I'm a full-time mummy

Our first child had officially started his preschool on 6th January 2014. My baby boy in a blink of an eye is going to preschool now! With him away for 4 hours every weekdays, I now have more time to spend with our 2 girls. So we are in the process of establishing our daily routine now. My daily weekday schedules goes something like this:

• 07.00 am : I woke up.. wanting to press the 'Dismiss' option but carefully pressed on the 'Snooze' option on my handphone alarm clock...

• 07.10 am : Okay, it's time to wake up now... Brush my teeth, freshen up, change into my going-out casual wear
  

• 07.15 am : Went downstairs to kitchen and whipped up some breakfast for our boy. Menu so far tuna cheese bread toast, peanut butter bread toast, egg mayo bread toast and oats with apples.

• 07.30 am : Woke our boy up and get him ready - brush teeth, wash face, quick hot shower, change of clothes, wear socks, sit next to him, and make sure he takes his breakfast. At this point, Alyson's turn to wake up. Brush her teeth, wash her face, change her diaper.

• 08.30 am : Get ready to leave the house, normally I bring Alyson along so she can see what is happening and get the fact that her older brother is not missing, just gone off to classes.

• 08.40 am : Arrived home, get ready make breakfast for Alyson and feed her.

From this point onwards until 11.30am, I can be doing the following:

• Bathing our girls.

• Breastfeeding our 3 months old cheeky Carolyn... well come to think of it, I breastfeed her on demand, so as and when it is necessary...
  

• Most of the time, when Alyson sees me breastfeeding her baby sister, she will also want to have her share. So, tandem nursing.

• I have also started getting Alyson to play with flash cards. Teaching her things like object names, similarities (same grouping like food, vehicles, colors, etc) while at the same time, entertain Carolyn as well.
  

• I also keep Alyson busy by alternating her toys, either flash cards, blocks (Duplo or wooden blocks) and wooden beads toys. Will consider dough soon (she has never play dough solo)
  

• Another thing that I have to do as and when necessary is handling the paperwork and administration side of hubby's IT business. There are times I need to rush out quotations, invoices or purchase orders, liaising with suppliers and clients, housekeeping the bills and statements for filing and claims later on (I compiled for a few months and process the claims)

• So when I am busy breastfeeding Carolyn or doing business tasks, I also let Alyson watch bible action songs on TV. I'm glad she enjoys watching the songs and she even dances and sings along to the songs as well. Win-win!
  

• 11.30 am :Time to prepare lunch so that Benjamin can start having his lunch when he gets home. At this point, I really can't entertain 2 girls while preparing food and cook. So I am currently trying this method: We have another playpen downstairs in the kitchen where we put Carolyn in when we have our family dinner there. I will gather some toys into a box and bring along downstairs, put both girls into the playpen and let them play. Well, Carolyn will be lying there gazing at something while Alyson will be investigating the toys and playing. The playpen is just few feet away from where I stand in the kitchen so I do monitor them every now and then while I prepare our lunch.
  

• 12.00 pm : Lunch done! I have about half an hour to wind down and rest a bit after the chaotic lunch preparation (and the stress of dealing with our 2 girls while preparing lunch!)
  

• 12.40 pm : Load our girls into my car and went to pick up Benjamin from his preschool. If my car is parked further, I will bring them to the nearby playground so that they can play a wee bit. Have so far do this once.
  

• 01.10 pm : Got home, get ready lunch for kiddos.

• 02.00 pm : If I'm lucky, all kiddos will finish their lunch by now, including me. And Carolyn. Again.
  

• 03.00 pm : The challenge starts now. We are in the process of cutting down our kiddos' TV and iPad usage so I have to come up with some activities to fill up their day (BOTH NO LONGER NAPS IN THE AFTERNOON THANK YOU VERY MUCH) so that they will not bug me for TV and/or iPad.

Between 3-5pm, we have so far done the :

• Lego, block toys.

• Cycling at our porch.

• Let the kids run around at our porch.
  

• Once they are done with cycling and running at our porch, we head back upstairs and I let them play in the water pool at our balcony. Water pool time can be around half hour.

• 

• Then it is off to bath them again.

• If kiddos are hungry during these hours, I will either give them fruits or biscuits for tea break.

• I also keep them busy by letting them hang out in the playroom. We read books there and just once I managed to take a 5 minute power nap while Carolyn gurgles next to me, Alyson flipping through some books and Benjamin playing in his 'camp' (play tent)

• 05.00 pm : Time to get ready to prepare for dinner. Nowadays I have included Benjamin in some of the easier tasks such as scooping out the rice, washing the rice and letting him switch on the rice pot. Some other food preparations that Benjamin gets to help out: stirring eggs, preparing orange juice, adding water. Don't forget the stress of handling 3 kiddos now while preparing dinner.
  

• 06.30 pm : Dinner ready by this time. All we have to do is wait for daddy to come home from work.

• 08.00 pm : Dinner done, dishes cleaned and dried. I will settle the laundry if there are any (usually every 2-3 days) and then take my bath (yes, no bath since 7am until now mmm... mmmm...) Hubby will be bullied by all 3 kiddos during this time.
  

