The P word

I can't believe I'm looking at stool chart but...
I have noticed Sam's poo looking quite different ever since his had the bad daycare tummy bug. I have never seen it looking like this before so wanted to find out what it meant. The stool definitely looked very much like a type 2 in the Bristol stool chart!
Type 2 is apparently a sign of constipation! Sam poos at least a couple of times a day and I believe it comes out easily. So how can that be constipation? I have increased the amount of vegetables we had in the last few days and now it looks more and more like a type 3. Is that a good sign? I don't really know.
I also read that increasing dietary fiber has only limited benefits, increasing the good old gut bacteria is the key. Sam's eczema is also worse and I know it's all related! The last batch of yogurt I made didn't come out too good and I have not made any for over two weeks now. It's time to make more yogurt and some more fermented veges!!

Can Daddy go to Vietnam again?

Sam: Mum can we have burgers for dinner?
Me: Well... burgers are not gluren-free so Daddy can't eat it. Maybe we should have something else.
Sam: Mum, can Daddy go to Vietnam again?

Reading eggs

Since one of us is home with Sam for the moment, I decided to reduce Lara's daycare days from 3 to 2 days. Lara's going to school next year, I'd like her to have one more leisured mornings, I want to spend more time with her especially if I'm at home anyway. We will also save some money.

Lara first started showing interest in 'spelling' words a couple of months ago. I thought it was very clever when she said "p-ra-m, pram... pram starts with p and r" (not sure where she learned that from?). I let her try the reading eggs online program for 2 weeks and decided to subscribe at the end of the trial period. I don't care if Lara is able to read before school, I'm sure she'll learn that from school. I care more about her "attitude towards learning". Lara had shown enthusiam about the game so I thought it would be a good idea to monitor her attitude while she learns in the home environment. I am careful about how much time she stays on the computer. I let her do it once or twice a week, around 30 minutes each time.

Lara got frustrated earlier on with one of the 'stamping' game, not because she didn't know the answers but the letters came out too quickly and she couldn't click the mouse fast enough. She cried and exclaimed "I don't want to do computer games ever again!". I directed her away and told her she didn't have to do it if she didn't want to. After she calmed down, she wanted to have another go. After a few tries, she's now, in her own words, "very good at the stamping game".

She anticipats which picture contains the correct answer now and puts the mouse near that area and is pleased with herself if she gets it right. She also starts to try the wrong answers just to see what the animations do. Lara has the tendancy to rush through the lessons so she can advance to the next lesson. She didn't want to repeat any lesson when I suggested it. Lara learned to buy "stuff" with the eggs she collected after the lessons. She bought the first object she liked rather than looking at all her options. I observe her, but try to leave her alone and not tell her what to do, it's all playing to her at this stage.

There's uncertainty around work and daycare at the moment. We can only take one day at a time. In the meantime, I have more time to think about what I can do to help Lara and Sam enjoy their childhood and my parenthood more.

Walk away

Lara is learning to trace pictures at the moment. Tracing takes concentration and patience, Lara sometimes got frustrated when she couldn't get the lines right and she would scrunch up the tracing paper in anger. Sometimes the same thing happened when she couldn't draw the pictures she wanted or used the wrong colours. I can see how frustrating it was for her, but I wasn't sure how to teach Lara to handle her anger. It's no use telling someone not to be angry when they are angry. And it sets the wrong example if I get angry myself over her behaviour.

Yesterday Lara was playing with her birthday present, the Zhu Zhu salon. She couldn't fix the hair dryer on properly and I could sense her becoming frustrated.
Then I heard a loud sound. I thought toys were being thrown so I went to 'investigate'. I don't know exactly what happened but Lara said she didn't throw her toys. I took this opportunity to explain the consequence of taking anger out on toys. Then an idea came to me. I told Lara to try to walk away next time she could not do something or feel angry. I explained that she would calm down by walking away (plus she wouldn't have broken toys), then she could get back to it and try again later. I didn't know if Lara understood all these but I thought I would try anyway.

