Choosing the sex of my baby

I believe whatever sex of  a child is a blessing. However, after having a girl as our first child, I’d like to have a boy to complete our little family.  I wasn’t really desperate to have a boy, either way I’d be happy, but I thought it would be nice to have a boy.

By accident, I came across a book, called ‘Choose the sex of your baby – the natural way’ by Hazel Chesterman-Phillips.  I bought it, read it and applied some of the advice from the book.

According to the book, female sperm (x) behaves differently with male sperm (y).  Female sperm (x) is an endurance swimmer.  They are slow but can survive longer in comparison to male sperms (y).  While male sperms (y) are fast swimmer, they don’t last long.  So, knowing this, I have to know my ovulation time in order to make the chance for either sperm to meet the egg i.e. to know when to have an intercourse. Why is that? Because to have a boy,  the egg should be waiting in the ovum.  In that way, there’s big chance that the first sperm to arrive to the egg would be a male sperm.  While, if you want to have a girl, you have to have intercourse before ovulation, at least 3 days before.  Apparently female sperm can last for 3 days.  Therefore, when the egg is released some female sperms would be waiting to fertilise the egg.

How would I know when I was ovulating? I recorded my basal body temperature every morning, straight after I woke up, before doing anything else.  I recorded bbt everyday for 3 months and plotted a chart as directed from the book.  According to the book, when one is ovulating, there would be a jump in bbt, as long as you’re not ill.  But if one is taking the bbt for a period of time, you’ll notice the pattern.  I can also feel some sensation below my stomach, a sort of a tightening on one side of my stomach.

To know your pattern enabled you to predict your ovulation time.  This is more useful if you want to have a girl.  It is because, to have a girl, you have to stop having intercourse at least from 3 days before your ovulation until 2 days past ovulation, but the book also recommend to abstain sex from 5 days before the ovulation.  For a boy, it’s a different matter, we have to use condom or abstain from sex from 5 days before ovulation and have intercourse during ovulation.

Another important advice is sperm count.  Heat especially contribute to sperm count.  High sperm count will help you to get a boy while low sperm count for a girl.  Sperms apparently are produced at a lower temperature than normal body temperature, therefore if you want to have a boy, you have to keep the scrotum cool, while to have a girl, you have to keep the scrotum slightly hot.  My hubby is an amateur cyclist, therefore he likes to wear tight underwear and also cycling pants.  I had to force him to wear boxer shorts and told him to have cool shower before going to bed.

There are also lots more about diet but we didn’t follow the diet advice.  the first 3 months, I was charting the bbt, we weren’t starting trying until the month 4.  It didn’t take us long, I was pregnant straight away on month 4 for a boy.  But, I don’t know whether the method is foolproof or it is down to random selection.

I would advice, if you do follow gender selection technique, you have to accept that there’s no guarantee that this method will 100% work.  I do recommend the book highly but don’t despair if you don’t get the baby girl/boy that you want, either way, a child is a blessing.

Tags: baby sex, boy, gender selection, girl, memilih jenis kelamin bayi

God lives in China

During breakfast, my daughter looked at the bottom of the cup, written ‘made in China’.

She then told her 4 year old brother, “everything nowadays is made in China.”

Hearing this, my son replied, ” yes, and God lives in China.”

I didn’t get it at first, because my son often talks nonsensical, but later on he said, “God created everything”.

Oh… I suddenly couldn’t stop laughing and got his analogy.  If  God creates everything and everything is made in China, so God must live in China.  Great to hear that he used his logic from what he heard and learn from school, and it was just too funny and so precious.

Tags: Children, funny

What happen if you ride a bicycle with your eyes closed?

As usual, we were on the way home from school with my DD1 (aged 7) and DS2 (aged 4) on the bikes.  We’re still in the alleyway next to the school, suddenly, banged! My son just hit the wall and scraped his left pinky and left ring finger, also his left knee.  He was crying inconsolably.   Every times, I heard him crying like this,  stopped my heart beating for a split second.  What now? He insisted on carry on riding, but after crossing the road to the next alleyway (yup, we had to go through 3 alleyways from school to home), he decided that it was too painful.  Luckily, I had his bike seat attached on my bike.  I carried his training bike on my bike and pushed along.

When we got home, during dinnertime, my son told my hubby that he was very brave.  I told my husband what had happened and he started to tell me what had actually happened.

DS:  Mummy, I was really braved, wasn’t I

Me: Yes, you’re really brave.

