A close friend has recently decided that it is time to have a baby. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll remember a post on my contemplation to have baby #2 soon. From the purchase of ovulation test strips, pregnancy test kits, to doing research on the forums on the past experiences of mummies who have “tried and tested” methods. I have to say that trying to have a baby is as difficult as waiting for the Stork to come.

Apparently, there is only a 20% chance of successful conception during each menstrual cycle (no, it doesn’t work like 20% x 4 = 100%). The good news is that most couples will successfully have a baby within a year of trying. Also, it helps to know when you are ovulating (aka your fertile period), which are the best baby-making sex positions, and other things scientifically proven or not. If you try to follow them, I guess you could increase the 20% chance.

For those who think that having sex every day (and night) will definitely result in pregnancy, you’re in for a surprise. In fact, experts advice to do it every other day. The reason being so that daddy (to-be) can store up strong swimmers. If you do it too often, you may result in not so good swimmers. And we all know that strong swimmers with great stamina will score you the Olympic Gold Medal. Now we know that Phelps will have no problems making babies.

I honestly didn’t know there’s so much work behind making babies. Those on the Pill would’ve to stop for a period of time before they can try, using a Pre-Seed, keeping track of your basal body temperature to know when you’re ovulating, hormone pills, keeping track of your menstrual cycle, etc. In fact, I think I may have taken my fertility for granted.

I should stop being paranoid that I am pregnant. Seesh!

It’s been half a year, and in my free time as a SAHM (trust me, it’s a rare treat) I enjoy surfing parenting forums such as MummySG. It provides helpful advice from other mummies, which I regret not knowing about the forum earlier. They also have a Special Parenting section for parents who have special needs children. Reading that section makes me truly appreciate and thankful for my situation. It’s also encouraging to know that these mummies (& daddies) have the strength to carry on with life as normal, so why should I complain and lament about mine?

Quite often, I also come across posts, usually by mummies, who rant about their useless husbands, parents, etc. Recently, I’ve been reading more about husbands who don’t  seem to contribute much to the family financially.

There is this mummy who talks about how she has to survive on a $500 allowance which comes from renting a room in her flat. She left her full-time job to be a SAHM. I believe this was because there was nobody to help look after her daughter if she goes to work. With this $500, she pays for her daughter’s diapers, milk powder, medical fees, insurance, handphone bill and sometimes groceries as well. Her husband pays for the rest of the household spending including the utilities bill. However, there have been several occasions where her husband did not pay for the utilities and she had to pay for them with her $500 allowance. She has no more savings to rely on as had spend it on pre/post natal check-ups, delivery fees, hospitalization and baby items such as cot, clothes, toys, etc. Her husband has been unwilling to sit down with her to talk about finances, and the marriage is pretty much on the rocks.

After sharing this with my hubby, he asked me, “So, do you think you are very lucky?”

Yes, I feel very fortunate and blessed (Praise the Lord!) for being in a situation in which I don’t have to worry too much. My husband works hard to bring home the dough, and I have a decent allowance in which I am able to pay off most of the household bills. We have our own place and we are able to make ends meet. Although I can’t say my husband is earning well enough for us to afford eating out at the restaurants every week (yet), I feel very blessed and satisfied with what we have now.

Through the tough times, God has led us through it all. He has never once forsaken us.

I truly am grateful and satisfied with what we have now, and can’t ask for more. After all, wealth is only temporary. We just want to seek things that are eternal and imperishable. I am trying to make small, but gradual adjustments in my life, so that my daughter (and our eventual children, hee hee) can grow up in a family with the presence of Jesus. This will be the only thing that can make us truly happy.

So, will you get to know Jesus today?

I have truly been toying with the idea of having #2, though it has little to do with wanting to have a child sharing the same birthday as me (it is tempting though!) I know this may sound insane, but I guess there are the good and bad.

I think I may have been reading too much of Mother Inc and it’s not doing any good to me. It is definitely not at all easy to handle 2 equally demanding children who are about 1 year apart. It is crazy. I am not really trying to get myself into trouble because I’ve been spending too much time at home and I am some rich tai tai who has nothing better to do but think of making babies.

