I'm a full-time mummy

This post is to journal down the 6th month+ of my third pregnancy now! I realised I did not blogged much about this pregnancy, compared to my previous one which I blogged religiously every month. But that is because with this pregnancy, I didn't see our gynae every month for check up. Anyway here goes the update:

* APPETITE

Sweet sugary stuff rages on this month.. so much that I practically guzzled soft drinks or packet drinks every day and treat myself to a slice of cake or sweet buns or ice cream every other day....

* WEIGHT GAIN

Last month, I reported that I have not been gaining weight at all! I remembered experiencing the same thing with my 1st pregnancy until my gynae had to force me to drink UHT full cream milk EVERYDAY. I am doing that since 20th May and I'm now at 50kg. So that makes weight gain of 5kg in 6 months+ time...

* GYNAE CHECK-UPS

My second check-up with gynae was on 6th June 2013 but I was attended by another specialist instead of my chosen gynae (who was caught up with appointments elsewhere). According to the replacement gynae, baby is growing well, estimated weight is 500g for 24 weeks pregnancy and we were not able to see the baby's gender due to the legs covering up the genital area hahaha... but according to the gynae, he is not able to detect any ping-pong balls yet... so we'll see...

* BREASTFEEDING DURING PREGNANCY

Yes, like what I did with Benjamin when I was pregnant with Alyson, I nursed him throughout the pregnancy. This round? Same. I think my milk has dried up few weeks back but like her brother, Alyson does not seem to be bothered and continued to comfort dry suckling from me whenever she wants and before her sleeptime. Though I do noticed tiny dots of dried up milk on my nipples lately, signs of colostrum returning? :)

* BABY MOVEMENT

Yes, I started feeling the tiny flutters in my tummy at month 4 actually and have been using Babyplus gadget 2 weeks ago twice a day (9am and 9pm) and the kicks are getting stronger everyday.

(*** NEW!) GLUCOSE TOLERANCE TEST (GTT)

New thing to report this month! The replacement gynae told us that I can do the GTT test before my next check-up at 28 weeks pregnancy, so I immediately contacted our family GP so that I can do the GTT test at his clinic instead of having to go to the hospital to do it (very troublesome!)

This test is to be taken at 7th month pregnancy, especially if you have family history of having diabetes. Both my parents had them and my mum passed away due to total kidney failure caused by diabetes. My results was normal when I was pregnant with my 2nd child.

So, the night before the test, I started fasting from 10pm, taking only plain water and nothing else, and waited till the next morning 10am to have my blood test (just a little prick on my finger) and was given this  300ml glucose solution to drink.

Result: My blood sugar level before the taking the drink is 4.1 (anything below 6 is normal) and after 2 hrs (only take plain water) is 8.5 (normal reading is between 6.1 to 7). OH NO!!!!! I immediately SMS-ed my gynae asking for his advice on what to do and was given the following instructions:

1. Buy a glucometer from local pharmacy. I'll need to do a self-blood sugar test where I use this device to prick my fingers, get a small dot of blood and smeared it on the test strip on the glucometer and wait for the results in 5 seconds.

2. Do self blood sugar test by following these timing:

- 8am after fasting

- half hour before breakfast and 2 hours after breakfast

- half hour before lunch and 2 hours after lunch

- half hour before dinner and 2 hours after dinner

- right before bedtime 10pm

3. Report the results to gynae and he'll decide the next steps (which will be diet change if results still bad)

So there you go, updates as at 6 months+ pregnancy... have a blessed week and thank you for reading!

I'm writing this post to share with you a valuable lesson I learned few days back from my 4 years old boy and his Lego...

The initial shocked + speechless + gobsmacked moment when I discovered him dismantling EVERYTHING in his Lego fire station set which his daddy took a couple of hours to set up for him before his 4th birthday 3.5 months ago.

Why my reactions such way? My boy is a perfectionist and will throw tantrums the moment even the slightest Lego bricks are misplaced or put in wrong directions. He remembers EVERYTHING clearly and the Lego set has been on his play table since then with him playing with it almost on daily basis, on top of him using the free Lego bricks for his own creations and such.

