Sara : 11 months

Okay, this is an overdue post, Sara is almost 1 year old. Yikes. How time flies!!! Actually, she can walk on her own already. BUT, I still say that she can't because she can't seem to stand up on her own. We need to prop her into standing position and there she goes, walking like nobody's business. Heh, lazyBUM. After we came back from Melbourne, she has developed some kind of attitude change AND IT WAS NOT GOOD. It feels like the terrible two phase has arrived early. She wanted to be held ALL THE TIME, she cried for no reason, she refuses to eat, she doesn't finish her milk, her toilet training has gone haywire and OH MY GOD, she consumes soooo much energy from me and my mum.

When she recovered her health, she still have the mood swing attitude where everything is wrong to her. Until one day (last Saturday, I think), she had food poisoning. Again. Gahhh!!! Bad Mommy!!! But, the silver lining this time is she's back to her normal happy self. Yeay!!! She eats as usual, loves playing peek-a-boo and finishes her 200ml milk. Double yeay!!!

She's quite her daddy's daughter and her Nenek's grandchild. Reason : she can said Nenek and Babah perfectly. For some reason, she also can said Kakak perfectly.

She has four teeth now, two upper teeth and two bottom teeth. However, we constantly have to remind her to chew on her food because she'll just swallow everything without chewing.

She still hasn't reach 10kgs yet and she's getting thinner, no thanks to the flu. But, she got so tall, I have buy pants and skirts for size 3 years old. Ha!

Oh, and she is such a scaredy cat, she's afraid of almost everything. Haha! Okay, fine, she got that from me. ;p Our usual dialog will go something like this:

Mummy : Sara, see that cat? Bad cat. Mummy is scared. Are you scared?
Sara : (with big round eyes clasping her hand to her chest) SCAREDDDDDD.....

Oh, she can "salam" people now. And, if u ask real nice, she might give you a peck in the cheek as well ;)

Trip to down under Part 2

So, there goes two days of our holiday thanks to the malicious Melbourne weather. We didn't even get to see Che Su's graduation day :(

It seems such a waste traveling all this way just to fall sick. So, we braced ourselves and went shopping. The night before, me and my mum stayed awake (well, my mum mostly) taking care of Sara. On Thursday, we went to DFO (Direct Factory Outlet) in Essendon. The prices are quite reasonable, although lots of clothing are cheaper in Malaysia during sale. My mom initially wanted to buy Corelle or Corningware sets but forgo that intention seeing the prices. She said its cheaper in Langkawi. Heh.
On Friday, since both of us are feeling better, so we went to Victoria market to get some souvenirs. This time, although the weather was quite warm, I layered Sara with three layers of clothing. I bought Sara and Babah matching sweaters so that they can jog together. Haha! As if that's going to happen ;p

gambar selingan : doing the "Yana" smile ;p

I'm also very impressed with Melbourne's map. The streets, although rather complicated, are easy to navigate. (TIP for using a map - I will tilt the map according to the road I am on, so that there will be no confusion when turning left or right. Works everytime. Haha)

On Saturday, we decided to have a picnic in a park nearby. Initially, we wanted to go see some kangaroos or any other animal but we weren't feeling up to it. We took lots of photos and this is my favourite photo of Sara.
All in all, the trip to Melbourne was not all fun because we were sick and we didn't even get to see Che Su's graduation. To Yana, congratulations!! I hereby consent you taking 1 month off doing nothing. You know you EARNED it. Love you to bits!!!
Nota kaki : Setibanya kami di Malaysia, mata Sara yang layu dan kuyu terus menjadi segar diiringi senyuman yang memekar di bibirnya yang mungil. Saya dan adik saya serta-merta berkata "Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri, lebih baik di negeri sendiri". Saya sayang Malaysia. ;)

Trip to down under Part 1

The plan was to see Che Su's big day. No, not her wedding...her graduation day ;) We flew to Melbourne on Sunday afternoon. I made sure Sara had her lunch before boarding the flight and we tire her with some serious playtime in the airport to get her sleeping when we took off. The plan worked ;)

I booked the seat online to make sure I can use the baby bassinet. Little did I know my baby was actually a tad too big for the bassinet. Well, she did sleep soundly in it though.In terms of flying with AirAsia, they certainly have leaps and bounds to improve especially on the customer relation part. Even the basic rule such as smiling to your customers was not obeyed by the stewardess. I'd definitely travel with MAS from now on.

