trip in Perth, he hardly look at the animals but plants and flowers!!

I look forward to our next trip now.

Progressing to Formula

Like most other exclusively breast fed babies, Jien disliked formula milk when we start introducing him at about 6 months. So much of coaxing, persuading, changing of mouth piece, changing the type of bottle/container did not do much help. So I had to still kept expressing milk though the production at that time was slowing down.

After about 8 months, I started to get back to work like normal, expressing milk takes time as production by then was really plunging. Hubby decided to try other brand of milk - 'S....lac', the brand Jien drank when he was down with jaundice. He started by taking only 1 oz, sometimes 2. So we mixed. I tried to 'shy away' from him every time my maid is feeding him so that he will not cling to me (or rather, my breast!!). It was a slow but a steady progress. My maid had to coax him most of the time and yes, we did throw away lots of milk.

One fine day, my maid decided to take away the mouth piece and spoon feed him. Bingo!! My boy started to drink MORE!

Since then, he is progressing well. He is now taking about 6 oz. of milk, 3 times a day. It is of course very time consuming as you can't use the big spoon nor you don't expect him to open his mouth all the time. Anyway, I think it is ok-lah. I guess our option now is to wait till he can drink directly from a cup.

As for the moment, his only breast feeding time is before he goes to sleep at night. Oh do I still producing milk?? Yes, I think I do. I think the occasional traveling helped a bit as during the trip, we sometimes skipped formula and go for the 'organic' which helps stimulate the production again.

Every time I meet my aunts and relatives, they would undoubtedly questioned me and went:

'Huh??!! You are still breastfeeding?? Got milk meh??"

'GOT.' I firmly said. Kekeke...

Reading

My boy loves books. We encouraged him to read but did not realize that he actually love books that MUCH!

Hence, he has got heaps of books by now. And we learned that he loves to TEAR and BITE books too. Hence we had to invest on board books (even some flash cards were 'vandalized'!!!)

We gave him flash cards when he was like so tiny, I think when he was about 6 months old then. Each time when we are through to letter Z, we would sing him the 'ABC' song. We discarded the idea of card flashing ever since we came back from Australia when we found out that some of the cards went missing and some were in such terrible conditions and plus the manner he threw the cards and messed up the whole floor that we (even my maid) find it a bit taxing picking (and finding!!!) them up. Urrrsshh....

Lately, we showed him the last VCD from the Baby Einstein series. It is Baby Shakespeare. The girls were singing the 'ABC' song and Jien turned his face and pointed at the bunch of flash cards which were left on a 'high' point of a shelf( you know why.. )!!! I was really amazed!!

So I start to wonder and worry, how many BAD things that he had picked up from ME since he (and i believed other babies too!! Are you worry mommies??) had such good memories??!! Oopsy.....(*biting finger nails*)!!! ;P