• When is the right age to wean from bottle?
• What are the methods use?
• How would I know if Iggy is ready or not?
• etc, etc, etc.

Oh, I don’t have a particular age/time frame that I would like Iggy to wean from bottle.  That is where the headache comes from.  I have no idea when or how I want to start the process.  I just had idea that I don’t want Iggy still drinking from bottle when he is 5 year old.  The sooner he weans from bottle the better.  I also don’t want to force Iggy discards his bottle before he is ready.

Another reason is Iggy wants to comfort sucking when he wants to fall asleep.  He used to be quite already when I gave him water to suck on, unfortunately not anymore.  He wants milk instead.  As Iggy falls asleep with a bottle of milk in his mouth more and more often, the urge to wean him from bottle is getting stronger.  I want to prevent him to develop a bottle mouth syndrome before it is too late

Every cloud has a silver lining.  It is so true. Last month is a hectic month for my family, with traveling back to back to the south and to the north to attend friend’s wedding and grandmother’s birthday celebration.  Long hours of traveling on the roads exhausted all.  With lack of sleep and rest couple with hot and humid weather, all of us felt unwell, especially Iggy.

Iggy had developed a low-grade fever on and off for two days.  At the same times, mouth ulcers began to appear insides in his mouth, especially on his tongue.  As a results, he had a hard time eating.  At first, he was still able take his milk from his milk bottle, however as the ulcers developed, it became harder and harder for him to take his milk without screaming.  It is really heartbreaking to him refused his food because of the pain.  If you know Iggy, you would know that refusing food is very unusual for him.  In the end, we found out that taking milk from cup will lessen his pain.  So for a few days while he was recovering, he is taking milk from cup.

Before I realized it, Iggy do not want to use milk bottle to take milk anymore, even after he recovered.  I even asked him whether he wants to drink his milk from the bottle or from the cup, and he clearly expressed that he wants it in a cup.  He even threw tantrum if I give him milk in milk bottle.  So from that day onwards Iggy has being drinking milk from a cup.  I am very thankful with how the thing turns out.

I tried this last week. Quick and easy recipe. The only time consuming part is the shredding the potatoes and onion.  Most important of all, Iggy wolf it down quicker than I can make for him …

Ingredients

Directions

1. Finely shred potatoes and onion into a large bowl. Drain off any excess liquid.
2. Mix in egg, salt, and black pepper. Add enough flour to make mixture thick, about 2 to 4 tablespoons all together.
3. Turn oven to low, about 200 degrees F (95 degrees C).
4. Heat oil in the bottom of a heavy skillet over medium high heat. Drop two or three tablespoons mounds into hot oil, and flatten to make 1/2 inch thick pancakes. Fry, turning once, until golden brown. Transfer to paper towel lined plates to drain, and keep warm in low oven until serving time. Repeat until all potato mixture is used.

Due to some changes in my life, I had been putting off to review the latest book I got from BookSneeze.com for a few months already.  This is a compilation of 150 Christmas, Easter and all-time favorite hymns, recounting on how the author was led to write these wonderful seasonal hymns.

I have a mixed feeling reading through this book.  I think I am expecting the book contains amusing and touching anecdotes about the creation of those hymns.  However, what I found is the contains are too factual for my liking.  It has the feeling of reading a history book.  Although, it is good that the book provide great source of facts regarding the hymns, I would only treat it as a reference book.  It would be hard for me to write through it again the second time.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

psss .. he just sit on a potty without bear out his bottom ..

Well, this kinda old news already as this post is late for almost a month!! Busy lately and my seldom update blog becomes like a death blog .. huhuhu..

Anyway, back to the topic.  I guess I had the give my babysitter the credit for this milestone.  We have a new babysitter for the past 2 months as my original babysitter desired to have a break.  The new sitter is an older lady with many years of baby-sitting experiences, and of course with the traditional views of how to take care of baby.  So naturally she is shocked when she found out Iggy is haven’t potty-trained yet at 16-month.

