Scrapbook: April Layout

So far.. I'm quite on time and managed to stick to my scrapbooking goals.

At least 1 layout per month.

So here is my take on April's layout..

I think can't get over the fact that I am a new mother now... 

From Pinterest

I truly agree that nothing is more essential and more eternal than that of motherhood!

From Etsy

Found this on esty, wanted to purchase it!! Planed to frame it up and put it in Danielle's room. But I stop myself cause currently Danielle is sleeping with us as we are living with my in laws. Our house will only be completed by 2015 - 2016. 

Super can't wait for my our house to be ready.. and here is a little update on the progress from the kind soul of Sengkangzai.blogspot.com

Looks like afew of the blocks have completed the exterior work... except painting works. Guess right now, they are working on the interior works which we can see their progress... 

So can't wait to have my own house!!! Can't wait to design and decorate it!!!!!

Xoxo,

Felicia 

These are LIFE SAVERS!!!

Motherhood is very new to me.. many things / times, I actually trial and error with my daughter.
Although information can be easily search online but trust me, you won't really understand

Especially when they describe baby's crying... according to my internet's articles. Babies has different types of cry, just that we do not know how to decipher them. Well, I tried my best and honestly, my baby's cries sounds the same when she is restless, hungry or tired.

So here comes trial and error.... If Danielle starts to cry, it's usually because she is hungry. So first thing is that I will quickly change her diaper when the bm (breastmilk is being heat up). Than it's feeding time. Usually after feeding, she will fall asleep (if I'm lucky). If not she will fuss, than we will have to carry her, place her in her rocker and rock her to sleep. Or place the pacifier in her mouth.

Either one of the above will work and keep her quiet.

So thru my 2.5 months of being a mother.. I came to realised these few baby stuffs are really a LIVE
SAVER for me as a new mother!

Rocker Chair - Fisherprice 

Fisher Price - Infant Rocker Chair
Source: Fisher Price website

This rocker chair is the best thing that came into my life. At first I wanted to purchase those old school type of net backing rocker chair but my hub refuse to let me buy..

My step mum purchase this for Danielle for her 1mth old celebration and this is really a godsend.

The moment we place her in her rocker, rock her for awhile, she fall asleep. On those days / nights, if rocking do not make her sleep, we switch the vibrate mode on. The moment she falls asleep, we switch it off. She loves this rocker till she refuse to sleep in her cot... -__-zzz

I still let her sleep in her cot when I can only do so when she is deep deep asleep. 

See how soundly she sleeps...

Bath Seat Support

When I first tried to give my baby her bath... it scare the hell out of me.. Cause she is so soft and slippery and she will move her arms around. I was so afraid that she will slip out of my hands and even if the water level at the bath tub is shallow.. I still can't imagine what will be the outcome.

So for the longest time, I delegate her shower time to my mil or helper. 

It's only till recently, my ex-colleagues gave me this... Now shower time for Danielle is a breeze. I no longer need to panic if she will slip!!!

Musical Mobile

Before Danielle found her love for her rocker chair.. musical mobile makes her fall asleep when we place her in her cot or when she starts to fuss. The moment the music is on, she just keep quiet and listen and sometimes fall asleep while listening. 

Now that she is 2.5 months and starts to focus on sights.. we place her on her cot and train her eyesight and she will focus on those cute dangling soft toy! Good job girl!

Baby Shusher App

Download any of the baby shusher app from either Itunes or Play store.. 

Basically this app just play the "shush" sound repeatedly and apparently babies feels safe and it will soothe them and helps them to fall asleep.

Initially I didn't know about such app and I will manually shush Danielle to sleep... by the time she falls asleep.. I've no voice!

So with this app, I just play it and place it somewhere near her... and I can go off doing my own stuffs.

Another lifesaver!!

Swaddle Sack

Some mothers claims that swaddle sack is damn good for baby especially bedtime!! I belive babies all like to be swaddle as its makes them warms and tight, the feeling like when they are in our womb.

But my dear girl here, only let her swaddle her for the first 2 - 3 weeks... subsequently she refuse to let us swaddle her.. her arms will try to escape.

1 moment she is all nicely swaddle, the next moment, she wriggle her arm out..

So I guess this is good for me till my baby is 3 weeks old.

Stream Steriliser 

Didn't purchase any kind of electric steam steriliser before I give birth as I thought we could use the old school way of sterilising in a big pot of hot water with all baby's milk bottle and stuffs.

But that works if I can a helper who is good and able to help me. Honestly, sometimes I see the way my helper wash baby's milk bottle... *shake head*

Either it's too much liquid cleanser soap used till her milk bottle smells of the liquid cleanser. Or she will place all her milk bottle to wash in the sink that still have those leftover veg and what nots, in the trap sink, Haiz.

