I’ve been wanting to write this post (I actually started a post but gave up and dropped the idea), just so I keep a record of what happened “last time”…
I probably should have done it much earlier, before she turned one (so I keep a record of every phase eg when she still could only flip over, when she could crawl, when my dad was still home in the day (as he was working night shift then) and could help me look after her too, so pretty much me ‘alone’ vs with help etc) but then again, I probably didn’t have that time, otherwise I was just too plain ‘lazy’, as writing such a post actually takes up quite some time, and if my dad helped to look after her, I’ll probably be eating/resting/busy with ‘stuffs’. Anyway, I think I only started this new blog after she turned one if I’m not wrong.
So here’s it. I shall use *yesterday, 28 May 2014, Wednesday, as a reference to what goes on in a day of my SAHM life now. 🙂
*I started this post then, but took (many) days to actually upload it.
(Anyway, certain parts such as the multitasking are pretty much the same, but the timings for example waking up, napping, mealtimes etc may or may not be the same daily. I’ll try to be more detailed wherever possible – just for my future reference next time – so I can reminisce what happened now. :))
• She woke up about 10am. (Usually she’ll wake up around 11ish.)
– ‘Nua’ (a hokkien term for “laze about”) abit eg let her play with her ‘toys’ (on the bed)
(Especially there are times where I’m still tired and want to rest awhile more, I’ll let her play by herself (but still semi ‘watch’ her)…)
– Change her pampers
– “Milk milk” (every time she wakes up I’ll milk her to fill her tummy so that I can start to get busy and she can ‘play’ outside)
The above in no particular order usually.
• Estimated 10.30am – Start preparing her breakfast + lunch. (Since she woke up early, I decided to give her a fuller breakfast, then break for her lunch.)
(Usually it’s just some egg to fill her tummy while I prepare lunch (since she likes egg too).)
– Let her drink water (from water bottle). (Usually her dad would have helped to wash and prepare the bottle unless he is in a rush for work, then I’ll have to wash and prepare the water myself.)
(Not written – how many times she drinks – usually wherever possible (try to let her drink finish her bottle at least).)
(If possible, I will try to wash her hands. But I think today I did not.)
– First thing I’ll do, switch on the telly. She’ll then be hanging around in the living room watching TV (either DVD or Okto), if not playing with her toys, or else walking here and there, otherwise there are the days she’s more whiney and she keeps coming to find me, and I can’t really do my work.
(When she can’t find me in the living room, she’ll usually keep bringing the remote over (to the kitchen ‘entrance’ there, where the grey sofa is) to ask me to change to “I don’t really know exactly what at times”, otherwise “hang around” at the grey sofa there.)
– I’ll be running to and fro the kitchen and trying to watch her at the same time. If my grandma is around (some days she goes out for taiji/marketing), I’ll be more able to focus on my preparation since there is someone actually ‘watching’ her.
1) Check whether Mom (my mom) put rice in slow cooker to cook. (Usually she will help do this in the morning, either white rice/brown rice depending on the LO’s poo activity. If not then I’ll have to cook the white rice and ingredients together using saucepan. Takes about 30-45mins in total.)
(Usually I will also take out butter from fridge to let it soften. So I can make my wholemeal bread, usually after I’m done with all the preparation/towards the end.)
2) Take out fish from fridge to thaw in bowl of tap water. (I’ll try to flip to other side (it’s usually in a ziplock bag) after a short while to thaw the other side.)
3) Wash egg and put egg to cook in Toast N Egg
4) Put water to boil in saucepan for cooking rolled oats
5) Cut and prepare pear to cook with the oats
6) Throw in pear + oats to cook, with small fire, stirring and watching wherever possible
7) Take out pumpkin to chop into small cubes and rinse
8) Check if fish is soft, check for bones and rinse
9) Rinse the steamer/blender, then throw in pumpkin and fish (just recently I decided to cut short the steaming time for the pumpkin from 15 to 10mins because it’s always all so mashed and ‘gone’ by the time I add into the porridge). Set to steam for 5mins.
10) (By now the egg should have finished cooking.) Put cooked egg into a bowl of tap water (for easy peeling).
11) Peel the egg. Test the egg and eat a little (1/4). (Then I passed the bowl to my grandma to help feed her, if not then I’ll feed her whenever possible while ‘working’.)
12) Check on the oats. If ready, switch off fire and leave it there (let it cool a little).
13) Take out spinach and rinse and put into bowl of salted water (for at least 5mins preferably).
