Monday, August 12, 2013

Aisha update: 6 months

Hi everyone,

Wow! I have got so bad at updating my blog :( I guess having a baby does really suck up all of a person's free time.

My beautiful girl has turned six months old. I know! I can hardly believe that I have survived 6 months with my very own baby.  She is still very, very tall at 74cm (29 inches). As someone who has always been very short I find this astounding! She certainly got her height from the Punjabi side of the family. :)



Aisha likes: 

Books - she goes completely nuts whenever she can get her hands on one. She won't tolerate me reading through the whole story without having a major meltdown, because she WANTS TO EAT THAT BOOK! :)

Fluffy things - she loves eating fluffy toys, rubbing them to her ear (who would have thought that was genetic?! I did the same thing as a baby) and we even have put down a low-pile fluffy rug in her cot so she can sleep on something warm and fluffy.

Pretending to eat just like H. and I by using her very own bowl and spoon. She makes a hilarious "yuck" face each time the empty spoon enters her mouth. 

Shadows - whenever she catches sight of an interesting shadow she stares at it for ages. She particularly loves to play this game when it is 11pm at night and I have spent the last hour trying to get her to sleep. 


Aisha dislikes:

Mummy leaving the room to go and get a drink of water.

Not being able to eat whatever she sees. eg. her nappy bin, her cot edge, the seats at church.

Waking up in the evening to find her Papa is not home (huge crying fits ensue).

Getting dry after a bath (it's cold!).

Aisha's schedule

Aisha generally goes to sleep at 9.30-10pm and sleeps through until 6am. She has been doing this since she was 3 months old (lucky, lucky me). The occasional night (perhaps once every 10 days) she wakes up every 3 hours throughout the whole night. If she wakes at night she often stays up for 1hr feeding / nappy change / calming down until she will go back down to sleep.

Aisha is still breastfed. No food yet! She feeds so easily and quickly that I really can't be bothered with solids yet. Why fix what isn't broken? :)






Friday, June 21, 2013

Going out with baby

Life with a 4 month old baby is going quite smoothly. For the most part Aisha is sleeping at least 6 hours in a row each night (thank goodness! I need my sleep). 



H's Papa was over from Punjab to meet Aisha for the first time last week so we went out a fair bit. Aisha was wonderful! She loves to socialise, catch people in the eye and smile or baby chat with them. Little party girl - it must be her Punjabi side coming through. ;) 

We also managed our first 'date' since Aisha's birth by all going out to the seaside fish markets for dinner. Lucky for us Aisha was a star despite it being cold out and past her bedtime. 

So overall life is becoming a bit easier and we are finding a new 'normal'. 


Sunday, May 19, 2013

I had my baby!

Hi everyone! I'm happy to finally announce on my blog that baby Aisha came into the world on February 11th, 2013. I had a very long labor and difficult recovery so didn't have the energy to blog. Now that I finally feel well again and my little baby has grown a little older I hope to update more frequently - even if it's typing out posts one handed while rocking Aisha to sleep at 2am. :)


Hello blog friends - meet Aisha! 


Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Feeling pretty while pregnant

A part of pregnancy that has been really hard for me has been feeling "pretty".

I've been a skinny person most of my life, still fitting into the clothes I brought back when I was 17!

However I have now grown far, far out of most everything I own thanks to a 15kg (33lb) weight gain so far! I don't mind the weight gain at all, because honestly I've never managed to get past 49-50kg (108lb) in the past 5 years, so putting on weight was necessary and healthy for me!

But.. it's SO HARD to find maternity clothes. I tried ordering some online via Asos, but they were HUGE  - I looked like I put on a "bag" (my description of clothes that just look like nothing on).  I sent them back and there concluded my online maternity clothes shopping for good.

I've found a few pieces here and there when Harman takes me out shopping, but within 3-4 weeks my expanding tummy has grown out of everything again! So my wardrobe has gone from pretty, girly and well put together to "whatever still fits!!".  Sigh. Even the M-L size clothes that Harman's Mama purchased for me from India don't fit (whoops!).  Oh well, my darling baby girl IS worth this! :D

As I can't really rely on clothes to make me feel pretty, then makeup it is!

Except... makeup / skin care products can contain some dangerous or just simply "we don't know if this does anything to your baby" type chemicals. :(  So out goes my normal foundation, skin creams and nail polish!

