Is Baby the Best Ice Breaker?

Based on my experience from 9 months pregnant and 4 months in the motherhood gig, I can tell that baby is the best ice breaker in the world.

When I was pregnant strangers ask me how far along I am or they ask me whether it's a boy or a girl and somehow there's softness in their eyes.

When we were "stuck" in Guam for 10 days, every single person well most of people that we shared elevator with ask about Ms. A, "is that a boy or a girl?", "how old is she?", "oh she's so cute", "oh she's big for her age" and the comments will continue. Although, I'm a bit annoyed when people ask whether she's a girl or a boy when she's clearly wearing flower pink onesies.

Super Boobs Juice Has Super Power

One of the girl in my group share this and I just had to share it with the world.

Read the original article here

Other uses of breast milk

Want to use your extra frozen breast milk for something useful? Using breast milk can benefit your whole household!

We all know about the great benefits of breast milk for mom and baby and even the environment, but are there other uses of breast milk?

The answer is yes, breast milk can be used to actually cure a few ailments and even help heal certain diseases…it can be taken by baby, you or any other grown-ups for these purposes. 

Breast milk contains immunologic agents and other compounds that take action against viruses and parasites. 

Breast milk is sterile, anti-bacterial and can even help heal wounds and can help people heal faster after organ transplants and other surgeries.

The many alternative uses for breast milk discussed here…

Breast milk and its uses 

  

All of the below uses for breast milk or breast milk cures can be used for the whole family…

- Pink eye breast milk (eye infections). You can put a few drops of breast milk into baby’s eyes or any family members who are suffering from pink eye. The breast milk will keep the area clean and will initiate healing. You can do this as often as possible. 

- Eye puffiness or redness. Wonderful for removing puffiness and is used just as you would cows milk for the same purpose. Dab on with some cotton wool. 

- Opening a stuffy nose. Breast milk is natural and a great alternative to medications which might even make the situation worse. Just squirt a few drops into baby’s nose while he is lying down, then use a bulb to suction the excess out from his nose. 

Small Victories

It's been awhile since my last post, things happened here and there and caught me to stop posting for awhile until I have time to type with my 2 hands.

Yes, typing with my 2 hands is one of the things that I consider as a small victories in my new journey as a mother.

Why is that?

That means Ms. A is sleeping and she's not sleeping on me like she used to do in her early days. Don't get me wrong, I love the snuggles but things can be a bit tricky when your arms burn and you need to stretch it or you have this urge to go to the toilet. You try to move very little so it won't distract her precious sleep. Once, I tried to go to toilet with her on my chest sleeping, it was really tricky but it's doable and she opens her eyes and look at me like "what on earth are you doing woman?" lol, well a woman gotta do what a woman gotta do, no?

Don't judge me, I do whatever works for us.

The Day I Fall in Love

29 January 2012 is the day I fall in love with you, the day I welcome you to the world and the day I hold you for the first time in my life little Ms. A.


The journey begins when my water broke at 6.30am on 28 January 2012, we rushed to the hospital as told by midwife. She checked me and she said it's only 1cm dilated and sent me home, she gave us instruction that I should have some rest as labor can be anytime today but instead we went for a walk around the neigbourhood to speed things up. I got more contractions but still irregular so we had lunch and just chillin at the apartment.


At around 6pm the contraction become 3 minutes apart so we went back to hospital again in a hope that labor is happening, but the midwife said that it's only 2cm dilated so she sent me home again. I burst into tears because I wish to meet my little girl soon. I think the midwife felt sorry for me, she gave me medicine so I can sleep  and promise me that labor will be today. So off we go home again.

"Dear Non-Pregnant Person"

Dear Non-Pregnant Person, 

I hope you find these guidelines helpful in your interactions with pregnant women as failing to follow them may result in serious physical harm. If you are thinking, surely she doesn't mean me- then you should probably read this twice:

1) The appropriate response to a couple telling you they are having a baby is 'Congratulations!' with enthusiasm. Any other response makes you an a$$.

