Little Helper @ home

We are very glad that recently, Emily has turn into a "big" girl already. During the 1st month of Valerie's birth, she was not able to really accept little sister and she became very attached to me and my mom. This is a very normal norm as many mommies told me. Initially she is really jealous and she herself turned into a small little girl.

Well, that is 5 months ago, today, big sister Emily is a perfect little helper at home. Some of the example that Emily will be able to assist are quoted as below:

1) When Valerie's saliva is dropping from her mouth, Emily will walk over to take the cloth wipes and let us wipe her saliva from her mouth. Sometimes, she will take her sister's cloths to wipe the saliva but we told her its not clean, and she will go and take the cloth wipes.

2) Whenever she sees Valerie's shirt is pulled up and exposing her belly button, she will pull 'mei mei' shirt down and say 'close belly button'.

3) When Valerie is crying, Emily will bring out her pooh bear that sings and press the tummy of the pooh bear so that Valerie could listens to the pooh bear song. Or she will ask kakak to bring the rattle out and shake the rattle as Valerie loves the rattle.

4) The most amazing and unbelievable one is actually when little Valerie 'farted', that is the sign that she wants to poop poop. To our surprise, Emily will run over to the toilet, and bring along the potty for mama so that we can put Valerie on the potty. 99% of the time, Valerie will poop into the potty, means no dirty cloth diapers for mama :)
I am really surprised that Emily is very observant and did the responsibility of a big sister.

Emily is Potty Trained

I am very proud to say that Emily is potty trained at 18 months. It was actually 6 months ago when we realize that Emily is fully potty trained or toilet learned.

When ever she wants to pee she will say 'shi shi' or 'emm emm' & make the funny face, then will bring her to the toilet or get the potty for her. I can't remember when was the last time that she accidentally pee on her cloth diaper during the day time. It was actually when Emily was 18 months old, and I was still pregnant with Valerie at that time, she told me that she wanna 'emm emm' and make that funny face that she wanted to poop. We were sitting on the floor and I was not able to get up to get the potty for Emily. Emily ran to the toilet and bring out her potty and put it in front of me. She still does not know how to take off her own pants so I helped her to take off her pants and she will do her business there.

Here are a few tips on potty training methods that I am happy to share with all:

When Emily is still a infant

• When Emily is almost 1 months old, she will actually response to the "shhhh shhh" sound when she put her on the potty. It is to our surprise that she would actually response to it as we thought it was a coincident that it happened. So my mommy actually show me again that Emily was able to urinate and response when she makes the "shhhh shhhh" sound !! And again she urinate on the potty. It is very amazing that a small baby can actually understand and response to that.
• Consistency - Every time when Emily wakes up from her afternoon nap, and if she does not pee in her cloth diaper, the first thing that we will do is to bring her to the potty (or bring the potty to her) and "shh shh" her. I have to THANK both my parents who actually have a very good habit of training Emily on this, so every time she wakes up she get her potty training. Personally I think that this has becomes a habit that Emily 'automatically' knows that she needs to urinate in the potty when she wakes up.

When Emily becomes a toddler

• During Emily's toddler hood, when she is around 12-15 and she is able to walk on her own, we actually started to educate & remind her that she will need to urinate on the potty. When ever she urinate on her CD, we will put the CD into the potty, and tell her that you will need to "shh shh" in the potty. Of course, this is an easy task, we keep on reminding her on that and every time she was to pee, she eventually know how to say and we will remove her CD and let her urinate in the potty. Since Emily is wearing CD, it is easy to take off and easy to put on again. At this time she is able to understand what is right and what is wrong.
• It is important to have a consistent schedule. It is important to know your child capability. Normally we will have a quite consistent schedule when to ask Emily if she needs to 'shh shh' or not. It is around 2 hours each day that we will actually sit her on her potty and ask her to urinate.
• During the process we will give encouragement. We will usually stay with her till she has finished her business and give her an applause that she has done a good job ! She will response back with a cheeky smile and recognize her accomplishment as well. It is very important to give the positive encouragement to encourage the habit.
• Starting around 18 months onwards, she is already out of her CD and during the day time, she will be wearing the panties and walk around the house. No more CD in the afternoon except nap time. We wanted her to sleep well during her nap, so will still put on the CD for that but most of the time from my personal experience if she does not have dream, she will not urinate in the CD. Sometimes accidents happens especially when Emily is too tired or too excited (till she sort of forgets) Remember it is important not to 'scold' her when the accident happens as they will still need time to learn how to control their bowel movement. During the small accidents, the training pants will be a good solutions to avoid wet floors.
• During the night time, she will still be wearing CD but before she wears the CD and goes to bed, we will potty her again.
• When Emily is around 20 months, she actually does not need to wear training pants of CD at night anymore. The consistent habit of letting her urinate at potty before she sleeps, (that's the last thing that she will do) and then the first thing when she wakes up in the morning, is to potty train her again. It is actually quite amazing that when she wakes up in the morning, she has a huge amount of urine inside the potty but she knows how to "hold" the urine and not accidentally pee in the CD anymore.

