Product Review: Ju-Ju-Be™ Be Prepared Diaper Bag

Got my Ju-Ju-Be™ Be Prepared diaper bag some time back... and I LOVE it to bits!!!!

And here's my first attempt at a product review.

Features that I particularly like:
1) Adjustable long strap includes a shoulder pad with memory foam and a grippy textile underneath
2) 2 exterior insulated bottle pockets

It's ultra comfy carrying this bag, thanks to the well-constructed shoulder pad. Not once has the bag slid off my shoulders, even while maneuvering through huge crowds during the Christmas period. My favourite feature of this bag has to be the insulated bottle pockets. Made from Thinsulate™, the pockets did not impress me at first. I was rather skeptical about its ability to keep things warm/cold as the pockets were covered just by a simple flap. However, at 7pm one evening, I brought out a bottle of refrigerated milk to a restaurant just in case Baby Declan decided to scream for his milk before the 3h period was up (and all mummies know that happens from time to time). The milk wasn't used, and when I took the bottle out to put it back into the fridge upon reaching home at 10pm, it felt like it had just come out of the fridge!

On the other hand, there are a few things I did not like. Firstly, there is no fastening for the easy access pocket. True, it is useful for storing things that you need to often reach for (such as that hankie to clean up our dear baby's drool), but once the mommy pocket is somewhat filled, the mommy pocket's weight will cause the easy access pocket to stay open. Secondly, consumers should definitely note the size of this bag. It is HUGE! I packed enough diapers and clothes for a 2D1N trip and still had space left over. Petite mummies should always bring their stroller so that they can hook this bag onto their strollers.

Despite these 2 small details, this is a great diaper bag... If you need a huge diaper bag or simply have many things to carry, you should definitely think about getting this one.

Baby Gathering

Too lazy to blog about it, but basically we had a July babies gathering on 8 Dec and had a mini potluck. Check out the pics below.


All the babies on the playmat.
Clockwise from top left hand corner: Thaddeus, Declan, Gordon, Wu Feng, Poppy, Sophie



The moms & their brood.
From left to right: Cindy & Sophie, Alicia & Gordon, Adora & Poppy, Mabel & Wu Feng, Jaime & Thaddeus, Me & Declan!



A typical Declan "What's going on" look.
From left to right: Declan, Wu Feng, Poppy, Thaddeus



Declan with his borrowed elephant ears.

My first Photobook

If only I could print it out free :)

Make a Smilebox photobook

Sleep Training

I decided that it was time for Declan to fall asleep on his own. Well, at least for the night session that is. Therefore, it was time for sleep training. Amazingly, it wasn't AS difficult as I thought it would be. But it WAS difficult, lest anyone should think otherwise. And since I didn't want to jinx it halfway, it's only now that I feel confident enough to actually blog about it.

Oh oh, and before I forget, the reason why I chose to start on 15 Nov is because Declan's softie dad was overseas in Qatar.

15 Nov
Start: 9.15pm
Slept: 9.45pm
He fussed for a while (me thinks about 10min), and when he realised that nobody was going to pat/sing/swing him to sleep, he started to cry. I felt really really awful, but I persevered and he FINALLY fell asleep. I think due to exhaustion more than anything else.

16 Nov
Start: 9.50pm
Slept: 10pm
He fussed and cried, but slept within 10min! A miracle!

17 Nov onwards
No more crying! Mostly fussing and some kind of 梦话 that he mumbles for a while before he falls asleep. But I believe WE HAVE MADE IT!

I proudly showed off Declan's newly acquired skill to DY, whom I must say was rather impressed.

Me: "And do you know why I decided to train him while you were away? Cos you would have probably caved in and said he's still young!"
DY: "What?! You think I so lousy one meh?"

Some time later....

DY: "We leave him in the room alone, like so bad hor?"
Me: "......"

Me thinks: SOFTIE!

Busy day & it's only 7plus in the morning

Phew... what a morning it's been. I conclude, I hate changing Declan's diaper in the morning, always seems guaranteed to have an incident of some kind.

Sequence of events:
1) Declan wakes up so I prepare the stuff to change his diaper.
2) While cleaning his butt, he pees and gets his shirt wet.
3) Move him to a different spot and try to cleaan him up.
4) Declan pees again. So much until it actually flows onto the bed.
5) Moves him to the original spot that has somewhat dried and try to clean him up again.
6) He POOS!
7) Push all stuff onto the floor, lay another rubber mat and grab his bath towel.
8) Give him a quick rinse-off & dress him. (FINALLY!)
9) Feeding time.
10) He poos again while I was trying to burp him. He gets the hem of his shirt soiled.
11) Contain the mess and continue feeding.

And it's only 7.30 in the morning... definitely not a great moment.

Smash & Squeal

DY: "Did you hear Declan squeal in the middle of the night?"
Me: "Yup, but he went back to sleep on his own right?" (Thinking his squeal was part of his usual noises he makes in his sleep)
"Yah, but he squealed cos I rolled over his hand."
"WHAT???????!!!!!!"
"It wasn't my faaault... he turned 45 degrees in the middle of the night. I turned over and his hand was just there."
"............."

Me thinks that it's time for Declan to sleep on his own. One day, his dad will just smash him in his sleep.

Difficult times

It's been a difficult 2 days. Declan has not fallen asleep easily (half an hour of carrying/patting and still no sleepy look), and he's been waking up earlier in the day. I wonder if I need to do sleep training soon. I really hope I won't have to do that cos it means I will have to let him cry it out. Sigh.

