WHY CHILDREN'S BOOKS?

Exactly a week ago, we launched a Children’s Book Series –The Invisible People with Graceworks Publishing. Many are asking us about the background of these books, but allow us to first tell you a little about the books in the series first –

SAVE SERIES: PLAY TIME

As promised, this second edition of the SAVE SERIES revolves around play time! Whether it be outdoors, indoors, water play or art our kids love to play. Humblet is very tactile and has to feel things for herself. She loves collecting textures of different sorts in her paper cutting box. On the other hand, Singlet is more auditory and prefers to make instruments out of his toys, dancing the moment he hears music.

With every child unique and having individual preferences how do we SAVE at play time?

Here’s the full run down –

HIS BIG ONE

In two days time, Humblet turns four. The Jiblings are a mere two weeks apart in birthdays. Singlet turned a whole year old on the 27th of July, what a whirlwind of a year it has been for us all.

If you have been following dearhumblet.com for awhile now, you would know we are not big on parties or celebrations. Being homebodies, we largely avoid crowds of any sort and gatherings in our home usually revolve around half a dozen guests at max. But we wanted to make an exception for Singlet's miracle and so here’s the story of his big first birthday bash -

SAVE SERIES: BABY STEPS

On social media we often share #savemoneywhilesavingtheearth tips, these are really just ways in which we try to make more environmentally conscious choices. Of late we have been getting questions. What do you use to collect trash? What kinds of food to you recycle? How do you make these efforts child-friendly?

There are so many things one can do, but lets start small. In this post then I thought I'd collate a list of food related green efforts for your action.

1. BYOB/C/S

Bring your own bottle, cup or straw. As a rule, I never buy bubbletea or kopi peng unless I have my Stojo. Collapsible and compact, it leaves me no reason to not throw it in my bag each time I head out of the house. 

So far I have also bought in it tau huay, ice jelly, cut fruit, biscuits and popcorn. We try to use it whenever we buy anything loose or anything semi fluid that comes in plastic packaging otherwise.

Start with one of the above. Bring your own bottle on weekends when you do leisure outdoors. Turn down bottled water at work events. Tell the waiter you will skip the plastic straw. Get you and your spouse matching Stojos for your next anniversary! 

p.s. we get our Stojos from yoursustainablestore.com and our straws from bamboostrawgirl.com (not sponsored, just convicted)

2. Tapow Box

If we manage to plan ahead, we will bring containers to pack food from the hawker centres or food courts. If we forget, we will at least skip the disposable cutlery and opt for paper packaging rather than plastic.

Or even eat there rather than take out so we use less disposables. 

Its a hassle for us young parents to bring a full set of cutlery along with baby's 101 things, so instead we throw a pair of chopsticks in our straw bag. You can eat nearly everything with chopsticks. Try it to believe it.

3. Buy bagless

I often roll my eyes at supermarkets when they charge you for the use of plastic bags in the name of encouraging the use of recyclable bags, but everything else comes in plastic packaging. What is the point I wonder.

We bring our own freezer bag and recyclable bag to the wet market instead. Containers for fish and meat. Bags for vegetables and fruit. 

We also make an effort to buy items that don't come all wrapped in plastic. We find this much harder to do in a supermarket, hence wet market trips once a week.

That being said, we cannot and will not give up Nutella and Peanut butter. A mini confession. 

4. Cook less waste less

Our family eats just about one cup of rice for dinner. One soup or stew and a fish usually makes up our entire meal. Nothing fancy, nothing wasted.

Fruit cores are used to make soup stock together with leftover bones, again I stress where possible. Fruit skins and seeds are sometimes blended and mixed with plant soil as fertilizer when not eaten. 

A portion of what is cooked for dinner is packed aside for my lunch the next day. 

No fancy compost methods or elaborate food posts here, just a common decision to eat less so as to waste less at every meal.

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That's all for this #saveseries first post!

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions and I'll try my best to answer them or at the very least direct you to the right people. 

Cheers!

