I'm a full-time mummy

I wrote some posts about what I did in 2010 and 2011 that I'm proud of so this post is to continue on the 'tradition' for 2012 as well! Here goes (in no particular order):

* Sharing My Tips On Getting Products to Review

I have received a number of emails and comments from my followers asking how I get to review products and apps so I decided to list down my tips and post it on my blog. I'm happy to share that there are some of my blog followers who followed my tips and able to get cool stuff to review on their blog too!

 *  Tandem Nursing!

I initially had nursing aversion when we brought Alyson home and Ben started asking for his nen-nen (breastmilk). I wrote a couple of posts on my tandem nursing experience, the struggles and how I cope with it, surviving it, and how it goes along at 3 months after that.

I'm happy to report that we're still tandem nursing though Ben nowadays doesn't really ask for his feeding unless he's in one of his baby mood to play and to get mummy's attention hahaha... but still, since I'm practising the 'Don't offer, don't refuse' method of weaning, as long as he asks, I will be glad to offer to him. Imagine nursing a 46 months old boy and a 16 months old girl, wow! And yes, we are still at zero specks of formula powder in our house since our first child came back from the hospital!

 * Continue to help some friends, even strangers in the matters of baby care, breastfeeding and so on

Yes, even while I am busy with my 2 kids, blogging and doing product reviews, I do spare some time helping my friends, bloggy  pals or strangers. Whatever topics I get asked on, be it breastfeeding, childbirth, pregnancy, baby care, product reviews, making use of blog to earn money, and so on, I am happy and proud to say I have been able to share my experience with other mums and friends all around.

* Continuing in potty training my boy (and my girl!)

I blogged about starting Ben back on his potty training in February after months of delaying it (Alyson came along in September and I had to pause Ben's potty training since then) and even listed down some short, medium and long terms goals that I looked forward to accomplishing with Ben.

Then I also blogged about the precious sight I get to see - Ben finally pooping in his potty! (instead of diapers which he always insisted on), and revisiting those goals I set in February against the progress in early May this year and checking off the ones we achieved 3 weeks later, and now it looks like we are getting almost all of the goals soon for Benjamin! Thank God for this and for my dear boy to be so good in following through his potty training!

As for my 16 months old girl, she is learning fast by observing her big brother! So much so that when I can see her obvious signs she wants to poo, I will immediately take off her diaper and put her on her brother's potty (which surprisingly, is the one property of Ben's that he gladly shares!!!)

As of today, the last day of the year, I'm happy to share that my boy has been off diapers during day AND night time. Woohooooo!!! I've just got to work on getting him to get used to using the toilet seat from now on. As for our girl, I have observed on two occassions where she squatted on the toilet floor to pee, so yes, I'm pretty proud to see her do that... still, I want to let her slowly and steadily move along in her potty training progress, no rush on our side as I firmly believe when she's ready, she's ready...

 * Getting to review Nissan LEAF, the world's first mass produced, all-electric & zero-emission Nissan Vehicle in Malaysia 

To be precise, my husband and I have been appointed as the couple ambassadors for Nissan's 2nd batch of Nissan LEAF test drive program. It has been an amazing 8 weeks for us to test drive this beauty and for my blogging experience, getting to review this car and work with Nissan brand is truly one of the pinnacles in my blogging journey!

Btw, you can view loads more pictures of the awesome car in my Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.507265295964237.115229.147942468563190&type=3

 * Helping out book authors by sharing their book review pitch

There are times I had to reject some pitch to review books that is not my genre or I simply do not have time to review it. There are also times when after reviewing the book, I was very excited to have read the book and wanted to help the author to spread out the news about their awesome book.

So, I created an album on my Facebook page and with the permission from these authors, I shared the opportunities available for book bloggers to review these books (mostly in PDF format). I am happy to be able to share these opportunities with other bloggers as well and also happy to know I can help out these authors!

* Building up my blogging portfolios
   

These are some of the brands / companies I've worked with and I'm happy to share that each and every one of this brands and companies are awesome to work with and I hope to continue building up my blogging portfolio and to be able to work with more brands and to share what my family and I have tried and tested and the things that works!

So there you go, a list of things I did in 2012 that I am proud of! I hope to be able to achieve greater things be it in my blogging or parenting. I wish the same for you all out there and thank you so much for your support and following through my blog in 2012!

