have baby, will travel

Not the most adventurous picture but you get the point. I'm counting down the days when i can really travel travel , as in go overseas with passport, trekking gear, and hoist Val up to a vantage point, shower under a waterfall, climb over crags, walk into valleys, scrabble over mountains, stand atop peaks, hide under a rainforest canopy, hunt for strawberries, snorkel with the sharks, freefall from a plane....For starters, I hope to celebrate his first year by bringing him on a trip to cameron highland with some friends who have promised to 'babysit' him for me. Can't wait....

val on the go

we visited great grandma today, to her delight of course. and he was thrilled to see an ultra big ceiling fan and kept pointing to it, with his index finger and thumb splayed out in the cutest baby style -- babies are cutest when they haven't mastered how to do things the adult way. Back home, because i've refused to buy a walker for Val (for all the bad press about them) and he absolutely feels the instinctive need to move around with support, he has naturally gravitated to pushing around the high chair, his stroller, the baby sarong structure, plus the pink gym ball. It's backache time for us all as we try to help him by keeping a safe distance behind. Ouch....

my little man

I love this picture. Although it's a blurry foto snapped on my mobile, it really really captures what Val is all about these days. He loves standing up on the bed, hanging onto the window grilles to peep at the world outside especially when it's dark and the twinkling street lights and enthralling headlights of cars whizz by. His favourite activity is to play peek a boo with the curtains. They're not exactly the cleanest things around! So i try to put them out of his way, but sometimes when someone forgets and lets the curtains down, Val's the first to dash over to tug at them.

Val's picking up new words too. Of course he can't say anything, but we know he knows what they are cos he looks at things we call out. Like with 'fish' he turns to our windchime that has an assortment of wooden fish, the same with 'fan', 'sarong', and 'ball'. I play the Your Baby Can Read video every morning after his bath time cos it's the only thing that keeps him still long enough for me to put on his clothes. Two days ago, when the children in the video said 'point' and a baby demonstrated the action, Val also raised his right hand and pointed his finger to point! it was very funny. and since then, he does that without fail whenever Baby Lauren (that's the baby who points her finger) appears. It's weird how there are some words he picks up very fast, some he just never. Like the word 'Star', i pointed out the neon glow-in-the-dark stars i have on our ceiling one night, and he caught on immediately but he just can't figure out where's my nose, ears, eyes and mouth. Anyways, he'll do so in his own time. It's just funny to see his antics.

But it ain't so funny when it comes to eating and sleeping. He loves his organic cereal but screams and cries each time he is put in his high chair. Even the belt on the chair doesn't seem to contain him. Lately, he's developed a very bad habit of wanting to crawl around and eat. grrr...... it's a battle each time we feed him. As for sleeping............that's his biggest enemy. he now refuses to get into the sarong for day naps, he would twist and sit up and threaten to topple out of the sarong altogether. very dangerous. Yah, i never got round to the whole 'cry it out' sleep training i guess. But really, he can cry and cry for a LOOOOONG time without yielding. a few nights ago, he cried from midnight till 3 am for god-knows-what reasons, and then finally i had to offer the breast before he would sleep again................ARGGH.... these days, i just don't fight it anymore. when he wakes up at night, i just shove my boob to him and he's back at sleep quickly. Honestly i really don't have the energy to battle it out with him. So i do look on at envy at those moms who blog about their babies sleeping through the night....... i just have to accept that Val's just going to do that at his own time.

on raising a healthy child

the recent milk scandal in China once again reminds us of how much contaminants there are in almost every aspect of our life. This time it's melamime, but recently studies have also shown that polycarbonate, a plastic commonly used for milk bottles, contains the hormone-disrupting Biphesonol-A. Although i am a breastfeeding proponent, i am also well aware of the possible toxicity in breastmilk especially if the mom has been exposed to lots of pollutants and say, lead a relatively unhealthy lifestyle such as smoking. Some studies on breast milk have shown that mom's milk can have contaminants such as flame retardants, pesticides, toilet deodoriser, and dry-cleaning fluids! This is only natural since whatever mommy ingests, eventually baby does too. So, although we don't gulp down dry-cleaning fluids or sip the toilet deodoriser, the chemicals can be breathed in and makes its way into the breast milk. That said, however, breast fed children still tend to be healthier and less prone to cancer because of the antiseptic qualities in the milk.

