3rd Wedding Anniversary

Its that time of the (new) year again, where we celebrate our wedding anniversary. This is our 3rd wedding anniversary and while initially I had a romantic night out planned with Grumpy at a nice restaurant and even organised for Dopey to babysit Little Bambi on a Saturday night, things did not exactly go as planned. First up, the restaurant I wanted was completely booked out (its the long weekend with Australia Day), and second, Dopey just sold his car and what that means is that he will have to take the train to our place and... suddenly, everything just got a bit more complicated.

Anyways, on Tuesday, Grumpy had the day off and we decided for an impromptu drive to the Yarra Valley for lunch, along with Little Bambi. We picked our usual restaurant Innocent Bystander at Healesville. The last time we were here, was during our babymoon, and Little Bambi was still inside my belly!

Little Bambi chewing on a baguette

Grumpy feeding baby with a pint of beer, yikes!

It was such a relaxing day that even Little Bambi was happy and calm, keeping us company while we ate our lunch. Grumpy said it was really fun and a great way to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

7 Months

Little Bambi is now 7 months old. I am feeling very emotional at the moment, only because this marks the final month of my maternity leave. I go back to work when Little Bambi is 8 months old. I feel quite sad and I am sure many other mothers out there that have gone back to work would have gone through the same feeling as I am now. However, I am determined to make it work, as in, working full time and being a caring and loving mother to my little girl.

This photo always puts a smile on my face

At 7 months, she has attempted crawling. She can lift herself up and is very strong. She definitely is very mobile at the moment. I have resorted to buying a playpen for her, just to make sure she stays within reach.

She has also had her first taste of chicken. I am cooking for her based on Annabel Karmel's recipes and so far, Little Bambi is loving it!

Bakewell Tarts

Growing up as a kid, my dad used to live in Lumut, Perak (Malaysia) because that is where the Royal Malaysian Navy base is. One of his friends's wife is a lovely British lady and she used to make Bakewell tarts for us. I still remember she would make about two dozen of these tarts and pack them into the big Milo tins for us. It was so delicious!

Recently, I asked her for the recipe. She is probably 70 years old now, does not own a computer or have email, so she took a photocopy of the original recipe and she put it in the post for me. The recipe is so old that it is in ounces and pounds. When I got it in my letterbox, I was so excited!

I made it today, and it turned out exactly like how I remembered it, which is YUMMY! This is a simple recipe and that is what makes it so amazing. Simplicity at its best!

I am going to share it with you here. I halved the ingredients from the original recipe (I tend to half a lot of recipes only because it is impossible for Grumpy and I to eat so much), and of course, I converted it from ounces and pounds to grams.

Bakewell Tarts

(makes a dozen)

Filling

55g caster sugar

55g butter or margarine

55g plain flour

1 egg

1 level teaspoon baking powder

Jam (I use a good quality strawberry jam)

Pastry

200g plain flour

100g butter

1/4 cup water

pinch of salt

1. To make filling, beat sugar and butter till creamy. Add the egg. Fold in flour and baking powder. Set aside

2. To make pastry, sift the flour. Add the butter and salt. Rub together with the fingertips till flour and butter are mixed. Add water a little at a time, taking care not to allow the mixture to get too wet.

3. Grease cake tins. Roll out the pastry using cake cutters. Place in cake tins.

4. Put a teaspoon of jam in each tin, then add a teaspoon of filling mix.

5. Cook on lower shelf in oven at 180deg Celcius, for 20 minutes.

6. When pastry turns brownish, put up to a higher shelf for 3-4 minutes.

Enjoy!

2012 in review and on to 2013

Its no surprise that the most significant event for me this year, and the rest of my life is the birth of my first child! Since she arrived, my blog has been mainly about her and breastfeeding. Haha Little Bambi is now 6 and a half months, and only thing I dread about the New Year is leaving her side to return to work.

More highlights of the year:

- Being a mother has changed me completely. Suddenly, I am shopping in baby shops, reading up on baby topics and baby everything!

- Going on maternity leave. I swear, I have been enjoying every minute of it. I am taking 8 months of maternity leave, and during this 8 months, I am still getting half my wages each month. Which is money in my bank account, and with this, Little Bambi and I go shopping, we buy nice things, we eat nice food and have a good time together.

- Seeing my BFF marry the love of her life! Did I mention... there's a little baby on the way!

- Turning 30.

2013 I hope to:

- Juggle my family and a full time job. It will be hard work, but I want to make it possible! I want to be a good mother to Little Bambi and at the same time, have a career.

