Oct
2012

Chempedak’s Play-Dough Weekends

categories: chempedak, Heartbeat

A couple of weekends ago, my sister brought home boxes of plasticine. She had a cute work project to do which required her to make some plasticine models for the pediatric ward at a hospital she’s visiting later that week.

She got busy trying to make some plasticine animals and as you can expect, my little Chemps wanted to help. I couldn’t really do much apart from take pictures because I’m allergic to plasticine. 5 to 10 minutes after touching plasticine, my skin would turn super red and itchy. So I stayed away from the plasticine and just let Chemps happily help her aunt.

She had loads of fun! Her teachers let her play with play-dough at school so she felt very much at ease with plasticine.

Plasticine project on!

The following weekend, Alisha asked to play with play-dough again. She was referring to the plasticine that my sister had at home, but unfortunately, she had already used them up at work so there were none left.

Obviously that left us in a bit of a pickle. Chemps got upset that there wasn’t any play-dough and I very well wasn’t going to go out and buy her plasticine due to my allergy. PlayDoh is ok, but they’re kind of expensive. I can’t bear to watch if Alisha decides to combine several colours of PlayDoh until they turn into one huge purple lump. Oh good God.

So, I decided to make my own play-dough 😀 I remembered seeing my friends making some for their kids and figured it couldn’t be that hard to make. I Googled a bit for a simple recipe and found this:

I immediately set out to make a batch of home-made play-dough!

Within 10 minutes, Alisha had a huge portion of red play-dough which she absolutely loved!! The texture was much better than the store bought ones (at least, from my point of view). It’s less crumbly and just lovely to mash around with your hands. Best part is, I’m not allergic to it! Hahahahah, and if any accidentally gets eaten by your kid, you won’t have to worry much since it’s made out of edible stuff 😀

 

 

 

 

 

10 minutes of playing with red play-dough, Alisha requested for another colour. “Nak blue pulak Mommy!”

Thank God it was easy to make, so I didn’t complain. I just went to the kitchen and whipped her up another batch 😀

Do use a non-stick saucepan if you have one, it’s not as messy

We ended up playing with play-dough the entire morning all the way to lunchtime.

Tok Pa, Alisha and Tia having some good play-dough fun

Alisha and her Tok Pa made a play-dough monster!

Her attempt at copying my play-dough kitty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out her concentration as she makes a “vok ayy no” (volcano)

Do give it a try, trust me, you’ll love it so much that you’ll have batches of rainbow coloured play-dough at home!

Note: We’ve had the home-made play-dough for about a month now and it’s still good 🙂 I store them in zip-lock bags after Alisha’s done playing.


Oct
2012

Expecting Dot 2: Week 31

categories: Baby Stuff, chempedak, expecting Dot 2

31 weeks pregnant with Dot2 🙂

Good day (or good evening, depending on when you’re reading this) to all my Doodlers!

Hello, hello! Wow, a month plus since I last managed to post something here.

It’s been a whirlwind of events for me, starting from after Hari Raya, right up till yesterday. There’s so many things I want to blog about, so many things I want to share, but I just couldn’t find the time!

Anyway, the posts of previous events will find itself up on this blog one of these days. Slowly but surely 🙂

First things first though, yesterday, we went for my monthly checkup. All three of us went, of course, it’s become a monthly family affair.

We’re gonna go see baby yo!

We went, registered, and waited.

Chemps killing time by entertaining herself

Honestly monthly check-ups are all about the waiting. You see your doctor for about 20 minutes, and then that’s it. But you very well believe that it’s worth the wait 🙂

This time around, my weight went from 40.75kgs from the last check up to a whopping 44.15kgs! This got rigorous nods of approval from my doc as I’ve finally upped more than a kilo as opposed to previous months. My blood pressure is also normal, as opposed to being on the low during previous check-ups. Yay! 😀

Dot2 is now 1.8kgs and remains to be a shy little one. He kept covering his face with his hands so we couldn’t get a view of him at all. So since we couldn’t take home a 3D shot of his face, we took home a print out of his tots instead, BWAHAHAHAHAH.