That's why it's timely that just as the milk scandal surfaced, the book i ordered from the NGO "Healthy child healthy world" finally lands at my place. Great timing. This little book is chockful of great resources and insights on how to make our homes and our lifestyle so much 'cleaner, greener and safer' for the little tots. In fact, many of the contributors remark that their children's asthma improved greatly once they began removing chemicals from their homes. Goes to show how much chemicals that are insidiously penetrating our children's fragile systems.

After reading it, It has greatly strengthened my resolve to slowly, bit by bit, introduce more natural products into the home. I sure can't afford to overnight become a 100% organic eater, but there are some things that i believe will make a difference.

What i have already begun to do:
1. use more cloth diapers than disposables, and try to toilet train him asap: since the chemicals inside the diapers were banned from women's tampons years ago... surely can't be good to keep val's jewels in close contact with these questionable chemicals 24/.7.

2. Organic shampoo & bodywash for Val (only) that are free from all the questionable chemicals/ preservatives like parabens,phosphates, pthalates and sulfates. (i'm still thinking twice about switching to organic stuff for me since it's more expensive for adults - we have bigger surface area!)

3. water wipes 99% of the time, instead of wet wipes ---- in a bid to cut costs on buying wet wipes, i inadvertently switched to just water and reusable cotton cloths. means, we save the environment and also reduce val's bum from too much contact with chemicals and preservatives.

4. begin buying wooden toys --- using sustainable wood and non toxic paints. also, i read that if you use a lot of plastic toys, at least ensure that the toys are well-aired before first use since they emit a lot of harmful toxins in the air when newly unwrapped.

5. use deet-free insect repellent that instead relies on natural plant remedies to ward off the mossies -- so far worked pretty well in timor. just gotta reapply often. luckily i also used very little deet insect repellent while pregnant.

6. frozen washcloths as teethers --- they have worked well, and i think i'm gonna junk the other plastic ones since i'm unsure what kind of plastics they were made from

7. buy organic oat, rice, barley cereal for Val --- i'm junking the other questionable food stuffs that were bought for him, e.g. nestle's teething biscuits. will henceforth buy only organic titbits for him. will be more expensive but.....

8. switched to using BPA-free drinking cups from SteadyCo (you can buy them at Robinsons i think), and BPA-free utensils from IKEA. And we serve hot porridge or cereal in porcelain bowls, but make sure they are well out of Val's reach.


What i plan to do next:

1. Floor cleaning liquids -- this is first on my hit list. Since Val is crawling around so much, it now makes sense to invest some $$$ into organic or at least less chemically-enhanced floor liquids.

2. go back to using baby-detergent --- okay, so i used to think it was all hype -- to sell more expensive baby detergents to paranoid parents but it is all worth it! look for baby or organic detergents that are free from harmful phosphates, phtalates, etc

3. unpack the steam cleaning machine that's still in the box --- it was given free but we've yet to use it.

4. hunt around the house, and eliminate plastic toys, plates, eating utensils made from PVC (No.3), Polystyrene (no.5), and Others (usually polycarbonate #7 )... luckily our family hardly heats up food in the microwave using plastics, we are a 'Corning ware' family haha.

4. decide what to do with those new Avent bottles i've got --- they are polycarbonate, and hence may leach toxins when heated. hmmm... they were quite expensive! and new! but Val still refuses to nurse from a bottle --- maybe his instincts are really better than mine?

5. try to convince my dad to stop spraying insecticide??? this is the difficult one. how? we do grow many citronella plants but they're all outside the house. although we don't have much of a mossie problem, but my dad still occasionally nukes the room

6...
7...
8....


