SAHM for two weeks with Baby Claire

Sometimes during my school's vacation break, I will try to take at a week off so that my in-laws are able to take a short break from taking care of our little Claire. This time round, I took 2 weeks in late March to early April which was kinda exciting yet a bit worrying for me as the last time I took more than a week was last Sept 2013. That was like 6 to 7 months ago. Will I able to handle this cute little "monster" by myself? Especially now she is so active. Can I survive?

Before I begin to worry about this and that, vacation came and here I was with Baby Claire enjoying our 2 weeks alone together. What did we do together and what I've learnt about her during these few weeks? There are so many things which I would love to share what I had discovered and it will be slowly revealed in the coming posts. Thus stayed tune!

How is my experience being a SAHM? To be honest, life as a SAHM is tougher than a working mum, well..at least for me. Stress from work is a different level as compared to having a child constantly vying for your attention. As we do not hire a maid to help out, I will need to do a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, etc I was pretty exhausted after end of each day. Those are the challenges I faced.

HOWEVER, if given a choice in life, I will still choose to be a SAHM. Spending time with Baby Claire is priceless. Though she is always on the go and sometimes I wonder "Is there a stop button on you???", I am fascinated how much she progresses and grows, and how she can be so happy on small little things like playing with a box, going to the playground, zipping and unzipping bags, etc. I learnt from her Life can be simple and yet happy at the same time. :)

I also learnt that I need to let go of certain things. E.g. toys will be everywhere in the house like in the bedroom, kitchen cabinet, tabletop, floor, and once I found a ladle inside the toilet bowl, etc. I need to take care of my poor back and stop picking up every single toys that she throws on the floor. I might as well clean up after she sleep because a few minutes later..the house will be back to the same messy look.

Another thing that I love being a SAHM is that I will get more hugs and kisses from Baby Claire. Though sometimes I feel irritated that she kept pestering me when I am doing my housework, I feel I am needed and important. :)

That being said, I am so looking forward for my next vacation with Baby Claire perhaps in June or Sept this year. :)

Below contains some of the FUN pictures taken during these 2 weeks and some of these photos may reveal what I am going to write in my upcoming posts.

Love,
Deariebearmommie

Review of GOmamaGO Designs Wonder Bumpers

One fine night, baby Claire suddenly let out some sound in the middle of the night. We then turned on the light and oh gosh! She was standing on her cot. After a tired day at work, this was something that we didn't expect to be happening.

That was a few months back when Claire was around 9 months old. Back then her bed height was at the highest where you could easily grab her up. When this happened, Justin Papa immediately changed the height of the bed to the middle level the next morning. After which, he realized that the height was still too dangerous and moved it to the lowest level.

From the video, the traditional bumpers that we bought fit nicely when the bed was at its highest level.

However, when you move the bed lower, the bumper is not really useful. It got loosen easily and became very messy because we cannot use the top railing of the cot to secure the bumper. Claire also loved to step on these bumpers and try to climb out of the bed. This kinda worried me because she was learning how to sit down from standing on her cot. And being a pretty clumsy yet adventurous baby, she sometimes loves to do free fall on her bed...which scared the shit out of us.

Thus, I started to search online for better bumpers. I came across GomamGo Designs wonder bumpers.

You can find the list of benefits in their website. Below are some of the pros and cons from our experience with the bumpers.

Pros

• Protect against head bumps and bodily injury. Since all the slates are protected with form, your child should be safe or at least minimize injury
• Cannot be used as leverage to climb out
• More airflow for baby to breathe better
• Each slate comes with a zip instead of ribbons to tie or velcro tapes which can be easily pulled out by babies. Also no entanglement due to loose bumpers or ribbons.
• Many beautiful designs to create a cute sleeping environment for your baby.
• Dump into the washing machines in low tumbler dry mode. Do not use a hot dryer which we accidentally did which may damage some of the poly form of the bumper.