• 08.30 pm :  Get ready for bed. Reading books or let kiddos play with daddy. And since we are still at the iPad / TV cutting down exercises, we allow our kiddos to watch just 1 show on iPad (either hubby or I choose, show not more than 10 minutes) and both dutifully complied when the show ends and they start to sleep.

• 09.00 - 09.20 pm : Both Benjamin and Alyson will be asleep by now. Left Carolyn to bully me hahaha...  

Now I get to rest a wee bit more, although it will be interrupted one as Alyson has been having nightmares lately so from this time until she wakes up at 7-ish am the next day, she will be waking up crying for about 3-4 times still. Yes, please don't go thinking I'm free 9pm onwards. A mummy's work never ends. And don't forget the breastfeeding on demand.

So that's about our routine so far based on the first week we survived through hahahah... will definitely need tweaking here and there. Some of the things we want to incorporate into our routine:

• We hope to be settling down into a more organised and fixed routine once everybody get used to it.

• Based on the preschool teacher's feedback, we will be going full steam on to cut down the TV and iPad time for our kiddos so that our boy especially can concentrate in his class and do not depend on electronic gadgets for fast thrill or instant gratifications. Currently the maximum time both kiddos get with the TV AND iPAD is not more than 1 hour a day. And we are still cutting down. We'll see how it goes from then.

• I hope to have more uninterrupted time to learn cooking and try out more dishes.

• I also hope to be able to come up with more activities for our kiddos to distract them away from TV and iPad.
  

So there you go! Thanks for reading my post! Wish us luck!

** 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.

We have some of the Berenstain Bears' story apps on my iPad and so when I saw the pitch release for this collection of the Berestain Bears stories, I decided we should review this app as I want our kiddos to grow up according to God's way and after reading the app details, it made me eagerly waiting to go through the story apps with our kiddos. Without further ado, here goes my feedback...

* Title: The Berenstain Bears Living Lights Collection #1
* Price: $11.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Dec 17, 2013
* Version: 2.5
* Size: 141 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"Dive into 7 exciting Berenstain Bears Living Lights interactive storybook apps that help young readers learn how God wants them to live every day! Explore pictures, learn new vocabulary, and personalize the story with your own narration. Enjoy The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree, The Berenstain Bears Discover God's Creation, The Berenstain Bears Do Their Best, The Berenstain Bears Faithful Friends, The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage, The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks, & The Berenstain Bears: God Loves You!, all in one convenient place."

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can touch the objects in each page on the screen and the different musical sounds that is being played as you tapped along!

* I like that this collection of story apps is meant to teach our children how to live their life according to God's way, to be thankful and grateful, to be a good person, to be courageous and more.

* I think that even though you are not a Christian, you can still be able to use this book as it instills good moral values in our kiddos.

* Our personal favorites in this app have got to be the "The Berenstain Bears Do Their Best" and "The Berenstain Bears and the Gift of Courage"! I find our 4.5 years old boy regularly goes back to this story app, so that means this is good stuff!

You can purchase the "The Berenstain Bears Living Lights Collection #1" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code 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"

When I received the pitch request from the developer to review this app, I immediately thought of how I can use this app with our 4.5 years old boy in our learning activities. I have not really dwell into occupation topics with him yet so I guess this will be a perfect timing to do so. Without further ado, here goes my feedback...

* Title: Community Helpers Play & Learn
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Games
* Released: Nov 24, 2013
* Version: 1.2
* Size: 62.2 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Anshu Dhanuka © Curious Fingers 2013
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements:Requires iOS 5.1 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"Want to help your kids learn about various Community Helpers? Would you like this learning experience to be combined with fun mini games that boost their knowledge and skills? Here is an app that is packed with information about various community helpers such as Firefighter, Police Officer, Doctor, Plumber, Teacher and many more. Children can select a community helper to know what he or she does. They can also tap on the tools & equipment to know what they are called and what they are used for.

 This educational experience is made even more interesting by letting kids help the community helpers accomplish certain tasks (mini games). The scientifically designed mini games provide a lot of opportunity for learning. While playing the mini games the kids are learning their alphabets, numbers, shapes, colors, patterns, sorting and much more. "

* I love the illustrations of this app, it is very cute and pleasing to the eyes.

* I like that the app is easy to use, I don't even have to show our kiddos what to do!

* This is a fun and educational app where you get to figure out the roles a community helper and what are the tools or equipments they used in their work and at the same time of learning that, I used the opportunity in this app to reinforce to our kiddos (especially our 4.5 years old boy) on aspects relating to numbers, alphabets, shapes, colors and so on.

* Our 2 years old Alyson is able to accomplish some of the games such as the vegetables sorting games and the puzzles as well. I'm impressed she is able to do that and I can foresee this app being reused over the time as she grows.

* I am very excited to see the potential of learning opportunities from this app while our kiddos can still be having fun!

You can purchase the "Community Helpers Play & Learn" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code 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"