Hello Blog

Hello my lovely blog.

I take a look at myself past these years and realise..I have been complaining about this and that like a bitch. My attitude can be so mean at times.

Well, lots of changed and I do sow what I reap.

But I am not perfect, so bad karma do comes back to me too.

I should stop complaning and whining and work on myself.

A different take in life

Anxiety.

 I started to realize how bad it can cause my health. Increased heart beat, the fear of death, the state of uncontrolled mind and the feeling of being not being in control. This continuous fear lead me to be fearful of every little thing. I decided to seek help when I realize I couldn't even take MRT! It all started with the fear of aging. It all started with having a child. Being the sole caregiver and the only person to take care of my own precious child, the responsibility is high. The stress is high. Slowly I realize I couldn't enjoy being with her. Fears start to rise as I am afraid I would faint while being out with her and she will be kidnap away. More of these wild thoughts spin around. My confidence level drop as I realized I am aging and my body is not going to be as strong too. I started to lay on bed more often and tell everyone that I am tired. I didn't know I am getting into the deep hole of anxiety. I feel most secure when Nick is around with me and help me to take care of Caitlyn. I started to find counsellor and read up books about anxiety. I keep a logbook about it to keep track of my trigger points. And I realize I need to have more ME time and go out more often to meet up with friends so as to build up my confidence again. Being a stay at home mother is not as easy as what everyone thinks. We feel trapped, belittled, looked down and helpless at times. Who will know our kind of depression? Yet we need to function 100% all the time to keep the family going. It is the toughest job on earth. And I realize I am expecting too much of myself. 

I decided to give myself a break and lower my expectations. This is when everything starts to get better. I cried after enrolling Caitlyn in full time kindergarten care. I cried hard after visiting my dog who is terribly ill in a vet shop in Kovan. I force myself to take MRT alone from punggol to Kovan and just a short journey is enough to make my mind go whirling non stop with negative thoughts. Just a 10 minute journey seems like a 30 minutes journey. This is the first break through for me and the route of self recovery. 

I realize anxiety is link to depression. Then I realize I need to admit that I have depression too. I started to read up positive quotes and try to build up positive vibes and I will stay away from people who bring me down. I open up to my sisters about my anxiety and all these make me feel so much better. As I don't need to act normal anymore. The fear of being abnormal is strong too. But I soon realize that many of my friends have issues of anxiety but they just don't show it. Until I told them about mine, they started to shared with me about theirs. It makes me feel normal and accepted. 

I started to have the courage to look into my own health issue too. I went for a womb scan as I have spotting and is not normal for my body. Fyroid and cysts are found and my fyroid is hard and bloody. This is not good as 4 out of 1000 will be develop into cancer. Did a cancer marker test and one of my marker is 0.06 more than normal. My fyroid is very deep in so I need a csect operation to take out the cells and test is it is a cancerous. If it is, they will remove my whole womb. This send me into a deep cancer scare and I changed my whole perspective about life. I realized I need to live without regrets and I have no time to waste. I started to care more about myself. I decided to give my womb one chance. My friend recommended me to go into Malaysia to see a TCM doctor and my hubby is kind enough to go in with me everytime. My hope is for the fyroid and cysts to shrink and disappear. The TCM told me to have a diet which is diary free and can only consume seasonal fish and pork. With this diet, I slim down a lot.

And just two weeks ago, my good friend also fell ill. She's been diagnosed with a rare brain condition and being hospitalised for a few weeks. It is very heartbreaking to see how she suffer. She also start to have fainting spells, which is the thing that I fear most. Through her experience, I actually reduce my fear for fainting and learn how to cope with it. She is experiencing anxiety now and I am using my coping skills to help her.

And remember my little Bambi? Although she is back at home but she is not as strong as before. She is on steroids now. You know what it means. My mother is the sole care giver now as my sisters have been so busy travelling around the world. I don't blame them too. They are aging too and I believe they want no regrets in their life. Bambi is aging now, with a diet of frog meat to munch on only. She is on her last leap of life. My mummy say she is getting weaker everyday.

