I'm a full-time mummy

I have been seeing articles about the planets Venus and Jupiter closely together and wanted to share some shots I took during our recent family holiday in Thailand.

According to DailyMail,

"The planets, which are hundreds of millions of miles from each other, will for a short period of time seem to be galactic neighbours, passing so close they seem to merge.

 The line-of-sight illusion is caused when the orbits of Venus and Jupiter line up on the same side of the sun as seen from Earth.

 As Venus orbits in 225 days, Earth in 365 and Jupiter in 4,330, the chance of such as alignment occurring is fairly rare."

For more pictures you can see them at here, here and here.

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I came across this article which I must definitely share with you guys as I'm very interested to know your thoughts on this.

For your convenience, I have copied some of the excerpts from the article here:

"Infants and young children could be required to be belted in their own airline seats instead of being held on their parents’ laps, if the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s latest recommendations are adopted.

“In some cases of severe turbulence, or a sudden deceleration, or an accident, parents simply can’t hang on to the baby as hard as they might try,” said Kathy Fox, chair of the Transportation Safety Board, in a telephone interview. “That’s why they need to be in a separate seat.”

The recommendations were released this week as part of a report into a Perimeter Aviation crash in December 2012, in Sanikiluaq, Nunavut, where a 6-month-old baby, who was being held by his mother, was killed when the small turboprop overshot the runway as pilots tried to land a second time in bad weather.

If Transport Canada were to mandate the changes, it would mean every child, even those under 2, who are currently allowed to fly for free if held by parents in their arms, would need to have his or her own seat. That would likely bring higher costs for families wanting to travel by air. “If the baby had been in his own seat, with a proper seat restraint system, he would have had a better chance of survival, given that everybody else survived,” said Fox.

While airlines offer a financial incentive to hold a child under 2 in the lap of an adult, Fox argued it is something parents will have to address, because kids are simply safer in their own seat, in an approved child restraint system.

“It’s comes down to basic physics,” she said. “Young children aren’t suitably restrained at critical times of flight, during takeoff and landing and turbulence, they are exposed to more risk."

According to one of the T&C of our carrier flights:

"An infant may travel provided he sits on an adult's lap. Only one (1) infant is allowed for one (1) adult. No perambulators are allowed on board the aircraft."

Personally, I am quite conflicted with this - I guess it depends on the child's age.

A child under a year old might not be able to sit up straight, so how is it feasible for them to be belted in their individual seat? Wouldn't holding them be safer?

A toddler (above 1 year old) who can stand up, climb up and wriggle out might be able to wriggle out of their seatbelt which defeats the purpose of securing them during takeoffs or landings. In this situation, it would be safer for the toddler to be held by the parents/adults in-charge I feel.

During our recent holiday trip to Thailand, I had to hold our 1.5 years old girl on my lap as well, but she has on an infant seatbelt which was hooked onto mine - refer picture shown below. I personally feel it is safer for her to be on my lap, belted in with my seatbelt.

I am not sure how flights of other countries works when it comes to infant passengers.

Do share your thoughts and/or experiences on this!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I have been sharing some of my favorite angpow pieces on an angpow collectors group in Facebook and some members have been telling me to continue sharing my memorable stories and so I thought, why not write it down, that way, our kiddos can read about it when they grow up next time, eh?

For those of you who are not familiar or never heard of the words 'Angpow' (also known as 'ang pau', 'ang pao', 'angpau'), here is a quick definition:

Angpow = Red Packet (filled with cash inside) given during festivals

So for today's angpow story, it comes from this piece of lovely angpow:

This angpow goes into my collection because of 2 things that reminded me of my childhood.

#1 - Bicycle

#2 - Dog

Those of you who have read my previous angpow story-time sharing about the time I first learned to cycle will know how memorable the experience was to me. Fast forward a few months from that incident, I'm sharing why this angpow brings back another childhood memory of mine.

You see, one fine afternoon, my cousins and I decided to cycle to another part of our kampung (means village in our national language) which was quite like uncharted territories to us young kids back then (we were 10-11 yrs old then) I never been into that stretch of road leading to some more houses inside that area but my cousins said it is a nice quiet place worth cycling around to.

I was tired then and my younger cousin (she was 2 yrs younger than me) said she will cycle and I can sit pillion behind her. Her 2 older brothers sat on their own bicycles.

So off we go cycling towards that part of the kampung. Nice single stories wooden terrace houses. I was just enjoying the cooling air and yes, the free ride hahaha when all of a sudden I hear dog barking behind me.

Sh*tttttt!!! I realized at that point that we were chased by a dog. The boys were faster because they ride on their own bicycles so they shot off ahead leaving us girls cycling like mad.

I was screaming at my cousin to cycle faster (well, now that I think about it, pity her hahahah... 2 years younger than me had to cycle for both of us in order to avoid being mauled by a dog LOL)

I don't dare to look behind but the last I glimpsed, I realized it was just a small puppy, albeit a very fierce one. I know both my legs are up at my cousin's waist LOL!!!! Of course we managed to escape that fierce puppy but it was a long while before any of us dared to venture into that part of the kampung again.

As I reminisced back this incident and writing this down, my heart was beating fast thinking back of the near death experience of being mauled by a puppy. What a nice funny and yet terrifying childhood memories!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.