A while later, I was feeding Sam when Lara got up quickly from her drawing table and walked to the lounge. She told me excitedly later "Ma ma I walk(ed) away and I feel better now" Oh how hard Lara tried to be better. I'm very blessed to have such a beautiful little girl!

Three year old teenager

Lara loves to 'dress-up' at home.

Lara has an 'attitude' problem recently ...

When Lara wants me to do things for her, she often shouts from where she happens to be. I've been telling her to come to me and ask for help nicely. I was in the kitchen when Lara shouted 'help' from the tv room again. When I asked why she didn't come to me, she gave me all the execuses in the world on why she couldn't come - she can't walk, she can't get up, she's too tired and her blanket is stuck! This reminds me of the time when Lara was one and she threw herself on the floor to get attention. Ignoring her worked wonders then, but not so well this time. She worked herself up to a sob, made me angry and ended up standing in the corner for the second time that day.

Lara had a couple of outbursts at daycare too. The attention-seeking behaviours at home is particularly bad when I feed Sam. She is moody sometimes, sulks for the littlest things. Last week I was cross with her, she looked sad and said 'nobody likes me!'. It's hard to find out exactly what happens at daycare. When I asked Lara what she did in daycare and who she played with, she replied "I don't remember" in this off-handedly, shrug-shoulder-teenager kind of way. She doesn't listen when she is in this funny mood. I can repeat the same things again and again but get this blank look.

Lara is still lovely and happy most of the time. But sometimes it felt like we have a teenager in the house! We like the smily and funny three-year-old back please!

First month

Sam turned one month old on Father's day over the weekend. It was a beautiful sunny day and the in-laws came over for lunch. Simon cleaned the house and cooked most of the meal. We opened a bottle of 'Joseph Pirrier' champagne to celebrate. The first month has gone resonably well thanks to Mum and in-laws's help.

Looking after a new-born is tiring and emotionally taxing. The night feeds, especially the frequency of it in the first two weeks was very exhausting. Being told Sam was not gaining weight, trying to clear lumps in breasts every other day and the worry about getting mastitis again added more anxiety. Luckily my recovery is much better this time and we are more relaxed as parents. It helps too when Sam is a good, relaxing baby. He sucks well and sleeps well (as well as a new-born would be!). Feeding is getting better and shorter (from 8-10 feeds a day, each lasted 1-1.5 hours to 6-7 feeds now, each 45-60 minutes long) Yes I sit at my feeding couch a lot, it's my full-time job!

Lara is not too impressed with my new job. She loves her little brother and wants to help but she suddenly fell over a lot, cried for the smallest reasons, couldn't do things that she used to do before, called me to "see" things frequently and needed a lot of "help". It made things worse when she got a bad cold last week. Antibiotics seemed to help but the attention-seeking behaviours stayed. I feel sad and sorry that I couldn't give Lara more attention but reminded myself this is one of the reasons we had another baby so she could 'share'. Lara did 'share' her cold with me and now I think Sam's got it...

I concentrate on completing one or two chores a day when I am more rested. Some days though, I don't go out at all and live in my pajamas whole day! Hopefully we will have more good days and less bad days from here on and the second month is better than the first.

Toilet training (2)

To lessen the effect of Lara holding poos in and getting stomach aches, a GP friend recommended "Parachoc" and told us the story of him mixing it for his son in the morning, licked the spoon and wanted to go to the toilet on the way to work. However, Parachoc didn't seem to have the same effect on Lara (we think Lara's problem is more psychological), "Yakult" and prune juice worked better. To avoid constipation, we changed tactics and repeatedly told Lara to ask for a nappy when she wanted to poo. She has been doing this since March. I think deep down Lara feels embarrassed, because she never asked for a nappy in daycare. Also she sometimes asked indirectly for a nappy, for example asking to go to bed during the day because we put a nappy on her when she goes to bed.

