A Stay Home Mum for a week! (and his everyday schedule/timetable)

Last week I stayed home with Manfred for the whole week coz Aunty Nancy (aka his babysitter) had her family issue to attend to - her brother passed away. :( And the hubby had got Reservist to attend to. At first I wasn't the most confident to be able to handle the naughty boy 24/7 for a week, but i thought, if I couldn't, who possibly could do better (other than Aunty Nancy)?

And Tadah! I m proud of myself.

And roughtly, his time table went like this. I guess end of the day, sticking to a timetable really helps and works. Easier for the mother and child. Mum has a hour or so to nua abit after rushing through some chores while baby is sleeping.

8.30am-9am - Good morning! Milk for Breakfast/ Change of Diaper/ Little bit of Clean up
9.30am - 11am - Play / Play / Play
11am + - Pram Pram ride to Fernvale Point market to buy food and if weather is good (aka not too sunny), off we went to the playground for some exciting climbing (not for the faint hearted)
12pm - Home. Lunch (either porridge/cereal). Bathe!
1pm ++ - Nap Time. And he rolled and rolled and rolled to his favourite position before he knocked out to lala land.
3pm ++ - Woke up from nap. Milk for high-tea. Play on his own, or if I have the time to spare (from my work stuff), we will play together. :D
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6pm - Dinner time. Porridge/Cereal option. Depends mummy feel lazy or not.

After (his) dinner, we would normally go out for a walk or for the adults' dinner. I am so blessed to have awesome neighbours like Joey and Alex. When the hubby couldn't make it home early last week coz he was 'serving the country', the neighbours 'jio' me (and Manfred) for dinner. Alex drove us to Lim Tua Tao for some Taiwanese cuisine. :)

And, it was so fortunate that it was Yujing's vacation and she dropped by to 捣蛋 'accompany' us too. She stayed over for a night on Thursday too! And this girl went to sell shoes starting yesterday, at Charles & Keith. Yay! I'm going to ION to bug her for discounts!


After thoughts... 

1. It's really not easy being a working mum. When things like this does happen, the first emotionally affected person is Le Boss. In my team at work, I need to jagar my AE team, but when I m not around, he will have to take over this responsibility. I don't blame him for feeling sianz about me taking a one week urgent leave, but I have no control over such things when it happened. We all do understand on this. But ... still...

Maybe I should accelerate on setting my own biz, and so I would also have the flexibility in my own time and schedule. No more black face from le boss. And if so, what should I be selling? Product? Service? I really need to step up on this! I even went online to buy a e-book by Moon Loh which cost me $50. She's a mumpreneur. Still reading, and shall see how that book helps.

There are also many mumpreneurs who are indeed inspiring. http://mumsatwork.net/blog/?cat=11

2. Even if I can't set up my own biz yet, i would appreciate better a mummy-friendly working hour. Anything that could end work by 5.30pm? So that when I reach home, I still have ample time for my house, for Manfred, for myself. :)

For now, I reach home at about 9pm on the average after fetching Manfred from Aunty Nancy's place. Tell me, where do I squeeze time for Manfred when he is sleeping at about 10pm? And 10pm is quite a late timing for babies his age. And And And, I have to do the house chores. So, what we do is, one adult (normally the daddy) to settle Manfred (clean him up, feed him, pat him to sleep), while le me will bathe, and then settle the house chores. By the time we are done, it's already 11ish. Catch some TVs, and fold some clothes, and before we know it, it's already time for bed and we are so tired. And this cycle repeats itself from Monday to Friday.

Iwannaworkfromhome. 

Second night ...

So tonight is the second night that manfred baby kinda self slept... I would just stay by his side and see him roll back and forth until he is ready for the final touches aka the pat and hum along. 

Still remember it had been a battle the couple of weeks back. How he would cry out loud whenever we tried to pat him to sleep, and he would climb up and down the bed, crawl in and out of his mattress, and simply ignored our call for him to sleep. Until, one day I just sat there and followed his flow. It was better. I just let him do what he wanted too, while I tab tab my phone or just praising him for whatever I could think of. Before I know it, he went to his pillow and grab my hand to pat pat him. Ah, so don't force him, and that's the key. 

Tonight as usual, I sat beside his mattress. I off the lights. He went to his mattress and toss and turned for about 15min, before landing in his decided position for me to pat pat, and he is now asleep. :) 

Phase of growing up. 

Oh, and today I decided to just let him play with his porridge. Ok, it was intended to let him self feed with hand. but it was all in a mess. Himself. The floor. The high chair. It was an eye opener thou. I'm not too sure if I'm gonna let him do it again. Haha. 

I love my boy so much. Too much. 

It's been too long ..

Yeah, it's been a long while. 

Too busy with new house, too tired with chores and of coz babysitting the boy on weekends, he's a big boy now. Climbing up and up, crawling back and forth, learning his first steps to walk. He could like walk 3 fast steps and BOOM! ... fell on the ground. But his one brave boy! 

Had his birthday bash at our new place last month with close friends and family, doing the housewarming all together. 

I'm now an expert with porridge for babies, making different porridge for him every weekend. Not that he could finish everything, he is a picky eater. He puke out whatever he doesn't want to be inside his mouth. Bad bad habit which we r acting on it.

I love this little boy. He sleeps alone in his bedroom with all lights off. But we had a very hard time coaxing him to bed every night for the couple of weeks. It's better now, but patience, behold, still. 

