Suzette's Parenting and Breastfeeding Blog

2 more days, I will be 36 weeks pregnant.  Another 1 week to be considered full-term, and baby will get doc’s greenlight to pop liao.  Am getting more and more anxious. 

My boss came back on Wed from her holiday.  Work starts to get busy again.  I will be busy until my temp relief is fully geared up to take over my work.  Originally I wanted her to join us on 15 May.  Given that my EDD is on 28 May, this will give me 2 weeks to train her and handover projects.

However, given the high possibility of earlier delivery, my own guestimation is, baby may pop during the week of 8 May.  My boss is worried, so I asked my temp relief to come in on 2 May, just in case.

In fact, I really wish for my baby to pop week of 8 May also, coz my tummy is just too big now that I find it hard to have any movements!

I’ve packed my hospital bag.  The outstanding stuffs can be handled by DH even after BB popped out.

I think I want to have epidural this time.  Was not decisive earlier, but after going through the painful contractions 2-3 times a day, for the past 2 weeks, I changed my mind.  I have enough of this pain already, I don’t think I can take it anymore.  I want epidural!  Must let my doc know about it next Wed during my check up.

Ouch!  The painful contraction is starting again… got to stop now.

This morning, on Light & Easy, they talked about this, and Simon kept teasing Carolyn that women are generally poor in terms of directions.  I was driving, couldn’t call in, so, just give my opinion here…

Actually, I seriously think there is a gender discrimination in this area.  I must speak out for women.

I am a woman, and I can proudly say that I have very good sense of direction, better than many men!  When going out shopping, DH has to rely on me for direction inside the mall.

OK, you can argue that women are shopaholic, therefore we are better inside shopping malls.  But let me share this story with you…

Two years ago, I went to New Zealand with DH and his friend+partner.  DH was the core driver, and naturally he trusted his friend for the role of navigator because he is a man.

And guess what?  This guy, claimed very good at self-travel and good in directions, has made us wasted so much of time, ranging from 1 hour to 5 hours per day.  All because he kept giving wrong directions.  We have made uncountable U-turns with his directions!  The worst part is, when DH doubted/ challenged his direction, he would be very angry.  When finally proven his direction was wrong and U-turn is necessary, he blamed others – e.g. he would think it was my DH’s fault misinterpreted what he said, etc.

Only when he was tired and slept at the back seat, I then took over as navigator.  I can proudly announce that 100% of my directions were correct.  However, we still made mistake — all because DH distrusted my directions.  Many occassions he didn’t want to follow what I said.  He learnt his own mistakes everytime, but he still not trust me in the next directions.

This proves what?  Men are not necessarily good at directions.  And when women are good in it, they will try to prove women wrong by not following women’s direction.  Really MCP and gender discrimination. 

Come and debate it if you want.  :p

After introducing Ian to the elephant ‘music-pull-a-string’, this is what we keep seeing at home…

Ian: “Mama… * sound of kissing * ”

Suz: “Yes, Ian…”

When I turned around, found out Ian actually not calling me.  He was calling the elephant toy, as ‘Mama’!  And he kissed the elephant mama, not me!

Aiyoh, so many times he keeps calling ‘mama’, but actually not referring to me!  DH laughed at this, coz it was me who told Ian that if he wants me and I am not around, he can use the elephant mama to resemble me.  :p

My fault, but Ian looks so so so cute when he calls the toy as mama and kisses it!

It is sometimes easy, but sometimes difficult, leaving the house in the morning for work.

Sometimes Ian would happily bid farewell to me.  Sometimes he would whine, like this morning.

The moment he heard me saying “Mama go to work…”, immediately he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the room, sat by my side, as if wanted to guard me so I won’t be able to leave the house.

He kept saying, “I don’t want work, I don’t want mama work!”

I still didn’t sneak out.  I just made it clear to him that I need to go to work, to bring back money.  :p  And then, I just left, with him crying.  I read from somewhere, that this method though sound cruel in the beginning, but it is more effective and can let children understand better.  Hope the book/source is correct!

My colleague just came back from maternity leave yesterday.  She managed to breastfeed her son (#2) successfully, and shared with me some of her interesting stories.

She has quite a good supply of BM.  I suggested to her earlier (learnt from MMB forum), to freeze her excess supply in ice-cream bags.  Now she has a lot of EBM ice cream in her freezer.  A lot were expressed during her confinement period (1st month).

Now, given that she has so much that the baby cannot finish, she gave the extra EBM to her 1st son.  Her son loved it and said “Hmm… this is nice!”.

But then, when she gave him the EBM expressed during confinement period, the son complaint “I don’t like it, it is HOT”.

So, my friend tried to understand more: “What do you mean by HOT?  Is it temperature hot or…?”

The son responded: “No, it is hot!  Like chilly!”

Actually the son is extremely sensitive to spicy food, so we know that the breastmilk must have a lot of ginger taste inside, which we are not sensitive enough to taste!

My friend admited that she ate a lot of ginger during her confinement, and no wonder the baby’s butt and penis were a little reddish!  Even her confinement lady also asked her to cut down on her ginger, seeing the baby suffered.

Now she dare not to give the 1st month EBM to the baby, because the baby cannot speak.  She has to mix the EBM with fresh EBM before giving to her toddler son.

A good learning for me, and also a proof to us, that what we eat actually changes the taste of BM.  I just hope my mom won’t force me to eat too much of ginger (I believe in moderation, not too much!).  She already planned to make a very thick and abundant of ginger essense for me to consume RIGHT AFTER DELIVERY.  I find it scary!  :p