Cloth Diaper Conspiracy

Interesting article I saw on my Facebook today: The Cloth Diaper Conspiracy, Is there one?

I have always wondered, why the mainstream baby & departmental stores do not display or sell any kinds of modern cloth diapers? If it was not for the blogs and online stores, I would have never known about the existence of it, except the traditional prefolds.

It might not be wrong to say that the mainstream baby diaper market is very much monopolized by the disposable diaper manufacturers, who are afraid of losing business once parents start going disposable-less. This reminds me of the (not-so) classic case of AMD vs Intel processors where AMD sued the hell out of Intel for monopoly. It is not just the geek in me that knows this, I was once employed with the underdog AMD. If only there was a super-huge cloth diaper manufacturer that could sue the daylights out of the disposable biggies. These are just my wild imaginative desires, do not sue me back.

Back to cloth diapers, in real daily life, it is not easy telling or suggesting to people about cloth diapers. More often than not, they think that I am selling a product. I am merely just sharing my experience of better baby diaper management and use. There are also people who comment cloth diapers are inconvenient because we have to wash the poo/pee, instead of just throwing away the dispos. Point very much valid, but think again, don't you have to wipe/clean your baby's bum bum after the business? We don't find that difficult or dirty. In fact, once you have given birth and are taking care of your baby, I think there is hardly anything that we can find disgusting.

The additional cloth diaper laundry is regarded as burden to some. We do manage the numerous baby laundry of tops, pants, burp cloths, bibs and what not. It is not like we have disposable versions of these clothing items. If you wash these laundry, cloth diaper is just another. With prior rinsing of cloth diapers, you can very well chuck them all into the washing machine together with the baby clothes.

Cloth diapers may seem a little expensive in the beginning. It is more like an investment that you see the savings in the long run. At average, one cloth diaper could cost from RM30-RM60. Assuming you have 20 pieces of RM50 each, total of RM1000. The cost of a disposable diaper is about RM0.50, assuming you need 8 diapers a day, you spend about RM1460! RM460 savings in the first year itself! The cloth diapers that you buy will last your well throughout the 2nd and third year. With disposables, you will continue buying more and more till your kid is toilet trained.

Sanju has been on cloth diaper system for 14 months now, and with proper budgeting and planning, I have saved a great deal on disposables. And what about the utility bills? They are almost negligible as I wash the cloth diapers with baby laundry. At the same time, I have saved myself a lot of hassle and sanity from the tedious traditional diaper laundry!

Kung Fu Panda 2

My rating for the movie, total awesomeness of the highest degree!

I am no Hollywood movie fan, in any case, these days I am no movie fan at all, but then I totally love animation movies, especially if they come with awesome reviews. It was time to bring (test) Sanju out for another movie after A Tangled Tale, and as promised, his 2nd trip to the cineplex was very very much less girly than the first.

In this sequel, the Dragon Warrior Po finally finds out the shocking truth about his past, and how the goose is not his real father after all (real shocking, LOL). The best thing about this movie is how clumsy, candid and real Po is portrayed, despite being the Dragon Warrior. As you can guess, the movie is damn hilarious, even serious moments of confrontation with the antagonist cracks you up. The furious 5 and Po work in the most comedic way that every action in their fight against evil has something that cracks you up. The bouts of kiddy laughter in the cineplex was a proof to that.

My toddler however, was busy snatching the popcorn cup from his mother, and halfway through the movie, he successfully spilled the popcorns all over himself. Papa voluntarily took some time away to clean up the 'sweet' boy, and then we got back watching the movie together.

I love movies that come with a feel-good motivating one liners. In this movie it goes something like this: 'It is not where you came from but it is what you want to be'. I believe it applies to all of us when we tend to dwelve over the past and forget to live for the present. It was a nice thought for the day, and I really feel such one liners make your 1.5hrs at the cineplex more meaningful. It does not matter if the movie is about a Kung Fu fighting and food loving panda.

This was definitely a rare case of sequel being made as good as the first film, if not better.

