Post-Midnight Post

I am seldom up at this hour, even since Haikal arrived. Since we practise co-sleeping, midnight-feeding doesn't really require me to be totally up.

But tonight I decided to do a quick pumping and while getting everything ready Haikal got up. So I offered him his food and Zahraa got the other side. And on top of that business, I was switching the TV channels and stopped at Al-Hijrah, which was airing a talk show 'Tanyalah Ustaz'.

I watched for few seconds and got hooked. And here I would love to share some reminders on the show.

1. Our life begins with azan, and ends with Solat Jenazah. That is the metaphor of life itself. No matter how long we live, it is still a very short period of time! Just like the duration between an azan and the solat that follows it. Go to masjid, you do your Tahyattul Masjid, then it's azan. You get up, do the rawatib then solat fardhu. How short is that? Nda panjang. And there is no time for us manusia to main-main dengan masa :( The short time we have in this life should be spent wisely and well, untuk keuntungan di akhirat semata-mata.

I cried when the ustaz said this because I realized that was what I have been doing (muhasabah diri). Sibuk dengan social life, gathering sana sini, facebooking and other online activities inda beranti sampai terlalai dengan masa yang Allah bagi. Few days ago I was on the whatsapp chatting to a friend I met on FB. It was first about some purchase I made, and then we got carried away and I complained about susah kan cari masa to do other things (especially solat) ever since I had Haikal. And honestly, that had been my main concern since I was pregnant, takut sibuk dengan anak sampai lalai untuk solat. Her reply was simple, but sampai now melakat di kepala and I hold to it. She said, "Mesti curi masa".

2. The show was about Membina Hidup Berkualiti, and a woman from the audience was asking what we could do to build a strong foundation of Islam & Iman in teenagers. The ustaz cakap, "Berapa ramai daripada kita yang siang malam doa mohon keberkatan usia keberkatan rezeki tapi lupa untuk doakan anak-anak agar menjadi soleh and solehah?". One of the doa yang Allah inda tolak is doa kedua ibu bapa untuk anak-anak. If tah parents ani siang malam berdoa untuk their children untuk dikurniakan iman yang kuat, menjadi soleh dan solehah, insyaAllah, that is what they will become.

With Haikal falling asleep on my chest (pasal kekanyangan), I cried. Ya Allah, betapa kitani sering lalai dengan nikmat masa, keinginan nafsu (online shopping especially) sampai kadang-kadang lupa TUJUAN SEBENAR KITANI SEBAGAI HAMBA ALLAH. And OUR RESPONSIBILITIES AS MUSLIM PARENTS.

Dearest readers, I didn't mean to tunjuk baik or tunjuk alim, but this is at least what I can do as my deeds today, to SHARE what I have learned today. May Allah guide us to the right path. Amin.

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Haikal's First Time Away From Ummi

And it was when I had to go to the Women's Health Clinic this morning. DH was on afternoon shift and free in the morning, so we decided to try leaving Haikal under his care at home.

Before I left I prepared 2 bottles of fresh EBM in the fridge (2 oz each) and explained to DH how to use the bottle warmer. And alhamdulillah when I called home DH told me that Haikal had just finished his first bottle without much hassle and was then fast asleep. Too bad the clinic was actually ipen in the afternoon, which means I have to come back again this afternoon. And I might have to bring Haikal along since I don't really harap my little sister to jaga him on her own.

Now I'm back at home, Haikal is still sleeping. And as I type, I'm having a date with my Zahraa. Bzzzztt bzzzt bzzzzt~

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Zahraa I Love You!

And that's the confession of a mommy-turned cow! I am in a civil union with my new bestfriend now. And I wish we had met and known each other earlier. Benarlah kata orang tak kenal maka tak cinta HAHA

Been using Z for a week now but consistent pumping has only taken place for the past few days. Honestly, the yield is not as impressive as what I expected as I used to hand-express and got almost the same result. But when I think about how much time and energy I have saved (by 50%) I can only be grateful for this beautiful machine!