As i read through my blogs in the past years, it has been happy and hopeful and full of cuteness. I am turning 39 in a few more days. I need to accept aging but although I will stay young at heart. I need to accept that there is no forever in life. No one will stay with you forever. I am also not ashamed of the mental condition that I am in now as I am learning to cope although sometimes I may still fall into the black hole of useless fear and depressed thoughts.

This year is the most challenging year in my life but I am proud that I am able to overcome all the challenges in little steps. Life is not all about rainbows. It is about still able to shelter and protect ourselves even if thunderstorm come. And when another rainbow comes, I will appreciate it more. 

Alarming Message

A post pop up from Facebook which makes me reflect on my life all of a sudden. Yes, I have only 4 months of 2016 before another new year arrives. 2016 has been good to me but I have a new goal in mind. And for this, I need a healthy body. And of course, having a healthy body is always my goal for my whole family. What is more important than health?

Sad to say, I fail in that area. I did not really take good care of myself. I did start to eat simple and I have reduced my intake of processed food. I have been sharing food with CaitLyn as her diet is super healthy. When I need titbits, I munch on white and black sesame seeds. I cut down on chocolate intake and restrict Nick to buy any ice cream back home. Yes, I am an ice cream monster! I can snack on one bar per day till I kill the whole box!

But well, I did all these just for slimming down! I need to exercise! I need to! But I am lazy and tired to start! In order to exercise, the ideal plan is to get up at 7am to eat, exercise and cook. After that, I will need to vacuum the whole house and wake up my toddler. When my toddler is up, my super busy day begins. I need to sleep early to make my plans happen!

If I sleep early, that would mean a cut-down on my ME time and I need it to keep myself sane. I would surf the net and whatsapp my friends till 1am. 

I know is a mess. A luxury mess. When can I get the determination to sleep early? And I thought this "2017 is coming" message is alarming enough. Well, bet it just reminds me to get my motherhood life more organized. 

Duh. Jia you Mummy Carole! 

YearninG

Somehow I know it may not be possible. But I am 6 days late. But I still wanna have a false hope that it is true. Although deep inside me, I think is only a 50% chance. 

I have been wanting to have, but not him. We are not on the same page on this. Reason being financial difficulties. Well, to me is just an excuse. I can feel that his possible fear of not having the yearn for it.

We might not manage if I really get what I wish. But life is always full of challenges. But he is not in good shape himself.

Meanwhile, just to blog this as a memorable joyful feeling. The possibility of having it.

But the truth might be.....

Photos to track her growth (photobomb)

She is finally 2!!!

Baby and me at 25 months

Cheeky baby at 26 months old.

Pinky at 27 months old.

Little one at 28 months old with Er yi.

With her favorite yiyi. 29 months old.

N her victory sign starts!! Hahhaa!!! 30 months old.

My current 31 months old sweetie. I love you to the moon and back!!!

From a baby to a toddler

 Wow wow wow, so from where should I start? I have been missing for so long from this blog! Well, I could only say that my little girl has turned into a very very adorable toddler. She is like a 小大人now.

This is her signature "victory" sign now when taking photos! How cute is that? She is a tall girl standing at 93cm at only 31 months old.

Lazy mama have not toilet trained her yet. Seriously am dreading it. My years being a childcare educator make me realize how dirty toilet training is. Haha! Ok, excuses!!! Whack me hard please!!I should really start doing it!!!!

Meanwhile, my little girl just started to master singing and now she is able to complete the first two sentences of "twinkle twinkle little star". I actually wrote down all the lyrics of the songs that I taught her to sing on an exercise book. Then, I pointed word by word to her while I sing it! This little girl is definitely enjoying it! 

Kiasu mummy also has taught her phonics and she has almost mastered all her sounds! 

We went to celebrate my da sao's birthday at my brother's house last Saturday. 

Look at how happy my da Sao is. I think she must have wished she have a little daughter of her own! Benjamin has grew up to be a handsome and fit teen.