A few weeks ago, Lara did a poo by accident in daycare and was very excited about it. We felt the time might be right to try toilet training again. To encourage Lara, Grandma bought a new bike and told her she could have the bike if she does poos in the toilet. So far this has not worked. Lara would rather give the bike away to another girl than doing poos in the toilet. I don't really want to push her and make her hold poos in again. For the moment, the bike sits high in our lounge.

Will it ever get used I wonder...?

Toilet training

Grandma decided to toilet train Lara one Sunday before Christmas. I didn't know the exact details(I was in bed), but I heard the score was 6 undies in two hours and crying and pleading at the end - "I don't like undies, I want to wear nappies!" We decided to leave it at that for a little while.

It was during the Austrlia Day long weekend when we decided to try again. I was still not feeling the best so Simon did most of the monitoring and reminding. There was only 2-3 accidents this time, mostly on the first day. Maybe the constant brain-wash (by telling her how good it is to wear undies) in between helped. Lara even did poo willingly in the toilet. We cheered every time something 'dropped' in the toilet and everything progressed well. Lara showed everyone her undies and had very few accidents in daycare(only a couple of times when she forgot or couldn't make it to the toilet in time).

Everything was well for two weeks, Simon even thought his ass-wiping days are over (at least for a few months). Then Lara started to refuse to poo in the toilet (wee is fine). We persevered/bribed/threatened but nothing worked. I was a little surprised that she could hold the poo(the longest for over 4 days!!) but Lara was determined. Once I sat with her on the toilet for 45 minutes because she looked like she might do one, but no, not coming.

Apparently this is very common. 'Be patient', we are telling ourselves. It will happen when she is ready!

Blue oh blue

Some time ago, I said to Lara "I love you very very much", and Lara said "five very much". We started playing the "number very much" game after that. Lara insisted that I love her "ten very much" now, but she usually loves me only "six very much" or sometimes "seven very much", never "ten very much". I was curious as to what else could be more important to a 2-year-old than her Mummy so I asked Lara what she liked "ten very much" one day. She only thought for a brief second before replying "I love blue ten very much". I have no unrealistic expectation about what my place is in the future, I already lost to 'blue'!

Lara's family day care closed in July. Now if I need respite on a Monday for work or other reasons, Lara goes to Gilda's house. Gilda only looks after a little boy Robbie on Mondays so she's happy that Lara is there to keep Robbie company from time to time. Gilda told me how Lara loves blue and she wants everyting in blue. And how she found it funny that Robbie is a great fan of 'pink' and he wants everything in pink (his mum's not very impressed with that!). Gilda makes sure she has blue and pink stuff (blue for Lara and pink for Robbie) to make them both happy. Two-year-olds do not know pink is for girls and blue for boys!

Feeling guilty

At the beginning of June, Lara had a small cold. Like other cold she had, it startd with a bit of running nose and coughing. It could go either way from there - it could develope into a full-blown cold like she had many times last year or she could get better. Her cold seemed to go towards the second way this year thank god. She had a temperature on Monady night so I fully anticipated not being able to go to work and had warned work so. That week was a very busy one with a tight testing schedule of a project and a colleague on holiday. On Tuesday morning, Lara miraculously didn't have a temperature so I deicded to take the risk of taking her into daycare. Lara had watery eyes and generally didn't feel great so I was half waiting for a phone call to go and pick her up at midday but reasoned that I would have done some work by then. I didn't get the call and by Tuesday night, she looked a lot better but it didn't lessen my guilt of sending her to daycare ill.

