Its Cyber Monday Deals Week!

Cyber Monday is not only for Monday. Its for the whole week! Have you bought anything yet? If not, there's still time.

What is Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the Friday followingThanksgiving Day in the United States, created by companies to persuade people to shop online. The term made its debut on November 28, 2005 in a Shop.org press release entitled "'Cyber Monday' Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year"


The above excerpt is from Wikipedia. To read more, go to Wikipedia.

Check out more news about Cyber Monday Shopping.

Get Great Bargains for Cyber Monday Deals Week!
Shop Amazon's Toys - Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals Week

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Time for Year End Health Checks

Its the end of the year again. That means it is time for our annual health checks. The whole family needs a visit to the dentist. I have to go for my pap smear and other blood tests etc. I have two cysts which needs to be monitored annually, 6 monthly actually, but I often delay it till the very last moment.

When you're feeling healthy, quite often we don't think about health checks or even things like Medicare Supplement Insurance. We take our health for granted most of the time. Quite often I skip the tests too because they take time. I hate to wait for medical test results too, always imagining the worst!

Speaking of Medicare Supplemental Insurance, those living in California and over the age of 65 should be happy to know that they have health insurance plans formulated for them. That is nice to know.

Sometimes it is hard to take up insurance when you are older. It would seem as though the insurance companies only target the young and healthy but that is not the case in California.

Whatever it is, healthcare and insurance planning should be done at whatever age. We should not ignore it.

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The Wonder Of A Child

My boy is 7. He is still at that age where everything is a discovery to him, a wonderful discovery. In watching him, I am constantly reminded of how wonderful it is to be a child. At the same time, I smile whenever I see in him The Wonder of Being A Child. For example...

We switch off all the lights, crawl under the comforter and look at his Glow In The Dark Stickers. He is looking at the stickers and he goes "Wow! Mummy, I like this one best." etc. To me, the image of his face glowing in wonder as he admires his stickers is more beautiful than all the Glow In The Dark Stickers in the world.

He sits on the throne and happily counts each toilet paper segment. Even toilet paper can bring excitement to a child. Imagine that. How wonderful it is to be a child and to have a child's simplicity. When I see him, I can't help but smile and remember that we should be thankful and happy about the simple things in life.

I remember we went to watch X-Men and there was a scene when Xavier manages to get Magneto to turn a Satelite Dish. Caught up in the moment, my boy forgot he was in the cinema and exclaimed "Wow! He can really do that!" or something to that effect in a rather loud voice which brought laughter to the cinema patrons. No one shushed him or got annoyed. His surprised amazement and wonder was so obvious it brought instant laughter. He was so amazed and his voice was so full of wonder. That is the wonder of a child.

There are so many more instances like this but I forget because I did not write them down. I really should record them down more often for he is only going to be this small once. 

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Breastfeeding Story - How To Be Successful At Breastfeeding

Today's breastfeeding story is from Jenny, who blogs at I'm A Full-Time Mummy. If you are a breastfeeding mummy from Malaysia, you should check out Jenny's baby room review. She does a very good job at reviewing baby rooms in the Klang Valley. 

Breastfeeding Story - How I Made Breastfeeding Work For Me

By Jenny

#1 - Start with the thought of breastfeeding from Day 1 

It's the same as having your goals and ambitions. You dream and fix your aim towards it from Day 1. Then you only have 1 goal to achieve for and focus all your concentration to it. If you are yoyo-ing from bottle to breast to bottle to breast, then when the baby comes, you would be lost and people around you could easily influence your decision making.

#2 - Remember the 3 Rs!
This come out of the blue, but I decided to call it the 3 Rs!
The 3 Rs are: Research, Read up and Rehearse!

Research all you can find about breastfeeding (why do it, benefits of breastfeeding, common breastfeeding myths, techniques, how to avoid any problems, what to do if there's any problems etc)

Read up all you can, be it from books, hospital/clinic leaflets on breastfeeding etc. The reason why I don't lump this into Research is because you can research all you want but if you don't read it, then it is pointless. Thank God I love to read!!!

Rehearse - go for antenatal classes where they teach you how to breastfeed and the different methods to breastfeed. If you don't attend the classes (please please do!), then look it up in the Net, Youtube or anything that shows you pictures or videos on how to breastfeed correctly.