For now, stocking up EBM has been going on pretty well. (I used up all the previous hand-expressed stock by the way). For each pumping session of 10-15 minutes I can get around 3-4oz and now I'm aiming to increase the number of sessions. As for today, so far I've had 3 sessions; 4am, 8am & 7pm. Alhamdulillah produce has been consistent with 3+oz from each session, which means in total so far I've got 9+oz today. Hopefully things will at least stay the same, or get better :)

Now that I've been pumping before feeding Haikal, I realize that he tends to get angry during the feeding session, which I think could be due to slow flow of BM. But I'm hoping that also means he's getting all the hindmilk as the foremilk has been pumped out.

Now the only concern we have is whether to get our own deep chest freezer or just tumpang my mum's. At the moment my storage bags of EBM is filling up all the space in her freezer (two-door fridge). And we need to have a back-up in case of no electricity. Putting the frozen EBM on the fridge's freezer means there is a greater risk for the EBM to thaw quickly when there's no karan, compared to when they are in the deep freezer. My mum has two of them, but both are full with other frozen stuff. I can actually use one, since it is only used for frozen finger foods, but I will need to re-organize the whole thing in there first. And I think getting my own freezer is much simpler. *think think think*

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Haikal Goes to the Clinic

 Today we took Haikal to the clinic for his 2nd monthly appointment as well as his first dose of Tetra shot. He weighs 4.45 kg and measures at 58cm. He was kind of sleepy during the weigh-in and ended up kusut and crying, with the eyes shut!

All set to go! Baju courtesy of Babu Baby :D

Met Kaka Nashwa & Na'ila (not in the picture) at the clinic.

We reached home and found this lying in the living room. Had no idea who it was from :s

Now baby boy is sleeping soundly in Ummi's arm. Hopefully he won't get any fever from the morning shot. And the long weekend is here! Salaam Ma'al Hijrah dear muslim readers, semoga di tahun hijrah yang akan datang membawa perubahan yang lebih baik dalam diri kitani sebagai hamba Allah SWT. As for me, I hope to be a better wife to my Zauj, a better Umm to Haikal & a better muslimah. Istiqamah, istiqamah, istiqamah. Semoga sentiasa teguh iman in this jihad.

Haikal is Two Months Old Today!

Alhamdulillah my baby has reached another milestone. He is two months old today and is one healthy happy boy. He has shown some progress in terms of interacting with others. He loves 'voicing out' different noises and he loves it when there's someone talking to him and making silly faces. Lots of cooing & laughing and they just make Ummi's heart go lalala~ Apart from that, he is also getting fussier nowadays when we are late for his nappy change. And I think his love for bath has grown! No more loud cries during bath time. The sleeping pattern has been the same, straight long hours of sleep at night, waking up quietly for feeding at least twice. However he seldoms sleep during the day for long hours. 30 minutes at the most! This makes it a bit hard for me to get anything else done :(

On a happier note, my new bestfriend is finally here! The card reached my place on Saturday morning and I collected it in the afternoon. Got taxed but it wasn't much hehe Can't wait to start pumping and stocking up before I go back to work in January. And I'm naming it Zahraa! LOL! Hey every bestfriend deserves a good nickname :D

The new bestfriend :)

Owh, and as Haikal's birthday gift (excuse) I'm purchasing 2 Blueberry CDs from Cradle Delight!! *throws confetti* Semangat jua ah! Let's just hope I can do it. At the moment it's just going to be on part-time basis, and I'm going to start small, and slow. Maybe once the collection is large enough then we can go full-time. Errr. So ambitious eh! Mudah-mudahan kuat hati & semangat :D

The blueberry one size CDs in Lemon Lime & Stars. Hoping to get some weehuggers covers & flips :D

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Haikal is Home!

Finally! Alhamdulillah. And despite being sick, Haikal has gained 300 grams during his 10 days at the ward. I was not surprised to see the number on the scale since he had been feeding most of the time. Or the whole time. Even the nurses noticed that too. I think since rasa nya kurang baik atu feeding was the only thing that soothed him, as usual.

We also noticed that there were times when he got very cranky and inda nyaman tidur, which, after few hours, would be followed by him popping out greenish poops. I believe it's what people call senudong. So we got this tapal cina mama bought in Miri ( Hua Ho sells them at a lower price though) and alhamdulillah no more crankiness.