I try to pick Lara up well before the daycare close time of 6pm. I often get there at arond 5.30pm but Lara is usually the last 2 or 3 remaining. I was the last one again the other week. When I arrived, Lara was reading "the baby owl" book with Liz. I flipped through the book to see what it is - it's about these baby owls waiting for Mummy to come home. And the sentence "Mummy always come back" is repeated again and again in the book. Liz told me they had been reading that book for at least 15 times in the last 20 minutes! Talking about feeling guilty, this one is definitely up there. I have to try to leave work even earlier....

Something blue

I made some blue playdough last week as requested. I let Lara watch while I made it. She found it fasinating that it felt hot to touch when we rolled it on the table.

Her obsession with the colour "blue" continues. She wants to drink milk from her blue bottle all the time (we only have one blue bottle), not her pink or purple or green bottles. If I stand my ground and have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude (usually when time is not an issue), Lara would eventually drink from any colour bottles. To save time in the morning though, I make sure we use the blue bottle.

For nappies she wants pink(Huggies), not blue ones(Mammia from Aldi). I guess she doesn't care the blue nappies are more absorbent, she has less leaky accidents in them and cheaper. For breakfast, it's weetbix (or fruit'bix) with colourful loops. Yes you guessed it, blue loops are her favorite.

Everyone from the kindergym instructor to Lara's daycare teachers all know Lara's favorite colour. Brook from daycare told me a girl from her last year's class (2-3s) also obsessed with the colour blue. She exclaimed 'it's always girls and blue'! Funny, isn't it?

When you are a two-year-old, the colour of things is very very important. Luckily , there is a big bottle of blue colouring in the cupboard to keep this particular two-year-old happy.

Do you want any help?

It was 6pm the most chaotic time in our household when I ran around in the kitchen getting dinner ready. I saw this little face on top of the safey gate, a pair of little hands holding onto the sides of the gate. A little voice, slightly unsure, asked me "Mummy, (do you want) any help?"

How nice it is to be asked if I want any help!

I started to ask Lara's help in doing simple things - like standing on the step chair and putting books in the return shute for me in the libray or putting the pegs back in the container when I got the clothes in.

Oh how Lara loves to help mummy!

Difficult time

Lara had a difficult two weeks. Things that were a breeze previously, like eating and going to bed, started to take longer since the beginning of this year. (Is that why they called it "Terriable two"?) And Lara being sick twice in the last two weeks just made things a lot worse.

When I said worse I meant Lara:
*Saying "No" hundreds of times a day and cried and cried when she didn't get her way.
*Became very needy. I couldn't leave to use the toilet without some major crying.
*Became very unreasonable, like woke everyone up at 2am and insisted on sitting and sleeping on her sofa in the lounge. Or threw her blanket out of her cot then got annoyed becasue her blanket was not in the cot? (The only way I could execuse these kind of behaviours was to attribute these to her high (over 39.5C) temperature)
*Sat in her cot after waking up and repeatedly saying "no" and not want to leave her cot.

This two-week period coincided with a very busy time at work. I had no choice but to take time off. It also coincided with Mum and Dad's two-week holidays here. We ended up doing nothing and Mum and Dad went home with Lara's cold and got quite sick themselves. Now she's all happy and a sweet little girl again.

I'm sure all parents go through period like this. You worry, you're exhausted and sometimes you lose your patience. And suddenly they get better, and they are beautiful again. And you are left wondering what happened until next time!

Swimming pool incident

I had last week off with Lara after Husband went back to work.

Lara gets very bored if staying at home all day and kids do naughty things when they are bored. I knew If I plan things right and get rid of this 'boredom' energy, I would be rewarded with an enjoyable day with a happy child. I knew I had to take Lara out at least once during the day.

The weather forcast was hot. I arranged to meet a friend at the local pool on Tuesday after a long play in the park on Monday. Lara got into all 3 outside kiddies pools and was generally happy during our stay. Being a little "lady", she didn't like 'boys' splashing water everywhere (she pointed her finger at them and said "no naughty" with a stern face) and of course wouldn't even comtemplate getting her face or hair wet.

