Monthly Archives: July 2008

Should a birthday bash be elaborate?

Posted by Misty Mom on 30/07/2008 9 comments

Arianna is turning 1 in less than 2 weeks. [Where has the time gone???] And being her first birthday, we are planning a birthday party for her. I have been stressing out about this for sometime now. Actually ever since watching an episode on some parenting program shot in London and they had interviewed parents about birthday parties. It freaked me out that the people on the show took birthday parties so seriously!

One example that stuck out like a sore thumb was that it is a must to prepare party packs for the children attending the party. And separate ones at that too – boys and girls party packs should be different. And no silly things should be in there either. When I was in primary school, I remember celebrating my birthday in class and Mum would prepare these small party packs for my friends in class and they would contains simple things like sweets, chocolates and maybe a balloon or 2. But nup, none of that now….now they want better things instead like toys and stuff. So that got me a little wind up coz not only would this be costing us excessively [kiddie stuff are rarely cheap], I had no idea what to get in the first place!

To make matters worst, one of the mums in my forum was writing about her preps for her daughter’s birthday which just past this Saturday and despite only turning 1 just like Arianna, she had gotten a fairy to come entertain kids and bought foot long alphabets that spelt out the kid’s name. [Was ‘Ela’ but still, the thought!] And I thought to myself, ‘Omg…..’ compared to her, we weren’t doing much at all!!!

We are planning to call some of my family and some of Ted’s friends over for a BBQ out in our unit’s compound as it is equip for picnics/BBQs. We are excited about trying out our new Weber that MIL got for Ted for his birthday this year and I am excited about blowing up this air castle thing that Ted got with the points from his credit card. Other than that, we are not really doing much. Of course there will be balloons here and there but what with a BBQ out in the open, it is going to be tough. We’ll see how things go but for now, I’ve decided that I’m scrapping the whole party pack idea and the moment I decided to heck with it, I instantly felt a sudden burden lifted off my chest and I could literally breathe better!

Now, the only thing that is stressing me out is the food! I know it’s going to be mainly steak and sausages, but I’m planning to cook my all famous and fav [as I noticed that it is here – don’t know why] fried macaroni, get this awesome dip that one of Ted’s friends whipped up last Christmas and I absolutely love it, some fruits and jelly for the kids. Of course we’ll get some lollies and chocolates for the kids as well. The extras are only to cut the taste of all meat. When I told Ted about the fairy coming to that party, all he said was the kid is going to be more interested in the wrapping paper than anything else!

I can quite agree with him. J Counting down the days to this big event because it will be on me alone preparing the food. Ted will be in charged of the BBQ of course. This is also freaking me out because I’m so scared that it will not turn out as I expect. Normal la, when you are cooking something for people, it always backfires! SO here’s keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the jelly and fried macaroni doesn’t die on me. The last time we had a big event to handle, I had my sis around to help me…but not this time. *sigh* Scary lor…..

Changing the cabinet knobs

Posted by Misty Mom on 26/07/2008 None comments

Ever since Arianna started crawling, life has been on the fast track. I never thought that a baby could move that fast! That said, she has been exploring our house and getting used to the environment since her mobility is not unliimited. Sadly, this also means that she has also started emptying our cabinets because it is so easy to open.

Hence, I’m keeping an eye out for new cabinet knobs which will make it tougher for her to open our cabinets. I hope I can find some child-proof ones to be honest.

Caught in the act

Posted by Misty Mom on 25/07/2008 7 comments

Now that the little miss has grown more confident with her crawling abilities, she has recently added another ‘talent’ to her ever growing list of things to learn. From the following picture, it’s pbvious that she has ‘conquered’ our tower of CDs.

Looks as if a tiny ribut taufan/hurricane came by and this is the aftermath.

When I saw her pulling out the CDs, I knew that I had to take that pix and get her out of there before the tower fell. Sadly, I turned away for just a second and it came crashing down on her. It may sound as if it was something serious but nothing la. That thing was plastic and empty so it just kind of landed on her shoulder so no chance of me to snap a shot of her at work.