At any given time in recent history, it's been hard to imagine what it was like to grow up in the previous generation. With the world changing so fast, the childhoods of one generation and the next can seem completely disparate. But each successive generation has new tools and resources to draw upon, so how can parents today make use of the contemporary world to take better care of their kids?

Parenting blogs
There's no better way to increase your parenting savvy than by drawing on the experience of other parents. Parents have always been able to learn from friends and family, but the Internet has made it possible to learn from people all over the world. There's an incredible wealth of experience out there, and if you can tap into some of it you might find yourself better versed in areas like parenting strategy, schooling, and children's books, clothes, food and activities. Anything you may go through as a parent has been dealt with before, and being prepared can help you handle any eventuality with relative ease.

Product deals sites and review blogs
One of the biggest challenges of parenting is providing for your kids in a cost-effective way. When you're under stress and time is short, it can be enticing to select the first reputable product or service you see. But perusing parenting blogs can help you determine reputability and quality as well as find the best prices, so it really pays to make visiting them a habit. And even if you're only thinking about having kids, parenting blogs can be great for helping you make informed decisions.

Exposing kids to a wide variety of experiences

Computers and the Internet are tremendous resources, and there's a place for them in our kids' schedules too. There's a great deal kids can learn from accessing this vast repository of information. Now more than ever, it's easy for our kids to gain exposure to different languages and forms of interaction, and a world full of possibilities. As parents, we owe it to our kids to think about how technology can help make their lives richer.

** Annie Idea is a freelance writer focused on how to live large on a little living. She writes financial savings tips on the short term loan website, QuickQuid, and enjoys taking any idea and making it easier or cheaper to complete.

Children are a lovely thing, all adorable in their tiny clothes, with minds still unsullied by the wide world that surrounds them. Sure, they can be a handful at times (a lot of times) but we still love them, even if sometimes it’s just because we have to (!). One of their more notable traits is the desire to explore everything around them in every possible way and to push the limits of their surroundings, just to see how far they can go, often leading to things getting more than a little messy. Bizarrely, I’ve noticed my kids –and those of my friends-  have a strange attraction to the doors in my home, taking every opportunity to see what they can do with them, so without further ado, the five most annoying things that kids do with doors:
 

#5 “We don’t live in a barn”
It’s a simple one, but gosh does it get annoying over time – Yes, it’s the classic leaving-the-door-open-when-you-come-in-a-room trick. As soon as kids learn how to walk, they’re want to explore places of the house previously thought unreachable, this is a pretty understandable trait in amongst itself but do they have to leave the doors open everywhere they go!? 
 

#4 “Don’t swing from there!”
Here’s another one for you – count the number of times you’ve walked into a room to see your child swinging from the door handle, weighing the entire thing down and generally being a nuisance. It’s likely been a good number of times, but here’s a horror story for you; one day, as I entered the living room to finally sit down, my son hung from the back of the door handle giggling cheekily to himself before a large cracking noise erupted and the door handle ripped straight from the wood, sending my son tumbling down and me to B&Q to replace the darned thing – all whilst reassuring my child that it was fine, but he mustn’t do it again.

#3 “It’s very nice, but what’s wrong with good old fashioned paper?”
Kids are an artistic bunch, with mile wide smiles when given the opportunity to draw what’s going on in their heads and see it come to fruition in front of their eyes. It’s usually for that reason that homes with children are usually littered with pens, crayons and all manners of paints, something that kids will always find use for. Cue spending the next couple of hours scrubbing as hard as you can, trying to get the pig drawing of mummy and daddy from the door before dinner.

#2 “I warned you about standing behind the door”
You can tell them and tell them, but children seem incapable of standing anywhere in the room but directly behind a door, meaning you either tentatively open every single door in your home, or your kid is getting a gentle nudge out of the way. Incredibly annoying and yet so simple! Genius, really.

#1 “Don’t slam the do-“.. “Oh, you did”.
Tantrums, tantrums, tantrums, an everyday occurrence in most households and apparently built in to every child is the desire to prove their levels of upset by slamming as many doors as possible. It’s by far the most annoying thing a kid can do with your doors, and gosh do they know it. Interestingly, this phenomenon has been noted back a long way in history, so it’s comforting to know the parents of yesteryear had to deal with the same nonsense.

Jakk Ogden writes for http://www.homesecureshop.co.uk/, a home security specialist helping consumers secure their homes with products such as home security locks and UPVC window restrictors.