Milo Cake

This is 2nd time I successfully make the Milo Cake. Yummy, very nice. Quite easy to, no need oven.

You want to try it out? Can refer to my friend recipi: http://rain-mydiary.blogspot.com/search/label/My%20Kitchen

Is it possible working at home?

After 4 years working life in this society, started feel bored and tired become programmer or application support. Wake up early morning at 7am, left office in the evening and reach home about 7pm (provided no OT and traffic jam). Spending 12 hours for work!

Start to imagine how is life after my little one comes to this world. Everyday after office hour go to fetch her from Nanny house / childcare center. No time to cook dinner for family. Everyday spend only 2-3 hours with her and husband in the nighttime. We have only 2-3 hours spend with our family!

How good if I am a housewife? Oh no no, firstly financially is not allowed at this moment. Stay at home all the time can make a lady easier to become ‘yellow face’ aunty, haha. How good if I can spent 70% of my time with my little one, and 30% of my time spend to do something meaningful and earn some money at the same time?

Last few weeks I read a topic in Singapore motherhood forum (I always go to the forum because they discuss a lot of baby stuff and information). The topic is ‘Working at home’. The mummy mentioned she quit her job and currently work at home and able to earn attractive income. She did not mentioned what she did, just provide a link.

After reading some articles and google for relevant information, what the mummy doing is Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate Marketing basically is helping other people to promote their products online and get the commission from there. Of course this is not an easy job, but I would say this is a good business if successful. Along the way I explored many interesting learning point, such as how to make our personal website / blog searchable by others? If you have your own website/ blog, try to input some ‘Keywords’, but you are unable to search your website / blog in the Google search engine!

If you are interested, can visit to following website: -

http://www.internetmarketingsingapore.com/

Affiliate Handbook!

Listen to give birth experience

Last week I listened to 3 experiences from my friends and cousin. Their expected due date all estimated in month September.

My cousin called me on 15th Sept, about 2pm and told me that she was in delivery suit. She mentioned that the contraction pain was bearable until cervix dilated to 5cm-6cm. Starting from 8-9pm, the pain was stronger and stronger. She is very strong and brave, no epidural applied. About 7am on 16th Sept, cervix dilated to 8cm. The contraction was true painful. Doctor allowed her to push at this stage. She tried about 20-25 minutes to push the baby out. Finally she saw her lovely son ^-^.

After 2 days I received another good news from my ex-colleague. She experiences light contraction pain in the midnight about 1am. She can’t really fall into sleep for whole night. She went to hospital about 7am. She already decided to have epidural in very early stage of her pregnancy. So when cervix dilated to 1 cm, she required doctor to apply epidural. After 10 hours, cervix dilated to 10 cm, was time to push. My friend felt very painful as the epidural was finish and doctor advised not to add, so that she can feel the contraction pain and able to push. However her baby stop going down and the baby location was still very far for doctor to vacuum. With doctor advice, emergency caesarean was carried out. Very surprisingly her baby girl is 3.86kg!

Next was my ex-course-mate. She experienced water-bag break in the midnight, about 12am++. She and husband were panic and quickly drove to hospital. When cervix dilated to 2-3cm (at 7am ++), she decided to apply epidural. After 7-8 hours, cervix dilated to 10cm. She was lucky, she felt no pain for the whole process in the pushing stage. Maybe is because she can’t feel the contraction pain, she not able to push effectively. With the vacuum help, her baby boy was delivered ^-^.

As conclusion, different mummy have different experience. Delivery baby is not easy, especially in our parent generation, no sufficient technology and pain relieve way.

For myself, if there is no complicated case, I would like to try and experience the pain. I always asked my friends how is the contraction pain feel? Different people gave me different answers. However I wont refuse to apply epidural if really not able to cope with the pain haha.

Still have 2 and half months to go, not to think too much. Enjoy my baby movement and kicking first….

Baby name

Once I knew I was pregnant, I can’t wait to think of baby name. In fact, I already have few names in mind since university time hehe… but the names not suitable for now because some words used by close friends or relatives.

I started to think of girl and boy name. I listed down many names and showed to husband for him to decide, but husband mentioned we should only focus after we get know baby gentle. Haha, probably I was too excited.

For Chinese name, most people will follow certain rules and depends on baby birth date and time. Some people will buy a book and calculate themselves, some will go to ‘shi fu’ for him to recommend. For myself, I have no very strong believe on this. In my opinion, as long as the name is good in listening, easy to write, good meaning, not too common, easy to pronounce, is consider good name.

Husband and I also thinking to pick an English name for baby. English name no need to follow custom rules, but every name has different meaning, origin from different country. To me, the name should be not so common, easy to pronounce and having good meaning.

This Baby Names Dictionary consists of an e-book and software. The software provides dynamic search function and maintenance spreadsheet for selected names. Here is another e-book provides a list of baby name and the basic guidelines.

Preparing for admission

haha, is not time go admission, still 3 months to go. But I think is time to prepare and get the necessary stuff ready.

Fistly must get to know when is time to go hospital? Below are the 3 signs: -

• Regular painful constractions
• Water breaks or leakage
• Bleeding
• When feel baby's movement has decreased or quieter than usual, better to have a check

Below are the documents to bring along: -

• Appointment card
• IC
• Inpatient authorization form

For mother,

• 1 set of clean clothes for discharge
• Stokin (can wear during delivery if the rooms too cold)
• Maternity pads
• Disposable panties
• Camera (to take baby first photo)
• Jacket for daddy (can wear during delivery if the rooms too cold)

For baby, some basic things,

• 4-5 sets of baby clothes, including the hand and foot gloves
• formula milk, feeding bottle
• towel
• pampers
• Wet tissue

Vaccinations for baby

On last Wednesday we attended the last lesson of the antenatal programme. The nurse showed us how to take care of new born, what are the common problems faced in the first 3 months after delivery, and the interesting part is how to clean and bath baby, I have no experience on this, hehe...