Cons

• The company mentioned that it will keep limbs safely inside. However, Baby Claire is still able to put her feet and hand outside. But, Claire was still able to remove them from the openings. I guess also it depends on the width of each slates of your cot.
• Tiring to zip up and zip out each time you wash these bumpers though it is really easy to do so. However, if you have fatter slates at the two shorter sides of the cot, you will really need to squeeze the bumpers to be able to zip them up.

One more thing before I forget. Do not try their teething guard (came together as freebie) because strands of fur came out when Claire tried to bite on it.

The wonder bumper set with its teething guard.

So end up, we use the extra bumpers, blanket (she is not using a blanket) and make it into a teething guard. We secure them with Velcro tapes which so far, Claire has not be able to take them out. Somehow, she stopped biting the rails when we put these bumpers as teething guard. Else, we will be seeing white paint on her faces again.

The wonder bumper with improved teething guard (using extra bumpers + blanket)

These GomamaGo Design Wonder Bumpers are now in Singapore. You can find them in Lazada. It was not available in Singapore a few years back so I googled online and they are a few options. You will realised that buying in Singapore is now much cheaper.

I decided on two types of design "The Wild Thing 38 Set" and the "Modern Nature 38 Set" which were currently on sale. Each cost $149 USD. Total cost including shipment by the company to local U.S. residents will be around $268.20 USD ($341SGD)  after 10% discounts if you signed up for their newsletter.

1. Using Comgateway.com. After reading some good reviews online, I decided to try my first overseas shipping service. The shipping cost around 206.54USD ($263SGD) with free upgrade to express delivery for newcomers. And the items arrived within a week. so fast! In total with goods and shipment, I spent around $475USD ($604).  
2. Place order from fishpond.com.sg. However, this company did not ship in the designs I wanted. So I compare something equivalent. It cost $403SGD with free shipping. If I ordered two of these items, it will cost $806SGD. I SAVED $202SGD!
3. Amazon? I believe it will also be cheaper if you place order from Amazon since some comes with free delivery. Unfortunately they do not have those cute designs.

In conclusion, we have the love and hate thingy towards these bumpers, they give us the ease of mind, really looks beautiful, etc however changing the slates one by one does take some patience. Thus, we only changed them once every two or three weeks. Opps!

Hope the above is helpful to shed some lights on the wonder bumpers and how you can order them if you are staying in Singapore or somewhere where the company don't deliver to your door step. :)

Cheers,

Deariebearmommie

Homemade Salmon Patties for your toddler

Are you worried when your baby or toddler does not want to eat any fishes? Baby Claire will throw away her slices of fishes onto the floor like some kind of rubbish (Yes, she has this very bad habit of throwing food that she don't like onto the floor!).

Fishes such as salmon are not exactly cheap. A piece can easily cost $10 at the wet market. However, what worries me most is whether she will have enough omega 3 which is important for her brain development.

Google, being one of my good friend came to my mind. I researched recipes from annabel karmel and many others and finally decided to try Jamie Oliver's Fish Cakes recipe because it seem the easiest with the least amount of ingredients. I just need something that I can prepare quickly and check Baby Claire's reaction to this new recipe. The result is YUM YUM!! YUMMY! Even Justin Papa found it delicious!

Ingredients:

1/4 teaspoon of sea salt (optional if you find that too much salt is bad for your kids)

Dashes of Grounded black pepper

300 gram of russet or other mealy potatoes

450 gram of fresh salmon fillet, skin on (You can remove the skin after you have steamed them)

2 tablespoon olive oil

A small bunch Fresh parsley or a few tablespoons of ready-parsely from the shelves

1 tablespoon of flour for the fish, and more extra for dusting

1 beaten egg

2 lemons 

How to cook them? Here we go!

You can use a steamer that can steam more than one food at a go which means you can steam the potato and the salmon at one go :)

And here we have, the nutritious yummy fish patties which Baby Claire and Justin Papa love to eat. I actually made quite a few for freezing. Save time and money for a working mother is very important! 

Do you have any recipes to share with us? Let me know and we can share with our community of new parents :)

Cheers,

Deariebearmommie