AM I READY TO BE A PARENT?

If you are asking yourself this question now, chances are you're thinking about it, or you think that time is running out. Doesn't really matter whatever your actual reason is... if you are in your late 20s or early 30s, it's about time you start thinking about parenthood.

The Why
The why is almost as subjective as 'why do I love ice cream'? Personal preferences aside, here are some of the reasons why you are asking yourself if you are ready to be a parent.

1. Your friends are getting married or already posting their babies' 'fresh-out-of-the-oven' photos on facebook.

2. Your friends have started their one/two year hiatus from their usual 'social life' to deal with the needs of parenthood. They don't call it 'biting the dust' for no good reason.

3. You feel that your biological clock is ticking faster than you originally thought it would. Suddenly, 30 is too old an age to get pregnant.

4. Celebrities are already having babies left, right and centre. It was the latest trend two years ago but hey, if they're doing it...

5. You hear horror stories about how scary childbirth and pregnancy is the older you get. Check out my post on how not easy it is to get pregnant if you haven't already.

The impact (on your life)
Parenthood is not for the faint-hearted; no, seriously, I'm not kidding. It's also not for those who hasn't gotten over 'having a life'. With kids around, you don't get to sleep well, you keep looking at the time whenever you are out with friends, you pay through your nose to get someone else to watch over your kid, you worry whenever they do a bad job which would mean you need to look for a replacement; the list goes on... 4evar!

But as with the cons, there are pros too with parenthood. 

You learn to be more tolerant and patient with adults since you get all the practice when you deal with your kid(s). You grow up overnight, take on more responsibilities like cleaning their butts and having daily encounters with human excrements. You take better care of yourself so that you will be around longer to see your kids grow up, get married and have their own kids. You learn to love. You learn to forgive. When you do get some sleep, you sleep with a baby, like a baby. You become a more careful person, who plans ahead, who uses checklists, who drive within the speed limit, who buys stuff at a whim, who sheds the stress that you bring home from work the moment your kids call you mama or kisses you goodnight...

Simple pleasures of parenthood can easily outweigh the hardships. They are the reasons for siblings.

The how
Now, this part will need a little bit of education. No, not sex education. That part you already know from other parts of the Internet - we won't go there - but I'm talking more about knowing what you should prepare for before you get pregnant. 

You should be as healthy as possible at least a full year before getting pregnant. You should get your cycle straightened out and stabilised. You should stop smoking, drinking, taking drugs that are not prescribed by a doctor for an illness that could have been avoided, partying too late at night until you live on three hours of sleep daily (believe me you will get less in the first year you become a parent) and lastly you should be sure that your relationship with your partner is stable enough for the both of you to pull through the rough patches together. It is of course, easier said that done, but not necessarily undoable. Then again, if you are unwilling to give all that up, maybe parenthood is still not a zone you want to be in yet.

Lastly, the kids
They will be cheeky, naughty, mischievously fun, make you pull your hair one minute and then make you ooo and aaaa the next. They're wonderful creatures that absorb everything (good and bad) like a sponge and at times are a walking, talking mirror reflecting who you are without consciously faking it or disguising it. You'd be surprised what you see in their behaviour and their choice of words. You may not like it, but again it is a reminder of how you can change and try to be better. For what is the use of a parent, if not to guide children into society in the form of useful individuals who can and will do their part to help better the community for the greater good... or make bloody good ice cream. Yay!

Dream big!

HAPPY 53RD BIRTHDAY, MALAYSIA!

In exactly one hour from the beginning of this blog post, the country that I live in, Malaysia will be turning 53. And every year at the end of the month, we find ourselves reminded of what it really means to be patriotic. None of us really know.

I've never 'celebrated' Hari Merdeka (Independence Day) by sticking with a crowd of several tens of thousands to watch a ten minute display of air-polluting fireworks not because I'm a wet blankie but I am part of the generation which celebrates independence day our own way. We don't fly flags on the rooftops of our cars two weeks before the 31st comes because we fear that the flag will get drenched in the rain. Besides, have you ever really thought of what happens to the mini-flags post-merdeka day?

I grew up in a school which taught us that the Malaysian flag should never be allowed to touch the ground so as to not dirty it. It was a rule we held on to, even inside our hearts, and even to this day. We find our own way to remind ourselves and the people around us that independence day is really a day to be celebrated.