14) Scoop out the oats for myself (the Mommy) and a portion for the LO. Let it cool further (especially hers).
15) Rinse the spinach with tap water a few times. By now the steamer/blender should have finished steaming, so I add in the spinach and set another 5mins.
(Usually I will also be rinsing the thermos food container again too and drying it to get ready to put in the porridge, but I think I did it the night before so I skipped this today.)
16) Attempt to feed her the oats.
17) Wash up – knife, chopping board and bowls used for rinsing
18) Once steaming is ready, scoop porridge from rice cooker and the ingredients from steamer/blender. Switch off slow cooker.
(Usually I will pour ingredients (and some of the ‘juice’) into slow cooker to ‘cook’ for a little while more (5mins).)
19) Briefly rinse steamer/blender. (Usually I’ll try to wash at this point wherever possible as I’ll have to use it for dinner time too.)
20) Take over from grandma (since her lunch is ready and kept warm in food container). Try to eat my oats too. And also continue feeding her the oats + egg. (Usually I will try to give her berries too (if have) as the fruit portion. But she doesn’t really eat the blackberry/raspberry anyway. *lol)
– During this feeding time, she’ll be always requesting to change the DVD/show on TV. (Actually we all don’t really know what she wants at times. *haha. Many times we change to the DVD she seems to want (point at/nod her head), but she’ll just keep taking the controller and passing it to you.)
• By the end of the feeding (egg almost finished, oats only 5 tspns), it’s about 11.30am
• Let her try the Yoplait Petit Miam yogurt (first time). And nope, she didn’t really want it anymore after sampling 1-2 times.
• Soon after she requested for milk (by pointing at my breast).
• “Milk milk” but she didn’t sleep. By the time I finished changing her pampers + all the dilly dallying (she not ‘cooperating’, wearing her bottom + socks and shoes, packing my bag), it’s already about 12pm or so.
• Decided to bring her downstairs for a walk (this is ‘new’ because it’s not really part of our daily routine due to “no time”).
• Came home around 12.30pm. Tried to give her her lunch. Didn’t eat much, managed about 2 servings, and then she requested for “milk milk”.
• “Milk milk” and fell asleep around 1pm
(Usually it might take a few ‘tries’ (“milk milk” sessions then she did not sleep but started to get up to ‘play’/kept ‘nua’-ing about) before she actually falls asleep.)
(I will also try to cut her nails when I can – usually I have to trim every week (minimally once, ideally twice but it doesn’t really happen *haha) because her nails grow very fast.)
• I decided to settle my lunch first as she was asleep and she haven’t even had HER lunch (so I want to try and ‘save’ more time by making use of her sleeping time to eat). So I asked my grandma to prepare my food. Managed to eat almost everything (left some soup) when I sensed that she might have woken up (which she did) when I heard the renovation works. (I was outside eating the soup this round. At times (usually) I’ll bring in the food to eat in the room instead.)
• Checked in on her at about 2.15pm and she was awake.
(Usually she will have one nap in the afternoon lasting for (preferably at least) 1-2hrs.)
• “Milk milk” to pacify her (usually it’s this case if she just awakens/woke up abruptly)
(Usually when she naps, once she awakens abruptly, she will want her milk then suckle back to sleep. Basically “human pacifier”. Many times I have to just continue milking her (stay right by her side) because I just can’t unlatch from ‘her’. So I may just bunk in with her in the end since I can’t do anything else. Because of this, it also means that I always have to suppress the urge for the toilet businesses (apart from the other times where I tend to do so too because I just want to do my ‘work’, or I’m ‘attending’ to her and it’s not too convenient). >_<)
• Change her pampers
• Continue feeding her her lunch. (Already about 3hrs and I don’t like the idea of keeping the food inside for too long. Usually my limit is 3hrs and depending on whether it’s still ‘hot’/warm enough.) But she didn’t really want to eat. Somehow managed to feed her a reasonable amount (usually at least half if she really doesn’t want to eat, with ingredients as priority especially the fish).
(Usually her lunch/mealtime takes about an hour or so. Pretty standard. Her potato dinner meal may be slighter faster.)
• Settle my remaining lunch. (Usually I may try to feed her and eat my lunch at the same time too, otherwise it’s have my lunch (before she goes to nap) after she has had her lunch.)
• Let her play and relax abit
• I decided to (try and) bathe her. (Bathing her usually needs to “select the right time” otherwise it’ll be very tedious because she may cry hard all the way, struggling here and there, and I really don’t want that. It’s super stressful.) And so I started preparing all the stuffs.
