the Clueless Cebuana Mommy

Happy 5th Month Baby!

2011-09-19T06:42:00.000-07:00

Today is my baby's fifth month. Halfway to his grand 1st bday bash! hehehe.

This month I have decided to be a good mommy and make something special for my little boy (the past few months I have been rather remiss in this aspect. For some reason, everytime it rolls around to the 19th, I become so busy with work).

So TTFN for now. Have to focus on the month-birthday boy. :)

Like Father, Like Son

2011-09-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

Many, many years ago when I lived in Cebu (let's not divulge years now because the age would show. haha), there was this store in the mall named 'Like Father Like Son'. They sold clothes for, yep you guessed right, father and sons. Matching outfits. I found it really cute.

Fast forward to present day. And I find myself with a son. And (obviously) his father. I know I'm being corny and I'm offending sensible minds out there, but I really find it endearing if my little P and big P would dress alike. P abhors the notion. But it's a free country and as I usually iron his clothes, then he basically wears whatever I give to him. bwahaha. And little P...he has no choice in this matter for now.

So I found myself browsing amazon.com for options. And there are so many!

This one is for the sporty father-son team:

This one is a more simple, cool, laid back shirt

This one is just adorable!

So many options. I have two weeks to make up my mind as my friend would be in the US (so I get free shipping to Singapore . Yipee!)

I told my husband he's lucky our baby is not a girl. Can you just imagine the matching outfits we would have? *dreamy* So looking forward to making the second one. lolz.

shoulda, woulda, coulda (my breastfeeding story)

2011-09-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to find my baby boy smiling at me. Apparently he has been awake for quite some time and just waiting for me or his dad to wake up (he sleeps between me and hubby).

who could resist this smile at 7am?

I automatically offered my breast for nursing. He seemed satisfied for some time, but after 30 minutes, became quite agitated already. He obviously needed more milk than my breast was currently offering.

A sleepy P got up to prepare the formula and he jokingly said before leaving the room 'Breastmilk na! No need to sterilize'. I know my hubby didn't mean to make that hirit hurt me, but it did. It does. Even till now, I suffer a severe case of breast-envy. I envy those mothers who have a lot of the magic milk to offer their babies. I envy those who have the luxury of not lugging around a large bag filled with formula bottles. I even envy those moms I see in coffee shops who are nursing their babies under their nursing bibs.

Right now I am still direct feeding and pumping (at work). While I would like to think I am supplementing BF with FF (positive thinking always!), I know if the quantities were measured, it is more like BF is the supplement. I hate that it has turned out this way.

When I was 5 months pregnant, I had already determined I would be exclusively breastfeeding our little P. I even bought the Medela pump from Amazon. P and I attended birth classes which also discussed breastfeeding. When I got to the nesting phase, I prepared all of our baby's stuff minus the sterilizer and bottles and formula. We never bought any! I even bought my nursing dresses!

Looking back on the day I gave birth, I have a few regrets. Things I wish I did, or wished I had the courage to be more assertive. Maybe if I undid those, things would be different now and I wouldn't need Enfamil or other formula milk.

1. I should have asked for baby P to nurse me after our OB stitched me up. I was told to do that during our birth classes. I don't know what made me forget to request for it.

2. I should have insisted the baby room in with us so I can breastfeed him at night. Unfortunately, my fear of breaking the baby (I couldn't lift the baby that time yet. I had to have the nurse give him to me. I was such a scaredy cat, I know!)

3. When we got home, I should have been more assertive to not take formula. Unfortunately, the first night we were home from the hospital, the baby couldn't get any and he was very VERY noisy. And I was made to feel (though they did not intend it to be that way I am sure) that if I did not give the baby formula, he would SUFFER. So my hubby had to rush to the store to buy formula, bottles and sterilizers. *sigh*

4. I should not have been too chicken when my nipples started to hurt from nursing. Even if I was too sore, I should have plodded on!

5. I should have read up more on nursing skeds, pumping skeds. I should have insisted my husband take the breastfeeding class too (he was absent for that one session as the dads were not 'mandatory'). I never thought to do much research because BF is natural, right? So it should be easy and come to me like instinct. And the books always said the milk would definitely come as the body would produce what the baby needed. *sigh* Quite misleading actually. It never mentioned about the milk coming late, about the pressure a new mom would feel to use formula when she couldn't see the milk, that babies cluster feed especially in the few days, and that in the first two weeks, your nipples would hurt like crazy!

I learned my mistakes on little P's fourth week. By then, my supply was dwindling, his appetite was rapidly increasing and my maternity leave days were winding down.

I'm still pumping (but not much). And I can direct feed from 5pm till 7am. But in between, my baby gets formula. I've taken all the fenugreek and malunggay pills I can. But I feel I am fighting a losing battle. I already know that on P's 6month, I might have to give up BF altogether. And already it is making me quite depressed.