Now, after almost two months at the new babysitter, Iggy begins to use potty more and more often.  Actually, I am leaning towards let him decides when he wants to start using potty.  However, since the babysitter will teach him to use potty whenever he is at her place, I better teach Iggy to use potty whenever he is at home too.  I do not want to confuse him anymore than necessary.

So what is the progress now?  Currently, Iggy is not fully potty trained yet.  Sometimes, he will go in the potty, sometimes in his diaper.  He cannot tell whether he wants to poo or pee… or maybe it is just Mommy and Daddy don’t understand him ..   Whenever, he had an urge to use the potty he will get cranky or when he is in good mood, he will point to his diaper and say “um umh”.   Then we will take him to potty.  Sometimes he peed, sometimes he does not and sometimes he poo.

In conclusion, he got a lot of room for improvement cause currently, it still depends on how diligent Mommy is .. :p

Who am I
That the Lord of all the earth,
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt.
Who am I
That the bright and morning star,
Would choose to light the way,
For my ever wandering heart.

Bridge:
Not because of who I am,
But because of what you’ve done.
Not because of what I’ve done,
But because of who you are.

Chorus:
I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling,
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am.
I am yours.
I am yours.

Who am I
That the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love
And watch me rise again.
Who am I
That the voice that calmed the sea,
Would call out through the rain,
And calm the storm in me.

Not because of who I am,
But because of what you’ve done.
Not because of what I’ve done,
But because of who you are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling,
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am.
I am yours.

Not because of who I am,
But because of what you’ve done.
Not because of what I’ve done,
But because of who you are.

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling,
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am.
I am yours.
I am yours.
I am yours.

Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear
Cause I am yours..
I am yours..

Fahrenheit’s latest album, “Super Hot” + Fahrenheit 2011 table calendar + Schwarzkopf Bonacure hair care set + 8Days Hair Studio RM50 cash voucher

Ingredients

Directions

1. Clean and blanch the spinach. Drain and squeeze out excess water gently.
2. Transfer spinach to a large bowl. Add in minced garlic, sesame oil, salt and sugar.
3. Mix gently, sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve

This recipe is very flexible. If you like crunchy spinach, cut down the blanching time. If you don’t like garlic, no problem, dismiss the garlic.

Tips

1. Sugar is not the usual part of this type of recipe. However, adding a pinch of sugar will lift the taste and add the sweetness to it.
2. Toast the sesame seeds to bring out the its wonderful smell. I use both black sesame seeds and white sesame seeds. I also toasted them together until the white sesame seeds are lightly brown.

“If Yan can cook, so can you” – not necessarily …
“If Pauline can cook, so can you” – definitely!!!

Best of all, this is something I really want to win it for Iggy.  See how much he enjoys the CD ..

Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith. That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders.

It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped.

I immediately filed Tommy under “S” for strange … very strange. Tommy turned out to be the “atheist in residence” in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.

When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a slightly cynical tone: “Do you think I’ll ever find God?”

I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. “No!” I said very emphatically.

“Oh,” he responded, “I thought that was the product you were pushing.”

I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then called out: “Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever find him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!” He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.

I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line: “He will find you!” At least I thought it was clever. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly grateful.

Then a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted, and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe. “Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often. I hear you are sick!” I blurted out.

“Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks.”

“Can you talk about it, Tom?”

“Sure, what would you like to know?”

“What’s it like to be only twenty-four and dying?”

“Well, it could be worse.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in life.”

I began to look through my mental file cabinet under “S” where I had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate me.)

But what I really came to see you about,” Tom said, ” is something you said to me on the last day of class.” (He remembered!) He continued, “I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But he will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. (My “clever” line. He thought about that a lot!) But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, then I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven.

But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.

Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn’t really care … about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that. “I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.’ “So I began with the hardest one: my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him.”

“Dad”. . .

“Yes, what?” he asked without lowering the newspaper.

“Dad, I would like to talk with you.”

“Well, talk.”

“I mean. .. It’s really important.”

The newspaper came down three slow inches. “What is it?”

“Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that.” Tom smiled at me and said with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him: “The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me.