- Eat better. Somehow this year we have been having fast food at least once a week because its quick, convenient and cheap. I should really stop! I don't want my little baby to even go near McDonalds.

- Exercise and be healthy.

- Buy an investment property. Wishful thinking, but I am convinced I can make it happen. Reading my old posts, I did mention that I wanted to change the carpets in my house, which I have not done yet!

Today, at this point in time, I am happy! I had a lovely Christmas and apart from returning to work very soon, I hope the New Year will bring more wonderful experiences for the three of us - Little Bambi, Grumpy and I.

Happy New Year!!

Our First Christmas with Little Bambi

Our first Christmas with Little Bambi has been filled with lots of love, laughter, delicious food, heaps of presents and being surrounded by the people whom we care most. Just having Little Bambi in my arms makes me feel so blessed!

Here is a quick rundown of our Christmas this year.

First up, Grumpy. My dear husband has been working on building a deck at our house for the past couple of weeks. I was not too keen on the idea at first, but now that it is complete, I actually like it a lot. And the most impressive thing about the deck is that he built it all on his own. Mr Happy did help Grumpy with the deck at the start, but most of it, Grumpy did by himself.

And as for his Christmas present this year, Grumpy asked for a barbie - to go with his deck! He kept picking all these gas burner BBQs that cost more than $1000. In return, I kept sending him pictures of BBQs on sale at Bunnings for $299. And then he goes "Hey I got you a Rolex this year!" So, I gave in and he picked this 3 gas burner Weber. The Weber arrived 4 days before Christmas. So he was one happy camper!

Next up, Little Bambi. While my friends were giving their babies fancy presents (i.e iPad), all Little Bambi got was The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. Its a great book, and I am sure she will enjoy it. Oh, and one day while I was at Baby Bunting, I found one of these little Sophie's on sale for $12, so I got one for her for Christmas too. I placed it in a Christmas sock next to the tree.

The first dinner I had was with the wombats last Friday. It was a bit different because I did not bring Little Bambi with me to dinner. I left her at home with Grumpy, just to avoid disrupting her sleep. Which may have been a bit weird to my friends who brought both their babies along. Am I a bad mum who left her baby behind? Regardless, we had lots of fun, and I came home from dinner with sooo many presents, all for Little Bambi!

On Christmas eve, we rushed to Chaddy early in the morning to get a photo with Santa. I know I left it to the last minute, but at least I did it! My neighbour said to me, "You know what that means right? You will have to do this every year now..!" Yikes.

She's not even smiling! Haha

At night, we had Christmas eve dinner with Grumpy's cousin and family. They roasted a massive turkey and a leg of ham. There were 4 kids so it was buzzing with noise and Little Bambi slept through most of it. 

On Christmas Day, we went to church in the morning. We do this every year, with my cousin, uncle and Little Miss Bargain Hunter and her aunt. It was Little Bambi's first time at church and again, she slept through the noise when the band was in full swing.

After church, Grumpy came home and he spent ALL day preparing dinner for our annual Christmas orphans dinner. He cooked a turkey and a rolled pork leg in his new Weber barbie. For the first time in the many years of our Christmas dinners, the turkey actually turned out moist and juicy. I loved it! It might have been from the overpriced barbie that cooked it so well, but it was also the first time he placed the turkey in brine overnight. Grumpy also made roast potatoes, stuffing and gravy all from scratch. I made two different salads. Dopey and his girlfriend brought a savoury tart. Little Miss-Bargain-Hunter brought prawns. Another friend made a chocolate tart (and she hid Pop Rocks popping candy in the tart base) and mango mousse pudding for dessert. As you can imagine, it was a real feast!

I still think the turkey on the right looks like Malaysian BBQ Chicken (without rice)

Christmas Orphans Group Shot

And on Boxing Day, instead of the usual shopping day in the city, this year we had a family lunch with my cousins and uncle. By then, we reached our third turkey, three days in a row.

While Little Bambi missed out on the fun on most of the festivities as they were all dinners (her bedtime), I was able to get a photo with her at my family lunch in her Christmas outfit and a Santa hat!

From now on, Christmas time will be our most favourite time of the year.

Breastfeeding

As the year comes to an end, I thought I would share my experiences on breastfeeding. As I will be heading back to work soon and 'might' bring breastfeeding to a close (*sniff sniff*), I want to note them down here, so that I can always remember how much I enjoyed it.