After doing a bit (ok, MASSIVE) amount of research I've concluded that the following products are safe enough for me to use them (once a week or so) during pregnancy:

Maybelline Big Lash Mascara 
I've been using this for year. I love that it simply washes off with hot water! :)

Mirenesse Liquid Silk Foundation
Just ordered a mini 5mL tube of this in "Mocha" - I'll let you know how it goes!

MooGoo Full Cream
For my skin and expanding baby belly! (This is WONDERFUL for the itchiness you experience as your belly grows to 10x it's usual size!).

MooGoo Skin Milk
For my face - it's a little bit heavy to use on my face, BUT I haven't found any other light face cream that can be considered pregnancy safe. So this will do for now. :)

Nicole by OPI (nail polish)
My twin sister C. got me this in "Pretty City Rose" for my birthday! I love that it's free from the usual dangerous nailpolish chemicals. It's amazing how pretty just doing your nails can make you feel!


A good guide to the chemicals you'll want to avoid during pregnancy can be found at 15 Minute Beauty Fanatic.

What are your favourite beauty tips? Do you even think about the chemicals that are in makeup and skin creams? (I must admit, I never thought about it nor cared until I was pregnant!).


Saturday, November 17, 2012

Baby is a...

So I promised last week to reveal if we are having a little baby boy or a little baby boy...

On Wednesday we both turned 27 - I am 27 years old and baby was 27 weeks old. So cute! :D

Anyway, onto the reveal... baby is a...


GIRL !!!!

I have already gone crazy buying so many pretty clothes for her! The clothes above were purchased on sale from US website Gymboree.

I can hardly believe I am having a cute little baby girl !! When we found out 9 weeks ago at the ultrasound I nearly cried. I'll have my own cute little daughter! :D


Friday, November 09, 2012

November

I've been having a better time of pregnancy recently. For the first 20 weeks I was so sick and/or tired, it was exhausting simply getting out of bed each morning.

Gradually since 20 weeks I've been getting more and more energy each week! This last week H's highschool friends (married to each other) were over from Hong Kong. We had so much fun showing them around the city for 5 days! 

Next week I turn 27 years old! That means that I've been blogging for over 7 years!! :O  If I'm not wrong, I started this blog back as a 19 year old, thinking how much fun it would be to read back over the years once I was grown up and married (wow! I'm grown up and MARRIED now - it still doesn't seem real). 

So far marriage + pregnancy has taught me to CHILL OUT over small things in life. Before I was married I would wake up at 4.50am, quickly get through my allocated work hours so I had the rest of the day to do everything like cooking, cleaning, gardening, crafts etc! Now I am just happy if I can make dinner most nights, make the bed once per week and vacuum the house! You realise it's more important to take care of yourself and spend time with your husband instead of worrying if everything else is perfect! 

I'll reveal if our baby dear is a boy or a girl next week! hehe! :D 

Mary

Friday, October 05, 2012

Engagement, Marriage and then .... !

I've finally decided to tell my blog, now that all close friends and relatives know...

I am pregnant!! We are having a gorgeous cute darling little baby in February!!

We are so thrilled as I will love having a baby to keep me company (I work as a university teacher, but from home) and Harman ADORES babies so much.

6 weeks of 24 hour a day morning sickness was so hard (back in June / July). But, as with everything in life, it passed and now I am 22 weeks pregnant! Since 20 weeks I've finally got some energy back to be like a normal human being.

I can feel darling baby wriggle and kick inside me. We saw baby on ultrasound and baby has my head and Harman's nose. :D :D

Expect more baby posts from now on!

Mary

Thursday, August 30, 2012

My Garden - August 2012

I love gardening. I used to post pictures of the beautiful bulbs, roses and flowers that I grew back home at my parents house. 

Since my wedding my own huge garden has been very much neglected :-(  I don't seem to have the time to keep it up like I did before I was married.  So I decided to start again but in a very small scale - making sure the tiny front flower bed and porch are filled with beautiful flowers this spring! 

(There is another reason I haven't been in the garden much, I won't go into detail here, but I've been sick :-( ). 

Here is a tour of the neglected back garden.. with a rose from the front garden. 

To give you an idea of how large the garden is at our house, it's about 1/8 of an acre or 605yd squared.. 



Snowdrops!

White Camellia

Pink Camellia (the bees LOVE this plant - it sounds like a hive!!).

Impatiens.. with dead Camellia flowers.. :P

Ixia (orange flower) and Impatiens (pink flower)


The first rose of the season! It smells wonderful. I've never had a rose bloom as early as August! Usually it's October.. 

Do you have a garden? what do you grow in it?