And we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me. “It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years. I was only sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long. Here I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.

“Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, ‘C’mon, jump through.’ ‘C’mon, I’ll give you three days .. .three weeks.’ Apparently God does things in his own way and at his own hour. “But the important thing is that he was there. He found me.

You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him.”

“Tommy,” I practically gasped, “I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle John said that. He said God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him.’ Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell them.”

“Oooh . . . I was ready for you, but I don’t know if I’m ready for your class.”

“Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call.” In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it.

He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed.

He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined.

Before he died, we talked one last time. “I’m not going to make it to your class,” he said.

“I know, Tom.”

“Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?”

“I will, Tom. I’ll tell them. I’ll do my best.”

So, to all of you who have been kind enough to hear this simple statement about love, thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven: “I told them, Tommy . … …as best I could.”

I have been waiting anxiously for this book and finally it came! Hooray!!! When I saw this book available for review, I immediately request for it without a second thought, as I fall in love with the cute cover right away.  The other reason is, I had been trying quite sometimes now, to find suitable Bible stories-related books for Iggy.  Therefore, I would not want to miss the chance to get this Really Woolly Bible Stories By DaySpring from BookSneeze.com

So here we go.  Following is the description from BookSneeze.com :

Favorite Bible stories presented with the beloved Really Woolly art style help little children discover that God is faithful and true and that Jesus, The Good Shepherd, loves them.

This case-bound padded board book from the Really Woolly® brand by DaySpring® makes it easy to share important stories from God’s Word with little children, while teaching them about God’s shepherd-like love for them. Bible stories include Creation, Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Ten Commandments, Joseph, Samson, Daniel, David and Goliath, Jonah, Jesus’ Birth, Jesus Loves the Little Children, Jesus Feeds 5,000, Jesus the Good Smaraitan, Jesus Walks on Water, Jesus’ Death & Resurrection, The Great Commission. Little ones will love the charming Really Woolly® illustrations.

Illustrations by Julie Sawyer Phillips. Stories retold by Bonnie Rickner Jensen.

Product details:

• Format:  Padded Board Book
• Trim Size:  5.30 in x 7.10 in x 1 in
• Page Count:  36 pages

It is a soft-padded board book and color of the book is soft purplish.  In fact, the color is so soft that at first I thought it is white in color.  Each Bible stories in the book are presented in two-page spread, where on one side, the stories are told in poem form with little Really Woolly characters doing something related to the stories together and on the other sides  is the cartoon-style illustrations.

I am really happy with this book as Iggy loves it.  He usually follows me around the house when I am doing some chores.  On the day when we first get the book, he brought the book to the kitchen where I was at, occupied with preparing his food, and settled himself down on the kitchen floor, flipping through the book.

I try to cultivate the love to read in Iggy.  Whenever I can, I would try to get him sitting on my lap with me holding a book in front of him and read to him.  He usually gets impatient with me and tried to flip through the book without waiting for me to point out the pictures in the pages.  The first time when I tried to read Really Woolly Bible Stories to him, he is his old self.  Getting impatient and tried to flip through the book as he likes.  However, as the stories in the poem format are real short I was able to picked up a few keywords and pointed out something in the pictures.  The next time, when I tried to read the stories to him, he actually exhibits more patience and able to let me pointed out more stuffs to him.  By the third time, he is actually looked for the Really Woolly characters and pointed them out to me.  Whoa! That’s a real improvement for Iggy!

If I not mistaken this book is appropriate for children age 4 – 8.  Iggy is actually way too young to fully understand the book.  However, I would not worry too much about that.  At this age, all I want to teach Iggy is to love and appreciate books.  It does not matter if he does not understands even a word from the book.  As long as he loves the book, I am happy with it.

There are a few features of the book that I truly loves.  For one, it is the size and weight of the book.  The size is just right for toddler like Iggy and it is also light enough for him to carry around easily.   Secondly, under the cartoon-style illustrations, there are scripture reference that tells you where to find the story in the Bible.  Lastly, the book closes with poem-format prayer for children, that shows the Really Woolly characters tucked in for the night.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.