Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Hello everyone,

Here’s one exciting news to share : Baby Brie’s ‘tummy journey’ was featured on Mother & Baby Indonesia magazine! Yep, our little family is in this month’s issue! =)

Every month the magazine has a feature called ‘Great Expectation’, and I’m this month’s Mommy! *am very honoured*

The whole article was based on my ‘Week-by-Week Pregnancy Journal Page‘. It was summarised and became a ‘Monthly Pregnancy Journal’ by the magazine.

*Thanks Sandra for the nice write-up!*

I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to share how my pregnancy journey was.

And Brie, well … she sure is a blessed baby indeed to have her 9-month-journey featured and published! Her first official media feature =)

Anyway.

Hope what’s been shared can be a blessing to many.

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Click to read or view larger images of PAGE ONE and PAGE TWO.

Life is full of ups and downs. Things change and nothing stays the same, … except for the unchanging God, who was and is and will be the same.

HE is faithful and HE delivers what HE has promised. HE is loving and HE never fails to watch over us. And, HE will give us the strength that we need every single day, as we go through life and its ups and downs.

Let’s learn to put our trust in HIM.

Learn to believe that HE knows what’s best for us.

And learn to let HIM be our Guide, as we learn to walk that walk of faith.

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BE STRONG IN THE LORD

Be strong in the Lord and be of good courage
Your mighty Defender is always the same
Mount up with wings as the eagle ascending
Victory is sure when you call on His name

Be strong be strong be strong in the Lord
And be of good courage for He is your guide
Be strong be strong be strong in the Lord
And rejoice for the victory is yours

So put on the armor the Lord has provided
And place your defense in His unfailing care
Trust Him for He will be with you in battle
Lighting your path to avoid every snare

Be strong in the Lord and be of good courage
Your mighty Commander will vanquish the foe
Fear not the battle for the victory is always His
He will protect you wherever you go

[By Linda Lee Johnson, 1979]

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Click HERE to listen to the hymn on Youtube.

When you have a baby, one of the things that we parents will naturally pay serious attention to is childhood immunisations. Especially here in Singapore, where the Ministry of Health regards this immunisation issue seriously.

All my three kids were born here in Singapore, so I thought I should share some info on vaccinations and how things are done here.

Here goes.

– Babies are all given the BCG jab (on their buttock) before they ‘check out’ of the hospital after delivery

– Each baby is also given a ‘health book’ by the respective hospital

Important: Parents MUST make sure NOT to lose that book (because you’ll need it to get the kid to Primary School here! They’ll check and ensure that all scheduled vaccinations have been completed)

– Every time a ‘scheduled’ vaccination is completed, the doctor will immediately fill out a form on the child’s behalf (that’s to be sent to the Ministry of Health), jot down the details of the jab in the book, officially sign it, and put a ‘stamp’ on it.

– Experts have now come up with a 6-in-1 vaccine, which basically means, instead of getting 6 jabs, a child gets all in 1 jab!  (Well, something like that. Better go and ask your doctor, if you want to be extra sure =)

– And if you’re going for a 6-in-1 vaccine, the ‘immunisation schedule’ then becomes:

Birth: BCG and Hepatitis (For Brie’s case, she only received the BCG jab at the hospital)
2 mth: 6 in 1
4 mth: 6 in 1
6 mth: 6 in 1

Click HERE to see Singapore’s complete immunisation schedule.

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Brie was still not quite 100% well when she was 2 months old (she had quite a bad cough before then), so we only brought her to be vaccinated today, when she’s close to turning 12 weeks old.

We took her to our usual GP and the Doc did a quick check up before giving her the jab (eg. Her weight, length, head circumference, hips, etc)

Brie cried for a good 10 seconds after getting the needle, and she was all okay after that.

I think the colourful stickers around the clinic managed to grab her attention =)

Anyway, her next jab will be when she’s 4 months old.

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Quick stats and updates, as at 12 weeks :

– Weight: 6,6kg

– Length: 60cm

– Head circumference: 39cm

– Smiles back at us, coos a lot

– Can lift head at 90deg angle for at least 20 seconds by now.

