The Longest Week

This happened mid of last month on a Thursday when Wildan suddenly had fever. He hasn't been sick for quite awhile now. I was puzzled as to why. That night as I was taking his temperature, I saw his right neck/chin was a bit swollen and red. I was afraid he got bitten by something coz hubby caught a big lipan (can't remember what is it called in english. Just know it is poisonous). So, we brought him to the clinic.  The doctor said he had a throat infection but it turned out to be mumps. God!! I never wanna hear that word again!!

That night is the 1st night when I didn't sleep. Wildan was restless the whole night. It was because of the pain. As he can't talk....is it impossible to know what he wants. All we know is that he was in pain. Hubby said he had mumps a number of times when he was a kid (no wonder) as if it is a norm to him. He said it is very painful. From what I read...those who has mumps will have high temperature and headache. The mumps went to triple it size in two days. That night he cried and throw tantrum like never before. Until we finally decides to bring him for a drive around the block.

It lasted for a week. It was so sad looking at him trying to tell us he was in pain. I got to know that mumps will subside on its own within 5-7 days and that was exactly what happened. It was lucky enough I am a stay at home mom. Otherwise, I would have to skip work for this.

This entry is published later than expected. Wildan turned 22 month last month. He is such a wonderful boy and do what he is told to most of the time. He knows how to clean up his mess when told. To put back his shoes on the rack, to keep his toys and to put away trash. A little tantrum here and there is expected since he is a baby. Alhamdulillah so far his growth is where it is supposed to be except the fact that he loves to use baby talk rather than normal people talk. Huhu

Expectation for A Stay At Home Mom (SAHM)

It is sad when someone would think as a SAHM you can afford to lay in bed all day. Honestly I would love to do that. I would love a day to myself. To wine down. To be pampered. How is miss that! It is true what a friend of mine said. People have high expectation for a SAHM.

Does these people think we do nothing at home? I sometimes skip meal just to attend to my son. He is always looking for attention and wants me to play with him. That is why I rarely update my blog now. As I am writing this entry, my son has demand for me a few times. "Save to draft". Even going to the loo is inconvenient sometimes. Sometimes I don't even get to finish my "business" in the toilet. Even bathing has to be cut short to less than 5 minutes. I can't even remember when was the last time I got a decent eyebrow threading and waxing. If I get to do it...it is always in a rush. Time flies fast. In between waking up...preparing breakfast for my son, giving him a bath, then prepare his lunch...playtime with him and then putting him to sleep for afternoon nap....there isn't much time. Sometimes I get to clean a little...vacumn and mop the house. Even when he is taking his afternoon nap he would wake up wanting to be breastfeed. Some said that I am skinnier than before I had a child. Well try to eat at odd timing (read "whenever you can if you can") and sometimes you are unable to even finish the meal. Not the best diet right?

I have been a SAHM since October last year. Even though the best part is you get to take care of your own child, it is tiring and I had to sacrifice my job. When I sacrifice my job...means I sacrifice other things as well. And even I am not earning anything..I still pay my own bills. Where do I get the money from? My savings. Thank God for good bonus last year. Which is about to finish soon. Hmm...

Being a working mom is better since you would have a little time to yourself. Fix breakfast and lunch time at least and you get to eat unless for some reason you are involved in a huge project that makes you busy like hell. And people would say you are doing something and not just "sitting at home doing nothing". Still expectation is there. You help your spouse to make ends meat and at home you still have to take care of the household plus you won't get to see you child much. He spends 10 hours a day, 5 days a week with someone else. Honestly, I think most women nowadays are superwomen.

I may have to go back to work by June 2014 but the thought of letting someone else take care of Wildan is heartbreaking. As they say...you can't get everything. Sacrifice is always there.

To mothers out there. I salute you whether you are a SAHM, WAHM or WM..coz we always try our best! Kudos to us!

Back Up Your Data People!

A devastating thing has happened to me a few months back. My handphone micro SD card suddenly corrupted and I lost all the data inside!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My heart stopped when I realized I forgot to back up all the data contained in it. The most precious of all are Wildan's video and pictures!!! Arrrghhhh!! Mak nangis tak berlagu nyah!! uuuwaaaa!! Nasib baik ada sesetengah yg best2 ada kat instagram.

Tulah dia...beli handphone canggih tp tak make full use of all the apps yang ada. Belum sempat nak explore habis. Bila dah jadi baru mak tau apa itu Dropbox!! uwaaa!! Sesal dahulu pendapatan, sesal kemudian tiada gunanya. Hambik ko! Siap keluar pepatah lagi. I have even tried sending the micro SD card to a specialist knowing that it would cost be a thousand plus ringgit just to get back all those videos and photos. But sadly, they said it is totally corrupted. WHAT????