Just caught a flu from his cousins on wed. Brought him to the doc at rivervale plaza sbcc on Friday. After taking the meddy for runny nose, seem to have quite a fast effect. Still runny on Friday and Saturday but at least mucus not much to be seen compared to Thursday and Friday morning. 

The pink syrup been good, and this time round I don't use the syringe anymore to feed him his meddy, I use the spoon that the clinic will always give for syrup. Anyway I haven't been giving him Prospan, unless his cough decides to drop by, but *touchwood* The illadin is for block nose, pretty good but not to use more than 5 days as it causes dry nose thereafter. We only dropped that into his nose when he is sleeping, as he hates people to touch his nose, had a phobia with that ever since a doc goh tried to wash his nose for the first time when he had a flu. Poor boy. Dunno how long this phobia gonna last. 

Anyway the boy is asleep now. While cooking his porridge, I'm just nua-ing on my sofa. When you're a mother, you will know, this is a very simple yet satisfying blissful indulgence. 

Alright shall get ready for gai gai later. Tatah! I so wanna go diaso. 

Toys Review: FISHERPRICE Sing With Me CD Player VS Vtech Rock n Roll Radio

Manfred baby LOVES toys with music & light and so when I saw vtech rock n roll radio at Taka departmental, I knew i got to get that for him. He held it in his pram and he was so refusing to pass the toy back to me, until i gotta force it from him and go pay for it. :) 

Forgot exactly how much but its in the SGD$30s range. 

What I love about this toy is that no matter where you press/turn, there is light and music, and and and... Manfred is still loving it now. He seldom has loyalty for his toys, but this one does! 

And I love it becoz its so handy. So, just nice for his little hands. 

The music is very cheery kind of music. I always leave this little handy toy in the car coz when we are travelling in the car, this toy can entertain him for the whole journey. Especially when at night, the lights are more obvious. Actually the light only lit up through the green and red button, but thats quite enough keep my son entertained. haha.  

Next up, I saw the Fisher-price Sing Along with me cd player at toys r us (united sq). Price is around the same as the vtech radio. I thought Manfred may like this too. So I got it.

Hmm, as there are 4 specific buttons to press to get the sound and light, my son didn't know how to "operate" this toy at first so I gotta teach him. After a few failed attempts and some passed attempted, he didn't quite like it. And, it was too big for him, not very handy compared to vtech's.

And that radio fell onto his face a couple of times. (too heavy for a barely one year old to handle I guess).

And this is now in the toys box. :P I guess I may still let him try when he gets a little bit older and see how he would react to it. Maybe by then he would know how to "insert" the CDs into the slot. :) Though the box says 6 months - 36 months, I dont think i would recommend to those not yet 12 months.

My verdict for now: Vtech wins.
1. Its handy.

2. Almost anywhere that Manfred's hands/fingers land on, there's sound and light, he loves it. He doesn't specially gotta like "press that button". Like I say, when he grows up a little, he may like it. Not sure about that now.

27.2.13 - Poor boy cried big last night

Could be not feeling comfy, could be hungry, or it could be a terrible nightmare. The boy cried in the middle of the night refusing to open his eyes despite how hard we tried to call his name, hopefully he will open his eyes and wake up. Cried for long.

Need to bring him go pray pray today. Call me bung-dan.

Seem to have seen something He shouldn't have. *goosebumps*

*UPDATED: after the pray pray, he was perfectly fine sleeping at night. Call me bantang. It works.

Update.

Not too bad. Last night he slept pretty well only to wake maybe twice due to his dudu dropped and being thirsty.

Finished his feed last night and this morning

Still heard some snotty noise from his nose/throat. But nomore runny nose. Hmm, a couple of cough though.

manfred is sick (again)

Sigh, baby Manfred is down with flu fever and some coughing again.

:( So was thinking of doing a record here so as to keep for future reference.

Monday, brought him for babyspa. It started drizzling and he was caught in the rain, little bit only lar. And daddy was still saying very loudly, "he's manfred, no scared of the rain." -___- such things can say one meh.

Maybe I shouldn't have opted him for the massage after the spa as it was a little cold in the room. :(

Aiya, I dont know whats the cause for his flu, but i guess could be one of the 2 reasons i stated above.

And on Tuesday night, he started with lotsa sneezing and runny nose.

During the night he couldnt sleep well AT ALL, he cried like every hour, and its those non stop crying, which is totally inconsolable. I blame it on teething. His cries were filled with frustrations. Poor thing. I also poor thing. Cant have a sane sleep through the night. Wake up every hour, and i totally felt like giving up, and just let him cry. I was totally helpless. TOTALLY. I dont know what to do to stop him from crying. Then we realised, MILK is the magic. He downed 2 bottles of 4 oz at 4 plus and 6 plus which is very rare of him now coz he seldom wake up at night to ask for milk. So i totally blame it on his teething. I guess the teat (from biting) and the warm milk somehow made his gums felt a little better.  And then he dreamt off to lalaland... and woke up 1+ hour later. (OMG)

And so, on Wednesday morning after Daddy sent him to nanny's place, auntie nancy called and said he is running a fever and having a runny nose. We brought him to Sbcc after work. Dr Goh Siok Ying (our favourite) wasnt around so we went for Eugene Han. He blamed the sleepless night on the flu, while I blamed it on teething. The good thing is his lungs and throat are clear, so its really all gathered at the nose.

I hope he gets better real soon, coz he is having this baby spa swimming contest on 4th May. He needs to go "practise" during the upcoming weekends too. I am a kiasu Mum. :D

I love my kiddo. Even though he has his cranky sides. I love him!