Asha 4yo

She is officiallly 4yo!!

Her milestones:
- she is growing up. Now it is easier to reason out with her. We still fight occasionally but not that bad. Now she is only whiny if she's hungry or sleepy
- able AND willing to eat on her own. Using spoon and fork. Well sometimes she's just lazy but she is willing now
- shows interest in books and writing and spelling. During holiday she writes and draws evrywhere. Including my walls.
- she slowly learns to spell and can memorize words. She can imitate writing too
- attention span is long enough to watch a 90mins movie on movie cinema.

I wish she grows up well but I sure will miss the lil Asha :')

Rana One Year Old (+1month)

The thing is.. I am just too busy. I am sorry but I really was too tired to post anything. Until...I installed blogger on my android (like doh where hv I been?)

Rana's milestones are:
1. Kept on babbling. She's very communicative as in she is talking with body language that is so clear she could literally speak it. But no new words yet, so far just ayah,teteh. No ibu people!
2. I noticed her soft motoric skills are getting better. She is able to use fingers for anything. Such as teearing up bread, holding up pencils, pick up small objects, peeling off stickers.
3. Walking wise.. She's improving. Now once in a while she'd walk on her own but I can see she's not confident enough yet. She seems to still be more comfortable moving around on 4. Hope to see her more on 2 in the future.
4. Like her sis. She sooo loves music. Just dances to anything with tunes. Oh, and she sings! Babbling of course, musical babbles.
5. She understands NO! So if I say no she will shake her head and stop doing it. Oooooorr.. She will pretend to stop n when I look away she'll do it again.

Her vaccinations:
Just took her MMR vaccine. Scheduled for PCV vaccine next month.

Her food.
She eats more variety of food now. Good thing is some items are slowly eliminated from her food allergy list. She turns out to be able to tolerate fresh milk. And now she's fine with white egg and cheese. But i found other processed food using skimmed milk etc she still can't take.
She still eats normal rice witg veggie and meat. Just that i give up with no salt no sugar. I try to limit her exposure though. And it's hard. Whatever Asha eats she wants.

Another Virus Attack

This is October.

Time for a season change, and the time when viruses breed. The most common virus is FLU! As usual, Asha got it, Rana got it, Ibu got it.

Another sleepless nights, runny noses, coughs, and whiny kids all day long. Trips to the doctor. I guess so being exposed often to viruses is good, in a way.... Builds up their immune system.

Get well soon kids!

The End of My Breastfeeding Journey

Rana is only 11months old. She stopped breastfeeding abruptly when she was 10months old. She was sick, having runny nose, and teething. She started biting on my breast and when I turned her down she started to pull a nursing strike. Which people say might last one to two weeks. And so I waited, and tried, and two weeks went by. And I finally accepted the fact that maybe this is the end of it.

It wasn't easy for me. Cos I breastfed Asha for 2 years full and enjoyed every minute of it. It was bitter for me. Lots of things went on my head. Did I try not hard enough? Did I do every possibility to get her back to the breast? How will our relationship be? Even then I always leave her at home while going out with Asha. I was scared I won't be as close to her as I should be.

But still, in the end, I still need to accept and cope with the fact that she is not wanting the breast anymore. So for the last month I tried pumping as often as possible. But now at 11months, my supply dropped significantly. Bare minimum. I could only provide a bottle of 4oz a day. I'm not sure why, but maybe one of the reason is because I often skip the pumping schedule when we needed to go out. Also these last week I was dead tired cos the toddler and the baby was both sick.

And now I am facing another horror truth. It might really be ending sooner than I expected. Would she be okay without my milk? I am really at dead end...

Of course rather than weeping over my helplessness over the fact I am now preparing myself mentally to accept that fact fully. I'm just praying that til she hits 1 year old I can still pump out that 4oz.