Sara was such a good baby in the plane. She even looked at a toddler who is crying and gave him a look that says "This is how you should behave in a flight. Stop torturing others with your endless crying" Okay, fine, Mummy said that, not her innocent little angel. ;p

We arrived in Melbourne at 1am and was greeted by the breezing cold weather. We passed through immigration and custom with no problem (I anticipated one as I had to bring along Sara's fm).

Believe it or not, first thing we did when we arrive was...cooking! None of us had dinner yet, so we were kind of famished. We had a hot dinner (I meant that literally because dear Nenek put too much chilli in the nasi goreng) and fell asleep minutes later.

We woke up around 10am Australian time which is 3 hours earlier than our time which makes me a morning person. Yeay!!

The agenda today was to take graduation photos at RMIT studios. Basically, a very relaxed and non stressful activity. Che Su said that its going to be a hot day, only her HOT means COLD TO THE BONES in Malaysian language. I guess she did live here too long. We were gritting our teeth throughout the day.

We had lunch at an Indonesian restaurant, then head home. During the night, Sara felt a little feverish. I felt fine, so I thought it was just the body trying to adjust. HOWEVER, when both of us woke up in the morning, everyone was sick, except for Nenek and Cik Ngah.

Day 2 : Mummy and Sara is down with fever in the down under. Pardon the pun ;p. Will be continued in Part 2.

The Amazing Race Season 15

I am an avid watcher of The Amazing Race. I have been watching it since season 1 and it is my most favourite reality tv series. Usually, my favourite team are family team (Nancy & Emily, Lena & Kristy) or couples with functional relationship (Rob & Amber, Kris & Jon).

This season which ended last Monday was a bit of a let down to me. None of the teams were memorable, and Sam and Dan are the worst stupid jerk on the show. And Meghan and Cheyne winning? No surprises there. However, watching the season finale makes me wonder how wil I be like if I were to join The Amazing Race. More importantly, who would I choose for a partner? Hee, God knows I'm not such an easy person to get along with, especially under stressful environment.

I will definitely not enter this kind of competition with dear hubby. I do love him dearly, BUT we will butt head over the slightest thing. Me + Hubby = combustible arguments. Heh. My list of choices includes:

1) My sister Yanie for her sense of direction
2) My sister Yana for her compatibility with me in MOST aspects
3) Mama Idraki for her mad driving skills ;)
4) Mummy Allysha for her problem solving skills
5) Ikmal for his ability to comprehend and assess a situation ;p
6) Kak El for her dependability and TOUGHness
7) Abg Mi for his dare devil and athleticity
8) En Pian for his uncanny ability of thinking WAYYYY outside the box
9) Cik Piza for her analytical thinking
10) Combination of Haris (for his level headedness) and Aril (for his funny bone..hihi)

Now, if only I can find such a person that has all the above attribute and who is willing to travel with a big headed-always need to be right-egotistical-will get angry if not fed properly woman, please call. We can go for The Amazing Race Asia together!!! Ha..ha..ha

LIGHT packing for a BIG trip

Seriously, how do you travel light with a baby? We will be going to Melbourne for Che Su's graduation this Sunday. THIS SUNDAY. Yikes. I know it is not such a big deal, but I am a bit worried because this will be the very first time Sara on a flight.