2) Through the wonders of science, we now know that babies are made ONLY by the mother and father- not grandparents. Unless the baby is in your uterus or you are the man that helped put it there, you may not ever use the phrase 'my baby'.

3) On the same note, unless you made the baby as defined in #2, the pregnancy, birth and raising of the child are not about you. You do not have input. No one wants to hear your opinion unless they ask for it.

4) The body of a pregnant women should be treated the same as any other body. You would not randomly touch someone's stomach if they were not pregnant, nor would you inquire into the condition of their uterus, cervix or how they plan to use their breasts. Pregnancy does not remove all traces of privacy from a woman.

5) Likewise, no woman wants to hear comments on her weight- ever. A pregnant woman does not find it flattering that you think she is about is pop, must be having twins, looks swollen or has gained weight in her face. Telling her she looks too small only makes her worry that she is somehow starving her baby. Making such comments invite her to critique your physical appearance and you may not act offended. The only acceptable comment on appearance is 'You look fabulous!'.

50 reasons to be glad you're pregnant!

1. Relishing the early weeks when only you and your partner know your special secret.

2. Knowing you've got nine whole months to plan, dream and fantasise.

3. Throwing away your ovulation charts and testing kits and going back to having sex without a timetable.

4. Choosing maternity clothes - they've never been more practical or more sexy.

5. Now you've got the perfect excuse to pamper yourself - spending hours in a scented bath, enjoying a massage or rubbing soothing lotions into your growing bump.

6. You can join an antenatal class and find a whole new bunch of friends (and don't forget our BabyCenter birth clubs: another great way to meet people due at the same time as you).

7. For once in your life you need to get heavier - pregnancy is nature's way of making you feel good about putting on weight.

8. If this is your first baby, enjoy the next nine months sleeping late at weekends: you may not get many chances later on.

9. At last you've got the bosom you've always wanted, which means you also have...

10...a great excuse to buy lots of pretty new bras.

11. Now you have the good reason you have been looking for to take up yoga, meditation, healthy eating and deep breathing.

12. At last you'll have something more than potplants and cats to care for and nurture!

13. Suddenly you'll find you're getting lots of extra attention from parents, aunts and uncles, not to mention your partner.

14. You may find you develop a closer relationship with sisters, cousins or friends who are parents themselves. Congratulations, you've just won free admission to the parents' club!

15. Telling your mum, dad, sister, brother, aunt the good news and watching their faces light up.

16. New talents! Whether it's knitting bootees or assembling a flat-pack cot, you'll suddenly find yourself trying out all sorts of new skills.

17. Suddenly you'll feel a new appreciation for your own mother and all she went through having you.

18. Decorating the nursery: one of the most exciting things you'll ever do.

19. Feeling those first fluttering kicks and thinking, 'Is that what I think it is? Or is it just wind?'

20. Feeling OK for sending your partner out for chicken tikka masala followed by double-choc chip ice cream.

21. Your parents digging out your old cot or clothes, which they've kept safely all this time 'just in case'.

22. Going for healthy walks with your partner and getting fresh air in your lungs because it's good for you and good for your baby.

23. Enjoying the extra-vivid dreams you get in late pregnancy - and laughing about them with your friends.

24. Feeling a little pair of heels prodding under your diaphragm and knowing you'll soon be meeting the little person they belong to!

25. Choosing baby clothes - or just phoning round for all the catalogues, leafing through them and planning what you're going to buy.

A Lovely Poem For Me, You, Us...

A dear friend sent this lovely poem for me, thank you  Shinta

So now you see
What makes a Mother
It's the feeling in your heart
It's the love you had so much of
Right from the very start
A gift for such a little while,
your loss just seems so wrong,
you should not have left before us,
it’s with loved ones you belong.
Do not judge a song by its duration
Nor by the number of its notes
Judge it by the richness of its contents
Sometimes those unfinished are among the most poignant..

Do not judge a song by its duration
Nor by the number of its notes
Judge it by the way it touches and lifts the soul
Sometimes those unfinished are among the most beautiful…

And when something has enriched your life
And when it’s melody lingers on in your heart.
Is it unfinished?
Or is it endless?

