Little Thing Can Do Many Things

A trial. A new way to blog. Has successfully blogging from my new toy, a little nokia mobile phone (E71)! It might be a little bit late to get amaze by how this little thing can do so many things, but better than never. It is certainly fun!

Hair Done

Before and after hair cut

After a very long wait, we finally went to kids salon on weekend to have my little boy's hair done.

It was the first hair cut since he was born! OMG, what a drama! He cried, scream, struggled, nothing could sooth his down. Not even a dummy! Impressed with the hair dresser, he worked so fast in the middle of all the drama, and the result was not bad at all!

He looked so different, so that I have to get used to his new look for two days :)

Welcome

I'm welcoming two important things today:

Welcome to my first nephew, Rafael Tristan Prasodjo, into the world. Cutie Rafa was born today around 4.18pm , weight 2,95kg, height 47 cm. Congratulations to my dearest sister and hubby! May God bless Rafa, may he bring light and happiness in the family.

And welcome to my little boy, as he finally became a member of Indo citz today. Now he is an Indonesian, as well as Australian until he is 18 years old, when he have to choose only one nationality to be hold. This is the photo that we use for his Indo passport :)

Skin Pressure

It's been months when I have skin problems. First was my hands, then whole body. It gets worse lately. Rashes, spots, itchiness, dry, sore, crack, you name it all. It started to disturb my sleep. I visited dermatologist a few times, used creams and tablets. The diagnosis was allergy to chemical products. I changed all my soaps. Hand and body soap, reduce the amount of cleaning and washing my hands, and use gloves every time I was dishes. But all no use. Went to another doctor, and the diagnosis the same, but she prescribe me other medication. I guess I'm allergic to something new which I don't know of.

What I hate the most is that when the medication is not successful, the doctor would come to the easiest conclusion. That I might be stress and tense.

Both doctors mentioned stress. I hate that word, I don't think I'm stress, I don't think I'm tense. The other doctor recommend me to have at least 2 hour totally only and for myself - everyday.
Having said that, I just realise that I practically had no time for MYSELF since I gave birth. No time, no maid, new maid, no babysitter, have to cook, and million other excuses. I'm talking about time for myself, like shopping ONLY for MYSELF, massage (last massage was 6 months ago), meni/pedi (last pedi was 14 months ago), Yoga/pilates/swim/gym/painting/jewelery classes, etc. I have no ME TIME for more that a year! Everything (time, energy, love, tender, care, etc) is all for the little boy all day and night 24/7. I'm drained!

Still, I'm not sure if this is the cause of my skin problems.

Still, I don't know how to change my lifestyle, make me have my ME TIME, as we are moving out in 6 weeks! I know I will be super-duperly busy and tense in the next few weeks for our move.


Ah well,... just another series of my life....

stinky view

Here, in this town, not much grass can be found. As the spring is here and hot weather is starting to fill the air, a vacant land at the back of our apartment is still pretty green. It seemed to be a perfect place for sheeps and goats to munch their yummy food. But lately the owner is not only bring them to eat, buat also to drink, and to be milked! This is the view from my bedroom window. Pictures was 15x zommed. I even can smell them as I live at 4th floor.

little zombie

My little boy can walk!! After hang on to furnitures n hands for quite a while, suddenly he walked without support, just a week after our Cyprus holiday. The way he step his both legs and how he raised both arms to the front, made I and hubby call him a little zombie, but the cute one as he always smile or laugh when he did it. He is now more confident and can't stop walking here and there around the house. Nothing can stop him to walk accross the room, not even a door! Life is definetely more exciting for him. It's fun for me but it drives me nuts sometimes! He started to refuse to sit down properly for eat. So I have to chase him around ! Anyway today we had fun playing hide and seek for the first time. It was funny, it was fun! :)

B'day Boy

I and D' Boyz

Happy birthday to my baby boy! OMG...he is no longer a baby, he is a toddler now! But he will still a baby for me, maybe forever:) Can't believe a whole year has gone by since I gave birth! A lot has happened, in his life and mine, and it has been amazing for all of us.