For starters, we pay our taxes and summonses as required because 1. we owe it to the government to do our duty and 2. It was our fault anyways and it beats submitting to paying a less hefty fine to get out of trouble aka bribery.

We also don't litter or vandalise government property.

We don't eat our lunches in front of our muslim friends during the fasting month.

We don't tell people to go back to their home country just because we are so powerful we don't get in trouble when we say it out loud OR we're drunk in a parliament session.

We don't make insulting rap songs just to prove a point. That's Namewee's job.

We don't call our friends immigrants, even though we all are. Only Orang Asli's are the real owners of the land that are theirs no longer, politically at least.

Note: I use 'we' throughout the whole post because I'd like to believe that I am not alone. Which I am not.

Call me optimistic. We don't care. We get to pray to our Gods in a country where everyone understands that other people have their own Gods to pray to. We don't crucify others for being different. We don't force others to conform to our religions and practices either. 

That would have been what our forefathers would have wanted for us to do. To cherish the aftermath of a fight for freedom in a time when we had more reason to hate each other and fight each other, but instead, we stuck with each other through thick and thin, followed 1party to freedom and formed a whole new nation on Dataran Merdeka on this very day 53 years ago. 

I wish that we have not forgotten like many other things that we have lost memory of that Tunku Abdul Rahman called Merdeka seven times, not three. And that's the truth because there were thousands of witnesses who heard him and saw him raise his hand to the sky to declare that we are free of colonial rule, that we are free to walk the streets with our heads held high, that we can be called 'citizens' for the very first time after milleniums of being the trophy of conquests, to die by the hundreds of thousands in senseless war brought on by reckless greed and the need to bully and control the weak and defenseless.

I wish that we do not forget our friends in Sabah and Sarawak who joined us on the 16th of September and truly forming Malaysia as we know it now, who celebrate merdeka with the people on Tanah Melayu because they fought their own wars against war-bringers with their own agendas. 

And I wish that we do not forget the many who have died to set us free. We may not know their names or even pronounce them correctly. They may be of Malaysian blood; they may be of foreign blood but there are those who did their part in securing our homeland for us, consciously or not. We remember them by naming streets, landmarks, monuments, schools, universities, megastructures after them... lest we forget.

And there are many who forget. Because forgetting is easy, appreciating is too damn hard.

DEDICATED PROFESSIONALS

It's too easy to take for granted the needs of our children. While it's natural to think that they are smaller, you would assume that their problems are so much easier to fix. You could not be more wrong.

THE DOCTOR

Believe me when I say that it is important to find the right doctor for your child, especially if they are at that age where you still need to carry them around. The right doctor would be able to handle their sickness and their symptoms more effectively with minimal tears. This will spell good news for you because if you have ever taken your newborn son or daughter to their first checkup, you would know how scary the whole experience can be.

Hence, it is important that you find a doctor who knows what he is doing AND is patient enough to give you his time of the day to make sure your child gets the attention 
he or she wants. 

My favourite doctor is a Dr Khoo who owns a child specialist clinic near Desa Medical Centre in Taman Desa. He was the first doctor to check and treat my daughter, and after having gone through at least two other doctors, Eva has taken a special liking to him. 

Doesn't mean she holds back her tears every time he shoots her up with vaccines though.

But still, you can see the amount of attention he puts into his patients, most of them at that age where they can't communicate to you what is wrong with them, where it is hurting, how bad it is hurting etc. In this case, I personally think, the level of patience he practised when treating them is key to his success with kids. 

He is really fast with the injections too. Once, I thought he was still playing around with Eva when in fact, he has already finished the injection as proven by the special plaster applied to the wound of the needle on her left thigh. He was just trying to divert her attention away from the pain. And he does a really good job at it too.

I highly recommend you taking your child to the KB Child Specialist clinic for a checkup whenever they are sick or when they need their shots, not because I think he is not as expensive as some of the other pediatricians around Klang Valley but if you want your child to be treated with the respect and love that you yourself give to them, he is the doctor to go to.
  

THE HAIR DRESSER

Eva has a healthy lock of hair despite her tender age of 15 months. Compared to other kids her age, she is a happy child without bald spots, who has hair plastered over her cheeks all the way to her nose on a really hot and sweaty day, and has totally finished her first bottle of Johnson baby shampoo within 14 months.  