Last night was Haikal's first sleep at home after 9 nights away and he slept well throughout the night, only waking up twice for feeding. But it's a different case for me. I had the worst diarrhea ever in my whole life on our final night at the ward and as I type now (that's more than 24 hours) I'm still experiencing it :( No one is sure what has caused it. Everyone ate the same thing that night and yet only I got it. Not to mention the fever and body ache, it was so bad I had to ask a masseuse to come over for a whole body massage. And I feel a lot better today, except for the diarrhea bit.

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Haikal's First Stay @ the hospital

Today marks his 5th day in the hospital. The doctor told me this morning that we have to stay for at least 5 more days since Haikal needs to finish the whole 7-day course of antibiotics. Today is his 3rd day (he started on his 3rd day of stay) and he responded to the doctor's remark by making this loud fart noise! It was one funny moment :D

His fever has gone for more than 24 hours already now, and that is quite relieving. I don't want to rush taking home leaves. We did that yesterday and his temperature suddenly hiked. The best thing now I guess is to wait for his condition to stabilize banar2.

To dearest relatives & friends, thanks for your time dropping by, thoughts, prayers & concerns throughout this tough period. I believe this is just another 'gift' from Allah. I keep on saying to Haikal, jadi Amir mesti strong. Allah bagi Haikal sakit awal so that he will be a stronger boy.

I've skipped a lot of updates including the weekend we spent with the relatives celebrating birthdays as well Haikal's first 5 days at the hospital. Will post some pictures when I have the free time soon, insyaAllah.

Trying the Frozen EBM

Two nights ago I decided to train Haikal feeding off bottles so I took few storage cups of EBM (in total there were around 2oz only) and let them thaw in the fridge. Yesterday morning I took them out and took each lid off to check how the milk was. And to my surprise they all smell plastic-ky. I didn't taste them but discarded them straight away, and thaw some more (around 5oz) to see if they all smell the same. When I told my mum about it she said it is normal for milk to have that kind of smell. She used the word 'lantuh'. I did ask a BFing friend and she said hers never had such smell.

Then last night I was  browsing through the BBM group on FB when I came across a post by a mother regarding her frozen EBM tasting like plastic, which her son refused to take. Another mother commented that she also experienced the same thing. I then took out the thawed milk and it still had that plasticky smell. I warmed it in the bottle and try to give it to Haikal. My assumption was that if the milk had gone bad he would definitely reject it. And surprisingly he took around 2oz. And he had been fed an hour prior to that ( he was not hungry when he took the 2oz EBM). I did check online that such smell could be due to high amount of enzyme lipase, and what mothers can do is scald the milk before putting it in the freezer. But I guess there's too much work there, and if your little one has no problem taking it then there's no need for scalding (banarnya malas).

And Haikal is now officially botak! DH and I did it ourselves LOL! Saja kan ambil berkat, sambil gunting and cukur we recited some verses from the Quran and some prayers jua, something that the barber wouldn't do. The actual plan was to ask an Ustaz to do it but he is now away performing the Haj. I know that we should have had it done when he was 7 days old, but I have to admit at that time I was pretty occupied with the whole new experience so we skipped it. And lagi his hair was quite labat since birth macam rasa sayang jua kan buang :s Sekalinya one day at a family gathering a cousin talked to me about the bercukur thing, like all the kebaikan e.g. membuka minda, luas & tajam fikiran and most importantly it's a sunnah, so we gave it a go.

Taiming muka ah! His very first haircut by abi nya :D Ummi tolong pigang saja.

Tadaaaa!!! Smart eh abi nya cukur :P NOT! We actually took him to a barber shop suruh cukur lagi pasal ada yg sumpak :D

And today we begin to train him to sleep in the unggak. We are using the traditional hands-me-down unggak. Though we at first try not to resort to using the swing pasal takut kebiasaan, we realised that he falls asleep easily by just swinging him. And so far, as I type, he is still asleep. Since 12. Normally kalau siang he seldom tidur lama like this.

Si Gondol dalam buaian

Haikal's Day Out

We went out last Tuesday and our 1st stop was Sapphira Cake House in Kiulap. And this was what I had for breakfast. Nasi Lemak Campur. Love this dish, the best! And love the place.

He refused to be put in his carrier so I had to hold him while having my meal

At the Mall's Coffee Bean, waiting for Abu Haikal siap solat

Our second stop of the day, TOYS R US! Haikal was fast asleep so we really had a good time browsing around :D