On the other hand, she is just growing perfectly. She's a fast learner, a generous baby, demanding baby at the same time. And even though she doesn't fall asleep sucking on my breast like her sister did, but she still fall asleep on my breast whenever I cuddled her to sleep. And though I truly recommend breastfeeding as much as possible, but even without it I don't need to worry so much.

Even though maybe later other problems will arise, I don't want to blame it to my abrupt end of breastfeeding. Looking at the positive side, I don't need to go through the screaming during wean off times.
I've had my moments, and all good things must come to an end.

I'd love to breastfeed again if Allah gives me another chance :)

MPASI Rana

MPASI Rana udah masuk ke minggu kesekian nih kayanya. Sejauh ini udah dikenalkan sama apel, pear, pisang, labu, alpukat, wortel, prune, dan nasi diblender. Anak kedua emang gak terlalu memusingkan banyak hal. Gak yang pake menu per hari gitu. Paling klo mau nyoba yang baru tinggal ke supermarket beli trus diblender pake hand blender. Nasi aja ya, saya ambil nasi dari rice cooker trus diblender pake hand blender :D.

Ga mau repot dan pusing. Karena yang kasih makan pembantu, dan kebetulan freezer penuh daging-dagingan dan susu perah, jadi saya stok makanan di cubes yang saya simpan di kompartemen kulkas paling atas. Gak banyak-banyak tentunya, paling stok makan 3-4 hari saja. Makannya kan masih sedikit

Masalah pup nih ya sekarang, sejauh ini karena makanan masih encer jadi pup masih lancar. Kalo udah 2 hari gak pup dikasih lactus untuk menghindari sembelit yang menyengsarakan bayi.

Mulai minggu ini mau mencoba pepaya, timun jepang (zuccini). Sementara sampe akhir bulan ke 7 mungkin masih encer banget. Di bulan ke 8 mau coba diblender tp agak kental sedikit. Bertahap deh. Finger food udah mulai juga, pake baby bites. Dulu Asha finger food nya apaan ya lupa. Kynya buah kukus sama brokoli rebus deh. Ntar mungkin ya bulan ke 8 gitu dicobain.

Semoga kali ini anaknya gak perlu ngalamin kaya Asha dulu sembelit mulu.

4 Weeks Full of Virus

After my husband came back, suddenly it's one virus attack after another. I meant the kids. The next week after he came back, Asha was hit with very high fever for 2 days. Doc said it was stomach flu virus, been viral for some time. Shortly after that she was coughing with some runny nose, and in a few days she was speaking hoarsely. Recovered from stomach flu within 4 days, and maybe one week to return to her original voice.

In the meantime the sister caught the flu as well and had blocked nose. Just after I thought Asha's flu was recovering, she got another fever with runny nose and some coughs. Lasted 3 days, then still continued coughing and runny nose for a week. Now at the end of the week her nose is still running but no more midnight coughs.

When I thought it was over the sister who just recovered from blocked nose suddenly is having a fever. With coughs, and runny nose. I felt so tired from all these viruses attack. Hopefully this school holiday is a great time to heal themselves and strengthen their immunity systems. Cos really I am tired of running to see doc almost every week and I am tired due to sleeplessness.

Get well soon kids!

Rana (almost) 6 months Milestones

Milestones:

- Started solid food on 25 weeks old. Fave so far, are pear and banana. Dislike sour apples.
- Has rolled and scooted using her tummy so she's as mobile as a worm.
- Last check-up she weighed 7.6kg, and measured 62.5cm in length. In comparison with her big sis, she is small.
- Just had her 2nd dose of PCV shot. Next month will be her last vaccination for the year! Which is the 6 in 1 shot. After that, the next shot will be on 18months old.
- Slept less and less
- Drinks 300ml of EBM more or less during the 8 hours I'm not home.
- Able to sleep peacefully during the night to wake up as early as 5 am to ask for milk.
- Starts to annoy the big sis, wants to play with big sis, likes to snatch whatever big sis is playing.

Good job Rana! Be healthy and strong always!