I do eventually want to join the work force again, and don’t really want to wait till too long. Neither do I wish to go back to work anytime soon because; 1. Part of my salary will go to the babysitter/infant care; and 2. I don’t wish to miss out on at least the first couple of years of my daughter’s life. By the time I head back to the work force, I’ll be due to have #2 already. By then I would be seriously losing touch with the world out there and my degree would be a great waste. But I must point out that being a SAHM (Stay at Home Mother) reaps an indescribable sense of satisfaction & achievement you won’t get from elsewhere.

Hubby and I thinks we can just “get on and over with it”, toughen ourselves up for the first few years, and then things will slowly ease off. I do agree with what a friend once reminded me though, “He who brings you to it, will get you through it.” And if we really want things this way and ask for it, it will be given to us.

So… let’s try next month okay? LOL.

Ovulation Calculator Based on your answers, you’re likely to be most fertile from Sunday, November 1, 2009 to Friday, November 6, 2009. If you were to get pregnant during that time, your due date would be Wednesday, July 28, 2010.

Of course, you may not conceive right away. But here’s good news: 85 percent of couples who simply stop using birth control conceive within a year. You’ll only increase your chances by knowing your fertile periods. Here are the days you’re most likely to be fertile over the next five months — as well as prospective due dates if you conceive. Good luck!

How interesting…

Yet another post about sleep training.

Lauralynn’s resistance to sleep training is definitely stronger than 3 months ago. So in order to want re-train her, we can no longer dream of seeing the results in 3 days. This time it has taken us more than 2 weeks, not the mention the times where it was being interrupted. Just as I was about to succumb to the fact that I can never sleep train her ever again, and that the only was to be her human pacifier, we saw some progress in the past few nights.

The nights of ignoring her when she wakes up at 2am finally showed results. Initially we realized that she did not wake up for 2 consecutive nights. Either that or we managed to sieve that out of our system and slept through it despite having the baby monitor right next to us. I thought we were just lucky and they were just those nights when she was soooo tired out she just slept through. Last night we heard her stir. She was making those irritated noises, like when her eczema is really bad and she scratches like a dog trying to ease himself of fleas. Having said that, she smells like Buddy (Li Ann’s dog who also has eczema) when it gets really bad.

So we waited. Within 5 minutes it was silence all over again. Just to make sure we didn’t want to take the risk of tip-toeing into the room to see her staring back at us, then start bawling. No. Can. Do. So when I finally remembered that I needed to check on her, it was 15 minutes later. When I crept in, she was asleep. Seemed like it has worked out fine for us. She has somehow managed to go back to sleep on her own.

That is some progress and is VERY encouraging for me. Now that’s left is bedtime when she still needs us to comfort her to sleep. Another week? Gosh. Sleep training is really a PITA!

It has been a great day for us (for me at least)! Last night I suggested going to East Coast Park for a nice morning walk and a hearty Macdonald’s breakfast, seeing how Lauralynn wakes up at 7am everyday. However, she woke up only at 8am close to 9am. After Francis gave her morning milk, they came to wake me up at 10am. Seeing that it was too hot to be there, we decided on Tampines Mall instead. After breakfast we walked around, and I finally decided to get my shoes since hubby offered to pay. Instead of buying one pair, I bought 2 pair and managed to get a membership which entitles me to a 10% and a 30-40% discount on my birthday month! HOT DOG!

Lauralynn was a very good girl today. She was really quiet in her stroller that we got worried that she might not be feeling well. But I guess the surroundings really kept her occupied all the while, and she soon fell asleep. So we decided to grab lunch while she’s asleep before heading home.

It didn’t take too long before my parents came to pick her up. Mum wanted to play with her, and we sure didn’t want to say no! So a nice peaceful afternoon. HOT DOG! (The weather was indeed terribly hot!)

An empty fish tank!
My lone surviving Molly always roams near the surface of the tank.

