Friday 31 July 2009

Yasmin Ahmad

Yeah! Count me in..



I am one of those people who look forward to Petronas advertisements ie during raya,merdeka,CNY, Deepavali . Actually I look forward to Yasmin Ahmad advertisement. Why? Because of her, Petronas advertisement was in a different league than others.



And I'm gonna miss seeing it this year as Petronas had given another advertising agency ( yeah not Leo Burnett KL ) for next advertisement job. I read this from the local newspaper..

Talk about Yasmin Ahmad's creative touch on advertisements, I was in tear the other day while driving back from work. One of our local english radio was playing a eulogy scene from one of Yasmin's advertisement. I don't think I wanna blame it on my pregnancy hormones for making me so touchy.

And today, I managed to find it on youtube on this eulogy scene. It was done for S'pore Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) . The speech was so simple and touching. Even the scene was done superbly in a simple manner. Nothing extravagant.

The late widow of David Lee talked about her late husband's imperfections like snoring in bed.. Of course it was funny and had all the guests laughing. But it was those last few sentences that caught everyone with a deep sense of sadness and truth about what married couple's relationship should be actually.

When our partner or spouse are alive, these imperfections or bad habits are just annoying to us which make us complaining about it everyday . But it is these imperfections that we will miss most when our spouse is no longer alive and living & breathing next to us.

These imperfections is what complete two individuals as soulmates.

Which is why my hubby don't understand sometimes of me not so annoyed or taken aback with his imperfections. Of course there are some of his imperfections that I dislikes. But there are a few that is not worth to be annoyed so much..

And even now , I know that these imperfections is something I'm gonna miss when he is no longer with me..



U can view the advertisement at these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0s4C0g5SM&NR=1
http://www.facebook.com/beautifullyim
http://www.thinkfamily.sg/
http://www.mcys.gov.sg/
http://yasminthefilmmaker.blogspot.com/

Friday 24 July 2009

Phoneless Maid = Problems Free Employer

I know there are people outthere who allow their maids to have handphones. Even some of my neighbours do this.

Personally, I detest and object this idea. Why? Because allowing them to have handphone means exposing us the employers to more maid problems. Everyone wants a less problematic maids.
So why do we need to open up more doors to these?

I know that some of us allow them to give phones so that they can call us whenever there is an emergency at home. Yeah, imagine we can't be contacted when one of our children is sick or something bad happen to them. Or that the house is on fire.

But we can always provide the house phone as another medium of communication. In fact, we can tell the maid to call the neighbours next door if there is an emergency. Of if there is no neighbours next door, our maid can always go to the other neighbours who live in the same lane.
I don't think most of us doesn't know our neighbours at all.. Unless u don't mix at all.. That i can't help.

And some said, just give the maid prepaid phones. Let them use their own money to pay for the calls. Of course , this is good for our wallet. Or, the maid will stop using their handphones once they run out of prepaid ( as they need to ask us the employee to help them buy the prepaids)

Well, hello! The maids will never run out of prepaids. They can always get help from your mom's maid, your SIL's & BIL's maid, or your neighbours' maid. Thus, how to stop them..

And do u think u can keep track of the phone bills and calls? Not when the maids are using prepaids. But if they are using the house fixed phone lines, it is so much easier to keep track of it.. We can easier tell that the house fixed phone line have been abused when all off a sudden this month's telephone bill is higher than last month. Both of u & hubby are working during the day. So it can't be u and hubby who made all the extra phone calls. Thus, who else but the maid?

But how to reason it out to our maid that they can't have handphone. Even when the handphone is paid by them?

U can start by reminding them, that their main motives of coming here to our country is to earn an income or money. And if since money is not easy to earn back home in their homeland, why do they want to spend it unnecessarily on handphones and phone calls.. Tell them that u as the concerned & kind hearted employees would let them make the calls using the house phones or use our own handphones. Tell them, u are giving them free phone calls. Any employees would be happy to hear this free phone calls. They need only to inform u when they want to make the calls.

And yes, use I-Talk as it is cheap . Both either using the house fixed line or via handphones.