DS: Yes, I was braved riding my bike closed eyes.

Me: What! Why did you close your eyes?

DS: Because Lana (his nursery friend) closed her eyes when riding bike.

Me: ????

Then, I told him that Lana wasn’t closing her eyes.  She has problem with her sight which I don’t know what.  She always look like she is closing her eyes but she’s actually trying so hard to see.  Blessed her!

I guess, I couldn’t be angry with my son.  He’s just experimenting how it is riding a bicycle with his eyes closed, which ended up hitting the wall.  Luckily it wasn’t closed to the main street which could be very dangerous.  Hmm… what next ??

Tags: Children

Shrek Forever

I was asked to make a shrek cake by a friend whose boy loves Shrek.  It was a big challenge for me.  Mind you, I’m not a cake decorator and have never taken any cake decorating course.  My cake decorating skills and tools are bare minimum.  I love baking and learn cake decorating from you tube, books and copying people’s picture from internet. I believe if anybody can do it, so can I.  Although, my cake is still far from professional looking but it’s pretty good.

The cake itself was a special chocolate cake.  It was a special cake because it didn’t have any egg nor nuts.  It was made for my friend’s son whose allergic to nuts and eggs.   I was really pleased to learn that birthday boy was very happy.  He was soo happy that he’s able to eat his birthday cake.  His father told me that he often sad whenever he went to a birthday party because he was unable to eat the cake.  This time, he can eat the cake and also he ate Shrek’s head.

Tags: baking, cake decorating, shrek, shrek cake

JLS Lover

I was asked to make a birthday cake for my friend’s daughter who loves JLS.  So, this is my first time making a photo cake.   I ordered the edible photo print from ebay.  Voila, it was so simple, I just had to stuck it on the cake. The cake itself was an Indonesian layered cake known as  ‘lapis surabaya’ which was a chocolate cake sandwiched in vanilla cake.    I was so glad that the beautiful birthday girl was really happy with the cake.

Tags: cake decorating, JLS cake, JLS topper

Children holiday activities

I always feel daunted entertaining children during holiday.   So far, it had actually been fun.  My children had been entertaining me.  They made me beautiful colourful biscuits and cake.  Then, we had a tea party.

My children were planning to make a show for me.  It is going to be peterpan and captain hook’s show.  For that show, they needed to make swords.  My DD made swords from cardboard and then painted them.  So, we had a painting swords session which follow to other painting.

It’s going to be colourful swords

Yup, we’ve been busy

It was actually a really fun holiday.   Thank you, my little angels

Tags: activity, Children, holiday

Chocolate No Heartache

I love chocolate cake, so do my two children.  But, my daughter has got somewhat intolerance towards milk and gluten.  So, I came across the book  written by Harry Eastwood, Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache.  The book has some lovely scrumptious yummy cakes photos.  But, you wouldn’t believe it if you read the ingredients, they were made of vegetables.  I’ve made the forbidden chocolate brownies made of beetroot.  It was yummy but it was too rich for my like.  The next cake I baked, was the chocolate heartache.  It was so yummy and I love the texture.  You wouldn’t believe what it was made of.  It was made of aubergines!  It had no flour, oil, butter, milk, and sugar (it did had honey).  My family loved it and I had no heartache giving it to my daughter.  So, what did it have in it? It had aubergines, good quality dark chocolate (I use green & black), cocoa powder ( also use green & black), honey, eggs, brandy (I didn’t have any brandy so used rum essence instead).  I still tasted slight aubergine taste,  so I guess it does need a little support of alcohol to mask the aubergine and liven up the taste.

Tags: chocolate heartache, kue coklat, sayuran

The No-cry Discipline Solution

If I had my child to raise all over again,

I’d finger paint more, and point the finger less.

I’d do less correcting, and more connecting.

I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.

I would care to know less, and know to care more.

I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.

I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play.

I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.

I’d do more hugging, and less tugging.

I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.

I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later.

I’d teach less about the love of power,

And more about the power of love.

by diana Loomans

We often associate discipline with punishment, when we hear that a child need to be disciplined, we’d immediately thought that he need to be punished.   If that’s the kind of discipline you’re looking for then the no-cry discipline solution by Elizabeth Pantley  is not the book that you’re looking for. Elizabeth Pantley, author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution, gives discipline a new look in her book, The No-Cry Discipline Solution.