The most important training is consistency and also educating your toddler that they can do it. Just lead by example and role model. Keep on reminding her that she needs to tell mama and papa that she needs to go toilet and we will bring her there.

Now, we have already started the same potty train Valerie and she has the same good response as her sister Emily :)

How to teach toddler to share their toys..

"Toy Jail" emphasizes the mutual benefit of sharing

Melissa is one tactful mom. I love this solution -- teaches skills without finger-pointing.

Our toddlers are 17 months apart and are constantly competing for toys. That's a nice way of putting it, right? :) I'm not a yeller, and I see that sharing is hard, so if things get heated, the toys go into Toy Jail. "This toy is causing a whole bunch of trouble today. Let's put it in jail and see if we'll have a better day with it tomorrow." Some of the hotly contested toys live in toy jail, poor things, but it seems to work about 80% of the time. My four year-old will stop and say, "Here, you take it before it goes into Toy Jail."

Mothers Room is one of the most relaxing place

I have to say that the mothers room in my working place is one of the most peaceful place availble on earth or at least in office. Well, meaby a bit of overstatement but it is true. When ever I go to the Mother's Room to EBM, I will find that it is very peaceful and very quite. It is truly a time where I can relax and just focus on something without multi-tasking. Not to mention, its a place where I can meet other moms who are breastfeeding and also share the fun and painful stories of pregnancy stories, baby care, breastfeeding and anything under the sun when it comes to baby and toddlers.

I still remembered when I travel overseas for my business trip in 2006 and I had to EBM in the airport and also on the plane, the mothers room in HK International airport was one of the most relaxing place too. With the baby pictures hanging on the walls, and also the soft and baby friendly environment, makes me miss Emily a lot.

I think its is great that more and more public places are more concious and preparing great and clean places for baby feeding and mothers too. This is very much needed to raise the awareness and encouragement of breastfeeding.

Mother's Day Dinner

Happy family.. having Mother's Day dinner in Gurney.

Finally some pictures of Valerie..

Its a big challange to take pictures now a days. Since we don't have a lot of time and Emily who likes to grab the camera from us when bring the camera out we really don't have much pictures of Valerie.

I have been asking around my mama friends around if they have the same problems. "It is very common that your no. 2 will have less pictures". But I'll do my best to capture the wonderful moments as much as I can, as I know that the moment will not come again

Emily trying to carry Valerie.

Busy working schedule

Have been M.I.A for some time..busy with work, moving house and also for my two little angels.

No excuse not to keep you all updated but I guess 24 hours is barely enough to complete work, take care of 2 kids at home and also allocate enough time to manage the household.

Just to share with you all how busy a working mom's schedule are as below.

6-7am - Wake up and breastfeed baby Valerie
8am - At work. Managing emails, meeting schedule, projects, timelines and deadlines. This is what we have to do :) Oh ya..Not to mention EBM 2 times a day to bring back home.
5pm - Off work (for now). Getting ready to drive home.
5.30pm - Reach home, can't wait to carry both my little girls. Emily will rush out to the door asking to be hug. First word that comes out of her mouth will be "mama's back, mama carry emily"
5.45pm - Get ready to breastfeed baby valerie. if she has taken her 2nd bottle later, then this will wait for later.
6pm - Bath Emily and get everyone ready for dinner
8pm - Finish dinner, spend another 1-2 hours with both my girls
10pm - Start work again.. night meeting with counterparts. * this happens every Tue, Wed and Thursday. Guess its tough to work for a MNC huh.
11.30 pm - Meeting ends, preparing both kids to go to sleep.

Then the whole cycle will start again the next day. No doubt it is very tiring and very stressful but I enjoy every moment of it. To me, work is work and play is play. When I work, I do my best and spend 100% of my time @ work. But when I spend time with my family its all family time.

I am sure that a lot of moms can relate to it.

Gotto go back to my "working" time now.. just stole 10 mins to type this :)