We were in Cyprus on that day. So not much we can do other than had a big chinese lunch in a fancy chinese restaurant near the old kyrenia harbour. It was pricey but the food was good. Evan had lots of shrimp crackers and had his first birthday fried-noodle. Surprisingly, I found one of the waitress name is Putu, and of course she was a Balinese. I didn't expect to see any indonesian in that island, but I'm happy to finally found Indonesian who doesn't work as a maid. She was nice, looked smart and skilled.

It was late when we finally found a patisserie shop and they only have small cakes, so we bought a few. We used the only round cake for candle and photo. But Evan was so excited so that he smashed the poor little cake:).


we had to hold his hands so he wouldn't smashed the cake again. We were so busy with the b'day boy so didn't realise the candle was the other way around. (;p)

We had his b'day present at home. So the only present he got on that day was from the landlord of the villa we stayed in. It was a card, a pin, and 20 euro money, which then we use it for buying toys in the airport.

On the way back that day, we dropped by to a Church where packed with people. Apparently they were rehearsing for something that night. Not able to light a candle and pray, we ended up with talking with an African priest who then prayed with us for Evan's b'day! How special, heh?! :)

I and hubby look forward to watch him grow and to bring more happiness to our family. May God bless him.

Look at Evan's transformation since he was born!

Still a baby

Once upon a time, there is a little boy who just turned 1 year old when he was in the land of Venus, and get his birthday present a week later at home when he returned.....

Land Of Venus

Been a long time since my last post,... the reason is that we were trying to find sun and fresh air. So off we went to Cyprus on 8-22 April, and it made us celebrating Evan's first birthday on 12 of April quitely there. With the handful littleboy, we only managed to explore North Cyprus. It's a pleasant, layback place. Lots to see, nice people, fresh air, and gorgeous ancient ruins and castles. We did find sun, but not as warm. The weather still considerably cold, made it impossible for us to swim (which I looked forward to).

Some photos can be viewed here.

Life is now back as hectic as usual. Will try to make time for some words soon. :)

Almost A Year

Evan, 11 month old

My baby boy is getting older. Though he is probably not gaining so much weight. He looked slimmer, not very fatty and chubby, but healthy, grow, and develop well. I enjoyed watching him mastering new skills day by day.

At his 10 month old age, I could say he was really on the move. He could control his movement from standing to sitting without toppling over. He learned to balance his body so that he could get up from kneeling to stand up on the floor only for a few second. He was also started to walk by holding on hands or furniture. So we had a lot of fun practises pre-walking movements He loved pushing furniture and we started to hold his hands to walk him around the house. He even could stand unaided and made a few steps if I let go of his hand!

His exploration on food has widen. One day we went to a restaurant (TGIF) and had a blast of new food. He had his first french fries and fried sweet potato and pear in slices, and he loved them. But I still give him plain chicken/meat porridge with vegetable on daily basis.

There's something that quite annoying. That was when he mastering his fine grasp between finger and thumb, and very accurate, and have full control of his hands. He was so in love with dropping and picking up games. He would drop food, toys, or spoon-everything endlessly from highchair then watch them fall, then shout and point for me to pick them up, only for him to drop them again.

However, I was so excited to see that he finally could stack his sized cups and rings in the pole, and that he enjoyed put things to the bucket or container, not for so long, though, as he got distracted to something else easily.

Another interesting thing was he would stay still and listen when I talk as if I was reading one of his book. At least it save my time and energy when feeding and changing nappy. His favorite was the story about Toby's Train :)

As for the schedule, there was a slight change:

7am = wake up, bottle
8.30 = breakfast: cereal &fruit
9am = bath
10am = bottle
10.15 = morning nap
12pm = lunch : porridge

2pm = snack (fruit or bread or anything)
3pm = bottle
3.30 = afternoon nap
5 pm = dinner : porridge
06.30 = bath, then play and read book
7.30 = bottle
8 pm = sleep
4 am = bottle

New other things he had last month:

- I notice sometimes lullaby bothering him. He would put his hand on my mouth as if saying "please don't sing anymore, i want to sleep!" :)

-However, lullaby still be a perfect weapon to make him settle when restless or difficult to get to sleep. Come To the Window and Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star usually will make him finally asleep and settle.

