I'm a full-time mummy

We had just recently reviewed "Just Helping My Dad" and now, we have the privilege to add this story app to our collection!

* Title: Just Me and My Cousin
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Books
* Released: May 23, 2013
* Current Version: 2.3
* Size: 37.4 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"Little Critter visits his aunt, uncle and cousin in this charming story. The day starts off well but Little Critter quickly learns that it's not always easy (or fun!) playing with his cousin. After pillow fights, tattletailing and checkerboards overturned, Little Critter is ready to go home. What will his cousin do to save the day?"

One of the reasons why I wanted to add this story app into our collections is because our boy is regularly in touch with his cousins so I think he can totally relate himself with Little Critter and I was wondering what we can learn from this story app as well.

What's good?

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen and the words pop out to tell you what it is!

* I took this opportunity in this story app to teach my boy that although Little Critter's cousin is very mischievious, he should not follow his footsteps and must play nicely and fair and not engage in rough play as shown by Little Critter's cousin.

* I took the opportunity in the page above to show my boy that we have to say sorry and admit our mistakes when we do wrong and we should be remorseful and try to patch up any mistakes so that we can preserve good relationships with others.

You can purchase the "Just Me and My Cousin" 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"

I mentioned in my previous post on my third pregnancy at month 6 post that I had a bit high glucose reading (8.5mol when normal range should be 6-7mol) and after texting my gynae, he adviced me to do a self-blood sugar test and to report back the results to him before he determines the next step of actions for me. Hence, this post is to share with you how to do self-monitoring of blood glucose.

Firstly, you will need to get the following items from your local pharmacy:

- Sterile lancets (needle to prick your finger to extract small amount of blood for the testing)

- Alcohol swabs

- Glucometer

- Test strips (where you drip your blood onto the strip to get reading from the glucometer)

Picture below showing you all the items required to perform your self-monitoring of blood glucose:

Now here's the steps to perform your self-monitoring of blood glucose:

Step 1: Get ready to insert the test strip into the glucometer. Glucometer will automatically turned on when test strip inserted completely. At this moment, I did not slide in the test strip completely as I take some time to gather courage to prick my finger do the blood test.

Step 2: Ensure test strip is adjusted into the glucometer properly so that you can straight away push it in when you are ready to smear your blood onto the test strip.

Step 3: Open up the cover of the lancing device. Insert a sterile lancet into the lancing device. Just twist clockwise/anticlockwise to separate out the needle from the protective head of the lancet.

Step 4: You can adjust your level of how deep you want your finger to be prick. Mine is 6 as anything below doesn't even poke through my skin. Do note that the higher the number, the deeper the needle will poke into your skin. Close back the cover of the lancing device.

Step 5: Get ready an alcohol swab and rub the finger you want to prick. Let the alcohol on your finger dry first as it may affect the glucose values shown by the meter. Adjust the lancing device on top of the finger to prick and press the trigger for the needle to prick your finger.

Step 6: Push in the test strip, wait for the sign on the glucometer to indicate it is ready to read your blood test. Draw enough blood so that you can smear some onto the test strip. Wait for 5 seconds for your results to be shown on the glucometer screen. Do remember to use back the alcohol swab to stop the bleeding. You're done!

Some tips I got from the Internet:

- Don’t prick the same finger in the same area- keep on changing the places for pricks- this prevents the pain or infection which may happen if the same finger is needled all the time.

- If you use alcohol swabs to wipe the skin before pricks let it dry completely as alcohol itself is a reducing agent and may affect the values shown by the strip.

- When the oozing droplet is not sufficient increase the number on the dial of the lancing pen – or if you are pricking the finger manually, prick deeper - alternately change the place of pricks.

- Do not recycle the lancets, alcohol swabs or test strip. Use once and discard after use!

So there you go, hope I didn't miss out any information and thank you for reading!

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!