The last topic is about vaccinations for baby. A lot of vaccines for different ages. Some of the vaccines can be combined and given at one go. Below are the recommended immunisation schedule.

Age Vaccine
At birth: BCG, Hepatitis B - 1st dose
2 months: Hexa
4 months: DTap / IPV / Hib - 2nd dose
6 months: Hexa
1 year: Hepatitis B for children born to Hep B carrier mothers only
15 months: MMR, Varicella (chicken pox)
18 months: DTap / IPV / Hib - 1st booster
6-7 years: DT - 2nd booster, Oral Sabin - 2nd booster

Baby registration after birth

I plan to deliver baby in Singapore as I am working in KKH hospital, can work until last minutes when baby willing to come to this world. I also plan to have confinement in Singapore and my mother in law will come to help. My mother asked whether I could go back to hometown for full month celebration? I hope so but not sure all the procedures, especially baby passport can be ready within one month.

Luckily my colleague Kar Fung who has experienced in applying baby documents for her new born, I asked her help to write down the details for my reference. Here I shared out the info, especially for future mummy.

Before apply for anything, need the following documents and photos:
- Make at least 4 copies of the below documents:
· Parents’ Sg IC
· Parents’ M’sia IC
· Parents’ Passport
· Parents’ Birth Cert
· Parents’ Sg Re-entry Permit
· Marriage Cert
· Baby Birth Cert
- 4 baby’s photos each (baby must open eyes when taking the photo):
· Blue background
· White background

For all the procedures below, must bring the original and photostated documents along. The procedures are as follows:

1. Birth Registration in KKH – Birth Cert
· Need to be registered within 2 weeks after baby is born (baby name should be ready by that time)
· Documents needed : Parents’ Sg IC , baby’s birth information form (from hospital)
· Register at KKH Admission Level 1 or Singapore ICA (formal SIR, at Lavender MRT)
· No need to bring baby along

2. Birth Registration in M’sia HICOM – Borang W
· Need to be done only after you’ve gotten the birth cert
· Documents needed : Parents’ Sg and M’sia IC, parents’ passport, baby birth cert, parents’ birth certs, marriage cert, 2 baby’s photos (blue background) – all documents need to photostat 2 copies
· Register at M’sia HICOM at Jervois Rd in the morning (8.30-10.30am), get the application form when you go to HICOM. Please also take the passport application form when you are at HICOM. Only after gotten the Borang W, then can apply for passport.
· Collection of birth registration (Borang W) is one week later. They will give you the date to collect borang W.
· Must bring baby along
· On that day, after apply for birth registration, bring the baby and passport application form to the passport counter to show baby’s face to the officer, they will compare the baby and the photos pasted on the form. Then they will stamp “exempted”. So next time when come to apply for passport no need to bring baby along.

3. Passport in M’sia HICOM - Passport
· Documents needed : Parents’ Sg and M’sia IC, baby birth cert, borang W, 2 baby’s photos (blue background), parents’ marriage cert - – all documents need to photostat 2 copies
· After collecting the Borang W can proceed to apply for passport on the same day.
· Can collect the passport on the same day in the afternoon.
· Baby and mother no need to be there.

4. PR Application in ICA
· Must be done within 42 days after baby is born.
· Before going to ICA to apply for PR, print out the below PR application form http://www.ica.gov.sg/data/resources/docs/PR%20Services/Form4.pdf and go to below address to make appointment for the PR application https://eappointment.ica.gov.sg/ibook/index.do
· You can make appointment earlier as sometimes the appointments are so full that you cannot get an earlier date. The best is before you go to HICOM you choose an appointment date which is one week later.
· Must bring baby along.
· Documents needed : Parents’ Sg IC, Parents’ PR re-entry permit, Parents’ and baby’s passport, baby’s birth vert, marriage cert, 4 baby’s photos (white background)
· Processing time for PR application is 3 months, ICA will stamp a 3 months visitor pass in baby’s passport and advise not to bring baby out from Sg for these 3 months.

Looking for nanny

My due date is about 11 Dec 2008, so is time to look for nanny. Our first option is looking for nanny around our area (toa payoh lorong 7), so that we can bring baby go and back from nanny house without driving. We do have few contacts, but most of them staying quite far from walking distance. Got 2 nanny staying nearby, but one is very calculative, another one not suitable due to her husband and mother in law are smoker. In short, is not easy to get a good nanny.

Yesterday husband and I designed and printed out a stack of flyers (Looking for Nanny!) :p At first we planned to distribute door by door, but at the end we gave up because we distributed selectively, and dont know why I felt 'pai se' when saw got people sitting at the living room. End up we decided to distribute the flyers in every post box at the first floor, fast and easy! Next week we will keep on distributing flyers if still no response.

According to experienced friend's advise, below are the things to check out when interview the nanny: -

• Where the baby cot will be - airy, drafy? too bright?
• General cleanliness and hygiene, e.g. floor, kitchen, toilet
• who else at the house, any smoker, children?
• General environment - noise, bright, airy, or dark
• ask nanny about her experience, when was the last baby, why stopped?
• what does she normally do with the baby? takes baby out to pasar / market?
• off days / sick days arrangement
• diapers - cloth or disposables?
• bottles and teats - how she sterilise?

Our 2nd option is childcare centre. But my concerns are baby may easier to get sick as there will be more infant in one rooms, virus easy to spread out if one of the baby is not feeling well. The fees is not cheap as well, it is affordable if I can get KKH staff price (about $750), but after transfer to IHIS, I believe KKH only will offer corporate rate which is about $1,300 per months.