I'm a full-time mummy

Hello world! I've finally arrived safely on planet Earth on 2nd September 2011 at 12.40pm. Mummy delivered me safely via natural birth (quite a drama too from what I heard as the nurses were not taking mummy seriously when she kept complaining on her contractions pain). By the time the nurses decided to listen to mummy and checked her, she's already 8cm dilated and they rushed to wheel her to the labor ward to get ready to deliver me.

Anyhooo, my name is Alyson and just want to drop a note here that mummy will not be blogging much for now. Other updates can be read on her FB page from time to time.

I'm already happily gorging on mummy's colostrum and breastmilk which arrived on the first day of my delivery!

Thank you all for the prayers and support for my mummy!

(*** Article first published as Book Review: Who Feels Scared? by Sue Graves on Blogcritics.)

Title: Who Feels Scared? (Our Emotions and Behavior)
Author: Sue Graves
Illustrated by: Desideria Guicciardini
Publisher:  Free Spirit Publishing (June 1, 2011)
ISBN-13/-10: 978-1575423746 / 157542374X
Board book, full-color: 32 pages
Dimension: 7¾" x 9½" 

Description from the product page:
" From pets to grown-ups, everybody sometimes feels fear. And children, grown-ups, and animals aren’t all afraid of the same things. Jack and his friends Ravi and Kevin discover this when they have a sleepover—one that unexpectedly includes a few scares!

Part of the new series of Our Emotions and Behavior books from Free Spirit, this cheerful and reassuring story shows that positive coping skills can help kids deal with fear, and children can be brave even when things seem scary.

At the end of the book, a special section for adults suggests ideas for gently guiding kids to talk about feeling frightened and how to deal with that emotion. In addition, a series of pictures invites kids to tell a story in their own words about being afraid. Ideal for home and K–3 classroom settings."

I love the cute illustrations and I'm so glad to be able to review this book!

This book is about Jack who is having Kevin and Ravi, 2 of his friends staying over his house for the night. In the beginning, the boys were excited but Kevin and Ravi were soon getting scared by the weird and mysterious sounds in Jack's room. All sorts of scary thoughts came to their mind. Jack who was not afraid with the weird sounds his friends heard, decided to calm his friends down by explaining to them the source of the mysterious sounds and they soon realised they got scared over nothing!

However all 3 boys got frightened when they heard a really scary noise coming from Jack's closet. They got so scared that their yells got Jack's sister, Ellie rushing in to check on them. They soon realised the noise was actually coming from Jack's toy robot!

Ellie then shared her experience on what she feared most and what she did to overcome her fear. Later on, Jack's dad came into their room and said it was time for bed. He read everyone a scary story which got everyone scared! But all of them soon remembered it was just a story and Jack's dad calmed them down by telling them that everyone gets scared sometimes!

 From this story, I get to teach my boy to not be afraid. Ben might be a bit young for this but I feel that it's never too early to start teaching him that not everything with weird or scary noises are to be feared of.

I appreciate the additional 2 pages of picture story about the a little boy named Tom who is spending his first night away from home at his grandmas house. Tom looks worried when his parents left him but were soon happy again as he gets to spend time playing with his grandma. Before he goes to bed, grandma also told him a story and ensure he had his teddy bear to cuddle with in bed.  

I think this mini story is a good example for us to emulate as I believe assurance from adults to children are very important in ensuring they do not get frightened easily or gave in to scary thoughts over silly things.

In my opinion, "Our Emotions and Behavior" series are a good choice for parents to use with their children because of the positive message they bring!

You can get this book from Free Spirit Publishing, Amazon and many more.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a softcopy of the book by Free Spirit Publishing in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

You know how the saying goes on "Walk the talk"? According to Wiktionary, this phrase meant: "To do what one said one could do, or would do, not just making empty promises."

So yeah... I have NOT been walking MY talk! I admit it! And the more I think about it, the more guilty I felt!

I think it started when I was about 36 weeks pregnant when I got an invitation from my high school friend to her twin's 1 year old birthday party. I politely thanked her and declined the invitation saying I think I should stay home as much as possible now since Spicy Baby will be due anytime already...

And the next thing I know, we were out for an impromptu family outing to the National Zoo.

Ben trying to show his shoes to the elephant

Ben reaching for the ice cream...

Then when I was 37 weeks pregnant, I got an invitation to attend my cousin's wedding on 30th August and although at first I wanted to go, I decided to decline after that as I don't think it's nice to hog 3 seats for the wedding dinner and then went into labor and wasted the 3 seats. I did however passed along my angpow (token of money) to my brother who attended the dinner.

So anyway, I declined the wedding dinner and the next thing I know, we went on another impromptu family outing to Genting Highlands. I basically just pushed the stroller along everywhere (and went to the loo VERY often!) and the only ride I get to enjoy is the monorail, the rest, hubby went on with Ben while I sat and rest somewhere and waited for them.

Ben with his toy gun on our way to Genting...

All the stuff we lugged along during the day trip...

Then when I was 38 weeks pregnant, a senior from my high school messaged me through Facebook asking whether I want to join her and 2 other seniors for dinner at a shopping mall on Saturday and again, citing the reasons that I think I should stay home and not venture out much, I politely thanked her and declined the offer.

And, yeap... you guessed it... on the very same day, we went out for a lunch date with my best friend and her sister, and the lunch outing turned into a window shopping activity at a newly refurbished mall, then tea time, then a very impromptu movie date (watched Cars 2) and then a late dinner outing since there was a heavy traffic jam on the way back to their place.

And now, at 39 weeks pregnant, I've already declined 2 more wedding invitations and 1 baby full moon party and yeap... we went for another family outing to KL Bird Park (the last time we went there was sometime back). It was quite tiring by the time we finished walking the WHOLE park and all I did was just walk! Either Ben walked himself or hubby pushed Ben when there is uphill slope while I used the staircase. But it was really hot and I guessed that makes it more tiring!

Ben laughing at one of the bird near his stroller...

Ben playing with daddy while I rested...

There were few other occassions where we went window shopping for hours as well in between my 36 weeks of pregnancy until now...

So I was thinking the more I declined offers or invitations to do something, the more I ended up doing activities during my pregnancy stage! I just can't walk my talk! Arghhhhhhh!!!