And the best part is, if my helper is in good mood, she will use hot water to throughly rinse the milk bottles. If not, she will pour hot water over it and that's it.

So I purchase Avent's Stream steriliser for $99 during the Taka Baby Fair. 

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So far these are my few baby products that are life saver to me.. yet to discover other products that can make my life as a new mother easier! This is a steep learning curve and I think I will master it in no time!! ^_^v

Xoxo,

Felicia 

My practising model

Being stuck at home with Danielle... When the moods strike..

This is what I do...

I snip pictures of her...

Just 2 weeks old.. and she has already captured her daddy's heart..

She is a true Daddy's Girl.

Taken this chubby shots of her when I was changing her onsie after feeding... See that she has grown quite alot... 

Grow baby grow....  all thanks to my BM & FM!! 

I decided to introduce my favorite toy, Carebears to Danielle. She seems quite interested!! Good sign!! ^_^v

Oh.. time flies and you're already 10 weeks old.

Went to PD last week for her 2nd vaccination jabs, and my chubby girl is now 5.3kg!! 

Me a proud mama cause my girl just cried for a short moment when the needle prick her and thru out the consultations... not much fuss! She cried the loudest when she is hungry!

She seems to like Grumpy Bear... even copy grumpy's expressions.

So cute!

Well in case you all wonder.. this is her full name.

As I snap more pictures of her... my hands are super itched to upgrade my camera and get a portrait prime lens.. tsk tsk...

Think I will have to wait till my next bonus payout before I can do my upgrades... unless I strike 4D lah..

Have a great week!

Xoxo,
Felicia

Motherhood time vs Felicia's time

Woah! It's April already??! That's fast...

Times seems to fly pass when one is at home without the concept of date and day.. Yup, that's what I'm experiencing now cause weekday and weekends are the same to me!

Well, being on maternity leave.. I get to spend lots and lots of quality time with Danielle. So much so that my whole day just revolved around her.

So here is my typical schedule.

3am: Wake up to feed Danielle

5am - 6am: Danielle's feeding time

8am - 10am: Breakfast time for me (depending what time i wake up) 

Next feeding time is usually done by my helper

11am - 12pm: Bathing time for Danielle

                       Express milk

1pm - 2pm: Lunch time for me

                   Coaxing Danielle to sleep + feed her 

3pm - 4pm: ME time! Time to do my mask and surf net or scrapbooking!

5pm - 6pm: Bathing time for Danielle

                    Feeding time for Danielle

                   Express milk

7pm - 9pm: Dinner time

                   Feeding time for Danielle

                   Express milk

10pm - 2pm: Feeding time for Danielle

                     Change into her PJs

                    Preparing her for bedtime

                    Express milk

                    Shower time before I zzz

So by the time Danielle is asleep.. it's time for me to express milk and shower again when I'm done. By the time i hit the sack, it's about 12am - 1am already. Basically I sleep for 3 - 4 hours before Danielle's next feeding..

As much as I enjoyed being a mother to Danielle. Such schedule is exhausting. 

My husband at times seems to forget that I'm Felicia too. Not just a mother to Danielle. 

I needed some quality time for myself too. Got so pissed with him during the March holiday where he is off from teaching and I finally had 1 or 2 days to go out and shop and do stuffs that I wanna do. He got angry cause he had to look after Danielle together with the helper. To me, he don't get to off when it's his off days. 

Hello... he have his Sundays off for boxing class. And I'm at home looking after Baby! Seriously why man dun understand??!

I kinda envy the role of a Father..

Father just need to ensure that he has a stable working, bring money back home to feed the family.

He has gets to hang out with his friends, be it after work or on weekends.

He comes home and chat / play with baby. Occassionally feeds Danielle if I'm occuiped with expressing milk. 

And that all. 

Night feeding, not a single time, he wakes up to help me. He just sleeps all the way...

So how can I not envy a father's role. It's so much simpler that being a Mother.

I have to go thru 9 months of pregnancy, go thru 10 hours of labour pains to pop Danielle out. Have to endure that 1 month confinement with it's rules and taboos. 

No wonder they say, 妈妈是最伟大的！

I can't agree more!! Okay! I'm feeling so much better now that I let off some stream.

On a lighter side note... I'm done with my scrapbook layout for March.

It's time for me to work on my layout for April..

Have a great week!

Xoxo,
Felicia 

Scrapbook: Feb's layout

Hands have been itching to do some scrapping.. hence I've come up with my 2nd layout for Feb.

