So I Attended A MacDonald's Party - for Mother's Day

The teachers from the Nursery level were thoughtful to organise a bonding session for the children and their mummies in view of Mother's Day - complete with a cake surprise at the finale. Kudos for the effort! And I now know why MacDonald's a popular choice for kiddie parties - they have a winning formula. When I was a kid, MacDonald's birthday parties were like A Big Deal. Sadly, I have never attended one before, I guess it's not too late now!
From allocating designated personnels to handle our orders, to handing out Happy Meal toys and balloons to the kids - happy kids do make happy parents. You know, anything goes to ease our mealtimes with our little ones - with the exception of "i-gadgets" for this mommy. I'm sure you have done little tricks like, "Can I have the blue spoon because di-di wants one too?" or "Do you mind me buying just an extra biscuit cone because they are bound to argue if there's only one?". So I know there is virtue in sharing, but kids at this age haven't really perfected that one, not even for me till I could claim double digit for my age.
Therefore restaurants that go out of their way to make their little customers happy, win the parents' heart. Enough said. 
[It is also important to eat at food centres and coffeeshops, and not always in restaurants, but that will be another post to be taken up (if I get to it).]

Happy smiles all round!

Fold and Stack 'Em Up!

  Moving away from the conventional ang pow blossoms (ang pow packets are so much more expensive), how about some paper flower blossoms for Chinese New Year? For a $2 packet of origami paper, I can make all three below. The price to pay? Time and lotsa patience.   1. Passion flower ball

2. Cherry blossom ball

 

3. Kusudama morning dew

 

Boy, I'm spoilt for choice over which to make.

There's Something Magical About Christmas

The handcrafting mood has moved on to Christmas decoration, now that I've completed the handmade cards.
I'm not sure why but Christmas is a time where I'll put in more effort to either dress myself, or dress up my abode. It's as if fairy dust was sprinkled over my house, and there must be a magical twinkle in every corner. I have to say I was so disappointed not to be able to get my hands on the snowflake cut-out stamp that was sold out in Papermarket, my place would have been converted into a Christmas wonderland.
Nevertheless, paper origami decoration wins over an actual Christmas tree for some obvious reasons:
1. Everybody loves putting up the Christmas tree but NOBODY likes to take it down afterwards. 2. Paper origami decorations can simply be removed and thrown away. 3. I don't have to watch over the pine tree like a hawk from the curious hands of my young ones - a toddler and a crawler.

"Keep Taking Pictures"

When I was first expecting Jaeden, the one enthusiastic advice given to me by young parents was to "keep taking pictures". Narcissist mommy of course heeded this.

In retrospect, if not for the collection of photos I amassed, I wouldn't have registered how fast my boy is growing.

So yes, my advice to parents-to-be is also to, "Keep taking pictures!"  

 

Old as Good as New?

I'm not sure if it runs in the family, but both my sister and I are frugal when it comes to getting toys for the little ones. We don't believe in having a roomful of toys for our tods - simply because of practicality.

We ladies are guilty of buying clothes that we won't wear, at least not that many times. So we do a quick mental estimation of the longevity of the plaything, to ascertain its worthiness in buying. Since my mother-in-law is looking after Jaeden on weekdays, we needed a duplicate of most day-to-day basics for two houses, and yours truly the financial controller is ever quick to rule out the lower-priority ones.

Recently I decided to search for second-hand playyards and those inflatable swimming tubs. Believe me that they are many moms out there who buy items/toys to find to their dismay that their kids don't like it, and the items quickly became newly minted white elephants, so it's very easy to find almost brand new items at discounted prices. The drawback? You have to self-collect the item.

The owner of the secondhand play yard I bought was nice to throw in this activity table FOC as her girl has outgrown it and hardly plays with it.

Jaeden with his "new" play yard <20 Mar 2012>

When it comes to toys, rather than buying into that "suitable for motor development" and "recommended for age so-and-so" tagline, look around your house; there are many household essentials that will stimulate the said motor skill just as well, so long there is an adult supervising the play process. These are my two cents' worth of alternatives from a scrooge mommy.

Thankfully, I have friends who gave Jaeden toys for different developmental stage during his baby shower. Thus far I have only bought him a Lamaze giraffe and some teethers. I have managed to survive on hand-me-downs and rented toys but that, is another entry to be shared in time if it is deemed a good idea.

Time to Build Immunity

In all his 7 months, Jaeden has never encountered diarrhoea - not until recently.In parenting, I've come to learn that some things can't be rushed, especially the healing of our babies when they are sick. Paediatricians cannot prescribe too strong a medicine because our babies are too young. When Jaeden was slightly colickly (in his early 1st month), we administered the good old Ruyi oil and Ridwind and slowly Jae grew out of having windy spells in his tummy (at about 2 months);When Jaeden caught the cough from Mommy (I felt so guilty then), we gave him cough mixture for a whole week before seeing slight improvement;Now when Jaeden has diarrhoea, we switched his milk from normal formula to soy formula, and supplement with Bio-Gaia. It's been 2 weeks and he is only showing lesser loose stools this week. It is plain heartache to see baby unwell but we can't rush his recovery with antibiotics or jabs like adults.Yet experienced parents will assure me that infants/toddlers/children build immunity through sickness.  And lil' Jae is a little soldier who continues to smile even when he is unwell. We should learn from our babies; smile despite of your condition! <9 Mar 2012>Taken from iPhone4 (Note to Karen: "Great shot! But need sturdier hands" :P)

The Cheaper Alternative

I'm a mommy who doesn't believe in getting expensive toys for kiddo. I think kiddies tire of toys faster than you can say "elephant" (just a random word). Another mummy gave me this bright idea of a windmill. It's really great for distracting your infant baby (3 months onwards) and it's cheap. Moving objects keep baby's attention. Try it!

Jaeden's favourite teether of the moment