It makes me more determined though, that for our next baby, he (or hopefully a she!) would be exclusively breastfed! :)

New Project: Marco for 365 Days

2011-09-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

When I was a preggy mom and lugging around baby P inside the belly, I promised myself I would take at least one pic of him everyday. Then for his 1st bday, I would compile it into an album called Baby in 365 Days (or something like that. I was hard pressed to think of a rather imaginative title that time).

How hard could it be right? It should be no effort to take pictures of my adorable baby and I already had the perfect point and shoot camera.

What I didn't account for was how time consuming baby-caring can be. And I had a bit of the postpartum blues (or maybe just nasty shots of hormone-driven anger flowing into my system every other day). Plus I had to work for a part of my maternity leave.

So now four months later, I find myself scrounging around my SD, my husband's SD , our cellphones and iPad for baby P's pictures. It is painstaking work but really fun. Maybe I will even create a separate blog page for that! So cool! Then compile it into an album from Photobook Singapore. Or a DIY scrapbook (hmm should find a mommy blog teaching how to create those).

Just looking at his pictures from 3 months ago made me realize my baby P is growing up so fast. Maybe even too fast! Makes me sad and happy at the same time.

I get a bad case of ningas cogon*** everytime I start a project. So I am documenting in my new blog with you my ever supportive mommy friends as witnesses that today, September 15 marks the start of my first baby arts and crafts project! (clap clap clap)

***ningas is a NEGATIVE trait where you start to do something but fail to follow through with it to the end. Definitely something I should (SHOULD) remove from my system.hehehe.

Bumbo Dumbo Me!

2011-09-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

Today, in a fit of retail therapy (I realized when I became a mom that baby stores and baby shopping have become my panacea for a bad day), I purchased the bumbo chair without any research beforehand.

Now, while browsing the net, I came across this article by chance:

http://forthelove.hubpages.com/hub/Bumbo-Baby-Chair-Seat-is-NOT-a-Baby-Sitter

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08046.html

My heart almost stopped when I read the article. Did I just buy a contraption that would, eeek, hurt my baby? Did I just pay 66 SGD for something utterly useless?

Thankfully, before I hit my head on the wall, I read the comments. And realized it was a "joke only" article. Although the humor escaped me, I sighed with relief. I wasn't so clueless to buy this after all. But next time, read up first before giving in to retail, especially when it's for my litte P!

This was a close one. whew. This clueless mommy will need to sleep this off.

How To Take a Passport Photo of Your Baby

2011-09-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Tip 1: Don't play the CLOSE OPEN game

Tip 2: Don't be too funny

Tip 3: Don't scare the baby

In the end, we got the scared looking one for his pass. Hope immigration still allows him to get through. lol.

Vanilla Cupcake with Raspberry Frosting

2011-09-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

There is cause for great jubilation in my house. Almost a year after I bought my oven, I have finally produced pastry! Yipee!

In my defense, the oven did not exactly just stand there and gather dust. I had used it, but mostly for some of my "lazy" cooking. You know, the type where I get home from work, pop in the pork, chicken or beef into the oven, set it to 250 degrees Celsius and watch television while waiting for the baking to be done. No hassle, less effort and I get to have some me time before my hubby P arrived from work.

I chose this yummy cupcake recipe from http://www.laurainthekitchen.com/. Here is the recipe link.

My friend recommended this to me. She swears by Laura Vitale. All her baking following her recipe turned out really great (and I can attest to that having been the recipient of a cookie or two (or three or four or five. hehe).

Since it was my first time to bake, I followed the recipe and instructions faithfully. I forgot to add in the milk for the first batch (I had set it aside to pour in slowly like the instruction in the video but I completely forgot about it).

I served the cupcakes to my P and to my folks who are staying with us. They loved it! And we had friends who came over for our CFC Household and I included my pink cupcakes as dessert. It was a hit (although there were only three of them). They even thought I store bought the icing and the cupcake *grin*

P teased me that it was only one try and I shouldn't feel so smug. But I can't help it! I have baked a cupcake and used a mixer! I can be on Masterchef! hahaha.

Just kidding. :)

Sinu naman magbabasa nyan? (who will read it?)

2011-09-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

This was my hubby P's very supportive reaction when I excitedly told him I wanted to document my mommy (mis)adventures in a blog. To be fair to him, he has been witness to my numerous half-baked projects in the past. These I excitedly began with such rapturous enthusiasm but dropped immediately once my ADD self got bored.

Well maybe no one would read this but me. (And P if I force him to. hehe). But I was looking at my baby -- little P because they look so much alike! -- and I realized he is growing so fast. And I want to document his baby years because soon, he would want to be independent and be on his own.

Plus I need all the help I can get and I just realized that there are a lot of mommy blogs out there I want to be friends with. hahaha.

So welcome to me and my clueless mommy misadventures. Because that's what I really am right now, clueless but doing my best for my wonderful hubby P and yummy baby little P!