- Having the room pitch dark will make him go to sleep better.

- Walking walking walking. That's what he want most of the time when he is awake. Hardly play with his toys anymore. He just love to walk and touch things on the way, or walk and push chairs or tables.

The highlight was just a day before he turned 11 month old, somehow he tripped when he crawl. He bumped his face to the hard floor. That was the first time he got really injured after lots of hit, bump, and fall. This time his lips were bleeding, quite bad, followed to the swollen of his upper lip. I learned that the ice was helpful to stop the mild bumping injury. His swollen lip was gone after around 3 hours. Still, it was a heartbreaking looking at him bleeding and crying.

M Day

It's a Mother's Day today here in this part of the world.

I celebrated by a surprise cake bought by Hubby and a time-off to the mall. Wish Sale still on, though :(

Mother's Day here is actually quite big. Sign and offer in relation to this day are everywhere in the mall.

Mother's day in Australia is in May, and December in Indonesia. This year I should have 3x mother's day! :)

Something to play with

Just an update of new toys I recently crazy about

* Canon EOS 450D - I finally bought it. But it's not on my hand yet, coz I didn't buy it here. The price here is ridiculously expensive (3x more expensive). So I asked Dad to buy it for me, and i'll pick it up later, in Jakarta, hopefully soon, as planned. Can't wait to play with it.

* Scrapblog.com -Love this. I've been trying to make the real scrapbook for four years and have no result. It need lots of time, material, and equipment. But with this digital scrapbook, at least I can finally start to make one.

* epaper.kompas.com - a digital version of Kompas newspaper. Now I can read Kompas newspaper without even subscribe it, whenever, wherever I am! It's free, easy to use, and fast. They upload new issue exactly at 00:00 WIB so I practically can read it first (it's 5 hours ahead than Jakarta, here) while people in Indo still sleeping and will get and read the real issues in the morning-their time. You can even read issues from days before! Impressive!

* Facebook.com - of course, same as thousand other people in the world. It's amazing on how it could drag my memory into my life 20 years ago, how I could meet lots of old friends. I enjoyed looking at friend's photos and their status, as well as changing my own status and make comments on other's. I even quite addicted to one of the virtual e-game they have. It's sooo bad so that facebook is the first site I visited everyday and everytime I go online. But I know I'm not alone :) Wonder how long this Fb-euphoria would last.

Almost Walking

Evan, 10 months old

My baby boy is 10 months old now. I looked at his photos when he was still a small baby. Such a different look! His face is not as round and full as before. Yet he still looks sweet-cute little asian boy. He is also very very active, that made me finally give up to do everything by myself and decided to have a full time maid. Means that I'm now have maid who come everyday, works 7 hours a day, except weekends and public holiday. I worried at first, but I'm glad now. She is not the best, but she is quite good. She can do almost everything including cooking, baking, and sewing. And most important is that she listen to what I said and get along well with Evan. However I haven't have a heart to leave Evan with her alone yet.

As usual, here is the update news about what has happened in the 9th months age.

Nine months was the time to change a few things, again. It was the time for doctor check up and another boost of Hep B vaccination. He was 10,5kg, 77 cm. Couldn't believe he only gain 1 kg in 3 months. But doctor said it's normal considering he is more active and release more energy.

He got better in cruising along the floor. I could say he mastered standing-up-with-support last month. He learned to bend his knee to go back down after standing up. He got to stand up and browse tables, curious and touch everything on the table. A clock and a frame broke from this new habit. He started to stand without support in the cot only for a few second, and started to move his legs high when I try to hold him to walk. His hand, feet and body are getting stronger so that he could push chairs and tables when he kneel or walk. We started to get busy watching him so he didn't fall to the hard floor. Though he bumped his head couple times on the floor or wood furniture and had bruises (ouch!).

He started to like books more. He could flip the book's pages and busy with them for a couple minutes (only). :)

The highlight for last month was the change of routine and diet as doctor said he is ready to eat more solid food like rice, chicken, and meat. Oh dear,.. that was hard. There was a trial and error to make porridge that he likes. It takes about 3 weeks until I finally found the right way.

