Thankful Tuesday: Overcoming the hurdles of parenting

As predicted last week, it did not take long for the stress of parenting to rebound back. The past week saw Arielle is having difficulties drinking her milk again. On top of that, Anya had a temperature out of nowhere three days ago. When it comes to caring for children, it seems that we parents always have to be on our toes!

This week, my thankful post is about things that aid us overcoming the challenges we face.

# An insightful article I found on the Internet that explains the possible reasons behind bottle feeding difficulties. This is by far the most helpful article that I have read in the past 4 months. From there, I have narrowed down a few possible answers to Arielle's feeding resistance - it appears that Arielle might be sealing the teat-hole with her tongue causing negative pressure to build up within the bottle. As such, she was having a hard time sucking milk and eventually throw in the towel altogether.

# Milk bottle teats that have an extra air vent at the side to allow air to go into the bottle. This was a solution as suggested by the aforementioned article. I never notice them in the market until.. well.. I discovered my baby having problem feeding. Previously when Arielle had regressed in her feeding (2 months ago?), we managed to resolve the problem by upsizing the teat-hole from S to M. So this time round, we incorporate both our old idea and the new idea suggested by the website - I bought "L" size teats that has an air vent at the size. So far, it seems to be working as milk feed durations has magically reduced from 60 minutes to 5 minutes!

# The Tod who knows to go to her own room and keep herself occupied whenever Mommy needs to feed Arielle because 'meimei' like to drink milk in a quiet environment. Thank God for sensible little girls! 

# Jigsaw puzzles for they are still very popular with the Tod. She is churning out pieced-up jigsaw puzzles like a factory worker at a production line. I am so thankful for them as they help to train up her concentration level and allows her to play quietly (when I need her to) while still enjoying herself at the same time.

# Well-stocked community libraries that are easily accessible. I always like our libraries. After children came along, 'like' has escalated to 'super like'. Okay, 'impressed' is more like it. The children libraries are so well-stocked! While yes, some books are old and dog-eared; you can still find a fair share of books that are in mint condition, fun, educational and adored by the children. It has become a routine for us to troop down to the library every fortnightly / three weeks. We like to go to other libraries rather than the one nearest to us whenever we can - just for the variety the rest can offer. 

# Simple bentos that make the difference in a feverish child's appetite. Seeing how well she has been eating from these amateurish bentos, I am motivated to make a trip down to Daiso to pick up more bento-making tools.

On top of that, I am also thankful that we could accomplish the following despite running a tight ship in the past week:

# Being able to make the nephew's day by baking cookies with him (well, sort of - he ran off to watch Pororo with Anya after helping me spoon out the dough for two out of eight trays) and then sending him home with a box of the goodies. For the record, I enjoyed the morning of baking and I could tell Anya was pleased to have her 'gorgor' around too.

# Making it to visit the sick SIL and sending our love for my mom who turned one year older over the weekend despite mismatch schedules between our two families. It must be one of the shortest visit we ever had to my brother's house - we were there for an hour (or less).

# Finally making pizzas again - the last time we had homemade pizza was before Anya was born. *Gasps*

# Moments when I get to be an observer of conversations between a toddler, a baby and a dog. Too cute!

What are you thankful for this week? :)