Apart from having the genes of both her parents and all of her grandparents to thank, she owes her overwhelming crown to a hairdresser whose name until now I do not know yet, (Note to self, ask for her name next time I get my haircut). I shall name her Goddess of hair in tribute of her good advice. 

Goddess of hair told me that newborns should have their heads shaved at regular intervals, all the way until they are 1 year old to ensure healthy locks of hair. Before you freak out, bear in mind that you don't really take your child anywhere for long, until they are capable of at least sitting upright on their own on a baby chair or if they can take anything other than milk as their daily source of nutrition. Hence, it seems a valid thing to do.

Which we did until she was around 8 months old. After that, she had pretty much every cm of her head covered with hair already, so we guessed that was enough. If you don't think that it is necessary for kids to shave their heads, be prepared to face bald patches, uneven growth of hair all over, or hair that takes twice as long to grow to the same length in toddlers. It is not a nice sight, seriously. 
 

THE NANNY

This doesn't really need much explanation, except for a few signs where the nanny is not worthy of taking care of your child. Do take note if your kid is:

• suffering from regular doses of bruises or wounds from falls or knocking into things - there are some nannies who just stay within the proximity with the child but their minds are far far away, as in, in Genting.
• who sleeps a lot at odd hours of the day (hence is very active during night time and stays up as long as Mr Owl does) - chances are there's drowsy medication involved.
• gets sick a lot - some nannies like to 'share' things and mix and match. Illness transfer much more easily through these 'sharing is caring' moments so do take note. 
• in the midst of more kids than one can humanly handle - it's not worth the cheaper charges they offer if you need to take your kid to the doctors a lot. 

Pay attention to who you leave your kids with. Get the nanny's preferences or their point of view when it comes to education, or how you should treat kids etc. This gives you an inside view as to whether or not the nanny shares your point of view when it comes to upbringing practices etc. Voice out if you feel that they are not doing something right and even more so if your child always cry whenever you pass them to the nanny at the door.

THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT

Here are some of the 'equipment', medication and alternatives  I used for Eva within the first year. All photos below are from Amazon.com unless stated otherwise.

Anti-colic feeding bottles are very important but they are not all foolproof. This means that your child may still suffer from the effects of colic which will make them uncomfortable after a feeding if you do not burp them immediately after or sometimes in between feedings.  Nonetheless I still recommend using the Phillips Avent bottles.

Anti colic feeding bottles - Phillips Avent bottles 

To ease the discomfort that may be caused by a bloated stomach (from the inability to digest some of the food stuff due to a weak or maturing digestive system), use Gripe water. The effectiveness is astounding.   

 

 To clear bloatness or stomach discomfort - Woodwards Gripe water 

Some babies do not need pacifiers while others cannot do anything, including sleep, without it. That doesn't mean that you should just get any pacifier from a store and plug it into your baby. Opt for orthodontic pacifiers that are structured to help your baby grow their teeth out properly but only if they can adapt to the structure. Remember that most of the time, your child is the one who chooses these items, regardless of how one alternative can be beneficial for them compared to others. 

If they can't adapt to the better alternative but still need pacifiers, look for those by Phillips Avent. They have a different design for below 6 month-old babies and 18 month-old babies. The size makes all the difference and before you know it, your child will be 'spitting' out the smaller pacifiers because they just don't fit no more. I replaced my daughter's 2 pacifiers only when she turned 1 even though I'm supposed to get her a new one every three months. Darn buggers are expensive but worth every penny in the RM14 price zone.

The original pair were still in working order; Eva just outgrew the size of the pacifiers. So far, she has six to her name already. I'm hoping she will outgrow them all soon.

 

  Pacifiers (free flow) - Phillips Avent BPA Free pacifiers 

Huggies has a range of diapers for newborns, small size, med size and large sizes. They also have the dry pants type, the dry type, the dry comfort type, ultra and newborn. Eva is loving the New and Improved 'Dry Comfort' one that is in red (but not as pictured below). Visit this link for the full range of diapers available by the brand.