He didn't look impressed at first, but then gradually he get used to new food. But it quite hard to feed him in the high chair. He just didn't like to get trap in the chair. I gave him variation of vegetable, meat and chicken, plus variation snack like cheerio, biscuits, boiled pasta/carrot/broccoli, steamed fruits, and bread. He started to eat french fries to sometimes when we eat out. He could eat finger food by himself and enjoyed them. I don't - it's soooo messy! ;0

We also change the way he drink milk, so that since then he always had milk before bed, which make my life easier. He would easily finish the milk and fall asleep. Though he still need a doze of milk in the middle of the night to make him go through the night.

So here is his schedule started last month

7am = wake up, bottle

8.30 = breakfast: cereal &fruit

9am = bath

10am = bottle

10.15 = morning nap

12pm = lunch : porridge

02.30 = bottle

3pm = afternoon nap

4.30 = dinner : porridge

05.30 = bath, then play and read book

6.30 = bottle

7 pm = sleep

3 am = bottle

Other than that, here are some new habits and skills I acknowledge :

- he shrank his eyes, making his eyes looked more chinese when he smile.

- when have bottle before bed, I'll hold him on my lap, and he'll hold the bottle with his right hand, and the other hand will scratch his un-itchy head.

- started new routines before going to bed at night: 4B (Bath, Book, Bottle, Bed)

- No more interested in Danny & Daddy tv show. Watch Barney sometimes. Looked interested in quick changing moving pictures like ad on TV.

- Song he like: The Wheel on The Bus, Incy Wincy Spider, Balonku, and Naik2 Ke Puncak Gunung.

- His favorite book is Barney is Big and Busy Book: In the Garden.

Kaki Ayam Buat Si Kecil

Pernah makan kaki ayam alias ceker? Gue belom. Kalo liat orang makan ceker merah dimsum sih kayaknya sih enak ya. Kalo dipikir-pikir, kasian juga itu ayam, dari ujung kepala sampe ujung kaki di dayagunakan manusia. Tapi ga semua manusia mendayagunakan ayam sesadis itu. Cuma orang Asia kebanyakan, terutama orang Indo dan cina. :) Di dunia Barat dan Timur Tengah makan kepala n kaki ayam termasuk gak umum.

Sehubungan dengan si raja kecil yang gak lama lagi bakal belajar jalan, gue dapet info dari para tetua terutama my mum kalo si raja kecil HARUS makan kuah/sop ceker. Katanya sih supaya kakinya kuat dan bisa cepet jalan. Gue sih setuju ajah kalo emang buat kebaikan. Tapi daddynya si raja kecil ketawa gede banget waktu gue kasih tau. Soalnya gak ada di kamus nya makan kaki ayam, apalagi buat bayi. Tapi dia juga setuju aja kalo emang baik tujuannya hehehe... Masalahnya, dimana cari ceker di dunia antah berantah sini?!

Untung gue punya banyak teman yang baik hati. Tanya sini, tanya sana, akhirnya ada juga yang punya kenalan tukang jagal ayam di pasar. :) Seplastik isi kurang lebih 20 ceker akhirnya nyampe juga di rumah kemarin. Geli juga liat ceker putih mentah banyak begitu. Tapi yang gak kalah heboh kok malah suami gue. Dengan semangat empat lima dia susun beberapa kaki di piring terus ngotot mau berfotoan sama sepiring ceker mentah. Ck ck ck...ternyata bul-bul ada yang norak juga ya :D

True Glue

You won't imagine how many things need to be repaired in my house. Broken scissor’s and knife’s handle, statues, ceramics, cups, clock, hairpins, jewellery, sandal, shoes etc, you name it. Amazingly someone has invented a very special glue, Super Glue! Believe it or not this glue is really helpful. Anything broken, I’ll try to repair them with Super Glue first. Most of the time it will work, the broken items fixed. They will look as good as new, work perfectly as it should, and the best part is I don’t have to throw them away.

Since then, Super Glue became one of the-must-have item in the house. Just like Panadol ! :) I always have Super Glue ready to use in my fridge, of course neatly covered so it won’t contaminate the foods.