Have mention in my previous blog post that I'm aiming to create at least 1 layout for each month. And keep to a theme of "Something Significant". Anything that seems significant to me during that particular month.

You're my greatest blessing

On the side note...

Hub and I have been discussing who is gonna look after Danielle when I'm going to resume work in June. Knowing that there is no way our current helper is able to handle Danielle when there isn't any other family member around. And all other family members have to work...

So we decided against our heart pain to send Danielle to infant care. Luckily there is a branch of My First Skool near our place. So when Danielle is just 6 days old, I immediately register her name on the wait list.. We were informed that if there is a seat available, they will only contact us 1 month before our intended date.

So I waited and finally they called me last week to inform me that there is 1 seat available for their infant care centre. So we made arrangement to view the centre, understand how is their operation for infant care and the teacher - infant ratio. We are happy with what we see, the toddlers in the centre seems happy and the teachers there looks motherly and patience kind.

So we went with our gut feeling and register Danielle and she will start in May. So I have 1 month's time to get use to her being in infant care and would be so anxious / worry and miss her so much when I'm back at work.

Luckily there is subsidy for working mothers, the monthly fees is about $700++. Damn expensive.
But no choice, we don't have anyone at home to look after baby.

So next question, what about the helper? Well, knowing that she and my mother in law can't get along well. So we decided to send her back. Seriously when I heard those ppl who share their maid encounter stories with me.. I always thoughts that I won't encounter it.

Well, it sort of happened to us. Not that my helper steal anything or do anything gravely wrong. Just that we find her way too young and not on auto mode plus she is quite stubborn. Sometimes she insist in doing her own way when it's wrong. Haiz.. Feels like she has some sort of "Princess attitude".

Next time if we really need to hire a helper, I make sure I'm the one who select!

Enough of my ranting... it's almost time for Danielle's feeding..
Gotta express breastmilk! #mylifeasamother

Have a great weekend!

Xoxo,
Felicia

It's Baby Danielle's first month

Time files... it's already Baby Danielle's first month!!!

I'm also done with my 1 month long confinement... This means that I can go out but after being a mummy.. it isn't easy to just go out like before. There is like a 101 things that I need to prepare before stepping out of the house..

1. Pack diaper bag
2. Ensure that baby is fully fed
3. Express out bm
4. Make sure that baby is sound asleep. If baby isn't sleeping, she will be cranky and it's even more difficult for us to go! Imagine got to carry the diaper bag, pram and also to soothe her.
5. Got to make sure that majority of the household chores are done before I can bring my baby and helper out..

See... just all these preparation alone, takes me half a day to complete and by then you usually don't wan to go out..

But well, I managed to bring baby Danielle out during her actual full month and it wasn't that bad. Planning to bring her out again when she is on her PD check up and a chance for me to detour and do abit of shopping! ^_^v

Last weekend, we celebrate Danielle's full month. For me, it's quite happening cause I finally get to chat with my friends. Imagine for the whole month, I'm so bored at home. Luckily got my gf's mother and the massage lady to chat with me hence I'm sane.

The star of the event!
My cutie max, Danielle Lee En
Age: 4 weeks old
Weigh: Est 3.5 - 4kg

Dessert table from Maple & Market

I've always wanted to try out the cakes at Maple & Market but her cafe is way too far away for me. So I took this chance to order a dessert table setup for Baby's full month celebration!

Our celebration is a very small one so I didn't order alot of cakes. 

Order a 8" Victoria Sponge Cake, 6" Caramel Popcorn Cake, half a doz of red velvet, double chocolate and a coconut mini cupcakes.

I'm pretty happy with the decorations. Simple and nice.. and I super love the caramel popcorn cake!! Yummy!! Hehehe ^_^v

Now I wish I'm still residing in the East side.. at least it would be easy for me to go there and have cakes and coffee in their cosy cafe.

 I didn't manage to snap alot of pictures cause I was walking around, chatting with my friends. Didn't even remember to take a pictures!! Haiz!
Managed to snap a picture of Mr Lee's friend's son.. this big eye cutie has recently promoted to Big Brother!! Both brothers are such a little cutie!

And my brother is now a uncle... finally dare to carry his niece!!

We cater this mini buffet food from Neo Gardens. So far, their reviews are quite alright and food taste not too bad. I didn't get to eat much cause I still have my confinement food.. hence can't give much feedback thought.

But most of the food were finished. So I think either my guests were hungry or their food were good! Hehe.

We are thankful for our friends who took time to came by our place for this mini get together! And thank you sooo much for all the ang baos and gifts for Baby Danielle. 

Signing off with a pic of my cheeky little girl...

Xoxo,
Felicia