Please Declan, please behave again... don't put me through sleep training. I KNOW I will cry...

And then there were 3

17th July 2008 - Thursday
And I never ever wanted kids... again the same thing that bit me in the butt in the previous post returns to bite me once again.

16/07/2008 0900
Contractions came every 15min. They were still bearable so I decided to wait it out at home and monitor in case it was a false alarm. I napped in between contractions.

1200
Contractions finally stopped. Rested the whole afternoon to replenish the energy drained from the exhausting morning.

1700
Contractions started again. Still every 15min interval so waited it out again. Somewhere along the way, it became every 10min.

2000
Hubby came home and I went downstairs for dinner. By this time, the contractions were every 5min and MIL advised us to go to the hospital to at least do a check. Hubby would later tell me that at this point, he thought that it would be a false alarm and totally expected us to get sent home.

2030
Finished dinner. Had Keong Saik duck. Proceeded to take a shower, all the while moaning that I was so going to get an epidural immediately upon reaching the hospital.

2115
Finally made it to the car. Yup, it took that long for me to take a shower and move around the house even though my hospital bag had been packed previously already. Hey, you don't expect a pregnant woman to zoom around the house while battling contractions ok...
Then details became hazy. Upon reaching Mount Alvernia, hubby dropped me off at the reception while he went to look for a parking lot (so I wouldn't have to walk so far). As I was having yet another contraction when I entered the reception area, I sat down to get over that particular contraction before registering. Guess I had that I'm-in-pain look on my face, because a Mt A staff actually wheeled a chair over and asked if I wanted to go straight to the delivery room which I agreed. Therefore had a nice ride to the delivery suite while at the same time wondering how Hubby was going to find me. But figured he would be resourceful enough to find me. According to him, by the time all registrations were done and he came to the delivery suite, it was 10pm already. Nurse checked me, pronounced me 3cm dilated and called my gynae. Oh yes, and while I was lying on the bed, nurse gave me the gas mask and kept telling me to breathe in the gas. "More, more! Deeper breaths!" My first good breath didn't take the pain away, but it made me high enough to not think about the pain. Kinda like alcoholic high without the alcohol... quite nice/shiok actually. Haha. And then.. totally forgot about requesting for epidural.

2230
Gynae Dr Roy Ng came. He checked me and pronounced me as 3-4cm dilated. Broke my water bag and I think I heard him say I didn't have much water. Told us that on an average, the cervix would dilate 1cm every hour. This meant that I would deliver at around 6plus in the morning and that the nurse would check me at around 2.30am. Then Dr Roy left. The midwife told me that if I felt like pushing later on, I MUST not push, but should inform the nurse immediately.

2300
Hubby kept giving me updates on my pain meter. There's this CTG machine that gives you actual numbers on the pain level of the contraction. The higher the number, the more painful. Apparently, my highest number hit 128 or something like that. By this time, I was too tired to hold on to the gas mask, so Hubby held it to my face when the contraction hit and took it off when it was over. Along the way, it was too much to bear and I asked for pethadine (an injection to the thigh that is suppose to be a better pain reliever). Looking back, at that point of time, I didn't think the stupid injection worked, but according to Hubby, it definitely worked cos I wasn't groaning as much after the injection. Oh well... think he's in a better position to comment on all these. Oh yes, and also just once, when my contraction hit, Hubby didn't give me the gas mask. I turned around and lo and behold, he had fallen asleep! From time to time, I bring this incident up, and he always goes "Wah, one time only hor!"

0100
Suddenly felt the urge to push. Told Hubby who immediately told the nurse. She checked and said I was 7cm dilated! Anyway, nurse paged for Dr Roy. After some time, I really really felt the need to push but cannot push cos (1) cervix not fully dilated yet (2) Dr Roy not here yet. At this point of time, I requested for epidural not to get rid of the pain but to get rid of the urge to push! Nurse checked and said "Girl, no need epidural already. 8cm already! Baby coming out soon!" I then knew I wasn't going to be able to request for my epidural already.

0130
Dr Roy arrived. Checked and did something to my cervix. And after some time told me to push. Honestly by now, I was quite exhausted as the nurse had asked me to push earlier. Lousy me, wasn't pushing correctly and wasn't pushing enough. Finally, Dr Roy whipped out the vacuum and told me that even with the vacuum, I had to push. So with Dr Roy vacuuming the baby below, 2 nurses pressing on my stomach to help push the baby out, and me pushing a few times, he came out finally.

0207
Baby Declan arrived all slimy and icky, but the feeling that I got when he was placed on my tummy can never be put into words. Dr Roy had a discussion on the time of birth because he found the clock suspectingly slow! The nurses did the requisites for Declan (cleaning, weighing, etc) then gave him to me to let him suckle. I tried unsuccessfully before I proceeded to unceremoniously throw up (either due to the gas mask or pethidine, I'm not sure). Anyhow, I could still smell the Keong Saik duck in my puke! Haha. And I never knew the process of cleaning me womb and sewing me up could take such a terribly long time. The cleaning was pain wor...

The arrival of Baby Declan


Declan is not happy being disturbed


"I'm trying to sleep. Can you stop shining that stupid light on my face?"

A marriage and a wedding

11th August 2007 - Saturday
My marital status got changed from single to married.
Never thought I would get married (was never the ooh-I-wanna-settle-down kind of person) but ended up being one of the first ones to get married.
Isn't it strange how things always come back to bite you in the butt in the end?
Well, one thing's for sure... I'll never be so pretty again in my whole entire life.