But what if, some of u out there say that my maid is one good maid? Well, have u ever heard of how some else's maid who have been working here for the past 10 years and whose personality is so down to earth, humble, hard working and now had run away with another person , taking along with her her employer's jewelery and money?

I know not all maids are evil and yes that some of them have good & honest personality. But people can always changed. Even we too.. So , until their characters changed from good to evil, we as the employers might as well prepared ourselves by not exposing ourselves to more problems that we can already handle.

To give or not to give handphone to your maid.

The choice is yours.

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Braxton Hicks/False Labor or True Labor Contractions

I remember being blur when my Doctor asked me about labor contractions. That was 4 weeks ago. Hahahah... How am I not to be blur and blank about it when it has been almost 4 years since my last labor .... It did not help either when she used the term uterine contractions ... :)

So I did do some research on it . But did not found one until yesterday evening a good website with a simple explanation.

Thus, I'm sharing with all of u this link from WebMd website. They even explain it using a table comparison format...

Tuesday 21 July 2009

She who bit me

As much as I wanted to take her out to the park yesterday evening when I got back from work, I know I had to be firmed with her and not fallen prey to her crying.

I was talking to my maid and she was playing with my pregnant blouse tali. All of a sudden , Arissa bit one of my left fingers.. And it hurts.

I turned around and asked her why on earth that she do that.

She said that she wanted to untie the tali baju.

I slapped the lower part of her left leg twice and told her that it is wrong for her to bit me.

After that, i sat her down with me at the living room and said that as a punishment for her wrongful behaviour, I will not take her to the park. Upon hearing this statement, she let out a big dissappointment cry.

As usuall, she will try her best to get me on her side. Meaning, to change my mind and take her to the park. Or course any mommy will feel so kasihan when her child is crying but somehow I just had to teach my daughter of the consequences of her actions.

As I hold her in my lap , I told her to stop crying. Soon I explained to her how I wanted to take her to park earlier. That was before she bite me. I said that it is wrong to bit other people as u are hurting them. I told her that me, her baba, her tuk umi & bibik doesn't bite her. And we didn't do that to her because we love her . If we bite her, then it means we doesn't love her and are hurting her.

I asked her if we ever bite her. She said no. With that, I said, I can't take her out to the park. I did ask her if she understand my reason of not taking her to the park. And she said yes.

But being one determine young girl she is, she still try her luck in asking if we can still go to the park. I firmly said no and that we can always the next day , provided the weather is not hazy and no raining ...

Monday 20 July 2009

Little Miss Weekend Planner


Pardon for the blur picture as hubby took this using his handphone ( he is so happy with the latest download of wallpaper and software ).

Ahemm, just like the title of this entry, our lil Munchkin had suddenly turned herself into Lil Miss Weekend Planner on last Saturday. Wanna know why?

Coz she had laid out her plan of going to Mid Valley after having our morning roti canai breakfast at her favourite mamak restaurant. For a soon-to-be 4 years old kid, she likes to have half boiled egg as breakfast. And don't mind having it everyday too..

So from morning till after Asar prayer, all we heard from her was " Mama, let's go to Mid Valley". " Baba, let's go to Mid Valley". " Mama, I want to go to Mid Valley " . " Can we go to MV?".Mid valley. Mid Valley.

She even didn't want to take her nap & rather keeping herself wide awake eventhough she was sleepy and tired. How determine this lil girl can be once she have set her mind on one thing.

Lil' Miss Weekend Planner even laid out her chosen clothing for Mid Valley. Hubby was surprised to see it on the foot of the bed when he woke up from nap that afternoon. Yep. The dress that she wore in the picture was chosen by her.

Was she happy when we finally took her to MV? Of course she did as she woke up late on Sunday morning..

Monday 13 July 2009

Ladies & Edema

At 35 weeks of pregnancy, I'm going through all the common things that a pregnant woman should be. Having an interrupted sleep on almost every night is nothing new . Due the positioning of the baby, I'm going to the loo every couple of hours. More frequent than normal. So I'll be draging my sleepy self to the toilet every 2 to 3 hours on everynight. And to make it worst, if i didn't drink enough of water during the day, I'll be having a cramps in the middle of the night too.. Of course it is painful.