Author Unknown

"Barbie Girl" Stamp

I was intrigued with Santi's status on facebook, it says: Santi still feeling hysterical with the 'barbie girl' stamp :D.


The term came from after chatting with moms at her kids' school.


And of course I was curious and want to know what is "barbie girl" stamp, so here is the definition:


Wives who follow husbands moving around the globe have the tendency to live like happy go lucky girls forever. In a sense that those wives never really touch the reality of the local culture, hardly ever need the urgency to earn money. When...ever they start doing something, it's time to pack and usually it shatters their focus, which, most of the time changes their initial goals when arriving at the next destination.

I miss you all, heaps

Nearly 2 years since I left Jakarta my home for 30 years and move to Canberra, it has not been easy but I have to admit it that it has not been that hard too because not long after we arrived in Canberra we joined the AIFA (Australia Indonesia Family Association) which has been great to help me settling in. And voila I met new people and make friends.

The hardest part living in a new place is leaving your comfort zone, family and friends, I really miss my friends in Jakarta and it's hard. But I am grateful that I met new friends well in fact good friends in Canberra, yes you know who you are ;).

Shinta's Arabian birthday celebration, Canberra. I wish I was there with you ladies

What's Behind the Trend of Women Dating Younger Men?

Exploring the modern coupling phenomenon

There appears to be a trend of older women dating younger men, notably illustrated by celebrity couples including Demi Moore and Aston Kutcher, Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry, and the most recent fling between 48-year-old Linda Hogan and 19-year-old Charlie Hill. According to a study of 50,000 women daters over 30, conducted by an online dating site in 2007, more than one-third of the subjects showed interest in men at least 5 years younger. And in 2003, an AARP survey revealed 34 percent of 3,500 women (between ages 40 and 69) dated men who are 10 or more years younger than themselves. This trend appears to be shocking to some people, but I don't find it so unusual.

Socially, there's a role reversal of sorts going on, women are more powerful now than ever before and may want men who are younger, and perhaps, more flexible; men who can handle it if the woman's career and lifestyle takes priority over their own. Media portrayals in "Sex and the City" (like movie characters Smith Jerrod and Samantha Jones) and "Desperate Housewives" are also showing women that dates don't have to be older. Women who have high-powered careers -- or a well-developed self-image -- are exercising more choice. Women who have been divorced and are established single moms may enjoy having a playmate, someone to have fun with; who doesn't try to control her.

Can these older woman/younger man relationships last?

I have seen many relationships succeed with this kind of older woman/younger man scenario. The media focuses on the age difference, but what really makes or breaks the relationship is how well the couple can form a partnership that works.

Age difference is an adolescent worry: When you're a teenager, an age difference of even two or three years makes a vast difference in your experience and your outlook on life. Such a difference can interfere with communication, life goals, outlook, and relationship experience. In addition, for the young, the social reaction to such a relationship is often negative. If one partner is underage, a sexual relationship is even against the law.

But, as you get older, life experience and emotional growth help to equalize your relationship skills and resources. A 10-year or more difference in your ages makes little difference in how well you can conduct your relationship.

Don't focus on an arbitrary numbers difference in your ages. If you are getting along, you have good communication and problem solving, and you love each other, that's a precious thing, and far more important than any age difference could be. If other people have a problem with it, let it be their problem.

Whether or not a relationship is healthy is not determined by age differences, but by the interaction between the partners. A 10-year difference is not too difficult to bridge, but a 20-year differences or more in age can lead to some difficulties as the partners get older. For example, the younger partner may mature and reconsider his or her choices, or an older partner may confront aging problems much sooner. But, as long as both parties are adult, and the couple has talked about their age difference and the future possibilities, I don't make judgments about their respective ages.

Dealing with the generation gap

There are healthy and unhealthy reasons to date someone of a different generation.
One inappropriate motivation for dating a younger person is fear of aging on the older person's part. A younger partner isn't going to reverse the aging process or protect you from old age. Obviously, a man or woman who dates someone as young as his or her children is going to run into some social opposition, but the differences that can cause the biggest problems within the couple's relationship are differing maturity levels.