THEHONEYBUNCH FINAL GIVEAWAY - Naturally motherhood giveaway

You know how much I love giveaways. This giveaway, however, is very different. A fellow blogger, who fully supports natural parenting is having Naturally Motherhood Giveaway in conjunction to the start of her new niche blogs. I am an ardent follower of Hanz's writings are they are so informative that they make me come back for more.

Not forgetting about the prizes in store (it is a giveaway after all!), they are sponsored by some lovely mama owned online stores:

Maybel's Closet
Sweet n Cozy
Mama Sewbulous Shoppe
Muhammad's Playtime
Chago Mago
Deana Design
Crystal Princess Cottage
Blu Cotton
TheHoneybunch Marketplace

Now for the final requirement of the giveaway, my slogan for the giveaway:

Motherhood to me is about love and passion for life, constant learning and improving at every step in providing for my baby, and natural parenting helps me achieve just that.

Raising a Toddler

It is like almost yesterday I was in labour and Sanju was born 13 painful hours later. It is like yesterday that they showed me his little manhood right after he was born and took him away to clean him up. It is like yesterday the nurses passed Sanju into my arms minutes after delivery.

I can't believe how time flied, and Sanju has grown from a newborn, into a baby and now a toddler. And this toddler is very much into his Obnoxious One (a term I created for him) before he enters the Terrible Two.

I used to think taking care of a newborn and later a baby was the biggest challenge. Boy, was I wrong. Everyday is a revelation to how and what more can I expect from this tiny toddler who looks as innocent as an angel while he is sleeping. In Sanju's point of view, Obnoxious One means redefining pretty much everything in daily routines and challenging parents to come out with ways to work it out. Here is some of my experience:

• Diaper & outfit change is war time. He sometimes refuses to get any piece of clothes off or on him, and just walks away or shouts loudly like he is being kidnapped by mean villains. I counter this by playing 'here comes ma-monster to attack!' and he gives in by laughing
• Makan time means he needs to hold the spoon and play with his food, no cooperation in eating whatsoever. A dummy bowl of food with a spoon is needed to distract him while feeding him. Mind you, the end product gets pretty messy when he decides to swing the spoon around
• He can be on unexpected eating strikes on one day, and eat so well on another that i have to pinch myself. We just have to be patient and keep on feeding different types of food throughout the day hoping that this would click and make him eat more
• Taking medicine is fine as long as it is a game where ma and papa taste it as well
• While I am so concerned on him taking a warm shower, it is ok for him to play with the spray hose and wet himself throughout bath time.
• Toys are a thing of the past, household items rock his boat. He only plays and explores with the household item which can be fun to watch especially when he puts things apart and tries to fix them back together
• Any handheld item can be used as a phone, and even have a long conversation on it
• The OO is adorable beyond words, and I thought baby is the cutest stage!
  

So You Think You Can Eat?

The title is inspired from this morning's discussion on FlyFM and FOOD... yes, I think I can eat and be legally fat and bloated! In fact I have a lot of people always commenting I am looking thin (despite the 10kg I put on in the last 6 months) and telling me to eat more and more. Why not, I don't mind even a drop. It is another thing that you will catch me complaining on not losing the baby fat later *touchwood*.

Like my first pregnancy, I don't really have any particular cravings but I am just enjoying all my favourite foods a little more. Hubby makes sure I get my weekly dose of Roti Bom from our favourite restaurant, and lets me have most of the sweet and yummy desserts. Thanks to mom, I have like 'a laddu a day' stock in the fridge for 1 week too!

Now the weird part about this pregnancy is my preference and love in smelling. Imagine getting into the car in the evening, and turning on the aircon. There is the heat smell that I love to savour for the few seconds before the air con starts coming in. And how about the smell of burnt or short circuit, I get it quite often along the corridor of my plant daily and I simple love taking the walk slowly to have the smell linger longer. Petrol and wet paint smell is something I never minded before, but now I love it even more. Also, I love to smell the after wash smell of laundry, it has this slight detergent sting that I enjoy even for a few seconds. Don't call me weird... I am legally weird.

Going back to something more normal, here is something that greeted me at the mail (reception) this morning. My winning Spiceberry Snuggbaby cloth diaper that I won during the recent mini giveaway. Right now I am loving the colour, its my favourite purple, and it comes with 1 microfiber & 1 hemp insert! I shall review it soon once I get it tested on Sanju's cute bum-bum.

