KIASUMOM is taking a break because.....

my daughter got HFMD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh Sigh Sigh.... I am praying very very hard that my boy will be spared but I am not hopeful. In the last few days they were playing so closely together, hugging and kissing.... oh GOD!!!!! Why do kids always have to get this from school??????

Please please give me the strength to get through this. Work is at its peak right now and it is really a bad time to take leave but I guess I have no choice. Where to send my kids if I don't stay home? The babysitter is caring for another baby so I am sure she will not like the idea of me sending my boy over (so I can separate them) since he may already been infected.

God is really putting me to the maximum test right now. I was sick last Wed and just got better and now I have to care for a sick child and a baby.

OK, have to go.. time to get some rest as I will have a lot of cleaning, disinfecting, washing and wiping to do in the next few days ... :-(

Zac's Update: 6+ months

AT 6+ months, I:

• am an expert in my walker, I can go where ever I want and my favourite hang out is the remote control area, there are 4 yummy remotes for me to taste!
• am learning to show my emotions, I will wail loudly when someone took away my toy while I am playing with it, I have also developed preference for certain toys
  
• get excited when I see my parents in the evening when they came to pick me up
• sometimes wants to be carried and will wave my hands to get attention so someone will carry me
• am still taking 6 bottles of 6oz everyday, have recently been introduced to formula (Mamex Gold). I get formula when mummy's supply is running low for that day
• have been given other food stuff to try out as well such as potatoes, bananas and teething biscuits, didn't really like them. Prefer to use my teething biscuit as my drum stick... to make music :-)
  
• love going shopping, love seeing so many people and all the exciting things out there
• have a nickname, mummy call me 'milo tin' sometimes cause I am round and short, like the tin!
• sleep longer at night now only waking up for 1 feed in the middle of the night
  
• ceh ceh recently got HFMD and we've been hugging and kissing a lot. I don't know if I have been infected by her. Let's hope not...

My very first flower from my girl

Some weeks back when I picked Hayley up from the babysitter she couldn't wait to pass something to me. She couldn't even wait until we get into the car. Right the door step of the babysitter's house, she opened her school bag and took out this:


Hayley: it's for you
Me: what is this?
Hayley: it's a flower, teacher made this
Me: what is it for?
Hayley: Happy Mother's Day

Then I reached for the flower and before I could even touch it she said

Hayley: wait, you have to say Gong Xi Fa Cai to me first (with her hands together doing the Gong Xi Fa Cai gesture)
Me: ah?????? [scratch head]

She got mixed up!!!!!! hahahahaha


Nevertheless, I still appreciate the flower and thank you my dear for a memorable Mother's Day!

Introducing formula

For the very first time this morning we introduced formula (Mamex Gold) to Zac and thankfully he accepted it with no issues. Zac at 6 months and 3 weeks old still drinks 6 bottles of 6oz everyday and gets 1 or 2 solid meals (rice cereals) a day. My production of breast milk is getting low of late (not sure why, maybe because I was unwell or maybe because of work stress) so I have started using my reserves in the freezer to meet his demands. I initially wanted to wait a while but then decided in the end to introduce him to formula earlier just to be sure that he will be able to tolerate it and not wait until the last min (ie when I ran out of breast milk).

I just find it very weird how my body reacted the same for both my kids. Both kids were exclusively breastfed for 6+ months and then I just stopped producing as much I was able to produce before despite me eating and drinking and expressing the same. I remembered that I also started supplementing Hayley with formula when she was 6+ months. My sis said it was psychological cause I used to tell her that I will be happy if I can exclusively feed my kids for 6 months at least, or maybe it was natural that my body can only cope for so long, I don't know, maybe it was both.

Anyway, I hope I will be able to continue to feed Zac for a little while more, maybe until he reaches 8 months old. I have to say that I did save a lot in the last 6+ months :-)

Life is so fragile

I just lost a school mate over the weekend to cancer... she was only 35!

When she found out about her cancer slightly more than a year ago, she was already at late stage 3 towards stage 4. In simple words, there was no hope for a cure. Nevertheless she still fought the battle and lost.

It made me realise 'again' that how fragile life can be and how we often take things for granted that 'there will always be tomorrow'. How can we be sure that there will always be tomorrow??

So this serves as a reminder to me and hopefully to the people I care about that life is too short to be wasted. Do what you like to do, eat what you want to eat, say what you want to say (responsibly of course) TODAY as tomorrow might not come....

My 3 year old

Lately I've been so occupied with Zac and adapting to his 'changed patterns' that I have forgotten to keep a tab on my 3 year old.. sigh.. bad mom I know :-(

Ever since she became a big sister and ever since she attended school, she has changed quite a bit. Just for the records, here they are:

• very loving of the little brother although sometimes she still shows some form of jealousy towards him
• very helpful when it comes to the little brother ie taking a diaper, picking up his toys from the floor, rocking him when we're busy, pulling his walker away from the TV when he gets too close and the cutest of all is when he is cranky she will go towards him and try to soothe him by imitating what we adults would do
• she is able to recite 1 to 20, 1 to 15 on her own and 16 to 20 with some help. She can also count/add smaller numbers such as 1 to 5 correctly on her own and 6 to 10 with some help. If there are 3 of us wearing jeans in the house, she will be able to tell us there are '3 people wearing jeans' or 'there are 4 people in the car' or '3 birds in the sky' etc.
• she can recite her A to Z correctly and can recognise her A to Z or a to z with some help on 'g', 'y' and 'u' occasionally.
• everyday she likes to sing nursery rhymes and makes the sounds of alphabets such as ba ba, da da, keh keh etc.
  
• she also picked up some malay words from school such as ikan fish, baju shirt, etc and can sing the entire 'bangun pagi gosok gigi song' with actions
  
• picking up the nail biting and straw biting habit from school again, we catches her doing it occasionally
• very lovely to get little handicrafts done by her (I am sure 90% completed by the teacher :-)) for special occasions such as angpow lanterns for CNY, a paper flower for Mother's Day etc. She's also very proud and protective with the things she brought home.
• been very keen in reading books at night before bedtime (something she didn't like when she was younger). Now she likes to spell the words out and then read them. She doesn't really know how to read yet, she actually memorised them.
• have started learning the trade of negotiating with us ie if she wanted to go somewhere she will make a promise that we will only go for 5 mins or just one time etc.
  
• still wearing diapers to bed at night. We've not trained her to go diaperless (our fault) but for the past few nights the diapers has been dry. Then one day we decided to take out the diaper and on that very night she wet the bed. The next night we put on a diaper for her and it was dry :-(
• still very picky with food but seems to be more open towards fruits
• have also picked up the skill of teasing us. Sometimes she likes to intentionally say the wrong words when we asked her and then followed by a cheeky smile.
• is getting better at her colouring or drawing, just need to teach her to be more focused. She gets bored very quickly.
  

My girl is growing up so quickly that I think I am going to miss the little her ....