Ever since that day, Ted has turned it to face sidewards so that it doesn’t topple on her but the cheeky vegemite has found something else she can remove. Despite the fact that I had actually tied the handles together, she managed to loosen them and began to ‘work’.

Ooooo….look what I found!!! Mummy and Daddy’s DVD stash.

I think I better rearrange these for them la….or not.

Hhmmm….why are there flashes?

Bummer – I got busted!!

Yup, she managed to punggah almost all our DVDs….I didn’t bother rearranging them la. I just stuffed them back in. She’s going to open that cupboard again what….

Getting the right treatment

Posted by Misty Mom on 24/07/2008 None comments

I remember those days quite clearly as if it was just yesterday. Growing up during my teenage years was a living nightmare due to the bad acne and skin condition that I had. Raging hormones didn’t help much either but back then, many treatments of acne cure that I tried never worked for me. It always made things worst.

With the acne genes running through my blood, I really hope that Arianna will not have to deal with this and if she did have to, I hope it will not be as bad as mine.

Sleepless in Sydney

Posted by Misty Mom on 23/07/2008 2 comments

Once again, I find myself waking up every few hours to attend to Arianna. I feel as if I am back to those newborn days. Apparently I am not alone in this crazy routine. Many mums in my forum are facing this problem and I really wonder what the cause is. One mum said that her bub’s sleeping pattern turned better after she cut out the custard that she was giving her baby and less sugar as well. For us, we hardly ever use sugar in Arianna’s food plus she has home cooked food for most of the time. I reserve those bottled baby food for when we are out and even then it’s very rare. I still rather scoop a few spoons of the moi I cook for Arianna and put it in a container to take with us. And that is also why she isn’t that fond of those bottled baby food – thank goodness!! We’d be burning holes in our pocket if she was. J

But what I do buy is those fruit purees and dessert like bottled stuff which is a hassle to make a small portion of. And those I give her sparingly too. I try to give her more dairy products like cheese and yogurt as well as fresh fruit. She seems to like bananas and avocado a lot. At first I was a little apprehensive about giving her avocado since I didn’t like it myself but I knew it was good for her so I did. Actually I never really knew what it tasted like and it was all psychology on my part since I associated avocado with all our beauty products hence, I thought it was just wrong to be ingesting! *lol* Guess I was wrong and the first time I fed her that, she pulled a face but I thought I should see it through and now she loves it. And me? After pinching a few pieces from her, I too have come to enjoy that rich creaminess that the avo brings with it. J

Anyway, back to this sleeping problem…..although she goes to bed in her cot at night, she will wake up like clockwork at 11pm for a feed and then goes to bed and up again around 2 or 3am, have one side sometimes and off to bed again. Then up again at about 6 or if I’m lucky, 7am. Sometimes if she gets up about 5am and has a feed, she will sleep through to about 8 or 9 am which is SUCH a luxury for me what will all the waking up I have to do throughout the night. This has been happening for the past 1.5 weeks or so. If Ted is home then I will try my best to get her back into the cot, otherwise, after her early morning feed, she comes into bed with me. I did try to let her self settle but that only got her more worked up and more awake after all the screaming and crying. L

We’ve been thinking about moving her cot into our room for time being seeing that this may just be a passing phase but we haven’t decided yet. I’ve kind of given up on letting her sleep in the single bed for now as I noticed that one time she had almost wriggled herself to the top of the bed and once, she even fell off the bed!!! *Bad mummy since I left on there for a minute to throw out the soiled nappy* No injuries but it freaked me out to the point that it didn’t effect me at all. How bizarre is that?!

So for now, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that this trend will pass soon as I really miss that baby who would sleep from 7pm to 7am! Where did she go??? Come back bubba!!

Really very cute!

Posted by Misty Mom on 19/07/2008 4 comments

When I first came over, I used to listen a lot to the online radio station, Nova969 especially at work. :) Very naughty I know but sometimes, you just need something to keep your eyes peeled. It’s been a long while since I did that but I never forgot what the logo looked like because I thought it was really very cute.

Recently, feeding Arianna has been quite a feat. She needs to hold something or watching something in order for her to finish her meal so one day, I decided to do something very *bad*. Ted’s safety ‘ear muffs’ was lying nearby so I decided to put it on her to see her reaction.