– Has started to sleep through the night *woohoo!*, like for a good 9 hours straight without waking up for a feed. Errr, Mom on the other hand gets a *really* bad engorgement in the morning!

– Has found THE hand, and THE thumb! (read: sucks fist or puts thumb into mouth)

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I wonder how childhood immunisations are done in other countries. Can anyone share?

Also, if you can add more info to whatever that I’ve written above, please please do and share in the comment box yeah! Am sure it’ll be useful to many other parents! Thanks everyone!

I recently came across this cute video and I thought of sharing it with you, especially with ALL MOMS out there!

I jotted down its lyrics too! Check it out!

Enjoy the video – The Mom Song! =)

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The Mom Song

If you have a stroller,
but you’re still a rock-and-roller
You’re a MOM!

If you’re tired of doing dishes,
And you know who Elmo’s fish is
You’re a MOM!

If you have a lot of fun,
But your work is never done,
You’re a MOM!

If your living room floor,
looks like a toy store,
You’re a MOM!

You’re the Boss, the Driver, the ultimate Survivor,
A Doctor, a Cooker, your man thinks you’re a looker,
If you work all day, but you never get paid,
You’re a MOM!

The Bible that you hold can shape this little soul,
You’re a MOM!

If you mean the whole world,
To a boy or a girl,
You’re a MOM!

You have the most important job in the world,
You’re a MOM!

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We’ve been in Singapore for more than 12 years by now.

All our three kids were born here.

The two older ones know they’re Indonesians, they can speak Indonesians, but they’ve lived almost all their lives here in Singapore. The two older ones speak ‘Singlish’ real well too, btw! =)

If you ask me, I’d say that there is no perfect country in this world. However ‘good’ a country is, there’s bound to be something that we can complain about =)

And of course, there’s always something that we can be grateful about too.

As for us, we enjoy many aspects of Singapore all these years, and I wrote about it – ‘Eight Things I Love about Living in Singapore‘ – a few months ago. I just feel it’s ‘timely’ to pull that blog post out and share it again with you today! =)

Do click and have a read yeah!

If you’re in Singapore, hope you had a great National Day ‘holiday’ today with your loved ones!

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We spent our day with Sunday School kids and checked out the Henderson Waves at the Southern Ridges too (will share photos soon!). How did your day go?

This has got to be one of the easiest activities that one can do with their little ones!

All you need:

– Watercolour

– Drawing book / paper carton

– Scissors, markers

– Your child’s PALMS! =)

What you do:

– Cover both palms with watercolour

– Make a print – right palm on the left, left palm on the right (See photo above)

– Cut it out

– Bend all ‘fingers’ (refer to photo below)

And that’s it!!

You see, Vai wanted to make a SPIDER, and we should’ve used black watercolour. BUT, since black is … errr, boring, we went with whatever colour that’s left on our watercolour palette, which was ORANGE.

And it ended up looking like a CRAB rather than a spider!

Vai insisted that it should be a spider (and he was very happy with his ‘orange spider’!), and so I drew a few dots at the centre anyway (supposedly: the spider’s eyes!)

Oh well. I think we just made a SPIDER CRAB there! Heh.

“Loving all three kiddos!”

“Yep, we can STILL have fun here, at IKEA’s plaground!”

“Brie: Hello World! =) ”

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Ah. I am SO loving my Instagram! *smile*

It makes shooting and sharing so much more easier, faster and fun!

I’ll be capturing (more) moments and sharing them on Facebook and Twitter daily. Do join me and add me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter, if you haven’t yeah!

And, if you use Instagram too, do follow me there as well, K?
(it’s under ‘leonny_oureverydaythings’ =)

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Have a wonderful week, everyone!!

Hey, what do you know!

My post-event blog post on the Singapore Blog Awards 2011 Ceremony was selected as one of the 5 winners! *YAY*

Totally didn’t expect to win anything, but am now sooo happy to have won something! =)

*Thanks Omy.sg!*

And oh btw, the prize is a Slim 13″ Messenger Bag by Fabrix, excellent fit for our Macbook Air! Went to collect it with Brie from the SPH office.

So happy.

Chose a ‘happy colour’ too for the bag, heh.