MomBloggersPlanet Cutest Baby with TOYS Contest

ToyS!! Yippee!! Children love toys...and so does babies and toddlers!

I guess AIR doesn’t really have a favourite toy at the moment. Anything he can grab and get hold of, would be his toy there and then, and his next step would be to stuff this toy of his into his mouth.

However, that being said, I noticed that he has his ye ol’ faithful – the seahorse rattle, the all-time-fav-but-always-not-allowed – the ASTRO remote control and the ultimate-too-huge-for-him – Big Book of ABCs.
The seahorse rattle – he had this since he learnt how to grip and hold and stuff things into his mouth, circa 2 months plus. This is his first rattle, and in my attempt to give him other types of rattle (he has a box which had almost 10 varieties of rattles as his gift) to use up all in the box, he still loves this. Perhaps it’s the sound, its multiple rings and just-nice shape which got him stuck to this. He ‘kisses’ seahorse on his ‘snout’ and stuffs it into his mouth very often, while alternating between munching on the rings and the ‘fin’. This toy introduces various shapes and textures embossed on it to him.

His all-time-fav-but-not-allowed toy is the ASTRO remote control. Give him any other toy next to this one (the seahorse included) and the remote control wins hands down EVERYTIME. Give him a different remote control, he will not even take a second glimpse. He is glued to this because of the multi-coloured buttons within the remote and perhaps also the size of these buttons. I’ve tried giving him another remote control with some colour, but smaller buttons, and he just couldn’t be bothered. The fact that this is a remote control, we rarely let him play with it. The moment he sets eyes on it, it’s tough to get it away from him. We were tempted to buy him a ‘pirated’ one from the pasar malam, but at RM15, we decided it could be better spent on better toys/things for him. Stingy ei…hehe…No lar..cos if we buy and let him play a dummy remote control, later on, he may just think all remote controls are his toys. Not a good move.

Then the ultimate-too-huge-for-him ABC book. He loves the pictures and when it was first introduced to him, he will coo and make sounds when you read to him. There’s 5 in a pack, but for now, only 2 are relevant and easy for him to look at the pictures. I discovered his liking and attraction to large colourful pictures when I was breastfeeding him in the BabyRoom where a poster with some daily items was on the wall and he kept looking at it. After feeding, I took him nearer and he loved it. Trying to interact and wanting to touch all the items there.

Yummy book of ABCs
Posing with my book and 'Ellephant'
Mummy had taken my 'Seahorse'

Toys are an important means for the development of the babies and early childhood learning. Grasping, feeling the different textures, response to different sounds or noise, feeling and learning about different shapes and sizes aids in the development of children. Toys do not have to be expensive for it to be useful or good for the child/baby. As long as the toys are able to promote those that have been mentioned above, it is good enough for them.

All of his toys at home or at the baby sitter’s promote these different reflexes and learning abilities. Softbooks/clothbooks are also good for him. Unfortunately, AIR prefers his larger than him book as it is more colourful (and realistic, perhaps…hehe) and has more pictures compared to his clothbook.

In a nutshell, all toys for babies development have one thing in common, they 'stimulate' the senses in babies in order to promote learning. Be it visual, feel or sound, they have that ultimate goal.

Toys for children/toddlers are in fact no different, except that they can come in different sizes. They encourage thinking more. Building blocks, puzzles and role-play items encourage children to imitate characters and it the process they learn. Thinking used in puzzle solving or buiding of any item encourages them to explore and if they face difficulty and can come to a simple solution, it speaks alot of their ability.

So, get some good toys for children/babies/toddlers and may their world of learning and exploration come through....

Interested to join this contest?
Click here for more info. Hurry, before 15th August 2009...

Thanks to Photobook and Alicewonders for sponsoring the gifts and making this possible.

What time is it?

I’m in a good mood….YAY! erm, for the whole week so far, but the weird part is somehow I seem to be less focused the whole of yesterday. Weird betul!! Hmmmm I wonder why.

I was just so distracted. Had some reports to prepare but everytime I try to do it, after few minutes, I’m already attempting to ‘tab’ to other pages or the internet to view something else. Adoi. Not to mention at times there were some interruptions la. But the rest of the day after that, was totally out!! Just couldn’t concentrate.