I should have taking Lara home much earlier than I did. Being such a hot day and with so many kids around, Lara grew over-tired quickly. She became extremely difficult and had to be dragged out crying and screaming in my arms. It was not my proudest "parenthood" moment.

I couldn't leave things like that and gave Lara a bad pool experience, so I decided to take her back the very next day by myself (also to find the pair of shoes we left there in our haste departure). I made sure I watched the time and only stayed for about an hour. I also further enhanced the "pool experience" by sharing an ice pop with her before we left. Lara was very happy when we left the pool this time.

Who says money can't buy happiness (at least for a short time) and it only cost one dollar!!

Looking for daycares

The most stressful part of this move was finding Lara a daycare. I started looking casually when we first put our house on the market. Everywhere I went, I got the same "we are full and waiting list is long" story. Not knowing where we would live and when we would move only made things more difficult.

I knew there was a possibility that I would not find somewhere satisfactory in time, and that meant I would have to take an extended holiday from work. But secretely I thought there had to be some movements in one of the daycares and just hoped I would be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when a vacancy came up.

I called the daycare I like the most and closest to where we would be living every week to enquire the possibility of getting a place. It was a very stressful time. Luck must be on my side and my persistent calling somehow paid off. Three days before our move, I was told there is one day available for Lara and managed to get another day (total of 2 days) on the second week.

Because there seemed to be impossible to get into daycares, I also widened my search to include family daycares (people looking after up to 5 kids at their own homes) and daycares further away. I went and visited a few places, some were available but none to my satisfation. During this process, I happened to talk to a lady running her own family daycare. She sounded really nice over the phone and cleared some of my reservations. A visit with Lara made me decide to try her one day a week.

Lara loves the family daycare environment and never cried once when I left. With daycare, Lara only cried a couple of times. The good news is Lara seems to be happy with both places. She knows the names of some of her carers and friends, she lingers on and never wants to rush home with me. In fact, most days I have a real job dragging her home after work!

Both places tell me how good Lara is and how easy it is to look after her. They both offered me all the days I want for next year. I could not have planned a better outcome, I am very grateful for that.

Grandma's wisdom

Tiny toast bits

For a while, Lara didn't like toast at home as breakfast. It puzzled me - Lara loved toasts in day care. The answer to my question came one day after Grandma looked after Lara when I had some work to do (must be when Lara was on antibiotics). When I got home, Mother-in-law described her and Lara's day to me and how Lara loved toasts with different toppings. I found out that Lara ate more when the toast was cut into very small 1cmx1cm cube. I had been cutting her toast into four like day care did. Anyway, now I cut her toast into tiny bits like Grandma does. Lara has toast most morning and loves it too.

Plastic bib


It was not something I would have bought to be honest, but the amount of food it had saved from being wasted on the floor or on clothes (more work to soak/wash later) is amazing. Works especially well for running food like yoghurt or custard. Because of this bib, I feel more at ease to let Lara eat by herself.


I came back from the kitchen and saw that Lara not only scooped up all the yummy yoghurt caught in the bib, but also found a new use for the bib - a handy spoon holder!

I am glad that there's someone around who I can consult with and shows me ways to try for different things. Thanks Grandma!

Day care diary

(Lara likes to sit on her soft ball)

28/May
Lara was sick during the weekend but is feeling better today except having a running nose. I arrived at day care late (after 8:35) and the older kids were elsewhere (probably outside). The room felt so much quieter. Lucy was looking after the kidlings. Most of them have running noses or are sneezing. Lara looked the least sick there.... sign... no wonder she gets sick all the time. Is it the day care I wonder?

10/July
Yesterday was Lara's first day at day care after 2 weeks of absence. She was a little clingy at first, but happily ran over to the drawing table when the teacher called her. She didn't even notice when I left. We got to day care before toasts were serverd today (8am), the teachers were just putting the chairs down. Lara ran to the first available chair, sat down before anyone else and waited for her toast. She didn't care if I was there or not. Hayley told me Lara is very food-oriented. She whinges when she doesn't get her lunch first, afraid she will miss out!