There is a company in German that can provide you a service to retrieve the data. Their technique is way advance and cost at least EUR400. Tapi...jauh!!!!!!! uuuwaaaa!! The one I send to in Kuala Lumpur is not using that technique. :(( I am so sad.

So, remember....BACK UP YOUR DATA!! do it at least once a month. Now I back up all Wildan's photos and videos in DropBox, PC and external HD.

If this happens to you and you want to try to retrieve the data, you may go to:

KUALA LUMPUR/SELANGOR
Adroit Data Recovery Centre
C 801, Metropolitan Square Commercial, Jalan PJU 8/1
Damansara Perdana,47820, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: 03-77277801 / 03-77277802 Fax: 03-77268803 Website: http://www.adrc.com.my/

Kalau ko kaya...ko leh hantar pi Germany. Visit their website http://www.recoverfab.com
nape aku tak kaya????!!! uwaaa!!

Wildan's First Trip to the Beach (Bagan Lalang)

It looks like my post is always overdue. It is harder for me to update since I will need to wait for Wildan to be asleep before in can sit in front of my laptop. Otherwise, he will be my little loyal assistance typing my entry....and then you guys won't have a clue what the story is..neither will I. haha...updating from my phone is uncomfortable. :P

So, we had been wanting to bring Wildan to the beach and play with sands. We live in the city..so beach is not really near. The one closest to us is in Bagan Lalang, Sepang and we went last two weeks, during CNY weekend break. It is about 1.5 hours drive. However, as we went during a long weekend, the traffic was kind of bad so it took us longer to reach there.

Wildan has always been a neat boy. He will come running to me if he gets something on his hands or feet asking me to clean it. That's why we want him to learn to get dirty a bit. hehe...and to us..beach is the safest way to get dirty. As predicted, Wildan was having a weird time at first..trying to adjust the feeling on walking on the sands bare feet. At first he didn't even want to take off his sandles. He kept asking me to clean the sands that gets into his sandles. In fact, he was the only one who went into the water with his sandles on. He didn't even want to play with the sands at the beach. Yeah...to that extend. So, hubby slowly brought him into the water and put sands on his hands and feet for him to get use to the feel of it. It took him awhile but finally he was enjoying playing in the sands and didn't even bother the sands got into his pants. LOL

We need to go again because we didn't get to eat seafood at the beach that day. We forgot to reserve a table and by the time we finish playing at the beach, the restaurants are full.

A Day at KL Bird Park

I don't know why but at some point we have run out of ideas on where to spend our weekends. So mostly we end up going to The Curve which is 5 minutes away from our house doing some errands or just eat. Last Tuesday was a public holiday and I was thinking hard of where to bring Wildan and we finally decided to go to KL Bird Park.

We have been there once. Where I say there, it meant only the entrance. ahahah...and we went to eat at the nearby cafe called Hornbill Cafe. This time it is fun to enter since we have our 1 year old son to entertain. At this age he will probably be amazed at anything. I can see that he loves animals and not scared of them when he loves cats and dogs. Once he even chased a dog and tried to pet it. Thank God it was tame and walked away from Wildan. This time we went in after we had lunch at the cafe. The food was nice but my char keow teow was a bit burned.

Wildan was so happy when he saw birds flying everywhere and they are colorful too. I didn't really get the chance to learn their names/types coz I was busy making sure Wildan didn't fall as he was walking so fast and excitedly chasing the birds while pointing at it. But I can tell you that there are flamingo, canary (which also has various types), peacock, parrot, emu, ostrich and a whole lots of other birds species that I have never seen or heard of. Some of them are in cage..I guess those are the rare species as we are not even allowed to pet or feed them. Most of them are left wondering around freely in the park and you can feed them. They even provide you with the seeds. Wildan even asked me to take one of the bird out of the cage so he can play with it. ahahaha...there are 30 minutes bird shows at 12.30pm and 3.30pm but we didn't managed to catch it as it finished just as we arrived at the arena. It was a long walk. I underestimated the place. It is huge!!

I was surprised to see how big the place is. Who knew there is such a huge bird park in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. It is divided into 5 zones and yes we walked through all 5 zones. Each has its so called own partition and we didn't manage to explore further. My back was hurting from all those walks. Geez...talk about aging gracefully. Or is it because of the drugs they used during my c-sect. hmmm...I need to get my stamina back. I don't when will that be. sigh...I have become a lazy bum.

We walked for almost two hours inside the park. Can you believe it? Nonetheless, we had fun. You can also take pictures with the parrots as a certain fee. We didn't take any. Maybe next time when Wildan is bigger and able to appreciate then it would be a memorable thing for him.

