We Grieve, We Pray, We Remember

This month has not treated me any better than it should. All I can do is drown myself in my musics while working and at home, hug my little baby tightly. By now, the whole world are talking about the crash of MAS airplane MH0017. Hashtag #MH17 and #PrayForMH17 are going on wildly now at all social media. I have my own post on it as well, and this will be my blog post about it.

This year itself, MAS have suffered from the worst aviation incident ever, twice in a year. As we remember, it was the #MH370 which had tragically went missing and not found until now. Nights ago, on July 17th, slightly before midnight, news of MH0017 being shot down near or at Ukraine was all over the world. I couldn't be bothered with pesky news, I definitely wouldn't want to share the pictures.

People, here, I ask all of you to stop sharing those images and respect the privacy of those grieving families and leave them alone, especially you slobbing journalists. I know you people are trying to work, but people are hurting, they are grieving. So please give them a peace of mind, stop pestering these poor souls.

Here, a little short tribute to the lost souls on board:

All set,
Ready to go home,
Ready to go for holiday,
Ready to meet the loved ones,
Ready to spend memorable time with all,

Exhilarated with excitement,
Can't wait for the moment,
The next thing knew,
Everything went black.

Loved ones cried their hearts out,
The souls bleed,
The hearts cracked,
Millions grieved.

Pain stays, only to be numbed,
Prayers given,
Hope goes on,
Faith is that you finds it better to be with God,
Happily and merrily.

Memories were made,
It lives on when those that remember lives,
Memories will be passed on,
Memories will never fade,
We grieve, We pray and We will remember.

My Breastfeeding Journey (Part 1)

It's kinda long to be writing about it down now. But heck, here goes. Before that, credit goes to a good friend, Jenny, and the great group The Breastfeeding Advocates Network (TBAN) for support !

As some of you probably noted, I'm a new mother of a wonderfully adorable daughter, Elanor Wong ! 

I know, she looks like a boy and she's bald. She looks exactly like her father, thus, the boyish looks... By the way, this is her at 4 months old.

While I was pregnant with her at my first trimester, Jenny recommended me to join this group at Facebook. She shared quite a number of great details before I joined them. Surfing the web on how to take care of myself while pregnant is one thing, getting into labor is another thing... the hardest part, the most wonderful part, breastfeeding her. 

The moment she was born, I regretted not telling the nurse and the doctor that I wanted to breastfeed her immediately, skin-to-skin contact to get the bonding started. I know a lot of mothers complained that they do not have a lot of milk or it doesn't kick in immediately. Rest assured that by latching the baby on, the colostrum (the first phase of the yellowish milk that is darned good for the baby for them to build the antibody) will come in and not much. Why? Bear in mind that newborns do not have a big stomach. 

So, please don't worry about supply not being enough until after 2nd month.  After finding out about how much newborns feed, I proceed to think bout am I latching her on correctly or not. This is where the government clinics nurse comes in to the picture. They came to visit, checking on my dear daughter see if she is healthy or not and teaches me how to latch correctly, how to hold her, how to pump the milk using the hand (this technique is called marmet) and so on. 

Apart from that, in the first few days after I'm discharged from the hospital, I got badly blocked milk ducts. This could lead to a situation called mastitis. One could get fever and probably discouraged from keep breastfeeding the baby. Thankfully, my mother was being supportive of me and went checking with other experienced moms on how to handle it. She made fish head soup with raw papaya (green ones), rice paper pith and red dates for me to drink. The night itself, the milk came leaking out and the relief comes as getting engorged with no release really hurts and I can barely sleep. Besides helping with the relief, it apparently boosted my milk supply and I have to pump my milk out as my daughter can barely keep up with the supply. 

Here she is as a newborn !