LOts more to do, but the trick is to go slow and do it at a natural pace otherwise, it may freak out everyone else in the home!
One visible trend that's happening these days is that i do see more people using those fibre bags instead of plastic bags for their groceries. It provoked a discussion i had with my dad over plastic bags and how we now live so dangerously by packing foods in plastic bags whereas in their time, they had to bring their own tiffin to the hawker stall. These days, our family also tries to do that. If we know we're going to packet some food, we try to bring our own metal container. it does take effort no doubt.


From the book "Healthy child healthy world" p.g 95
DID YOU KNOW... that nonstick pans use a chemical called PFOA (dun ask me what's the actual spelling) that is now found "in the blood of nearly every American and has been listed by the EPA (America's environmental protection agency) as a 'likely human carcinogen'. Apparently Dupont and 7 other companies have agreed to stop using PFOA in their pans by 2015.

Oh, and one last thing....

the latest craze in the housecleaning department is apparent the microfiber cloth! This is the same same same fabric that our sports towel is made of -- you know the ubiquitous blue sports towel with a terry cloth feel and is highly absorbent? well, microfiber is now being touted as one of the most effective cleaning aid in the home since dust clings to it easily until washed. Incidentally, all of Val's diaper inserts are made of the same material. which means when he outgrows his diaper inserts, and if i can't sell them off second hand, there will be plenty of microfiber cloths handy at home!


Some great websites with a focus on cleaner, greener, safer living:

1. Environmental working group
2. Z recommends
3. Mothering magazine
4. Healthy Toys (A website that lets you check for toxic toys)

balancing act

today i submitted my Community Development essay 2 weeks after the official submission date. i'm not used to submitting things late but still that was the easy part. the tough part was to accept that the essay was the best i could have done under the circumstances,because i felt completely lousy about the shoddy job i had done with it. I guess i'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that when a child comes into the picture, something just gonna give -- for the career folks, it may mean trying to end work on time and accepting that they can't push all the way as they used to, and for me now, it means just having to accept that my papers may not be as well-researched or written as before. Sigh. it's not easy.

And things are likely to get scarier soon as i've just been officially offered a job and i've accepted it. It's a full-time job as a sub-editor of a new website specialising in BUSINESS news in CHINESE. Gulp.....I have never had the brains for business stuff, let alone in Chinese so it must have been divine intervention that possessed the chief editor to hire me. Anyways the job pays rather well (not too far off from my CNA days) and it allows me to stay home and work during hours that are suitable. Sounds ideal? on the surface yeah. it means i save time on commuting, i get to see Val during the day, and i don't have to squeeze with others on public transport. But the downside is that i inadvertently end up doing house chores, taking care of Val sometimes, bathing him etc, while having to still work and study. It's like the invisible hand of work creeps up, and it means i have to spend afterwork hours working and my days and nights are jumbled up. I do get CPF (something i haven't had for a few years) but i don't think i get medical leave and other perks that normal salaried employees get. I didn't even bother asking. i guess i was just too overjoyed to be offered a job that somehow allows me to study and also care for Val.

My mind's also preoccupied with how i can finish up my Masters faster since i am progressing at a pace slower than a snail. At this rate, i'll still be swotting at the books come 2010. One of the faster options is to take on a 2-credit internship with an NGO which means getting 2 credits without having to write any essays..but it does mean putting in 300 hours at an NGO AND pay the university more than S$4000 for it! Yikes. what to do........i'm desperate to chock up the credits. I need 12, and so far, have only gotten 5 credits. That's the other thing... if i do the internship, it means i have to FIND the time to do it, PLUS fulfill my full-time work requirements AND Val??? Anyways, i hope to somehow do it next year when the little man's one year and i can go easy on the breastfeeding which means i could possibly juggle work and internship.

Worries worries worries....my grey hairs are multiplying...
I just tell myself to Breathe deeply and then remember to take it ONE DAY AT A TIME.

At least Mr Valente 'Smellybottom' Lay never fails to put a smile on my face especially now that he is tottering around and being Mr Inquisitive.