The book starts off by discussing parenting attitudes and how they affect children’s behaviour. She addresses the myths that many parents believe such as “If you love your child and if your intentions are good, parenting will come naturally to you.” Pantley dispels these parenting myths and gives parents a new way of looking at discipline.

Part one of The No-Cry Discipline Solution continues its parental aids by defining the four parts to discipline. In this book, Pantley states these four parts are: “to correct immediate behavior; to teach a lesson; to give tools that build self-discipline and emotional control; to build the parent/child relationship.”  She gave some examples how these parts apply to some typical situation.

Part two covers skills and tools for no-cry discipline.   She gives plenty of parenting tricks to equip parents to handle tricky situation.  I have implemented some of the tricks given by the book, such as ’5-3-1 go’ to prepare children to leave their favourite places with success.  However,  I didn’t have much luck with the talking nappy (make it talk performance).  My son didn’t think it’s funny anymore after a few tries.

She explains that parents need to take the time to discover the “real problem” or what is causing their child’s problematic actions.  The book also covers how to handle the “big three” – tantrums, fussing and whining.  Most of the tips are valuable.  We did  implemented most of them in our house,  such as validating their feeling, getting down and talking eye to eye with them.  We also created a calm-down room for our children when they were angry screaming uncontrollably,  and had taught children deep breathing and relax (we also use yoga and relaxation cd).  I also often use the distract and involve strategy, especially to prevent and handle tantrum in public place.

In part three, parents learn how to stay calm and how to determine the reasons they get angry with their children.  The book will help parents to not only realize the root cause of their anger, but how to develop a plan to manage their anger.

The part four completes the book by providing specific solutions for everyday problems. Some of the behaviours addressed are backtalk, biting other children, interrupting and lying.  Parent could find  practical advice in this section with almost one hundred pages devoted to answering these discipline problems.

All in all, the no cry discipline solution is a good parenting book.   I’d recommend it to parents who are at their wits end trying to handle temper tantrum, whining and fussing. It promotes positive parenting approach and stresses that there is  no  ONE magic solution.  I personally think this book more suitable tackling misbehaviour for under 4.   I’ve read plenty of parenting book and found that this book kind of summarizes nicely lots of parenting books.   So, it’s good in a way if you haven’t read many other parenting books. Some of the strategies are not new for me.  I found that, the method is a bit preaching for older children. We are supposed to tell them over and over again  but the downfall of that is, it didn’t let them think for themselves .  I started to look into different parenting book and found the book  ‘How to raise a thinking child’ provides  solutions to make children to think of different solutions of their own problems and feelings. I haven’t finished reading that book but we have done some activities describe in the book and I can already see a lot of improvement in my daughter’s behaviour.

Tags: Book, discipline, disiplin anak, parenting book

Funky Trunki

I had bad experiences travelling with a toddler, a buggy, and a hand luggage.  Once, the buggy was even gone missing. It was a nightmare, not mentioning that I was pregnant too at that time.  So, I went searching for a better way to travel with children.  This time, I was travelling with a 2 year old and a 5 year old.  I came across trunki and given it a lots of thought.  Although, the trunki is not recommended for under 3,  I thought I’d give it a try.  I bought two trunki, one in pink and the other in blue, so my children wouldn’t fight for them.

I like the trunki for my daughter (5 yo), because she can stir it by herself and can go really fast.  But, trunki was  not for my 2 yo son.  He struggled to stir so I had to pull his with the string.  The problem with pulling is, it kept falling sideways if I need to turn.  So, I ended up carrying trunki, my son and my hand luggage  (good that I wasn’t pregnant this time).  The string on the trunki is clipped with a plastic clip which I found not very sturdy.  The clip kept getting off and my daughter can clip and unclipping it pretty easily.

If you like to be the centre of attention, I’d recommend you to get a trunki.  They were head turners wherever we go.  Some people even took video of my children on the trunki.

At one point, my daughter clipped her brother’s trunki to hers and therefore she can pull him along.  It’s a good idea if we were in an empty hall but we were in one of the busiest airport in the world so he ended up knocking everyone.  Thinking back,  it  was kind of fun but if I had to do it again, I think I would leave my hand luggage behind, and travelled  just with the 2 trunkies.

The trunki can fit enough one child’s paraphernalia  for a day or two.  Each child had few reading books, activities books, changing clothing and toys.  They can be stored under the airplane seat, but I placed my son’s trunki up in the cabin storage while my daughter under the seat.  I didn’t fill my daughter’s trunki full so I can fill it up with my son’s stuff afterward.