Amy

NOT AN INFLUENCER

Recently, Instagram has been prompting me to pay to promote my page. Increase likes! Get more hits! Have more followers! On the home front, friends have suggested the same, recommending I put up ads to increase my reach online. While sponsors posit exact timings and days of the week to put up stories and posts, so as to maximise exposure.

My (often delayed) response is usually to say ‘no’. I shake my head laughing and their suggestions. Not because I belittle these well-meaning advice, but more so because the truth is this – ‘I am no influencer’ and here’s why –

I AM MOTHER, HEAR ME ROAR

     The story was told of two mothers who delivered three days apart and shared a ward, with their babies in the hospital bed. In the middle of the night, one woke up and saw that her baby was dead. She then quietly switched babies with the mother in the next bed. When the other mother woke up and saw that the baby was not hers, she freaked out and took the first mother to court.

     In the courtroom, the judge calmly heard the case from each woman. Both claiming the living child to be her own. With a wave, he silenced them both, pronouncing that the child be sawed in two, so that each woman could have half.

     The woman whose child was the living one, was deeply troubled and quickly begged that the judge give the child to the other woman. Immediately, it was made clear who the real mother was and the living child duly returned.

TERRIBLE THIRTIES

There was a mum who constantly wondered why her children threw tantrums. She was puzzled when they raised their voices at her or at one another. Why they often chose the most public and most embarrassing of places to kick up a fuss – in line for groceries, at the toy section of the furniture mall, in the quiet hipster cafe, her best friend’s wedding luncheon and the list goes on.

Then one day, arms akimbo, her three-year-old glared at her sternly at said, “mummy, no shouting!”

And that was the day she realised, with equal parts of shame and horror,

that the mum was me.

SUBSIDISED WITH A ‘C’

     Barely a month since Humblet’s discharge from the hospital and Singlet gets warded for stomach tract infection. He never really recovered from the cough he caught from her, and that worsened into a ten-day vomiting episode. On day ten, he threw up eight times, water included, and we knew we had to bring him in before he got dehydrated. As expected, the poor boy was put on a drip and stomach rest ordered. Meaning he had to fast from milk and solids completely so his gut could reboot.

     Unlike his sister, who stayed in an air-conditioned four-bedder B1-ward, Singlet stayed in the eight-bedder non-air-conditioned C-ward because his heart condition does not allow him to have medical insurance of any sort. In the waiting area, we overheard a wife say to a husband, “later the nurse ask you, just choose A-ward. Subsidised ward a lot of bad influence. The parents let the kids watch TV all day long. They give formula milk to their babies and many of them don’t speak English properly.”

This post is really a response to her and all others who feel the same way –

WHAT TO SAY WHEN A CHILD IS SICK

Processing a lot of thoughts and reflections since we since got word that Humblet’s best friend from school was diagnosed with cancer, a few days shy of her fourth birthday. Some of the emotions are still pretty raw and as this precious child fights cancer, goes through round after round of chemotherapy, our thoughts continue to be with her, and our prayers surround her daily.

This post is one of the many things we first struggled with, that is what do you say to someone when their child is sick? If you would like to read on –

A IS FOR ATROCIOUS

Dear Humblet,

SINGLET'S SOLIDS

Here is a detailed right up of Singlet's solid food journey. The disclaimer is that we allow ourselves to guided by the child's interest not by what the experts say. As with Humblet, we let our kids explore with different foods but we also never rushed them to start.

From around the middle of his fourth month, Singlet started showing interest in our food. Grabbing our utensils or cups mid-meal and shoving them into his mouth. We began to introduce single solids in the last week of his fourth month for three weeks and then moved to blending in the last two weeks. Here's the low down -

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

A day in the life of @jieames for the new mums who were asking what an average day looks like for Singlet (6mo) and I, this is specially written for you!

WHAT'S THE BIG NEW YEAR DEAL?

A fellow SAHM raised an eyebrow when I told her we were heading out for a New Years Day party. She remarked that a new year made no difference since its the same routine day in day out with her kid.

That made me think about - why do we make a big deal of the New Year?

Here's why I think its important.