June is here

Hi folks!

Howdy? Very fast today is the first day of June..half of the year is almost gone in a blink of an eye.

Being born in the month of June, I received lotsa reminders everywhere of my birthday...

We have just celebrated ZS and DH birthday last month...

DH wish for his birthday is hoping for a happier, healthier and lovely-looking wife. Yeah this indeed is a timely birthday wish ..understandably cos I have to admit that I haven't been taking very good care of myself while busy providing for the family. This his wish shall be carried forward to my birthday month :)

Now, how do you all achieve these 3 goals happier, healthier and lovelier? Care to share with me?

Am putting on my thinking cap now to devise a workable and achievable strategy besides sleeping more, exercise more and laugh often.

Will share more about ZS birthday celeb soon..turning 3 he took it to his stride to eat 3 cakes over 3 celebration...and has indeed developed a strong liking to eggless cake...

Shall share more in another post soon..

Meanwhile do share with me how you will or already been working on the 3 goals above : happier, healthier and lovelier ..

Thanks in advance folks and have a lovely week ahead!

Enjoy the school holiday lesser traffic road(hopefully....)

Cheers!

Slow Down

Hi folks!

Rushing around, faster, faster seems to be the life pace of many urban folks nowadays and in today's society. Thus we have all sorts of creation that helps us to fasten the process of getting everything done.

I found that this has also been impacting the way i am treating people, events and tasks in my everyday life.

In order to do things quickly, I multi-tasked a lot.

I would put the clothes to the washing machine to wash, while i put a pot of soup on boil, while washing dishes, and again while folding clothes, i watched some news or Korean drama (grinning) or listen to some podcast/motivational audio or watch some reality show.

What about this, i glance through my Facebook friends' posting while my kids reporting their stories of the day to me, or my youngest asking me to play Jenga blocks with him.

And everyday at work as I am dealing with different products, while i am at Product A meeting, i was buzzed and thus replying Product B request and queries.

I am in short, everywhere BUT NOWHERE. And I am always rushing myself, my kids and everything just to save some time to do more things but at what quality and expense? 

My soul and heart are scattered around, everywhere with no focus. I resorted to making meals with instant or processed material simply because it makes my life easier and cut short the cooking time at the expense of the health and well-being of my family.

So, from now on, i strive to SLOW DOWN, FOCUS and SINGLE-TASK.

These are what i would want myself to make it a habit:

1. Get up bit earlier and do things one by one. Meditate, do yoga/exercise, followed with some reading/audio.
2. Wake my kids up earlier and let them do things at their own pace. Do not rush them around.
3. Prepare the stuff earlier the night before so that the next morning will not be a daily rush hour.
4. Slow down and eat my breakfast silently. Quieten my mind. Do not start thinking about the To Do List of the day or emails to reply and whatever promotion i have to grab for groceries, etc.
5. Cook and concentrate on my cooking, the seasoning, the nutrients and what i would love to experiment and explore with the new dish rather than just another meal- quickly just to fill up the stomach.
6. Take time to proof-read my work, improve on the quality and content (I am a Technical Writer by profession), do not let the following products deadlines made me rush off this current Product documentation quality). Which also means I should stop lettings others getaway with last minute notice of work that has made my life nothing but rushing and producing less-than-the-best quality of work.
7. When the kids are talking to me, stop everything else and listen.
8. Off the WIFI at 9am, and start the bedtime ritual with bedtime story and sharing once again. Put away all the i-gadgets (hubby included).
9. Implement the Agile Parenting ASAP to get inputs from the kids on areas of improvement for our family and let everyone take part in each of these improvement task.
10. Relax and chill out with a cuppa everyday to keep my perspective intact and also to recharge my soul from the daily hectic "noise" and events. Take care of myself so that I could serve what I meant to serve for the day.

Hope I could really start making a change in my life.

What are the things you would like to improve in your life this year folks?

Do share with me if you wish to. I would love to hear from you all.

Cheers and have a lovely Labour Day!

Self-weaning for ZS

Hi folks!