For dinner we headed back to Tampines Mall (again!) because we forgot about going to Singtel. Anyway Halley was working today so we didn’t have to spend too much time there! HOT DOG! We finally left around 9.15pm to pick Lauralynn up from my parents’ place. She was already fast asleep when we got there (duh!) and my mum wanted to tell us to leave her there for the night. But well, we brought her home.

And of course, to show our loots from Singtel…

If you can’t decide on which color to buy, just get both!

It’s my birthday present this year. Hubby seems to have something planned on my birthday and he isn’t giving me any hint about it. All I know is that I can’t buy a cake and that we’re going to somewhere to eat. And yes, we’re gonna use my 1-for-1 birthday voucher at Seoul Garden too!

HOT DOG!

Hot dog! (Hot dog)
Hot dog!

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog
Now we got ears, it's time for cheers

Hot dog, hot dog, the problem's solved
Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog

Grab my boots and a sandwich
Let's start a parade
Get the coconut drum kit
For Daisy to play

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog
We're taking off, we're dancing now
Hot dog, leapfrog, and holy cow
Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog
It's a brand new day
Whatcha waiting for?
Get up, stretch out, stomp on the floor

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog
Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog
We're splitting the scene
We're full of beans

So long for now from Mickey Mouse (That's me!)
And the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

After 2-3 weeks of dealing with a sick baby, I find myself having to do sleep training all over again. It isn’t any better now that she’s older and will put up a resistance to it. She refuses to sleep unless someone is there to pat her to sleep/cuddle her, this which I had to do when she was down with the cold to comfort her and help her drift to sleep with a stuffed nose.

Initially she only wanted me to put her to sleep, but since I’ve also decided to fight this battle the only person left in the house who (i) is willing to do it, and (ii) cannot put up with the hour-long crying session aka my husband has been doing it.

She has also been waking up in the middle of the night, between 2am-3am looking for us. Again, my husband has been the one waking up to tend to her as he cannot sleep through the night with the baby monitor activated by her cries. I was all for the let’s ignore her and go back to sleep, but daddy couldn’t let it go.

So *finally* I’ve decided that enough is enough and that this cannot go on. In order to protect our sanity and sleep, I have to step-up and do this all over again. Yes, that means playing the “bad guy,” unfortunately for me, for Lauralynn and for my husband.

So tonight I have to be the one waking up and to my horror, she was so excited to see me! Excited as in she wanted to play with me! I have no idea what her father has reinforced in her the past nights, and I think I might get high blood pressure if I find out. Daddy made a bottle of milk but daddy’s girl doesn’t want to hold it and has no interest to do so because she thinks it’s fun to wake both her parents up. My girl has now reached another milestone of discovering cause-and-effect. Right.

So here I am, sitting here embracing the consequences of our actions while Daddy is happily dreaming. My daughter is rolling around and talking to her bears. A little while later she might *attempt* to call for us and finally realize, something is different tonight.

I actually wanted to also write about my frustrations towards other people who should not have a say in how I mother my child, which might be idea with this state of mind I’m in right now. But with the length of this entry, I shall do it another time.

Someone please buy me this for my birthday!

Decided to ask my parents to babysit Lauralynn for a few hours today as I felt that I needed a break after having to deal with a sick baby & deadlines for the past week. Spent the afternoon with hubby & we headed to Tampines One for a nice dinner followed by ice-cream + milkshake (yes in this cold weather!). We managed to find a nice hair accessory for Lauralynn to wear for my sister’s wedding, and couldn’t resist to buy her a onesie which said, “Will Work for Milk,” and the back of it reads, “milk… milk… please…”

It was a great dinner with hubby. We spent an hour at the restaurant and just talked. Had a lot of fun too.

“Mwahahaha, I have both an ice-cream AND a milkshake!”

It’s rare to get a photo of him smiling like that. Usually he gives a weak smile, or a very fake-looking one. Not sure if his eyes were open though, they’re so tiny sometimes I think he’s staring at me even though his eyes are closed!

I feel ready to face the world again. Well, actually this break has made me rejuvenate and I’m a happy mummy again! Wonder what to do with Lauralynn tomorrow…