Putting on my own clothes

She has been trying to be independent these days. You would find her insisting on feeding herself. Yeah! more work for me as there will be more mess to be cleaned up. These are one of those other things which she has been insisting on doing it herself-putting on her panties or pants.
She is learning to put on her own clothes but of course mummy needs to give some kind of aid. Like for example, I need to help pull up her pants as it will get tangled somewhere along her thighs. Haha!!

A visit to the dietetics clinic

Our Ilyasak was made to see the dietician yesterday. Well, technically I am the one who needs to see the dietician so that we can find ways on how to solve his food refusal bug as well as his excessive time taken to complete one meal. He usually takes 45 minutes to an hour on average to complete a meal and much longer exceeding the one hour mark on the 'not so very good' days which at the same time will drive us (hubs and I) to the wall.

After the first consultation, I was taken aback when I was told by the dietician that I actually fed him more than he is able to take. I was adviced to cut down on his portions for every meal and to add a small supper before bedtime. I am to give Ilyasak the liberty of deciding his meal portion and he is to finish it within 30 minutes but of course we have to work down the time gradually-from his usual one hour to ultimately 30 minutes. I am also to offer more high energy food to him to support his active schedule. I found it weird too that I am encourage to fry his rice in garlic and oil if he is only to have soke soupy dish for the day just so to make up for the energy boost which is apparently very low in soups. I guess I was kind of carried away with the overly conscious 'me' to want to prepare healthy low fat food for the family and forgetting te fact that kids need their fair share of fat and oily food as part of their regime of growing up unlike us.

I was also made aware that the margarine with the healty pyramid symbol on it is way better than my choice of unsalted butter. The trans fat (bad fat) content in those specific margarine is way very low or in fact negligible. I was tempted to discard my tub of Lurpak unsalted butter but dismiss the thought knowing that the hubs will probably murder me with his 'verbal diarrhoea' haha!

Oh ya! I was terribly worried too when the dietician informed me that Ilyasak was underweight. He is at his 89th instead of the 100th percentile. His weight is about 16.f kg when he is suppose to be about 18.5 kg. Thank god his height is normal and his weight did not retards his height.

We are to slowly trained Ilyasak to feed himself instead of us feeding him. We tried today at breakfast and it almost drive me mad as he is eats very slowly and chatted far too much haha!!. I gave up and actually and fed him about 4 spoonfuls (I know I am not suppose to!)Well! that's our Ilyasak and I just have to work on it no matter how tough it gets.

Well I have to reorganise my thoughts and choices on the kinds of meal which I prepare for the family especially for Ilyasak and Balqis.

Fever bug

Ilyasak was attacked by another round of the fever bug. He had recently recovered from the same bug about 3 weeks ago and he was down again last Wednesday. His fever seems to be on the high once the virus sits in. His temperature was a scary 39 which hits 40 at certain times of the day. Often forcing us to give him an ice bath. Thankfully the hubby was on sick child care leave. I would not have imagine handling both kids on my own. Giving him cups of yoghurt also did not seem to help. To make matters worse, Ilyasak was such a lousy eater when he is sick. He was not a great eatet to start of with and it became worse when he is sick. We were so desperate to get some kind of food in hs body, that we even resorted to offering him a Long John's meal. Strange as one might find it, he resisted to even such a meal!
Lucky for us, he recovered after 2 days which was much shorter than the previous one whoch lasted a whole entire week. Looking after a sick child is never an easy task. we were thankful that we survived. All thanks to the one above for helping us as, after all, he would not give us a challenge that is not within our means. It only made us parents much stronger after we brave the tide.

Body Art and indoor play

This was done sometime in January when the kids and I would frequent Explorer Kids every other Monday except. The only reason we were there was simply because of the low entrance fee of $4 per entry per child for unlimited play time. Ilyasak and Balqis would play to their hearts content. Not to mention, that the playground was not as crowded given a schooling day. Although, it was not much of a rest for me, I could not sit down like any other mamas because Balqis still need my supervision when she;s out ther doing her rough and tumble. In time to come, I envision myself sitting down with my book while they play haha!! I will be back to work by then- no time fro playground on a weekday.

There happen to be a lady offering free body and face painting to kids. I was even more thrilled to know that the service was FOC. I urged Balqis to try it. She was well the more adventurous type unlike her brother who would not even let anyone draw even a tiny spider on the arm.

So, there she was sitting obediently trying her best not to make too much movement (whch is so unlike her). She was glowing with happiness looking at the finished art on her arm. Sadly, she was the last girl to have her arm painted so we could not request for more.

Playing in the rain and puddles

I took them out to play the rain. Thanks to Ilyasak, it was only drizzling by the time we reached the field. As usual, he was taking an awfully long time to finish his lunch. They had their raincoats on and I am armed with my umbrella. They went sloshing and jumping about in every puddle they saw. Strange though there were not much puddle for them to play with. Nevertheless, they had fun and kept asking when can they play in the rain again each time it rains.

Potty Trained princess

My princess is potty trained. We had successfuly trained her and she is off diapers when she is awake. We do put diapers on her when she took naps though. I am too tired to clean up mess- as it is I am forever cleaning up daily mess created by my kids. She did well, she can tell us that she wants to pee and poo more than a month before her second birthday.
She did have accidents though but they were not massive. Probably because she is a girl and her urine production is not as much as a boy's. I remembered cleaning up Ilyasak's big pee mass everywhere around the house and its definitely taxing and stressful. Being a girl and wearing panties instead of briefs helped a lot where her poo were contained in her panties instead of be9ng scattered around the house.
With the diaper wearing hours pretty much shorten to during naps and night sleep, her rash which had been bugging her since she was young had pretty much not go away. Having sensitive bums, had practically put a 'no-no' to cheap diapers. To be potty trained early, gave us the parents nuch savings on the diapers part.
All I can say is that, I did not have a difficult time potty training her. Well done! Balqis. We can now buy start to buy cute pink panties ya!!!

'THE' purple dinosaur

B was introduced to Barney about a month back when I played one of the VCDs for her. Since then, this purple dinosaur has found her heart somehow. It is definitely a clear obsession which she had for Barney. She will look for her 2 (big and small) Barney soft toy the minute a new day greeted her. Those two soft toys will also be her constant companion when she fell into her deep slumber or her short naps even! A barney knapsack will be strapped to her back the minute she is out of the house eventhough there was nothing in there.
The brother used to be fond of Barney also but not to this extent. It can be somewhat entertaining when you see her eyes glow and her hands pointing excitedly at the sight of any Barney (even when it is someone else's bag)shi shouting 'Bajin, bajin'-oh ya !that is how she pronounces Barney by the way. The 2 barney books in our home library are her current favourites and she will request anyone to read it to her at any storybook session we had with her.
Well, I don't know exactly how long this new found affection of hers will last but we somehow enjoyed feeding to her obsession. Ha!Ha!