Of course, she was not spared of the jaundice. Her readings was over 200 and she had to be admitted to the hospital for phototherapy for one night. My heart broke and I can't stop myself to tearing when I heard that she had to be admitted for that. Thankfully, with breastfeeding, although it took almost a month, her jaundice reading decreases and she's fully healed. All I need to avoid during her jaundice was to eat lesser or totally avoid ginger and wine. Oh, I forgot to mention that there's a confinement session for Asians (not sure bout how other race does it) and being a Chinese, there's a lot of rules of what to do/eat and what's not to do/eat. 

She gradually healed and as a normal healthy baby, she gained good weights throughout the journey. She was born at 2.7kg and now at 4 months old, she's weighing a good 6.5kg. Tripled the weight and I feel the pain in my arm whenever I feed her. Not that I'm complaining. Happy but exhausting but in the end, it's all totally worth it.

At this age, the cheeky-ness becomes her trademark already... Speechless but hilarious!

She really had me laughing all the time and nothing else matters when she is around me. She is all that I can see now, well, of course hubs is jealous at that but he also does the same, so all is fair ! I already foresee myself spoiling her badly and despite what people says, I always wished that she is stuck at this age, never growing up so I can keep her like this forever. But of course it's impossible. 

On my next post on breastfeeding, I will share out foods to eat/avoid to boost/that decreases milk supply and other details ! It's definitely a good learning moment as she grows and despite being exhausted, it's terribly fun and the bonding is the most precious moment ever.

Moving On

Well, it was just the other day when our country Prime Minister announced that the plane MH370 is "lost" and "ended in the Southern Indian Ocean". Basically now all the hashtags in facebook and twitter has changed from #PrayForMH370 turned to #RememberingMH370. Following the announcement, the next day all the radio stations in Malaysia played sad and solemn songs as well as words and thoughts of the public is played live. Even the news announcer also read out the news with a sad voice. Or was it just me?

Irregardless, as this is an international case, media all around the world questioned the words of our Prime Minister, asking for evidence to support his statement that the plane is truly lost and all hope of survivors gone. A lot of people put a lot of hope in the search, still in hope for a sign of survival. Some denies the statement and some just go on as announced. I for one, could not be bothered about it, not because it has nothing to do with me. It's as simple as I still have a slight hope for miracle and IF there are no survivors, all I know is that God loves all the people in MH370 more than anyone else and they are with God. Of course, they will forever be remembered by everyone...

Believe me, it hurts to read about the news especially after finding out that there are toddlers in the flight and I, being a mother to an incredibly adorable daughter, aches for the parents and relatives because I couldn't bear to even imagine losing my daughter. NO, CUT THIS BLASPHEMOUS THOUGHT. That is beyond freaky. Worse than your worst nightmare.

Saying I know is definitely easier than done, but, life is all about moving on. Whether we like it or not, the world and time keeps going and moving without waiting for anyone. I do believe Every lost souls, even those not in the flight MH370, wishes their loved ones to move on and not dwell in grief, just mourn for a little while is fine. Again, I know it's difficult, not easy but we have to do so. I know how it feels so because I've been there and it hurts like a bitch but I have no choice but move on, because of a very simple reason... the dead ones don't come back...

Prayers and thoughts are with you and for you people out there suffering. Let's have a moment of silence for all of them...

Malaysia Airlines MH370 Missing and Haze Madness

It's totally crazy. Malaysia is like suffering from two insane situation at the same time and so sudden. Beginning with the first one, the missing Boeing 777 Malaysia Airlines Plane MH370 that has left from Malaysia and was supposed to be heading to Beijing. It has already been missing for 5 days now since Saturday 8th March 2014 shortly two hours after its take off. The greatest thing is that, Malaysia is at the world stage now where everyone is focusing on this incident and trying to locate the plane. US sent out their warships to help to find, the Viets and Indonesia sent out planes to help, China digged their satellites for images to look for clues of wherebouts of the plane. So many other countries are helping to look for our poor missing plane.

From a small search area, it has been expanded when they failed to find the huge Boeing 777 plane. Seriously, with a total of 239 people inside and including infants, I'm totally sick to the core hearing about this news in the first place and now, the world especially China and Malaysia are praying hardly for the return of these people. 