I just learned recently that Super Glue not only can amend things in the house, but also can to fix my sore hand! Recently my hand suffered from severe dryness, mostly from the cold and dry winter weather. But also from the water and soap, as I wash my hands and dishes hundred time a day for the bub. At some part it become so bad that my skin will crack and bleed, as if it was cut by a knife. After tried so many cream and moisturiser, Body Butter from The Body Shop is the best to heal the dryness, but not the crack. I was then did a small research on the net, surprisingly few people, including doctor suggest to apply super glue on the crack as it dry quickly and does not sting. I thought it was the most bizarre advise I've ever heard, but I try it anyway. And it works! At least the crack sealed, no more bleeding and sting. Just hope there is no major side effect by this. ;p

Thank you to Dr Coover, who invented this powerly sticky adhesive :)

Dad's Birthday Today

Today is my dad's birthday. I and the boys here celebrate it by enjoying my Mie Goreng Special Ulang Tahun for lunch. It taste better than fried noodle we bought from a noodle restaurant in town. :)

Happy birthday, Dad! I pray that God grant him health and happiness. Wish I were there and celebrate it together with family.

Entertaining/Heartbreaking

It took almost a year to finish The Witch Of Portobello. Whilst it was the busiest year i've ever had with the pregnancy, the birth, and the baby, reading was not so entertaining and relaxing. But it might also the book itself that I found almost have the same rhytym as any other Coelho's books, that bored me a bit. Thought I need a change.

Books I recently read, written by a new author, Khaled Hosseini. Kite Runner, I read it in 1,5 week. I would have not be able to put down the book and read the whole in one day if I was not too busy and tired. It was the first book that brought me to tears. After finishing the book, I couldn't wait to see the movie. The movie was disappointing, i guess the same as many other movies version from a novel. Many details were missing, story got changed, and the people are different than I pictured. Done nothing but destroying my imagination.

Then I didn't wait to read Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Of Splendid Sun. I finish it in about 2 weeks. It was such a powerful story that brought me to emotional distress! :) Made me realise how fortunate I am to be what I am, what I become, what I have now as a women.

Both books were written in very detail. They have words full of quotes, written in uncomplicated way. Each pages dragged me to enter different world, as if watching a movie in the cinema. I don't remember when was the last time I went to the cinema. It was really ages ago. But if it was a really good movie, my seat in the dark little cinema will be a place to go into different world, place to forget about everything in your life, and when the movie finished and the light back on, bam! disoriented, then reminds me to be back to the reality. That's how I feel when reading his entertaining though heartbreaking books.

cruising along

My baby boy is now 9 month-old. Gee.. time flies. Nine is a big number, when things are switch around again. Diet, routines, timetable, attitude, habits, you name it. Feels like I start all over again. I found out that the thoughts about getting older means getting easier to take care of is truly wrong. Well, in some ways are easier but most of the other ways are more complicated and tiring! Especially for me who have to watch him 24/7 alone - most of the time.

Anyhoo, last month was fun and hectic. It was when Evan turned 8 month-old and when he had his first Christmas and new year, when we had first holiday together, and most importantly, it's when he started to cruise along the floor and furniture.

From all the skills and improvement he had last month, the highlight was that he was finally out of our room and sleep in his own room night and day. :)

He started to eat fruits mix with cereal which he loves and started to eat biscuits as snacks about late last month. It calm him down for a few minutes, which give me time to do things peacefully.

As he mastered sitting on the 7th month, last month he mastered crawling. He also started to pull himself up to a standing position while holding onto furniture as support. At the end of last month he could stand up easily with support of things surround him. However didn't know how to get back down. He would tumble his butt down. Thanks to pampers, his butt is fine even though he bumped it to the hard stone floor. This newfound mobility means that he was entering the land of bumps and falls, which forced me to watch him very closely every minute when he was awake. Though he bumped his head to the wall and floor couple of times. However, I enjoyed watching him explore his surroundings and pull him up if he was getting too far, such as reach my sandals and start to chew them. :)

He had one tooth emerged from his top gum and started to make babbly sound, likes "bababa", "mamama", and "bububu". A new show on TV made him sit quietly, it called Danny and Daddy. Baby is such a strange creature. I don't know what he sees in that show, but he will sit and watch with serious look, just for 10 minutes, that's how long the show is. I wish it goes longer. :)

The holiday to aqaba was new to Evan, and challenging for us. We planned to have another holiday in April, it will be more challenging as we might need to fly, and Evan would be almost 1 year old by then.