I would recommend to anyone who haven't visited the place to go check it out. The entrance fee is RM25.00 per adult and RM12.00 for children below 12 years old. Wildan wasn't charged with any fee so you can ask the counter when you buy the tickets if you are bringing a toddler. I would advice you to bring your own snack and most importantly water (plenty) as a small mineral water cost RM4.00 each inside and within the area. That is kind of absurd to me. I bought a Redbull at RM5 per can and a normal Cornetto ice cream for RM4.00. I could have gotten a Magnum ice cream outside. uhuk...

That's it for today. Ciao!

A Quick Review on Thor - The Dark World and Tips on Bringing Infants into Cinema

** Alert - May Contain Spoiler **

I gave the first Thor movie 8/10. At first I didn't want to watch it but I followed hubby and end up liking it. :) So last Monday we went to watch the sequel "The Dark World". I give it 7/10. I think because the story line was a bit more simple but I still enjoyed it. It is to be expected that the story also revolved around Jane Foster the earth mortal. This time some supposed to be extinguish creature planned to attack Asgard and all the 9 realm and make it a dark world. It has lots of sense of humor this time mostly with Dr Erik character. Loki was surprisingly kind of funny too. This time it seems that Thor and Loki worked together to try save Asgard...or is it? Well...you have to watch the movie to know the twist. You will also get to see one of the Avengers character make a short appearance. Who? Am not giving out spoilers...so you'll need to watch it yourself. hmm...when is The Avangers sequel coming out? Does anyone knows? I can't wait for that! Some people said the sequel is slow and some said it is not worth watching. Each person has different opinion even your close friends. So, if you want to know whether you like it or not, you will have to watch and judge it yourself. To me, it is one of those not to miss movie.

We brought Wildan to cinema with us. I have never been away from him since he was born. Alhamdulillah he is able to 98% behave himself. However, there are things to help us make sure that we are able to watch the movie without interruption by him and for him not to become a nuisance to other cinema patrons. It doesn't mean that if you have problem getting a babysitter for your infants you can't enjoy a movie or two. Here are my tips which I think most parents also do the same.

1. Always buy a couple/twin seats so that your child can seat or sleep comfortably when he/she wants to. You will be more comfortable too.
2. Watch at night when it is near his/her bed time. We also trained Wildan to fall asleep in a noisy surroundings like in front of tv or with music on. So he won't be bothered with the movie loud noise.
3. Always bring a bottle of warm milk. It is better if you breastfeed. I breastfeed Wildan to sleep in the cinema while I watch the movie. It is dark, he is fed and it is cool inside the cinema. Eventually, your child should fall asleep.
4. Last but not least, if it is your 1st time bringing your infants into cinema, be ready to get out of the cinema when necessary. The 1st time we went to watch Iron Man 3 and we were ready to bail if Wildan made a ruckus. We were lucky he didn't and fell asleep after 15 minutes the movie starts until we are home.

Some people say the fun is over when you have kids...I think the fun is just starting. You just need to work on the 'how' a little bit more. :)

Wildan is Teething Again

hmmm...pejam celik pejam celik esok dah cukup sebulan I become a stay at home mom (SAHM). It is a joy to be able to take care of your own child. I will post another entry on being a SAHM after this one. This is a short and quick update on Wildan.

"Wildan helping mummy in the kitchen"

He turned 1 year 5 months last Tuesday and Alhamdulillah...he is healthy. I am so happy that I made the right decision to focus on him for awhile. He is still fully breastfeed...Alhamdulillah..rezeki Wildan. Even though sometimes I just feel like quitting. But I have my target and I want to fully bf him until he is 2 years old. 7 months to go!! The only thing I can't tahan is now he bites coz he is teething again...and sometimes I have problem with dry skin and itchiness that made me feel very uncomfortable. He doesn't show any signs of weaning and just wouldn't take bottle if I am there. And now..am there 24/7..so you know what I mean. And...he still wants to be breastfeed to sleep. hmmm....sometimes sampai keras mak kat sebelah dia nak tunggu dia lena betul2. uhuk. I do hope he will be able to accept formula milk when the time comes.

I didn't weigh or measure him this months since we are not scheduled for a check up. He is still lacking vocabs and only babbles things that I can't understand. Still limited to ma, ba, no...and still call dogs and cats "ateh". I do hope he will say something that makes sense to me soon. I know boys can be a bit late..but it still worries me. He loves the outdoors. Pantang buka pintu laju jer nak keluar. Wildan is a happy child and a very good boy. He is an obedient boy with an occasional tantrum so it is easy to take care of him. Few days ago, he changed his daily routine a bit and slept only once during the day. I guess that is normal. Now he loves to mimic...sometimes he will take his food bowl and spoon and feed me and comb his own hair with his comb. Today he even tried to put on his own shoes. So cute!! There are at least 5 more tooth about to come out and now he doesn't cry or scream each time I brush his teeth.

I think that's about it for now. Till next time.