When my hubby came into our room, I told him what happened, to brace himself for what's to come and wished him all the best should our boy decides to have his Lego fire station set in the same settings again.

Hubby in return asked me whether Benjamin dismantled everything by himself. I said 'Yes, he said there's a fire in his fire station and hence he took out EVERYTHING'.

Hubby said 'That's a good sign. It meant he is finally confident enough to let go of the Lego set and ready for new creations!'

Oh wow! After a couple of seconds and thinking, I realised hubby is right.

My boy is ready for bigger things now!

The fact that our 4 years old boy is willing to destroy his precious fire station set and not even throwing any fit at all... just amazing... and to think the countless threats I used to give hubby to super glue his fire station set because I couldn't stand the tantrums thrown by our boy whenever any of the Lego bricks in the fire station set dropped out or misaligned themselves and to see this happening in total peace and serenity and calmness displayed by our boy... again, simply amazing!

Thank you for teaching mummy this important lesson, to let go and embrace new challenges!

Towards the end of May this year, I blogged about our upcoming product reviews for Skechers again and yes, it has been such an awesome opportunity to be able to work with Skechers again! I'll start off the shoes review with Ben's awesome kid's shoes, the "Skechers Boys' Hot Lights: Damager - Police II Shoes":

Description from the product page:
"A cool favorite gets even better in the SKECHERS Hot Lights: Damager - Police II shoe. Leather and synthetic upper in a light up police themed slip on sneaker with cool detailing."

Oh boy, we have quite a tough time trying to get our 4 years old boy the idea that it is time to change his shoes. He so deeply loves wearing his current Skechers Kid's Terminal Radian Z Strap Shoes and refused to remove his shoes to try out new ones! Had to persuade and gives him lots of explanations that his feet is growing longer and his current shoes ain't going to fit him any longer and he refused to even look at the shoes display in front of him...

Until the Skechers Boys' Hot Lights: Damager - Police II Shoes caught my eyes! Oh boy, police shoes! I immediately pointed to Ben my discovery and quickly grabbed the shoes to show him. He glimpsed briefly after hearing the word 'police' popping out of my mouth and when I realised there's also light shining out from the shoes like his current ones, whoaaaa... my boy was fixated with the shoes! I have no idea there are other series of shoes for this range as we can only see the police ones on display, else I might have gone for the soldier or fireman design. But in any case, I'm happy there's a larger size for the police shoes for Benjamin and he happily said yes, he wanted the shoes and I had to explain to him we need to let the staff process and write down the shoes details before he is allowed to wear it out.

Now let's see how this awesome shoes look like. Of course in Malaysia we don't have 911 for police hotline number but the point is, this is a police design shoes and that's all that matters for the mind of a 4 years old boy!

As with his previous shoes, Benjamin still can't tie his shoes yet so I love that this shoes came with a Velcro strap which can be easily taken off and stick back, easy for his little hands to handle this shoes. Color wise, white black and red, simple and yet elegant for a little boy, he has associated white and black colors for police force after having this shoes.

One awesome thing to note about this shoe is the way it lit up! I love that there is a start/stop button at the end of the Velcro strap which allows us to easily switch the lights on and off. You can see the straps lighting up and also the front part of the shoes also have lights shining through! Coolness!

It's so cool and I can see Ben purposely stomping his feet when he walks just so he can see the light blazing through his awesome shoes! The first time he wore it out for our outing, I let him try it out in our bedroom (since it's brand new, no issues for me for him to step and run around in our room) Noticed we even paired his new shoes with a police socks? Hahahaha, he loves it!

Pictures below are taken during our family outings:

Based on our previous experience with Skechers shoes, we are of course happy our boy is wearing Skechers shoes again as we feel he is safe in it and can protect him and yet it makes him look cute and cool at the same time! Also, I'm very happy the shoes do not have any sound and that the light is not too overbearing.

Our vedict? An awesome shoes yet it looks stylish and edgy for a kid! Skechers never disappoint us at all and will continue to have our support and praises!

You can check out the designs at http://skechers.com.my/index.php

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by Skechers in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.