In another 2 weeks' time, ZS will be turning 3. And he has self-weaned from mom's milk roughly 1-2 months' ago. And he's now completely *off* without any dramas or tearful "farewell.

Recalling my older two kids weaning process weren't that "easy".

The first child was the hardest and also the earliest. KY had her teething pretty late. She only started teething badly upon her 1 year old birthday. At time point of time, pretty stressful for our family family as well coping with relocation, new job, new workplace and for her, new babysitter cum teething.

She had it pretty hard and as I couldn't pump as frequently as I could at the new workplace, the supply went drastically downhill at superb speed. Coupled when she's having bad teething, she would often pulled hard at the nipple to fasten the milk flow. Much to her disappointment and frustration, the flow didn't flow out fast as she would expected as the supply has gone done.

So gradually we had a tearful farewell to breastfeeding as she turns 1.

As for the second child, SE, he latched on the longest even though there wasn't much supply left. He continued latching till he turned 3. I have started telling him that he's a big boy now, when he blows the candle at 3, he should stop having his mommy's nen nen (a.k.a. milk), this repeated message seems to work. Roughly a little after his 3-year old birthday, he started to self-weaned too.

I would say the process went on easier from first child to the last child. ZS is the longest fully-breastfed child i had. He was fully-breastfed till 2 years and 10months whereas the older two kids are only fully-breastfed till 6 months old and then turned on to mix-feeding (supplemented with soy-based formula) when the supply couldn't cope with their demand.

So, ZS is considered a lucky child. And he also quite special to us being the youngest. Due to his allergic to eggs, dairy, penicillin antibiotic  and pretty bad eczema and respiratory condition (he was hospitalized twice at age of 5-months and 11 months for broncho-pneumonia), he's on oatmilk now and off eggs as well. And due to his respiratory condition, i was being introduced to the marvelous natural immunity and well-being chest of medicine of the nature, i.e. essential oil. I would love to share more how i used it for my kids' sinus issue, my blocked/running nose problems, women hormone-related issues as well for my active cheerleader cum ballerina often sore muscles rescuer by using essential oils.

I started trying it out when my sister whose son was often on nebuliser as well due to his respiratory condition passed me some very precious drops of essential oil to try out on my son. There were twice when he had serious whooping cough and another time having croup, i applied diluted essential oil on his feet and he managed to sleep soundly and next day no longer having that sound from his chest. I am a happy and convinced mom. Thus, i started to research into the benefits of using essential oil for well-being. My initial thought is to prevent the next hospitalization occurrence for him. It was really tough for me having to see him crying non-stop each time he sees the nurse in blue uniform at every temperature reading, nebuliser sessions as well as medication time, not to mention the heavy dose of antibiotic put on drips for him as he would vomit out the antibiotic fed to him.

ZS taught me a lot being a mom really. He would say thank you, please and give me a hug very generously without asking. And he has a very strong character and is a very independent child as well.His eczema taught me a lot about using less chemicals at home from the floor cleaner, his laundry detergent, less plastics usage, organic cotton clothing, organic vegetables (sourced at an affordable price) and also to slow down. I just loved sitting down with him with a book at night or play his toys together.

I am looking forward to more discovery with this lovely child of mine and the older two as well..

It's gonna be a long weekend break to folks in Malaysia, Happy Labor day to all!

Have a restful and lovely weekend folks!

ZS early birthday gift- Bicycle

Hi folks!

I have been checking out kids bicycle for sometime as ZS loves bicycle and it's time to get him one for his coming birthday in May.

The price of a kids bicycle can range from MYR130-600++ depending on the types and brands you like to get.

As kids tend to outgrow kids bicycle pretty quickly, I don't intend to get him a super-expensive ones.

So when I saw the prom at Tesco this weekend ..I finally get it for ZS who will turn 3 this May. Happy son and happy mom.

Are you checking out some kids bicycle too? Check it out at Tesco if you like to get an affordable one at promo price!

Cheers to a "cycling" and active-happy weekend!