The outcome? PRICELESS.

*rotflmao* So bad kan I? :P But you gotta admit that it’s damn cute right????? :D

Anyway, I’ve got some World Youth Day 2008 pix up if you wanna check it out. We went to the Vocation Expo.

Look what I found!!

Posted by Misty Mom on 17/07/2008 None comments

Gosh, what a pleasant surprise I got a couple of days ago when I stumbled upon these precious pictures. Apparently they had been automatically stored in my camera’s internal memory and I didn’t know that it had one! :)

Fresh after a nice warm bath. Golly, don’t I look daggy in that!! *lol*

Apparently *someone* is quite content and happy after a nice dose of boob juice! *buuuuuuuuuurp*

Looking at these pictures, I find it hard to think that Arianna will be turning one pretty soon – actually in less than a month, she will no longer be a ‘baby’ but a toddler! Haiz, as much as I’d like her to remain a baby, it’s really does bring a tear to my eye when I see her so ‘independant’ crawling all over the unit from one end to the other with super baby speed. She is also like a little human vacumn cleaner which beats any top end vacumn coz she is able to pick up the most minute crumb and ‘thing’ off the carpet!

I don’t doubt that we will soon be buying a brand new vacumn as I’ve been vacumning the place more often these days. Also, I miss seeing those teethless gums. Who would have thought that having no teeth would be so cute, eh? ;) Guess that only works for babies and old people – I wouldn’t be able to pull it off at all!

Promo products I appreciate

Posted by Misty Mom on 16/07/2008 None comments

I’ve been to many events and even organised many events that I pretty much know what to expect as door gifts or souvenirs when you do attend these events. Sometimes, the promotional items that are given out to the participants or attendees are simply something that ends up at the back of the closet.

I personally have chucked out a lot of gifts because I don’t appreciate them one bit. So I always put myself in the receivers shoe before I decide that would be the best gift to receive. Aside from getting golf umbrella which I absolutely adore, my next favourite would be personalized pens. You seriously can’t go wrong with that.

Update on the Zzzzzzzz….

Posted by Misty Mom on 14/07/2008 4 comments

Well, as much as I would like  to say that things are going as planned, they are not. Well, not entirely anyway. Although Arianna is sleeping in her cot for the day and first few hours of the night, she always ends up in bed with us till morning.

Her normal night time sleep starts about 7pm in her cot and then she wakes up around 11pm. At first I thought that I would just rock her until she calmed down and tucked her in again but didn’t work last night so I caved in and fed her. Had her up for awhile and then she went to sleep only to wake up around 3am so I brought her to bed, fed her and we fell asleep. But last night she woke up again at 6am with a stuffed nose. Poor thing was finding it hard to breathe so we rubbed on some Baby Vicks and even then, she couldn’t go back to sleep until Ted had no choice but to jump into the other bed so Arianna had his side for herself did she fall asleep. Cheeky thing kicked Daddy out of bed! *lol*

So today, I decided to try something else. Since she was into sleeping in beds, I decided to let her sleep in the guest bed and for both her morning and afternoon nap, she went almost willingly. She has been sleeping for nearly 3 hours now and I should go wake her up in case she wont go back to sleep later tonight! Maybe it’s time to move her to a bed. But we need to go and get those bars as at the moment, only pillows are keeping her from falling off! My baby is growing up. :(

Oopps, just heard her squawk – gotta run!!

Stay indoors and lose the pounds!

Posted by Misty Mom on 12/07/2008 2 comments

Almost a year on and I’ve still not lost the weight that I had intended too after Arianna came along. Although I am not binge eating, I know that I have piled on a couple of extra pounds which need not be there in the first place. And I also know that exercise is the only way out but….

I know that I’m not really a discipline person when it comes to exercising because I am just too lazy to lace up and go jogging, the weather can be quite brutal sometimes and I just hate it. But all is not lost for me because with an elliptical, I’m well within redemption! I realised that if I were to place one of these machines in front of the telly, I could be doing 3 things at once – watch telly, lose weight and keep Arianna entertained as she thinks it’s funny to watch cycle my pounds away.