– “Pua” all my clothings
(Note to myself: You should know why you did this.)
– “Pua” her clothings + towels (less force for hers (normal))
– Get ready the towels
– Prepare the stuffs eg bin, lotions and tissue box
– Rinse bathtub, basin and bath toys. (It’s very dusty always + the ‘soaking’ of the soapy water tends to make the tub, basin and toys very dirty (slippery).)
– Prepare bath water, basin water and bowl water
• Got her into the room (while water was still running in tub) but she sensed it and started crying (doing her fall backward stunt). And so, “milk milk”.
(At this stage, she seems to ‘dislike’ bathing because everytime we ask her to, or try to convince her to (at times it’s really ‘tedious’/challenging and you really have to be very, very patient just to convince her to “start the ball rolling” (let you start washing her hair)), she starts crying/whining and fussing about. She doesn’t seem to want to bathe. She doesn’t exactly love the hair-washing part (seems more so when the water (shower) is in contact with her hair/her hair is wet), but is ok with the face cleaning, and loves the neck washing part.)
• She didn’t sleep so eventually the bath ‘task’ proceeded. I ran all the water necessary and managed to bathe her (and myself).
(There are the days too when I didn’t manage to bathe her during the day (due to wrong timings) and so ends up I/her dad (plus me helping out a little and bathing myself) will bathe her later in the night after her dinner, which I try to not let it happen. Usually weekends daddy will bathe her while Mommy gets to bathe along. Then Daddy bathes after that.)
(Sleeping wise she tends to always ‘bluff’ for milk but she always doesn’t go to sleep…)
• Relax time (usually TV time if not her walking about, all busy, otherwise playing with her “masak masak”). Gave her her snack biscuit (as promised during bath to ‘pacify’ her to come out from bathtub).
(Usually bathing is all about getting her to ‘bathe’ (wash bum, undress, wash hair etc), putting her into bathtub after washing her hair, and getting her out of the bathtub when she’s all comfy and on “play mode” inside.)
(Ohh~ And she LOVES her biscuits. She’ll always point to the biscuits container or grab it to pass to you indicating that she wants to eat. At times even just after a meal, she also wants the biscuits.)
• Had my grandma to help “look after” her while I get busy.
– Bring down chicken from freezer to fridge
– Wash ALL the utensils (steamer/blender, slow cooker, saucepan).
(Usually if I’m busy in the kitchen, she’ll always be coming to look for me, either with the remote, with the biscuits container, or otherwise just ‘wanting’ me (to carry her).)
– Continue feeding her her biscuit whenever I have the chance.
– Decided to cook soup today so took out corn from fridge and cut out the corn from the cob. Took some and rinsed to cook in slow cooker while remaining to store in fridge.
(I’m trying to cook more variety of food for her now so kinda experimenting what else I can cook for her…)
– Time for her fruit (usually
I’ll try to feed her at least a serving of fruit in the afternoon/evening) so I rinsed the Chinese pear and cut into thin slices. (She kept coming with the biscuits container… *lol)
– Try to let her eat her fruit. (She quite likes Chinese pear.)
• “Milk milk” around 5.30pm, right after the fruit (she didn’t want anymore and requested for “milk milk”).
• She didn’t sleep so I wanted to start preparing for dinner. Had my grandma to help ‘watch’ her.
– Separated the soup from the corn (left corn in slow cooker with device off) into the saucepan
– Cut the potatoes into small cubes
– Sliced the onion
– Rinsed the baby corn and cut into small slices
– Put soup to boil
– Chop garlic into small pieces
– Cut tomatoes and deseed and deskin
– Throw potatoes, baby corn and onions into soup and cook for 10 mins (afterwhich I added another 5 mins)
– Chop abit of pumpkin into slices
– Put onions, garlic, tomatoes and pumpkin to steam for 10mins (supposedly for making the tomato sauce)
– Rinse broccoli and soak in salt water (for at least 5mins if possible)
– Rinse and wash broccoli with tap water
– Throw in broccoli into soup to cook for 5 mins
– After soup is ‘done’, scoop broccoli out to prevent ‘overcooking’ (turning yellow)
– Scoop out corn from slow cooker
– Pour soup into slow cooker to continue ‘warming’
– Grandma was rushing me whether I’m done so she can start cooking the dinner (*oops)
(Nowadays she doesn’t cook for the rest of the family anymore because her hands hurt. Today was just an exception where she prepared rice, simple dish and soup.)