Sorry Dot2, your parents have a weird sense of humour

We reconfirmed Dot2’s EDD, and so just as an update, Chemp’s baby brother is expected to arrive on the 10th of December 2012 😀

Oh, here’s something new I’m trying this round. I’ve been taking bird’s nest once a week. See, Alisha’s got quite a case of eczema, so a friend of mine said to try taking bird’s nest for this baby. Initially I was a bit afraid that it’ll taste yucky, you know, like essence of chicken yucky? Thank God it tastes ok. Hopefully Dot2 will come out without the eczema problems. We’ll see what happens 🙂

A bottle a week of Eu Yan Sang’s Niah bird’s nest supplement

Oh, here’s one of my recent favourite pics with my little girl. I just realized I don’t have that many photos with her.

That cheeky look on her face reminds me so much of the picture we took of her when she was a day old 🙂 Just 24 hours and she’s already smiling like the happy little bub that she is.

Mommy loves you so much!!!


Sep
2012

Expecting Dot 2: Week 27

categories: Baby Stuff, expecting Dot 2

Wiiuuuiiuuiuuu!! I’m 27 weeks already! 😀

I’m so thankful that I’ve managed to go through my first and second trimester easily. Alhamdulillah, no major issues apart from the morning sickness. I even managed to complete and entire month of fasting during Ramadan! An amazing achievement in my own records, hah!


Puasa penuh, yay! Boleh raya, yay!

We went for our checkup last week, and we’re happy to report that Dot2 is doing well. I was rather worried about the amount of weight I gained (if any) since I went through 30 days of fasting. Yes, Alhamdulillah, I managed to fast this time round. I didn’t manage to previously, but this time it all went smoothly! My doctor gave a little laugh when I asked her about my weight. She said I gained 700grams. Previous check-up, I was 40.05kgs and this time I have gone up to 40.75kgs. She says “all the weight has gone to baby, none on you”.  Alhamdulillah, that’s good news, at least baby is growing well, and that’s the major concern for me at this point. (Please ignore the fact that I have yet to hit 41kgs even at almost 7 months pregnant).

So though I haven’t really put on much weight, my belly has expanded rather much. Even my mother-in-law commented that my belly is larger at this stage as compared to when I was expecting Chemps. My stomach’s starting to get the itch too. Good God it gets so itchy at times that I just forget about the whole “don’t scratch or you’ll get marks” issue and just claw at my belly like crazy. Not good, I know, but can’t help it!! Oh and with that also comes the inevitable backache that has been keeping me awake at night.

Actually, it’s not just the backache, it’s baby too! I have one very hyper lil bub in here, who just looooves to start doing his kicks in the middle of the night. Sometimes I’d be awake batting my eyelids from 3.30am all the way to sunrise. Obviously I’d be zombified at work and straight after dinner, I’d be ready for bed already. Although most of the time I sleep later than I have to, since I attend to Chemps first. Get her washed up, make her milk, chat with her for a bit, gaduh suruh tido, make her milk again, then do I finally get my sleep. Pastu tengah malam bangun buat susu lagi.. hahahah.. adeh…

Honestly, I worry about my confinement period. I don’t think people attend to my daughter like I do. For example, I try to give a simple “yes?” when she starts calling “mommy..” at most after 2 or 3 calls. I don’t do this to spoil her, I do it because I want to set an example. It drives me crazy when I hear her calling for other people and it’s being ignored to the point where she’d be crying and screaming for attention. Is it that difficult to give a little nod to a three-year-old? And then when they grow up and start ignoring YOUR calls, you wonder how did they get so obnoxious. Sigh.

My lil angel

I’m strict with my Chemps, because as sweet and lovable as she is, there are times when she just pushes the buttons to see how far she can go, and I put her in her place. However, she’s one of those who you have to rationalize with, and explain to, and though she may not hear it the first time, she usually understands after a couple of tries.

What I worry is when I’m in my confinement period, others will not have as much patience with her (e.g. baru kena buat susu 2 kali dah complain brape kali nak minum susu) and she might feel neglected. *sigh* I just pray that all will go well.

Anyway, back to Dot2 🙂 Here’s the latest capture of my growing unborn. It took quite a while for us to get this capture as he refused to show his face. He was probably sleeping and covered his face with his hands. After a little coaxing from the doctor (and Daddy tried talking to him too), he finally moved his hand and gave us a side profile, hehehhe…

Dot2 at 26 weeks

So, all is well in Twiggy’s belly 😀 third trimester, here we come!