As more and more women choose younger partners for relationships, the question arises: Are women in their late 30s and early 40s likely to be successful with partners who are 10 to 15 years younger than themselves?

Success in these relationships depends on what the motivations of both people are. Some older people feel younger at heart than their contemporaries and like to date people who are as active as they are. Chronological age doesn't always reflect either physical capability or emotional maturity. Sometimes an age difference creates a mentoring relationship the older person advises the younger one on life or career. This can backfire if and when the younger person decides he or she has learned enough, and wants to move on.

If you're asking: "Is it OK for me to have a partner who is much older or younger than I am?" You'll do better off if you forget about your ages and concentrate on whether the relationship works for both of you, or not. What really makes a romantic relationship succeed is the emotional connection.

Smarter ladies have worse sex

BRAINY babes find it harder to have an orgasm – because they are too busy thinking, a study claims.

The German survey found that the more educated a woman was, the less likely it was that she would be satisfied by sex.

In the study 62 per cent of women who had completed their education said they often had problems achieving orgasm.

Only 38 per cent of women with a lower educational qualification said they had such problems.

The study conducted by a German lifestyle website surveyed over 2,000 women between the ages of 18 and 49.

Do you agree with the study's findings? Tell me what you think.

Article stolen from The Sun

SJP is "Unsexiest" Woman

"Am I really the unsexiest woman in the world?"

That's the rhetorical question actress Sarah Jessica Parker posed to Grazia (which actually bills itself as Britain's "first glossy magazine"). She was responding to the title of "Unsexiest Woman Alive" bestowed upon her by a poll of the readers of another magazine, Maxim.

In questioning their choice, Ms. Parker fails to notice that she's acquiescing to the notion that there really is an unsexiest woman in the world. But she deserves credit for bravely admitting that it caused her significant pain, enhanced, in turn, by her husband's anger.

"Do I fit some ideals and standards of some men writing in a men's magazine?" she asked. "Maybe not." (Plaudits also for taking the trouble to Q & A herself, thus lightening the interviewer's work load.)

Again, Ms. Parker is on the right track, but only halfway there. She herself illustrated the point in the 1991 film LA Story. Playing SanDeE*, a dizzy, flirtatious young woman, she beguiles the middle-aged Steve Martin. (And, in the process, makes it impossible for girls to ever unselfconsciously twirl again.)

By parodying it in its most juvenile and blatant form to a T, Ms. Parker draped herself with the mantle of sexiness and the rest was history. It's indicative of her intelligence that her career was built on irony.

Maxim's readers likely weren't singling her out for a lack of sexiness, which no red-blooded man can dispute at this point. Arguably, it's her long face to which they object.

In fact, Ms. Parker is the latest in a long line of formidable women stretching from Cleopatra to Bette Davis to Madonna. Though lacking the symmetry of a classic beauty, they bent men -- and the world -- to their whims, whether by disposition, determination, or talent.

The case can be made that Maxim's readers object to having a sex symbol chosen for them on the basis of her success in a "women's" TV series. Also, there's no disputing that La Parker is ubiquitous -- besides TV, from billboards to magazine ads to commercials -- not to mention, much the richer for it.

But, as is too often the case with a poll, it reveals more about the voters than the subject. First, Maxim readers seem oblivious to the extent to which their tastes in women have been shaped by today's surgically enhanced models and actresses. Talk about an image being forced down their throats.

Second, conferring a title as vicious as unsexiest woman alive on anyone reflects a poverty of spirit that, in itself, cancels out a Maxim reader's qualifications to choose the winner of any poll.

Except for maybe which male mixed-martial-art star they'd most like to be in the ring with alone and naked.

So, the questions for female bloggers out there:
1) If you were SJP, how would react being awarded as "Unsexiest" woman?
2) What is more important, consider as "sexy" or "smart"?
3) Or, would you love to have it both? Sexy and smart.