23/July
I was told Lara hasn't been sleeping long at nap time. (She only has one sleep at home now, sometimes less than one hour). I glanced at the whiteboard when I picked her up toady, and it said Lara went to sleep just before 2 pm. When I enquired, Hayley told me all the babies (under 2s) had a "sleep party" today. They talked and played in their individual cots for ages. Lara apparently "started" the party and she was the last one to fall asleep. Hayley also said the kiddies started to talk a lot in bed. They talked to one another (it can be heard through the baby monitor) and all laughed at the same time as if they knew what others were saying. When Hayley knocked on the door or went inside, they all lain down quickly pretending they were sleeping! That's funny! I guess not so funny when you want them to go to sleep!

Home for 2 weeks

I am/will be home looking after Lara for 2 weeks. Yes you guessed it, Lara is not well again. Mother-in-law offered to babysit for a couple of days next week so I can do some work.

Lara had a temperature from Monday night. I thought it to be the swimming class we went to that morning. But doctor diagnosed it to be a throat infection and said Lara would have caught it a few days earlier. She's on antibiotics again (her third course of antibiotics in three months!). This antibiotics (Abbocillin V) needs to be given four times a day (as supposed to Amoxil 3 times only), on empty stomach for 10 days. I'm constantly looking at the clock planning when to give food and antibiotics. Medicine seems to be working. Lara's not too bad at the moment - not happy only after waking up from a day sleep. The throat infection does put her off food.

As an example, for breakfast, she had two bites from a toast and didn't want it (I finished it off). I tried some cereal next, no luck either (so I ate that again). She spat the banana out, didn't even like watermelon. Lunch and dinner was a repeat of breakfast. So that was our day, trying and spiting different food out. I ended up finishing most of the uneaten food! She did have some instant noodles at the end. I realised I should have given her softer food because of her sore throat. The day goes faster than when I am at work, but very little to show for at the end of the day.

Husband, Parents-in-law and I all have a running nose and sore throat now. This cold was definitely worse than the last one we had. We are building up our patience and our skills to deal with cold/infection while Lara continues to build up her immune system.

Frightfully bright

I try to call Mum and Dad once a week. But the week sometimes rolls into 2 weeks while I'm busy working, looking after Lara and living our lives. I'm normally freer at night when Lara is asleep, but because of the time difference, Mum and Dad are usually asleep as well.

This Mother's Day, I kept telling myself to call when I have a free minute. I wanted to call in the morning but knew Mum would be at church. By the time we came home from sis-in-law's house and had something to eat, it was after 9pm and too late to call.

I called the next day and Dad picked up the phone. He said Mum was angry with me for not calling on Mother's Day and didn't want to talk to me! And I thought Mum and Dad don't really celebrate birthdays, Christmas or Mother's day. Maybe Mum expected me to call because I'm also a Mum now, but she didn't realise that I wanted to call, but life got in the way on this particular Sunday.

This makes me think about the things parents expect from their kids. Will I one day also want something in return for what I do for Lara now? Will I also get angry with Lara for not calling me on Mother's day? (I hope not.)

This bouquet is called "Frightfully bright". Hopefully by the time Mum receives this, she will not be angry any more!


(photo from Interflora)

Mother's Day present

The Friday before Mother's Day, I was talking to Husband on the phone:

I: I'm thinking about going shopping later... I "need" a new bag (I had showed Husband the hole in my handbag and where the stitching came off not long ago. I'm a one-bag person, too lazy to change bag every day. And I had used the old bag for 3-4 years.)
Husband: Don't get a bag (a little too quickly)
I: Why not?
Husband: Ummmm... (thinking and finding things to say) Just don't get a bag.....

That was when I knew what I was getting for Mother's Day!