Public Toilet Survival Kit

Hi folks!

When we talk about visiting a country, say Malaysia, we often heard about the traffic congestion, security besides the beauty of the flora and fauna. Also, one thing that strikes a strong impression to any tourist is a clean public toilet.

Even when we are travelling on our "balik kampung" or long distance road trip, my family would choose to stop at Rest and Relax stop which are known to have clean and accessible (yep, some toilets are locked for some reason!).

One thing that happened to our toilet-trained daughter at age 4, which is also the moment she stepped into formal schooling, we found out that she hardly finished the water in the her water bottle everyday. Upon checking with her, we found out that she tried not to drink water during the class as she is not comfortable of stepping into toilet with wet floors, bad smells and stains on the toilet bowl. This makes her hold her urine during classes and also when we are travelling outside, e.g. at shopping malls, parks, etc. She would rather hold it rather than use the public toilet at all cost. This have caused her much discomfort and also suffer from urinary tract infection easily.

Thus, when I received this Public Toilet Survival Kit from Kleenex, I thought it is very thoughtful of them to think of everything we could possibly need to survive from visiting or using a public toilet.

Now, let's take a look at what we need to have a home-clean public toilet experience:

1. Band Aid 

2. Mouth Mask

3. Hook

Hey WAIT....don't forget the most important one.......

4. The handy and flushable Kleenex® Wet Toilet Tissues

Previously, whenever i am out with the kids, I would made sure i bring along a packet of wet tissue as well as few packets of dry tissues. I would place the tissues on top of any surface that I might get in touch with so that i don't have to "touch"them. And it's quite common to find public toilet without any toilet tissues and also a working "hook" to hang our belongings. And don't even mention about the risk of accidental scratch or fall when we tried to manage ourselves with hands holding on bags, children and maybe trying to pinch our noise from the unbearable stench. So, these are really very practical and handy public toilet survival kit!

Now, with the invention of  the flushable “Kleenex® Wet Toilet Tissues, being first of its kind in Malaysia, made with consumers’ out-of-home cleaning needs in mind, we are able to use it at ease when we are out and about with our children. Its compact packets are easy to carry around and easy to use – just wipe and flush. It's very handy thing to place in the kids school bag as well so that they will not have to "than"or hold their nature calls and able to do it as when when they need to, anywhere, anytime with home-clean feel.

Sometimes we don’t realize how a tiny addition like this in our bag can make such a huge difference – it’s just like personal hygiene in a pocket.

*Safe to flush and hypoallergenic, the Kleenex® Wet Toilet Tissues are formulated with 9-step purified water for 99.9% assured clean  and gentle and delicate on the skin, leaving users feeling cleaner and fresher after use. 
Note: *Advisable to flush no more than 2 sheets at a time; not suitable for use in septic tank.

Kleenex® Wet Toilet Tissues are available in three sizes:

a pack of 10 sheets that can be placed in one’s pocket or handbag (RRP RM2.10)

a 40-sheet pack (RRP RM7.40)

a value-saving pack of three (RRP RM5.80)

All three sizes are now available in leading hypermarkets and supermarkets nationwide. I definitely getting the pack of three, one each for my 3 kids, just like anything i need to get now is always multiple by 3 .....

Now, would you like to try out Kleenex® Wet Toilet Tissues?

You can now join Kleenex® and Jihan Muse today to Survive Public Toilets

Request a free sample pack and participate in a simple quiz contest to win a year’s supply of Kleenex® Wet Toilet Tissues by registering at www.kleenexcleans.com.my.  You are also encouraged to share their experience using this brand-new product on social media by using the hashtag, #KleenexSurvivalGuide.

For more information on Kleenex® in general, log on to the Kleenex® Malaysia Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Kleenex.Malaysia) or call the Kimberly-Clark Consumer Care-line at 1-800-82-1188 (toll-free) on weekdays from 9am to 5pm.

Now, we can have a comfortable, worry-free outdoor trip anytime, anywhere with our kids. Have a lovely school holiday folks!

Cheers!