Hah, it was worse after lunch. I had light lunch and well ,1 hour later I found myself trying hard to keep those heavy eyelids propped up. Dang!

Well, Friday’s here and I’m looking forward to the weekend! Though not much planned out, but I guess I do miss spending real quality time with AIR. Barely have time during weekdays cos now with the new babysitter, she’s just a block away from our place, so we will fetch AIR before we reach home. Last time, we will fetch him after work, and during the 30min-1.5hrs journey back, we could still spend some time together. :D (Yeah, it varies depending on traffic condition and the route we take)

This week especially, I think AIR feels rather neglected. We’ve been fetching him late cos of work commitments.

And yesterday, guess what the babysitter said? She told me that by maghrib, AIR will always look towards the door, often, looking and waiting for our arrival. Awwww….. cos at the old place, latest would be by 7.30pm and we would already pick him up….I guess babies can ‘tell time’…..

Baby Behaviour

G.I. Joe – My first movie premier (and movie experience) since AIR was born. Yala, how to go to cinema and watch movie with a baby? My intention to take him to watch IceAge3 didn’t materialize so dunno when next I will try again.

Anyway, AIR was left with babysitter, while we had dinner and watched the movie. It was a 930pm screening and well, not bad la overall. The usual techie-stuff and all the CGIs you can get. Story-line, also the same trend that’s getting to all these techie movies now. Overall, ok la. Just that I felt bad leaving AIR for so long with the babysitter (though by 830 or 9pm, he’ll be asleep).

Neway, back to movies and cartoons….I noticed AIR can sit glued to the TV when he watches Spongebob Squarepants. If its Tom & Jerry or any other cartoons or any other animation, I noticed, after few minutes he’ll fidget and then show signs of restlessness.

SO, my conclusion? I loved watching Spongebob and its my favourite since it came to Malaysian waters la (but my all time favourite would still be the Disney classics and Woody Woodpecker and Smurfs). Well, when I was preggy with AIR, without fail, I would be watching Spongebob at 930am every Sunday. Hehehe so I guess that’s why he’s glued to it everytime it comes on.

Another thing I noticed which will capture his attention (on TV) is the fillers for NTV7 and TV3. The one on NTV7 has those purple bubbles thingy popping up and the sound it makes captures his attention. Though the TV3 one is not so much for its graphics, the sound and colour captures his attention. He will stop whatever he is doing (even if he is feeding) and just watch and listen (if the TV’s not within his view). Amazing!

Does maternal habits get passed on? It’s quite hard to justify, and no research has manage to prove this. But here’s another interesting fact about my personal experience.

I like sleeping on my back or curled up on my side. Which side? It depends. If I have the wall on the right, then I’ll be curled to the left, i.e. my back against the wall. Or sometimes, curled to face hubby. So, when preggy, I was usually on my back (until tummy was too big and not advisable to lie on my back only) or curled on my left. Somehow, it’s believed that sleeping on the left is not encouraged, as it ‘cramps’ your heart cavity area. So it may affect your heart. Well, what to do, that was my most comfy position. Now, as soon as AIR can sleep on his side (without our help in turning or positioning him), he always sleeps on his left. When we try to turn him to the right, he will automatically reposition himself. Previously, when he couldn’t, we will let him sleep alternately right and left side.

Is your baby afraid of holding cold items? Ice-cold items especially. Well, AIR loves grabbing cold things. Canned drinks, cups, anything cold we have, and of course, ultimately stuffing them into his mouth or just liking it. He tried to drink it too, but of course we don’t allow. He’s not really afraid of bathing in cold water either. And loves the cold water in the pool. Our conclusion? I used to drink a lot of cold drinks when pregnant. This does not apply to the bathing part though. But as far as I can remember, I didn’t stay away from cold drinks at all while pregnant. For now, we do believe that certain things that I did while I was preggy does get ‘handed down’…

I really wouldn't know how much of it is just purely coincidence or it does get passed down....but then I'm thrilled to know that some of the things I did while pregnant did get passed down. :D

CUlinary skills....

So finally after goodness knows how many months after buying the oven (I think it was waaaaaay before I delivered), I made good use of it.

