Suzette's Parenting and Breastfeeding Blog

Others who attended were: my DH, Ian, Msau’s Fatty and SQ. We expected to see LocKee’s Sweet-Sweet, but she flew kite. LocKee said she was too sleepy, so he didn’t bring her. Ian has 1 less girl friend liao!

We met in KFC, Metro Prima, at 9pm last Saturday. When I first saw LocKee and Milly, I got to introduce myself. Ahem! I was a little panic because DH was there, and I never let him know my blogger name. So I quickly introduced that I am Lazy Bone, before DH heard it. Then followed by my real name. Alamak, LocKee and Milly didn’t get my blogger name! So, I had to repeat that when DH was around.

Now rasia terbongkar already. I don’t know whether he got it or not, though he pretended he didn’t hear anything. Hmm… must assume he is reading now. Kekekeke!
I only took a few photos with my mobile phone and the quality is not good. The other photos are with DH’s camera and msau also took some.
The whole night was centered around our children: Ian, SQ and Sweet-Sweet (thought she was not there, we talked about her lah!)
I demonstrated how Ian expresses love (instead of hugging or kissing, he knocks his head on our head – very rough and hard one). Then we asked Ian to ‘sayang’ SQ. Wah! With SQ, Ian was so gentle ler. I’m sure msau will show you the photo – LocKee took it with msau’s camera! ==> Ian hamsup SQ?!

The whole night we watched Ian and SQ paktoh (dating). Very cute lah!

Milly is the youngest of all the adults, and I am surprised she likes children so much. Most of the time (before Ian arrived), looked like SQ was glued to Milly. But when Ian came, of course the two little ones glued together. LOL!

It was very fun meeting the other bloggers in real!

I recently bought a tub of Lego for toddlers 1.5 – 3 years. It is a basic stuff; size is slightly larger than the ‘adult’ Lego.

At first I thought Ian would play it for just a while and it would be redundant after perhaps 2 week, just like the other toys.

I was wrong. Ian has been and is still playing it with interest. Probably because it is flexible and it can be just anything based on your imagination.
Last night, I made Lego into 2 trains. I told Ian: ‘Train-train kiss-kiss. Come Ian kiss-kiss mommy.’ Wah, he really came and kissed me!
Then, I told Ian: ‘Train-train hug-hug and sayang-sayang. Come, Ian hug-hug.’ Immediately he came over and hugged me!

So, Lego can be used to teach Ian how to love (me)! Cheh!

Ian is now 15+ months old. As I have decided to wean him from daytime breastfeeding, I have started to supplement with cow’s milk few weeks ago.

If I immediately change breast milk to cow’s milk, he won’t take it. So far, I have given him fresh cow’s milk (in carton). So far so good… but because fresh milk expires quicker, and I often forget to buy new packs on time, last week I have decided to buy some milk powder, just in case I forget again.

How to choose leh? To me, all non-human milks (cow’s milk, goat’s milk, soy milk, whatever animal’s milk, etc) are the same – they are just not perfect for human children.

So, I browsed around, and was wondering which one I should buy.

There are extremely expensive ones that cost over RM60+ for a small can, and there are disclaimers: BREAST MILK IS THE BEST. The most expensive ones say “SIMILAR TO BREAST MILK”.

I know none of the cow’s milk can be similar to human’s milk. The basic is already different, anyway. So, I have decided not to buy these expensive stuffs.

I finally bought a pack of cheap grow-up milk, refill pack some more! It costs me around RM13 per pack. Only used it twice, and of course Ian dislikes it. He always refuses to take cow’s milk when I am around. To feed him, I must be out of sight first.

I supposed Ian is just like me, doesn’t like warm milk. I find warm or hot milk has a lousy smell and taste. I can drink my own breast milk, and I can drink fresh cow’s milk (those pasteurized & sold in carton). But I can’t take any warmed-up breast milk, or hot/warm cow’s milk. Even if it is chilled after that, I still won’t take it – the content is changed already, the taste is horrible (to me). Hehehe!

Well, that didn’t happen to me, it happened to my colleague a couple of weeks ago.

He took a late night flight and arrived at the hotel (5 star) past midnight. After checking-in, he walked to the room himself with just 1 small luggage. When he opened the door, he found there was another lady guest sleeping on the bed.

She was sleeping so deeply, and didn’t even know someone has entered the room!

He quietly closed the door and went to the reception made a fuss. They replaced his room, and apologized with a basket of 1 PIECE OF BANANA AND APPLE! Of course nothing to the lady because she didn’t even know.

So, lesson learnt: Always lock your door from inside when you stay in hotel room. Anything can happen to you.

Actually I always lock my door, but sometimes we (including my boss and other colleagues) do forget. This usually happens when we order room service. After the staff delivers the food, HE closes the door – so that is when we forget to lock it from inside!

I must remember this story, so it doesn’t happen to me…

Recently I have been reading this news about NKF case in Singapore with interest. Really disappointed with the way the handle the money. (More info here)

Imagine, when I donate my money to the diabetic patients, I expect my money to be used to help them as directly as possible.

I would least want my money to be sponsoring those high level guys flying on first class, getting highly paid salary (many times higher than my own), using expensive luxury cars and toilets, etc.

When I was approached by a NKF represented agency few years ago in Amcorp Mall, and requested for regular contribution, I nearly signed up, but I didn’t. I took their form, verified information with NKF later, and then I called the sales rep for appointment. He didn’t show up.

Then I called NKF office and asked for another sales rep. No body bothered me.

I presume their ‘business’ is so good that they don’t even bother to ‘service’ donors like me…

Then I made my contribution to MAA, also for diabetic patients. This MAA is definitely a registered organization because I did get my income tax refund on this donation.

This whole thing really bothered me. First of all, why would NKF assign a third party agency to help raising fund for them? What would the agency charge them? I’m pretty sure this agency is not doing this as charity for free, as they do employ quite a lot of ‘SALES’ reps, who earn commissions.

I did ask NKF how can they make donations into a ‘sales’, and part of our monthly contribution goes to this third party agency? They avoided my question by asking me to write in.

Now after reading the news in Singapore, I am glad I did not sign up with the donation program. I would like my money to be used in a better way. If somebody is going to get rich with MY money, I wish that the ‘somebody’ were I, LZBONE. Hehehe!

p/s: Just a quick summary of what NKF (National Kidney Foundation) Singapore did (abstract modified from The Star):

NKF had sued Singapore Press Holdings over an article last year that stated a gold-plated tap had been installed and later replaced in the private bathroom of the CEO’s (TT Durai) office suite. NKF said the article had damaged the charity’s reputation by implying that donors’ funds were being misused. Last week, in the court, after his salary (S$600,000 (RM1.3mil))and perks generated major media coverage in the city-state, Durai and the foundation withdrew their lawsuit. He also conceded he flew first class when travelling overseas, although he insisted he was entitled to the benefits of “every other CEO.” NKF describes itself on its website as “the largest charitable organisation in Singapore” and the “largest not-for-profit dialysis provider in the world.”