And preggy mommy is puffy mommy too.. More to my feet actually . Edema. And during the Isetan sales @ KLCC, I could only look at those lovely discounted shoes. Yeah, it is not fair for a puffy feet-mommy . Eventhough I did buy one pair of shoes ( that is because I'm familiar with it's sizing that matches my size ) , still I wish I was able to buy another pair. A few lovely pair of shoes caught my eyes. But I don't dare to buy them as I'm not too sure of it's sizing.
Apart from frequent urinating & having an edema, gaining that extra 10-15 kg is in with me too... Nevertheless, I'm not worried much as all those fats are distributed approximately like this :
  1. Baby: 7.5 pounds
  2. Placenta: 1.5 pounds
  3. Amniotic fluid: 2 pounds
  4. Uterine enlargement: 2 pounds
  5. Maternal breast tissue: 2 pounds
  6. Maternal blood volume: 4 pounds
  7. Fluids in maternal tissue: 4 pounds
  8. Maternal fat stores: 7 pounds
And all these can easily be shed off during confinement period/pantang.I'm not saying one should avoid from eating a well-balanced food just to lose the extra weight. You only have to change your cooking methods and breastfeed your baby. This works for me . But after 2 years of giving birth to Arissa, I gained extra kilos as I didn't really watch what I eat. Plus no exercise too..heheheheh. Maybe that is why it is better for woman to be in her ideal BMI weight prior to her pregnancy.
hemmmm . A visit to my Doctor last Saturday , I was told I have only 5 more weeks to go. But, this lil munckin may pops out a few days earlier from the DD .

Friday 10 July 2009

The Chosen Bottles

We used Avent bottles during Arissa's time.

At that time, I never heard of BPA-free feeding bottles. But now, it's an in-thing to use BPA-free bottles. More for health reason actually why parents are switching to BPA-free bottles. Nevertheless, you will still see so many non BPA-free or the normal bottles in the market.
And I must say that not all parents outthere in general are aware about the downside of using BPA bottles.

I remember this pregnant lady that I talked to while queuing up to pay . With her was the normal Avent bottles. She was surprised when I told her that she may want to reconsider buying that Avent bottles as it is not BPA-free. I did explain to her briefly on the bad side of normal bottles. But she told me she would stick to her decision of buying that Avent bottles as she hate to line up again to pay..

Back to my original motive of this entry, I finally bought my BPA-free bottles. This is after doing some research on the design and cleaning methods of each bottle brands that I like.

Nuby SoftFlex Natural Nurser/Silicone Nurser. MAM bottles. Philips Avent bottles. All BPA-free bottles. And all are wide neck bottles. And all have similar-to-mother's-nipple and anti-colic.

Reading and looking at each pictures of the bottles in the internet is totally not the same as holding it in your hands. Thus, I used my long Friday lunch today to do some real life research on the listed brands. I just had to hold them in my hands & see it with my own two eyes to make the final verdict. On which is suitable and easier to use. More to maid-friendly-bottles!

Ye la... It will be the maid who will be using the bottles when I'm away working. Thus, I need a hassle free bottles to be used by my maid. One that is easy to assemble ie. just insert the teat into the nipple ring and screw it all to the bottle. Plus having too many parts of the bottle for washing will be troublesome and can also lead to poor cleaning. It's important to minimize all these unwanted issues as I don't want my baby to be sick because of the dirty bottles.

With MAM bottles, there are just to many things to be assembled. From the silicone valve at the bottom ring , to the bottle body and lastly to insert the teat into the bottle ring.

Same goes to Nuby SoftFlex too. One needs to properly insert the teat into the bottle ring. This is illustrated in the leaflet. Failing to do these will result in leaking. And u won't get that anti-colic function in place. The same things goes with MAM bottles too.

Furthermore, when u have so many parts to assemble, then contamination of virus/bacteria can happen also. Why? Too many parts to be touched by hands.

If it is me who will be feeding our baby, then i can confirm on the hygenic bottle handling and washing procedures. But since it will be my maid, thus, I need to eliminate or reduce this forseen issues.

So I chosed Avent BPA-free bottle. Actually I have fallen for Nuby Soft Flex. But for the above reasons, I'm choosing Avent. But Avent BPA-free bottles has an issue with leaking. These has been experieced by most Avent BPA-free bottle users out there.