One mistake I’ve made was I didn’t given my children a trial run at home with the trunki.  On the travelling day,  my two children went wild whizzing around the airport.  But after a while, especially waiting for the flight coming back, the novelty worn off and they seemed to know what to do with it, and the journey became much easier.

Bottom line, would I recommend trunki? Yes, for children older than 3 years old.  It looks really cute and keeps children busy while you’re waiting in the airport.

Note: It wasn’t me on the photo, it was my sister so I had to (sorry) crop her head, otherwise, she would kill me if she knew her photo was on my blog.

Tags: Children, children gear, koper anak, luggage, trunki

My Little Contribution To The Mother Earth

This is actually my repost from my writing that I submitted to cloth nappy tree and also posted in friendster’s blog.

Have you ever wondered how many disposable diapers (popok sekali pakai) that each child uses from birth to potty? It’s staggering 6000 disposables. In Canada and US alone 20,000,000,000 disposables discarded each year. Where do they go? They’re thrown into the landfill sites. Do you want to know what happen to them? As the landfill sites don’t provide condition for them to decompose, they become mummified and retain their original weight volume and form. Yep! They can’t degrade or decompose (as they’re more plastic than paper), and they will stay there for at least 500 years.

On top of that, human faeces can contain harmful pathogens (for example, babies who have been vaccinated for polio will excrete poliovirus) when faeces are discarded with disposable diapers there is potential for public exposure (via rodents, pets, flies or birds). We do like white diapers, don’t we! Do you know how they make these disposables so white? They’re made mostly from wood pulp which then undergoes whitening and softening process when it is exposed to chlorine-based bleaching agents. This process produces a harmful by-product called dioxin released into the environment which also remains in minute quantity in the wood pulps which are then transformed into disposables. Dioxin has been called the most toxic substance ever produced and has been associated with birth defects, miscarriage, cancer and genetic damage. No one knows exactly how much exposure to dioxin is required for disease to develop. It is toxic in very small amounts.

What is great about disposables is that they’re so absorbent. But, have you ever wondered why they are so absorbent. It’s because of another chemical in the disposables that is called sodium polyacrylate. This substance turns your baby’s urine into gel. Sodium polyacrylate can absorb 100 times its weight in liquid. This is why disposable diapers are so absorbent. The use of this chemical has been associated with severe diaper rash and bleeding perennial and scrotal tissue, because it pulls fluid so strongly that it excoriates human tissue. No neutral long term study of any kind has been done to assess the affect over time, of contact of this substance with vulnerable genital tissue.

I used to think that there’s no way I would use cloth diapers/nappies (popok kain). Are you mad? My life is hard enough with two kids and I don’t need extra load of work, cleaning the floor, wet mattress, etc plus extra washing clothing, bed sheet, blanket etc, etc. But, after 3 months of looking at, smelling piles of stinking disposables diapers in our bin, I started to get fed up and did more research. Hey!! The modern cloth diapers (popok kain) aren’t like the ones we used to know.  They’re cute, absorbent, easy to use, good for your baby’s health, and don’t forget you’re also helping the environment.

Many people would think that using cloth nappy is gross because you have to deal with poo. But, in my opinion, disposables are gross as you have this nappies with poo sitting in your bin for a week! With cloth, I use liners to line the nappies. You can choose paper, fleece or silk liners.  The biodegradable, unbleached paper liner can be thrown in the toilet and flushed after being pooed, so no poo sitting in your bin. The fleece and silk liners are washable. Once it has been pooed, it can be sprayed with water spray gun (like the one in modern indonesian toilet) to remove the poo, then they can be washed. How do you wash these cloth diapers? I don’t wash them but my washing machine does it for me;) Yep! You don’t need to do anything extra, no need to soak them, just dump the dirty cloth diapers in the tight closed lid nappy bucket and wash them in the washing machine on the washing day (2-3 days in between). Easy peasy!! But, how do we deal with stain? The sun is a natural bleaching agent! Try it for yourself if you don’t believe me.

To be honest, have you ever thought of being in your child shoes? How does it feel to sit on the disposable (plastic) diaper? (not forgetting that most children walk around and sit on the bulk gooey diaper after they peed on it). We, adults, like to wear nice cotton/silk underwear while our precious little prince/princess are wearing plastic nappies/diapers.

Tags: clodi, Cloth Diaper, limbah, popok kain, pospak, sampah