– Once steamer/blender is done with steaming, pour out excess water and blend – tomato sauce done
(Usually throughout this process, the LO would have come over several times, and I probably would have gone over to TV area to help “change the cartoon” for her. Evening (say 6.30pm onwards) is where her favorite cartoons will show eg Spongebob, Pacman etc.)
• I scooped rice for her and started feeding her at about 7pm. She was ‘okay’ with the soup, but didn’t really fancy the tomato sauce (probably too oniony/garlicky).
• Mom came back around the same timing so she helped to feed her.
(Usually her dinner is the standard potato, broccoli, carrots + some meat (preferably chicken otherwise pork.)
• Once my food was ready, I started eating my dinner. (Usually a big plate of rice + the soup.)
(Usually my mom will help to feed the LO dinner, and I’ll have my dinner first.)
• She seemed sleepy and whiney at first, but luckily still managed to get her to eat her dinner. 7.30pm and grandpa is back from work. By then I have somewhat finished my meal, so I “took over” the feeding (then my mom can eat).
(Usually my grandma doesn’t cook dinner for the rest, so dinner will be bought back by my mum on the way back home or else my parents will just wait for me to finish dinner then go out and eat.)
• She ‘finished’ her meal at about 8pm and as usual, started requesting for “milk milk” as she seemed very tired already.
(By now, I have actually excluded the changing of pampers. Let’s just automatically include that in.)
• She fell asleep and slept till about 10+pm
(I’ve also excluded the exact no of times she actually milked because usually when she’s sleeping/napping, she tends to wake up halfway and she’ll request for milk, and I may need to milk her several times or otherwise I’m somewhat ‘stuck’ and can’t leave her side as she keeps on want to suckle. So I may just “bunk in” with her since I cannot do anything else.)
• Because she was suckling all the way after she “woke up” crying for milk, I had to suppress my urge to go to the loo (for very long) and by the time she sort of woke up, it was so urgent I asked my mom to come in and watch her while I dashed to the loo
• “Milk milk”
• Went out to living room to ‘play’
• Supposedly dessert time and I wanted to prepare some fruit but my mom had papaya and a slice of orange ready so she just fed the LO with papaya, which she didn’t want but pointed to the orange instead.
• So I ‘prepared’ the orange by ‘plucking’ out the orange ‘meat’ and putting them into a bowl for feeding with a spoon
• Tried to feed her the orange but she didn’t really want to eat
• Daddy came home.
(This is considered quite late, usually he’ll reach home around 9+pm, or if 8+pm then it’s considered early.)
• Her face started to ‘gek’, and so she did poo
• Wash her bum (her poo was so smelly this round! *no idea why)
• Continue ‘playing’ in the living room and eating her orange
• Dad (her dad) finished his dinner and so helped take over the feeding while I cooked rolled oats (again) to satisfy my hunger (this time no pear, I just added fresh milk)
(I’m now a very heavy duty eater! *yikes. I am also very amazed at how much I can eat, and how fast I get hungry/being hungry all the time!)
(Usually otherwise I will want to make bread (wholemeal bread with butter).)
• I decided to try making a smoothie (because we bought a blender but hadn’t tried it!) with the frozen bananas I prepared last week. Fresh milk as the base. (That’s about it for the ingredients because I thought since it’s the first try and I just wanted to see how it turned out as well as use up the bananas.) Turned out pretty yummy and very filling.
(This doesn’t happen all the time. Like I said, it’s a first try so usually no this. But will be trying to make more smoothies probably during the weekends. :))
• By about 11.45pm, her orange was somewhat finished (left a little bit which was quite insignificant)
• And then it was pretty much “milk milk” (a few rounds) and playtime, all the way till 1+am the next day (where she really fell asleep). And here I am, typing this post with my eyes super dry and ‘siap’ (hokkien term).
Yes! Finished this entry. Sort of. To be honest, at this point, I’ve kind of “given up” the idea of proof-reading and then touching up again (because I’ve done this routine countless times). I’ll just post it… Now! 🙂
There you go… Looking uninterested (and tired even!).
Trying to get her to be ‘excited’.
More ‘interested’ playing in the room. Couldn’t really get a decent shot of her and Po Po (despite this is still a nice candid shot :)).
Fancied the idea of holding the knife.
Was more interested in the balloons.
Was Chor Chor’s actual birthday! She just couldn’t stay still there, AT ALL. LOL.
Her squirming away action.
And we brought her to the airport! (Intention was to let her play at the kids playground like last year, but ended up she was not interested at all.)
Enjoying the water fountain show.
Obsessed Mommy 