The Boy Who Stole A Slipper

There comes a time in every toddler's life when they simply love wearing adult shoes and slippers. Sanju in particular, does not even mind if he is already wearing his bubblegummer baby shoes, his feet will easily slip into our slippers and shoes all the time.

Last weekend, while my mom, sister and I were busy window shopping, my dad was babysitting Sanju at the bedding fair in Jusco Bukit Tinggi. Dad is quite used to making himself busy taking a walk while we shop, this time he brought Sanju along for the ride (walk).

They walked around the bedding fair, as there was a lot of colourful bedding items that attracted Sanju, keeping babysitting fuss-free for dad. Suddenly, dad realised that Sanju was stopping at his steps, while trying to adjust this footwear. Little did he know that Sanju was actually wearing (dragging) an extra slipper on his right shoe!

When he checked around, he noticed a guy in his 50s was standing crossed feet, one feet out of his slippers, looking at some pillows, and the slipper in Sanju's shoes matched his other side. Dad left the slipper some 5 metres away from the guy, and decided to watch the show from far, so see how the guy actually manages to spot his missing slipper.

It took a good 10mins for the guy to realise that one of his slipper is missing. He looks around, looks below the display railing, and then gives a blank look (guess he was wondering how is he going to walk back to his car without a slipper on one feet). Thankfully he looks further and spots the missing slipper, grabbing it fast. He probably vowed to never ever take his slipper out in a crowded area again.

After that, dad had a hilarious time repeating and re-enacting the situation over and over again, and the laughter never ceased for the whole night.

Right now the big question is, how did Sanju manage to drag the slipper away from the guy without him realising? I must say my little boy is growing up to be very smooth in his moves. Baby girls out there, beware!

Later that night, I realised I lost Sanju's straw cup, probably left it at the restaurant. Footwear paranormal experts (my dad) say the ghost of the slipper devoured it.

When he is not dragging unknown slippers, Sanju lounges around in a make-shift hammock.

Around The World and About

Its been a week since I blogged and it feels like ages to me. Partly because I have been so held up with work, home and baby that somehow the (internet) world around me has just frozen momentarily. It is not fun when you are back at your hometown to spend some nice family time and you end up being stuck in some ad-hoc urgent production requests and a misbehaving server. Things we have to do for our career (and monthly salary). The so-called holiday turned out to be a super busy working week trying to figure out how to get the server working.

So many things happened in the past one week.

Prince William and Kate Middleton got married. Prince William, who used to be the better looking brother in the 90s, is now well overshadowed by his brother Harry's good looks. How times have changed. Kate Middleton, the middle-class girl, looks nothing short of a stunning lady, no matter at which age. None of the paparazzi pictures of hers on the channel E! shows have any flaw, natural born princess perhaps?

Datuk Shazryl Eskay swore over the holy Quran on the controversial video. And now Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is much challenged to do the same. How easy if everything in life could be resolved by just swearing over holy books. The police and court system would lose their jobs. And I swear I am gonna get mental if my server does not decide to behave itself over the duplex network very soon!

Another highlight of the week is definitely how the Obama administration finally nailed Osama Bin Laden down. The guy who was thought to be in hiding, somewhere in a cave in the Afghan deserts, happened to be living quite happily somewhere else. Alas, the end had to come, and together with this, there was some spam in the facebook apparently showing horrifying pictures of Osama's body, even though the Obama administration never did reveal any. Come to think of it, without any proof, how is the public supposed to believe that Osama is indeed dead? It is ironic how lengthy of a speech President Obama had given over the news of the demise of the notorious terrorist. It almost made Osama sound like an important figure, in a positive way.

Over here at home, the baby inside me is getting very active, perhaps warming up to join forces with my obnoxious 1 year old. Speaking of which, Sanju is so pleasant at times, I can't imagine where did the angel come from, and at other times, I wonder why are there so many tantrums and demands from a little angelish looking devil. Right now, I am just enjoying the quiet moment while he gets his beauty sleep with violent movements.

Excuse me while I get back to my work, weekly reports and resolving tickets. Ah, life!