Friday, March 23, 2007

What I've been up to lately...

Hmm... Its difficult to precisely put it in order. Well let me start from the time I got back from home, a.k.a Malaysia. For the 1st week, lots of washing and cleaning to do around the house. You can never leave a man alone too long at home; the only thing he'll do for you is vacuum the place. Laundry? lets just say he does only his own when he HAS/FORCED to do it. Coming home was not all relax, take it easy and all. I had to rearrange stuffs that we got from home. Basically almost half the stuff belongs to hubs. I didn't go crazy this time, unfortunately....


WIP - Forever Friends wedding sampler

Then there's an annoucement made by my dear friend whose getting married in a weeks time. I was planning to stitch a wedding sampler for them as gifts at least a month before their wedding but she decides to "drop the bomb" on me just as we were about to fly back..... So its a rush job for at least a week now. Well not exactly a "rush" thingy if you consider how many hours I put in to stitch it; 2 hours max and not everyday..... I can hear my mum saying; "Get your lazy bum together and get moving!"

We recently enrolled ourselves in a course that's called; preparation for birth. Which teaches and discusses everything about being pregnant, the development of baby for 9 months, positions of giving birth, breastfeeding methods to taking care of him/her on returning from hospital. Mind you, there's just 8 classes in which both of us have to attend in the evenings, once a week. Its nice to get to meet other expectant mothers but its even better to get to know how to "do it" and what to do when the time comes. Just pray that hubs don't get all panicky etc by then! these classes are conducted by a mid-wife (a certified one-lah!) and is reimbursed at least half by our personal insurance, which is GREAT!

And then lately, we've been a little busy looking up on baby products; clothing's, cribs, strollers and what nots. There are so many brands out there and wide range of prices that comes with it. Baby products are not cheap every where in the world, be it from Canada, to Malaysia to Australia! So we decided to make a list of only necessities and not niceties. We seriously don't think a baby is going to care what his/her room will look like, in what colour combination and does it have laces or cars. Amongst the few things we got was a sturdy crib, along with its mattress and sheets, a tub, a stroller and also a child/baby car seat.

Babies grow up fast as well, in a month or two, expensive and most likely 1st hand clothing will either not fit them and or worn only once or twice, which is a waste of money. So what I did was to take in hand-me-downs from my sister and sister-in-laws. Its not that I'm being stingy, it just that I don't see the point of buying new and or expensive clothing for babies. But when they grow older, may be, may be not. I remember the time when we wore hand-me-downs from my cousins. The only time mum bought any new (or sew) clothing for us was before Chinese New Year and during the once a year grand sale. The maximum both of us could buy was 3 pieces each, which already costs a bomb for my dad.
Oh well, we'll just have to see how far we can stretch our budget for our kids as they grow. For the moment, I just got half the clothing from my sister, some 2nd hand ones from a shop selling them and only 3 brand new ones. I'm still waiting for more clothing to come from my sister-in-laws when they come over for a visit this June.

2 comments:

Emily said...

Shanny, wrt the baby stuff, you are being very wise and practical. Even what we did was we circulate all the kids' stuff amongs the cousins! Like you said, kids outgrow their stuff fast, like overnight!

~ mrs lam ~ said...

according to chinese belief, it's good to wear 2nd/ 3rd/ 4th.... hand of bb clothings... coz it'll make the bb grow faster/ better... dunno how true-lah.... hehehe