I've made a checklist *clap clap* of all the things to bring which can be categorized into this:

1) FEEDING - bib, spoon, hands&mouth wipes, foods (oats with prunes, rusks biscuits and heinz jar), milk bottle, flask, formula milk, milk container
2) CLOTHING - at least 8 pants, 12 tops, sweater, cardigan among other things.
3) DIAPERING - baby wipes, 10 pcs of napkin, 2 pcs of CDs, disposable diapers.
4) TOILETRIES - minyak telon, sebamed, aiken powder, johnsons powder
5) MEDICINE - antiseptic cream, tystatin
6) OTHERS - pacifier, toys, her favourite bunny pillow, blanket, small towel, rubber mat, detergen.

I know some of the things can be bought there but WHAT IF the taste is different, or she doesn't like it or she wants to eat it on the plane? (I am OVERthinking it, I know ;p)

Okay. Here's to hoping that I will not forget anything important. Hee...

Toilet training

All of my siblings are toilet trained quite early. We haven't even reach two years old when we are fully toilet trained. My dad always insisted for us to start toilet train Sara, so when she develops this, we figured we might as well toilet train her.

It is extremely hard to toilet train your child when she cannot speak yet. Lucky for me that Sara doesn't pee when she sleeps. We put her on the old-fashioned napkins when she's awake and nothing on when she sleeps. Her butt looked so cute by the way. Hihi.

She wakes up around 6am (with dry nappy), we took her to the toilet and she pees. Yeay!! We put nappy on, let her play, then she'll take a short morning nap. We open her nappy when she took her nap, brought her to the toilet when she wakes up and she pees. Double yeay!! During the evening nap, we took her nappy off, then when she wakes up around 5pm, again we took her to the toilet and she pees. Triple yeay!!!

All day on nappy cost us about 15 nappy changes. Whew!! I'm so lucky Sara is under Nenek's care. I don't know anybody aside from the parents that are willing to toilet train this early. So, here's to hoping this journey will come to an end quickly. *winks*

Rashes and yeast infection on my baby :(

My Sara have sensitive skin, so she has been using Sebamed since day 1. She has had rashes here and there, but nothing unusual. Until she began to develop this nasty little flaring red rashes on her neck.

To top that off, she also began to develop white thingy ulser like blotches in her mouth. I brought her to the clinic and the doctor prescribed OralAid (some kind of oral thrush medication). Apparently, if not curbed early, these white thingy can turn into red patches that will hurt her during feeding. So, we applied the creams that the doctor prescribed us religiously.

The doctor also told us that Sara's hair is too long at the back of the neck, so we'll need to cut it off as it accumulates sweat. Oh well, off we go to Sara's first hair cut.

notice the shortER hair?

But, it has been almost two weeks. The nasty red rashes begin to appear on her butt, and also on the labia. We went to two clinics on Putrajaya, but none of them offer any credible explanation. They just pass the thing off as something normal that will occur to the baby. Gahhh!! We were sooo frustrated. And guilty because Sara was such a good baby, she never scratch her neck, she never cries and she always finishes her milk (she drank 200ml 4-5 times a day)

Anyway, last weekend we went to a wedding in Kuantan and my dad suggested we go to this clinic where he used to take us when we were sick. It has been almost 30 years (the kind doctor has been treating me since I'm still inside my mum's tummy) and the clinic still haven't changed. The doctor has aged gracefully, still kind and offers a complete and thorough explanation about what Sara has. Now that is what I call a doctor. Someone who explain the sickness we have, how it started, how it can be treated and most importantly, how to avoid it in the future.

It appears that my little angel has a fungal/yeast infection called candida. Anybody interested can google it up. In my case, since Sara is hyperhidrosis (extreme sweating), she is easily exposed to this kind of infection. It is best for her not to wear any type of diaper, even cloth diaper as her sweat plus urine can be a perfect place for the fungus to grow. The doctor gave us an antiseptic cream for her rashes and "Tystatin" for her mouth.

AND THEY WORK WONDERS!!! The rashes didn't magically disappear but there has been radical changes. The doctor also advised us to avoid wearing diapers, if possible, so we are now on another journey, the toilet training journey. Yeay!! *rolls eyes*

Welcome...

Hi peeps,

Nice to see u here. Have a lot of things to tell, will must find time to update. *wink*

p/s Thanks for coming to my new "home"