If you notice the building on the most right, next to Aurora, there's a display of MH370 word there. This is their method of praying I guess. Various images of praying for the return of this plane has been shared all around... 

Everyone just want them to be returned. It's most devastating when news of your loved ones are suddenly missing and with the whole world helping to find, you still can't be calm as there is still no news about their whereabouts, are they safe or not... So upsetting... 

On the other hand, the other thing that should be frowned upon... Despite the effort to look for the missing plane, let's not forget that Malaysia are suddenly clouded heavily with... HAZE the most health threatening thing that's going on right now. Visibility are reduced badly for those on the roads, those working outdoors are constantly breathing in bad air and suffering from various problems, difficulty in breathing, skin dryness or itching, depending on the person. Despite the large volume intake of water, hey, we're also suffering from lack of water! 

It's bad enough to the extend where I can even smell the bad smokes in my room with all the doors and windows closed. It's bad enough that this haze time made me purchase an air purifier for the sake of my family, especially my little girl. Thanks to the bad haze that has been going on nowadays, so many jokes are being made...

Ultraman fighting a monster here... Oh there's also a case of Ultraman King banned in Malaysia. Google it up.

Another one seen here... Apart from the top caption, there's also a small caption at the bottom that reads, "Who's afraid of Godzilla? We've got the Haze!" 

I can't wait to see what other people gonna cook up to talk about the haze and the missing plane. In case you do not know, there's tons of embarrassing thing happened while the plane is missing. I'll give you a hint for you to google for... "Shaman" (In Malay, it's "Bomoh") 

Festive Eats !

I know it's kinda late in blogging about this but heck, I always believed in better late than never right? Enough said, in my country, Malaysia, last week was a week of fun, eats and play as we have a time called Hari Raya for the Muslims in my country. It's a time where family get together, eat together, and other wonderful things after a month of fasting. The best thing about these two month is that, FOODS!! Never ending of wonderful mouthwatering foods!! 

Most of the foods are without doubt, very sinful, and very delicious. I would say it is all a must have. It's undeniably fattening, but hell, which awesome food is not? That's the reason why they are awesome right? The top picture is what we have, called Lemang. It's sticky rice cooked in bamboo and believe me, together with the curry, it's fabulous! I'd never have enough of that.

 This one, I believe most knows it. The infamous satay ! Depending on your choice, you may have various type of meat to cook. My personal favorite, beef and chicken! Some even comes with rabbit meat or camel meat. Ohhhh, ostrich meat are delicious too. Juicy and tender! Together with the curry that's mixed with nuts, it's an awesome treat that one can have for dinner and yes, just by eating this alone, you can be actually very full. Price vary but cheapest of chicken meat it cost about RM0.30 per stick. Totally worth it. 

The lovely darling here, is the traditional nasi lemak ! The name itself mean fats. But then again, it's delicious!So, who cares! Really, when it comes to this one, it's also another must have during this wonderful season. It's a must have, cannot be missed, MUST EAT meal. I do so insist. You can practically find it everywhere and I personally like those that is served like this. Brings out the tradition in it and yeah, for some reason, it taste better served on banana leaves. 

This is like an extra, but also one of my favorite. It's called Ayam Percik. Not sure how to translate this into english but it's chicken meat with some awesome marinated sauce. Seeing it with the sticks, yes, it's meant to be grilled. It's definitely a huge piece, with each stick enough for a person, especially if you're a small eater. Mostly, during the fasting month, this is sold in the market and the aroma of this would overwhelm most ! :D I do miss this the most as I can only find awesome ones during the fasting month. Other than that, it's not so nice. 

Of course, another perks of having these sort of festive season here in this country is that, in town, it's usually empty and there's no traffic or whatsoever. We always look forward to such festive seasons as it gives great foods, smooth as white tofu traffic, family gatherings and of course, away from work and classes. It's a get fat and lazy moment, but, everyone loves it.