- No one tells you how hard it is as the start. Many mothers I have spoken to after having a baby tell me that they struggled with breastfeeding. I guess the main issue is latching on correctly, and that is where we get damaged nipples. I had tremendous support from Grumpy, my mum and the midwives (who cared for me at the hospital and also after returning home) on my breastfeeding efforts. And with that, I was able to overcome that first hurdle of learning how to breastfeed.

- Breastfeeding is all about demand and supply. The more my baby feeds, the more my body responds and produces more milk. As per Tizzie Hall, the first 8 weeks is all about establishing a good milk supply by the mother. I have been fortunate enough to have ample supply of milk for Little Bambi, and so I have never needed to top up her feeds with formula. Grumpy and I bought a second hand freezer from Gumtree a few months ago, to store bags of expressed milk.

- You become extremely thirsty after a feed. Its true. Some days when I head to Chaddy with Little Bambi, I bring two bottles of water from home with me. One is not enough. I drink so much water these days.

- You become very hungry after a feed. Oh my, some mornings after feeding Little Bambi, I will have two serves of breakfast. And after that, morning tea as well. I read that its important for mums to have a balanced diet, and that includes carbohydrates. And so I eat rice, bread and potatoes (as much as I please). Other times I am usually careful with carbs, but not while I am breastfeeding.

- You become exhausted after a feed. It feels like all my energy has been sucked out of me sometimes. I remember during the early days, I will crawl back to bed after Little Bambi's first feed and just lie there for 30 minutes.

- During winter, your body becomes very cold after a feed. I remember how I used to put on another jumper after feeding Little Bambi, and I will say "OMG I am freezing!"

- Milk flows out pretty quick, like a running tap! Haha Until today, I still laugh when Little Bambi chokes while feeding because she can't keep up with the flow. And there is milk everywhere if she pulls out. Up in her nose, her forehead, all over the pillow, the chair..

- While feeding, Little Bambi makes funny noises, like she's going "Mmmmmmmm" and this has got to be MY MOST FAVOURITE PART about breastfeeding. She sounds like she is enjoying her feed so much that I get such a strong feeling of satisfaction on my part.

- When she was about 3 months old, I would un-hook my nursing bra to offer her a boob, and she would open her mouth really wide and swing her head left to right (very quickly), looking for the nipple. Like a ravenous lion.

- Mastitis. This awful awful word... and I have already had it twice. The second time was only about two weeks ago. I suffered with a fever, cold shivers, my entire body was aching, I also had a throbbing headache. I thought I was going to die. And the doctor prescribes me antibiotics, which is equally bad because it passes on to baby from my milk.

- You don't have your period while breastfeeding. So I guess this could be a way of contraception. Not that I am already planning for baby number two. But I don't think its possible to get pregnant while breastfeeding.

- You have to wear wireless maternity bras while breastfeeding which makes you feel super UNsexy. I wear maternity bras from Marks & Spencer and they fit so amazingly well. These M&S bras that I have look nice too, compared to others I have seen in Myers. And of course, M&S are not available in Australia. So I got mine from KL and London.

- I am still a little shy when feeding Little Bambi in very public areas like restaurants, cafes or even in front of family members. I usually look for a Parents Room to feed her in shopping centres.

- Breastfeeding while on the go (when we are out, or even while we were travelling in Sydney) is so convenient, because there is no need for bottles, sterilising, warming up milk etc.

- It is free! Formula, on the other hand is expensive. However, while breastfeeding, I still eat my pregnancy vitamins.

Above all, I think it is the bonding and the closeness that I have with Little Bambi is priceless.

6 Months

I am about 5 days slow with this post, but that just shows you how busy I am with Christmas around the corner.

Little Bambi is now 6 months old! She got her vaccinations last Saturday, and now weighs 9.4kgs and is 70cm tall.

And as I was trying to take her photos for her usual monthly mug shot, I realise that the process is quite challenging because she is actively moving around a lot more than the previous months.

 

At 6 months, she is constantly rolling from her back to her tummy, and her tummy to her back. When I leave her on the floor in the living room on her own, in just a few minutes, she goes missing. Then I realise she is under the TV cabinet. Brilliant!

She is also picking up anything and everything with her hands, and then she puts it in her mouth.

Little Bambi's solids adventures have been very positive so far. Apart from baby rice cereal, she has tasted apple, pear, sweet potato, carrots and recently zucchini.

Now that she is 6 months old, I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I feel comfortable with my body and can fit into most of my old clothes. I have also started going to the gym again with the other mums from Mothers Group. Its fun having a support network with people that live so close.

Happy half-a-year old my little darling! What a wonderful six months it has been and I have enjoyed every minute of it! I can't imagine how quick another six months will come by, and we will be celebrating your first birthday!