Teary Playtime Day

Yesterday was a playgroup day. Not many of us, only 4 mothers including me. All of other mothers have 2 year old boy, and so make my baby boy the youngest. The idea is to get together so the kids can play and learn to socialise (as they were too young to be at school and too energetic to be just stay at home), while the mums can have a break from their routine and enjoy the chat and food.

My baby boy is actually can’t play and interact with the other kids much, as he is way too young than the others. However it’s good for him to get out the house once a while and see other people. He doesn’t like stranger, but it gets better since our new year holiday. Today he had lots of smile and enjoy playing with new toys.

One of us is actually new. I met the mother first at lunch with the ladies few months ago, and invited her to join us as soon as I know that she has 2 year old boy at home. We have the playgroup at her house this time. What I didn’t know is that the boy is super hyperactive. In contrary with the other boys who were quite timid. They could scream, laugh and play in a normal way. But I found the new boy is outrageously aggressive and active beyond control. He would grab toys that other boy holds. He wouldn’t let other boys play with his toys. Then suddenly he could change into a good boy when he asked other boys to play with him. But not long after the other boys would cried, and I saw the new boy hit the other boy or forcedly grabbed toys from his friends. Once I saw the new boy hit the other boy’s head with a toy-car. Then hit again with a big spoon. The other time hit with his hands many times when the other boys cornered on the sofa! Not that his mum did anything. She gave a strong voice to him to behave and once put him at the corner and smack him. But seemed he didn’t listen. The only time he cried was when his mum punished him and put him at the corner for ‘time-out’.

I’m glad he left my baby boy alone, and quite surprise that he let Evan played with his toys. He only disturb Evan when he was sleeping in his stroller, so Evan only have 45 minutes morning nap. Anyway, it was a bit scary to see a boy like that. I just only hope that I can raise Evan well so he can behave, not violent, but also can defense himself when needed. Aah.. what a hard task...!

Update:
Heard that the other boy were crying when he sleep the night after playgroup day. Seemed it was a bit traumatic for him. However his mum is willing to meet the boys again with hope that her son will learn to defense himself, and the naughty boy will learn to behave. We'll see what's going to happen. (10 Jan)

A Year Has Gone

What did we do on new year eve? We got exhausted and fell asleep at 10! I was hoping to wake up from the sound of fireworks as we stayed in a hotel near the marina. But nope, we were all fast asleep and year 2008 gone just like that. It was of course year 2009 when I woke up to feed Evan at 3am. And apparently there were no fireworks or other event whatsoever. Everything's cancelled due to security reason, they said.

But at least we were out the house, and out of town this time. After all of the countries and places we planned to go we finally only manage to go down south of Jordan, Aqaba. It's a city at the seaside where the weather is good throughout the year, and where all the water activity is available. It's a small and touristic town about 4 hours drive from Amman.

The temperature around 17 degree, enough for us to wear coat while strolling outdoor. Still, warmer than Amman. The private beach at the hotel we stayed in was quite nice. But the water quite cold. Evan didn't like it, so we didn't play in the beach much. But it's nice to finally see real beach and sea. Other than that we enjoyed strolling along the town. Bit strange to see some couples walking hand in hand (as it wasn't allowed in the town we live in), or girls with short pants, or girls with bikinis.

Anyway, year 2008 was great. I have a baby boy, my sister got married - then pregnant, my little sister graduated and got a job, my mum visiting us in la la land, and we went to new and amazing places. What a busy year.

Year 2009 is here. This year will be another busy and exciting year with new things going on. Hope everything will goes as smooth as planned.

Happy New Year everyone.

Note: our holiday photos are available on the 'images'.