 

  Diapers - Huggies Dry Comfort (Huggies.com.my) 

Baby wipes are darn important and you won't know how important they are until you find that your baby has pooped in an area where there are no baby facilities and the toilets are so darn dirty you won't even poop in there even if they paid you.

Wipes should be fragrance-free to prevent any form of allergies or rashes forming on their private areas. Rashes are a consistent source of discomfort to your baby and can actually be a sign of something more sinister lurking in the creases of your baby's bum bum. There are many baby creams that I can recommend to you to get rid of the rashes, or talcum powders and such, but the best way to clear rashes is to air their bum bums (think cotton/cloth napkins) or just prevent the rashes from the start. I suggest Pureen's baby wipes.

 Baby wipes (fragrance free) - Pureen (from pureen.com.sg)

Last and most importantly, baby formula! Now I know that Enfalac/Enfagrow seems to be the best milk around (according to the ads and heavy marketing tactics out there) but I swear by Anmum when it comes to weaning your kids off baby formula to normal foods. The few kids that I've seen and know grew up with Enfa milk have a hard time getting their appetites up for normal food like cereals, rice, noodles etc. Bread and junk food they can deal with but that's not a long term solution, is it?

Don't have to take my word for it, give it a shot. Anmum's only side effect I can see so far is that the baby sweats a lot, hence you may need to invest in air-conditioning for hot nights - which isn't exactly a stretch of your budget since Malaysia is so darn hot in the first place... might as well get that Panasonic Inverter AC installed straight away.

 

Milk formula - Anmum Essentials 1, 2 and 3 (alibaba.com)

And there you have it. It may or may not work with your baby as each baby is different but there will be a need for a lot of trial-and-error to get the best equipment and person for your baby's well-being. All the best and Good luck!

 

水果冰淇淋 (Fruity Pie)

I am never a favourite of the language they call Mandarin, particularly when it comes to recognizing the characters. To learn the language requires a LOT of rote learning; even at the very basics, you have to memorize the characters in order to read in the language.

When I watch Chinese dramas, it's usually in Cantonese, sometimes Mandarin, I attempted some Taiwan Hokkien dramas as well but all in all, I always fall heavily back on the subtitles to actually understand what the heck the actors are trying to convey.

After spending some time trying to introduce Playhouse Disney, Sesame Street and Barney series to my daughter, I found out the babysitter has been showing 水果冰淇淋 to my daughter when she is at the sitter's place. 

No wonder lahs aside, I came to eventually enjoy the 水果冰淇淋 from Taiwan's PTS franchise as they are made with the same formulas like Sesame street. The puppets were cute, they teach good values, they have a lot of awesome inserts in between the shows and so the variety was quite an interesting introductory series for kids. Here's a sample video you can find on youtube which was released by the username pts (the network's name is also PTS, coinkidink?)

Characters of 水果冰淇淋

The show is made up of five main characters: Fruity nai nai the nanny, Qi Qi and Ling Ling (a bro and a sis who is under the care of the nanny), Wang Lu and Sha La who always come over to play with the siblings. 

Each half hour show will showcase an issue that will leave the audience at the end of the show with a moral to learn, usually depicted by the nanny. In between there will be sub-segments: 'a story to tell', 'a song' introduced by the little (and I mean little) mermaid, 'a challenge' featuring real-life kid in a game-show obstacle race and in more recent seasons, a last short story introduced by a bear who lives in a cuckoo clock. 

Suggestion of reasons why kids like to watch this show:

>The puppets are so much fun! They are kids who say, act, feel and think like kids do, hence real kids in the audience can really connect with them. The characters throw tantrums, apologize unwillingly, drink juices and water when they are told to, and are sad whenever their friends do something they dislike... just like real kids.

>The songs and segments are catchy, the kind you can sway your head to. The melodies are fun and easy to remember as well.

>The nanny has a magnetic personality. For adults like me (who can see that it was actually a guy dressed as an old woman), the nanny comes across as a really reliable person, who cares for the kids and would do all she can to make them happy without spoiling them. She's a miracle worker, much like Mary Poppins, only she's the Taiwan kind. For kids, she is just so fun to watch: she acts out the closing scenes and actually sings it!

Why would adults like the show?

This show can make my daughter, little Eva sit on the couch quietly for a full half an hour. Yes, the show is a miracle worker. 

Give it a shot.