# 3 - Choose your birth hospital correctly!
Now, you may wonder what is the place I'm going to give birth at has anything to do with breastfeeding. Well, it has everything to do with breastfeeding! You can research, read, rehearse all you want but if you deliver at a place where they immediately introduce your baby to bottle-feeding then all your efforts would have gone to waste!

Choosing the right birth hospital helped in making my breastfeeding work out!

# 4 - Get encouragement and support from other people
OK, we don't have a confinement lady. We did our own DIY confinement. There may be things we did wrongly. What we did was asked around from other in-laws and friends who have kids to check whether we are doing the right thing and then we compared our methods to theirs.

Hubby and I also got the postnatal home visits service from the people who conducted the antenatal classes we attended 2 months before I delivered. They will come in 3 times (depends on your schedule and their availability) each visit lasting for 1 hour and they will check your baby and your progress and condition. They will also observe and advice on your baby care methods, breastfeeding, and everything you wanted to find out about on newborn care.

For us, we know we are doing the right thing, just that we need some other people to acknowledge and confirm our thoughts. When you hear from the mouth of experts like them telling you that you are doing a great job and your baby is progressing very well, that sure does a lot of help with your motivation level! :D

# 5 - Quitting my job
One of the reason I quit my job is so that I am able to continue breastfeeding my baby since I am not able to extend my maternity leave. On the 1 month I'm serving my notice (and paid off the other 2 months), I had to force myself to express my breastmilk at office every 3 hours - reason why I said force is because, if I didn't do that, I could be sitting at my cubicle and doing work non-stop, not even going to toilet (until lunch time). And there are times when I only remembered I had to go express when I felt my breasts swollen hard and painful.

On my last week at the office, my supply dwindled down to 2 oz per day... from the beginnng when I returned back to work and start expressing at office I could express about 12 oz per day... down to 2 oz per day... the pressure and workload took its toll on me of course (I could even remember one time I didn't express from 12pm-8pm... total 8 hours...the reason? I was stuck in meetings after meetings and after office hours ended at 6pm, I was again stuck in conference calls with vendors and bosses until 8pm) So the decision to quit my job really helps alot with making my breastfeeding work.

# 6 - Pray!
Pray for God's will on whatever you have put your mind to. If it is His will, He will settle the bill :) Meaning, if its meant for you to breastfeed, no matter how hard it is, you must persevere.

The first few days before the breast milk comes in is critical. It will make or break a new mummy. Old folks and people who do not know better will tell you that your baby needs to feed, he cries because he is hungry, you don't have enough breast milk so you must give formula milk.. Pray for strength and patience and comfort in times of pain and stress like this. The breast milk will come! Babies do not need to feed for the first few days of their life! (This is because they still have storage in their bodies)

And when the breast milk comes, still there will be people telling you its not enough. Do not give up! The more you breastfeed, the more milk your body will produce. During the first 2 weeks after delivery, I will keep on breastfeeding Ben every 2 hours. Even the wee hours of the morning, I'd wake up and just latch him on. Suffer now, and reap the benefits later.

Thank you very much, Jenny, for sharing your tips on how to make breastfeeding successful. The above is an excerpt from her breastfeeding article on her blog which Jenny has very kindly given permission to reproduce. I think they're great tips so they should be shared. If you want to read more breastfeeding tips from Jenny, check out her article on The Truth About Breastfeeding.

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Signs

It is the end of the year and next year my kids turn 8 and 10. That would mean that I have been off the work force for more about 10 years now. That is a long time. I wonder what sort of work I can do if I want to get back to work. I guess it will have to be something to do with writing. However writing according to someone else's deadline is not very appealing to me. It doesn't come anywhere near the feeling you get of coming up with an article idea yourself, then writing and editing it yourself. You are in total control.

I still remember my earlier jobs. Apart from writing I had to do other things too. I worked for a relatively small company then. I even had to do our own corporate signs. I remember it was white and green, our corporate color. We had to comply with certain regulations and standards on the size of the signs. It was such a bother dealing with administrative things like that.

So we had this big sign outside our office. I also had to do a smaller door sign for visitors coming to our office with brass letters on it.

No, I did not enjoy doing any of that. I am enjoying myself much more now, looking after my children and doing work as and whenever I like on my own terms and in my own time. The thing about motherhood and staying at home is you are not going to get any prize or plaques in commemoration of your 'service'. However, there is nothing like this stay at home mother job. It is the most rewarding of all.

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