But after reading so many reviews, some have been able to identify the cause of it and how to deal with it. Again, poor bottle assemble is the root of leaking. Anyhow, Avent bottle is still the easiest bottle to assemble with less parts to deal with.

My only worry now, is, will my baby love Avent bottles?

We shall see that when October comes.

Thursday 9 July 2009

My Itchy Hands

With some of the Cloth diaper's online shop having promotions , I'm just itching to buy those beautiful and colorful , and girlish CDs...

So what's stopping me from buying it? Well, for one reason, my 2nd lil' munchkin is not out yet from my tummy. InsyaAllah, she will make her debut before 20th August 2009.

2nd reason, it's not a practical idea to use CDs on newborn baby as you don't get to use it longer and frequently . Newborn baby will grow up fast into baby. Thus, it's a waste of money. It's better to use lampin/prefold and dispos ..Gosh! I'm slowly using these CDs terms..heheheh
No wonder i'm itching to buy CDs!

Apart from CDs, I think I slowly converting myself into this think-green mommy or save-our-planet mommy.. You'll see me surfing for cloth menstrual pads or mama pads and nursing cloth pads..

Of course the initial cost of buying these CDs, mama pads & nursing cloth pads is high but low or zero cost in the long term.

Enough about those things. I'm 34 weeks preggy now. And I'm glad with the good progress me & hubby have done with our 2nd baby preparation.

We had sent back most of the items that I will need for my confinement in my parents' house. And 90% of the baby's clothing, mittens , booties,lampins, my NR confinement products, dispos , my daily clothings are all in my S'ban room.

As for the hospital bag, i have put all items in one place .Just waiting to be transfered into the undecided-which-bag to use as hospital bag. But I still wanna get 2 or 3 newborn clothings. For our 2nd Munchkin, I did buy new clothings for her. At least she gets to wear her own clothing on her 1st day. Alhamdulillah, most of her big sista's clothings are all in good conditions. That's the benefits of buying only good quality clothings . Mind u , these are not branded items. Most were bought from Jusco.

And last nite, we have agreed on the book cabinets which to be placed at the family hall upstairs. So we will be heading to IKEa after my check-up this Saturday..

And 2nd munchkin's name? I've a few on the list. Only waiting for my dearest hubby's list..

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Cherish them when you are their favourite person

In one day, how many times does your kids, toddler ask to be carried around. Dukung( carry them on your waist) even when u are pregnant?

Or your child bugs you when you are busy watching the news? She just wanna show you how she draws a cat . Or she wanted to teach you how to pronouce the letter 'a', 'e', 'i' , 'o', 'u'.

Or your child ask you to sit down with her and watch tv when u were about to put the folded washed clothes inside the drawer.

Or when your are the most prefered person next to your hubby, to bathe her or to accompany her for brush-your-teeth-b4-bedtime .

Or when she wants to be seated next to you in the car . Doesn't matter if you are the driver or the passenger. All she knows that she want to be seated in either in front or back as long as same as you..

Or that she insists on holding your hands no matter if it's going to the park, walking in the mall or everywhere. She still want to hold you either by her right or left hand eventhough your hubby is holding her opposite hand.

Or she likes to sit on the same side of the table when eating out or at home. You will always be seated next to her.

Or she likes to cuddle up or sit next to you on the bed while watching tv. Not everytime you get to cuddle up with your hubby when watching tv together with your kid..

Or that she likes to comb your wet hair after you are done with shower.

Sometimes I do feel like I need a space on my own. But when I think back that all these small things will soon be gone once my daughter is grown up or when she is able to do things on her own or when I'm not her favourite person anymore, I just accept and do it with open heart.

Arissa will soon be 4 years old in August. And how time flies. No doubt she is slowly gaining her independence but in most cases in her 24 hours of life daily, she still needs me for this and that.
Of course she needs her Baba too.

But as a parent , we should all try to cherish all these small things now . These things will soon be missed by us parents. Just like how our parents miss it now. And maybe that is why to our parents' eyes, we are still their baby. Or why they still prefer you in the shoulder length hair style.... hehehehheeh