Went for Ramen at nex on last Friday and this girl is doing her favorite "victory" sign again! 😂😂😂😂

This ramen stall named "men chi" at Nex is really the best ramen I have! It is the only ramen that is comparable to the one I have at Hokkaido. The soup is thick pork borth and you can taste the pork. It is sweet yet mild and it is full of collagen. You don't get thirsty after it and that means no MSG!! 

Ok, got to end this post suddenly. Will update more, soon... I hope!

It is year 2015 now.. But in the year 2014, many things happened. It has been kept sort of a secret and only my close friends knew about it. To track back, I remembering Caitlyn has tummy discomfort and    a so called episode of diahorrea but it couldn't get well and two months passed. I am still breastfeeding her and as days passed, she actually get more tired and swollen. A few days after Christmas I decided to send her to Kkh to have her thoroughly checked up. We wasted one week admitted in the hospital as the doctor refused to let her see the gastro doctor, they only do so when her condition worsen. And by the time it is, she is too swollen to have any plug inserted and need to be send to NICU. She is as swollen as a pig and her eyes couldn't open. My heart aches and I need to set up a brave front while all the doctors asked me questions. They found out her protein is low and thus the water retention. And due to the serious delay in treatment, her electrolytes are seriously off
Balance. The gastro team are in to treat her and the whole journey begins. They tube feed her, gave her albumin infusion, hook her up on TPN drop and even considered to tranfuse blood to her. Yes, that is how sick my little one is. And when she is about to discharge, she caught a flu bug. We went back home and failed to nurse her back to health and therefore she couldn't passed her first review after admission and is admitted into hospital again. This time round, we put her into isolation room and they did a more thorough checkup and she is hooked up back on TPN drip. The drip is the one that nurse her back to health but the side effect is that it will affect the kidney. The days in hospital is HELL to me. Everyday is spent trying to feed her the smelly milk while she ate her food unwillingly. And we tested every kind of food in hospital to see if she has reaction to it. The gastro doctor think it is a case of food allergy and still rope in the immunologist to do a thorough checkup. Results came back that her white blood cells is abnormally low, and she is being suspected of having immune defiency. My whole world seems to collapse on me as I see this poor little baby suffer all these.

Long story short, she is receiving regular checkup with Kkh and has successfully grow up well and meeting all her milestones. She is starting on fish now after being on her hypoallergenic diet for months. Nobody know the reason why she is so sick. They need time to tell what is her condition. The gastro team thinks it is food allergic. The immunologist thinkS Otherwise. He suspected it is a rare gut disease. Only time will tell but seriously I know is something not serious.

Takin care of her is stressful. I need to cook every meal for her and make sure her health is good so that her white blood cells will be back to normal. Now it is but it is just back to normal so she is still considered as having low immune. I couldn't go out and have fun as usual. I couldn't bring her along. My hands are suffering ecezma due to frequent washing of hands. My house is clean, and that is the price to pay.

My hubby and I are always quarreling. About money. Well, Caitlyn is a PRADA baby. Her milk powder alone cost a bomb. We gave her the best. I am too tired to go
Into details. Just hope 2015 will be better.

It better be.

She is learning to walk! :)

Phew... has been doing a new schedule for my 15 months old Caitlyn and that is to reduce her nap from two to one. It is more tiring for me as I need to play and keep her awake from the time she is awake till 2.30pm! That is long! Then I realize with this much of time, she is able to play and learn more. I can also feed and bathe her at my own pace as I need not rush her for her morning nap. ;)

I recently bought a second hand play yard and I can say that it is a thumbs up buy! I can play with her at ease as she can hold the play yard and learn to walk and when she fell, she has ample support to prevent a perspiring and giddy mummy!!! Hahahhaha! And after using it for a few times, her ability to walk increases!!! She is now starting to walk by herself and she even dance while walking today. Super adorable!!! But still,every toy has their CONS.

As it is Haenim Play yard so it is made of plastic, there are holes and the little ones tend to get their arms stuck while falling down. This is very dangerous as they might fracture their arms. And if you built it into a rectangular shape, the connectors tend to get loose and may even came out so one needs to be very careful.

And I could say that little Caitlyn is definitely getting better as day goes by. Jia you baby! You ar catching up fast!