There was grilled lamb, ala my style….then there was the long-awaited cup cakes. Hmmmm looks quite ok la, but abit dry. I had two trays, so I had to bake it twice. Second batch turned out hard, i.e. not so nice la but 1st batch wasn’t too shabby. Choc powder and chips were just normal hypermarket brand ones but they turned out to be better than I expected it to be. Hmmm looks like I don’t have to buy those expensive ones to make it taste any better.

Those were the so-called medium sized cupcakes la. So this coming weekend, I will try to make those miniature ones. Yup, bite-size ones. Can’t wait. I didn’t do it yesterday cos I didn’t have proper weighing scales. And somehow I didn’t get my vanilla essence yet for this mini ones, I plan to make them plain, so I can have frosting on it.

We’ll how the new ones go….yumyum..can’t wait. Hahaha perasan right?

King of The Road

I don’t believe it happened again!! I missed another run! This time it was the Adidas King of the Road (KOTR) race in Shah Alam. Aiyoooo….

In fact I was in two minds the day before, but nightfall, I was eager to go. Just that throughout the night, baby was abit restless and so I was awaken acouple of more times than usual, just to calm him down to sleep. And so when baby awoke again, it was 0620 and I guess it was abit too late for me to get dressed, get fueled and get to shah alam by 7am. Gosh, so I missed it again. Darn!! Abit disappointed. 3 races missed, out of which I think this was one I could just go and have fun….yeah, though abit of hills in the route, I’d love to try out running again in Shah Alam. Hmmmm looks like the races will restart only after Raya, i.e. probly earliest also in Oct.

So now I’m set for Pg Bridge Run in Nov, I hope…

Peapod

The street protest on 1st Aug was really horrible. Well, the protest itself already is an issue, but the fact that there were roadblocks on Friday, 31st July itself was horrendous. Don’t these police know that IT IS FRIDAY and even on normal Fridays traffic is already BAD, but now they have to have roadblocks to make things worse. Jeez! And the street rally is supposed to be Saturday afternoon only!!

It took me almost 1.5hours to get home, but 1 hour just stuck that the Section 16/Sprint Highway area, where the roadblock was.

And I HAD to make the appointment for AIR’s photoshoot on 1st Aug, in Mont Kiara. And who says traffic not going into KL won’t be stuck? Cos all the roads leading towards Federal Highway, whether or not its going to KL or the opposite side, is still going to be using the same link, so in order to avoid the massive jam, I had to use sooo many highways and it took me almost 2 hours (1 hr 45mins, to be exact) to get from Cheras to Mont Kiara. Gila ker hapa?

But thank goodness all the way AIR was asleep. As soon as I parked, he awoke…and so he was all ready to be a model. BUT, we had to wait for almost 20mins plus for our turn (that person before us took longer than supposed to), so ended up AIR was already bored. Luckily he was still game but towards the end, he was tired and grumpy. Had his milk and continued, but he wasn’t in the best of mood anymore cos now he’s sleepy. Darn! Daddy wasn’t with us so it was abit difficult for me to calm a tired baby (with no more milk at hand – more in the car) and choose his photos to be printed. So photo selection will be only tomorrow. Darn!

The moment after I dressed him up as a peapod (it was either that or a banana), I wanted to take pics of him and my camera decided to just run out of battery. Darn!! Luckily there’s my camera phone, but then quality not so great la. And of course, the photographer (me la, of course) not so terror la. Only 3 shots, but only 2 nice and visible ones.

The photographer came and put on some blusher for him and he was all ready to go!

Peapod

A New Beginning

I’m very happy that my friend finally did it. She finally decided what was good for her. Right or not, I think its God’s will and only time will tell, but the decision has been made, the commitment done and she’ll always be in my prayers for the best to come.

When she told me she cried silently to herself, somehow I cried too. I realize that what she went through was similar to what I went through almost 2 years plus ago. But I guess my ‘route’ was slightly rougher and tougher but thank God we all went through it and came out of it stronger (I suppose...).

It’s always a child’s duty to listen and at least follow what their parents want best for them. But somehow sometimes there are things where they may not agree. It’s difficult to open the eyes of the people whom have taken care of us for soooooo many years and let them see and allow us to do something out of the norm.

It’s always been my belief that there is only so much human can control and the rest is up to the greater force up there.

Fong, may this be a start of a new beginning for you out there....God Bless both of you!