I'm a full-time mummy

I started solids for my girl when she is about 6.5 months old. As with my boy, we started off with a small tin of Nestle baby rice cereal. Most important is to get the one which we mixed with breastmilk instead of mix with water (as that means it's already added with formula milk inside the cereal)

As of now, she is still on direct breastfeeding most of the time as I only gave her solids once daily, around 10am+, after a brief feed on one side (to satisfy her hunger but not fill her up so much)

My mini challenges everyday is to hand express my breastmilk fast enough before she starts crying for her feed hahaha, but I use that to my advantages also as I will feed her one side and hand expressed the other side to mix with the rice cereal.

We are down to half tin now, which I will then progress to pureed veggies and fruits with breastmilk. I noticed she's not that enthusiastic sometimes during the solids feeding which is why I'm not rushing yet.

Oh, btw, I also use the solids feeding time to start teaching my girl to get used to saying grace before eating, like how I did for Ben (which he cleverly does nowadays for all his meals!) So what I do is, I grasped both of her hands, looked her in the eyes, and said "Thank you God, bless my food, Amen" (Ben normally chimes in with his Amen at this point)

That's all the updates for now...

Oooo... I am excited I get to review this storybook by iStoryTime with my boy! I have only let him watch this movie about 2 weeks ago and he loves it! So I thought it'll be cool to have the storybook on my iPad as well! Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Kung Fu Panda 2 Storybook
* Price: $2.99
* Category: Books
* Updated: Jun 09, 2011
* Version: 1.0.1
* Size: 43.7 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: zuuka incorporated
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Description from the product page:

"Follow Po living his dream as the Dragon Warrior protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, the Furious Five – Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. But Po’s new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu.

Retelling the movie story of Kung Fu Panda 2, the storybook also contains a bonus feature -- “Create-A-Scene” -- a digital sticker book with your favorite characters from Kung Fu Panda 2."

* The illustrations is clear and exactly the same from the movie. If you like to watch the movie, then you can expect the same storyline on this app!

* I like this storybook as I don't need to play the whole movie for my boy to watch, I can go through the app with him and just our imagination and memory to replay back the scenes from the movie.

* I like the 'Create a Scene' which is a digital sticker book you can play and place all the characters from this movie.

You can purchase the "Kung Fu Panda 2 Storybook" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store 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. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

(** Article first published as Book Review: Hold It Mama: The Pelvic Floor and Core Handbook for Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond by Mary O'Dwyer) on Blogcritics)

I received an email from Mary at the end of February this year asking whether I would be interested in reviewing her book and after checking out her book on her website and also Amazon, I decided to review it. So here goes my review for the "Hold It Mama" book:

Title: Hold It Mama
Author: Mary O'Dwyer
Publisher: Redsok (July 20, 2011)
ASIN: B005N049KY 
Paperback:  229 pages

Description from the product page:
"Hold It Mama is the essential guide for women who want the best of both worlds: children and a strong, vibrant pelvic floor and core. This guide gives women the power to reclaim their fitness, shape and pelvic health during pregnancy, birth and beyond.

Hold It Mama will help you —
- recover core strength and shape
- improve pelvic floor and abdominal control
- stay safely active during pregnancy
- practice skills for an empowered labor
- protect the pelvic floor during birth
- self-check for prolapse or muscle damage
- recover after C-section birth including scar minimization
- follow the ‘Shrink the Jellybelly’ program
- enjoy vital pelvic floor and core fitness throughout life"

To be honest, the only thing I know about pelvic muscle is exercising them during pregnancy as I read it helps to make the contractions faster. Oh boy, I hope I got it right. For both of my pregnancies, I squat as much as possible right up to my last trimester and I think it helps a lot! It is good to read on page 52 of this book about the benefits of squatting and reaffirm my understanding.

The exercise on page 16 item number 3 is the Kegel exercise I learned in antenatal class when I was pregnant with my first child. I also like the tips given during labor, ways to take to help baby move down the pelvis.

In section 6, this chapter touches the early postpartum phase and how it is important to use this period to heal and strengthened back the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles. I also find the tips on breastfeeding positions on page 100 very helpful as well.

Btw, one awesome point in this book is it sets out detailed recovery after caesarean as well as vaginal births. Do you know that it takes C section mums longer to recover after birth as deep healing needs to happen before they return to activity? I read with great interests on how the muscles are affected for C section mums after labor. Interesting!

My favorite chapter in this book has got to be section 13 (page 170 - 177) where in highlights birth and postpartum care in other countries and cultures, a good eye opener to always know more on how people from other countries do it.

Reading this book helps me to learn how important our pelvic floor and abdominal muscles are and how we can exercise and get it back to its shape even after birth and beyond.

You can get this book from Amazon and http://store.holditsister.com/books.html

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a PDF copy of the book by the author 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. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"