2011 - Life as a SAHM. 2012 - Looking forward to something...

Happy New Year! Goodbye 2011 and Hello 2012 :)

Another year has gone and it's unbelievable that I have been a SAHM for 2 years already. Life as a SAHM is not all rosy and sweet that many thought. I'm not a tai tai ok, I clean, I wash, I cook and I have to face an active and clingy toddler all day long. In fact I feel it's tougher than working life, so I really salute the full time working mums. In a nutshell, year 2011 was all about daily routine of managing the household and taking care of the little one. To make life more bearable pleasurable (you know, work-life balance), I tried injecting more personal activities like baking, cooking, travelling, blogging... and these were the things that helped keep my sanity for the past year :p

My Little Rascal

Can't believe that he's turning 2 in 2 weeks' time. Then again, it also seemed to be a long long year probably coz I faced him all day long. I remember his very first high fever immediately after his first birthday celebration. It was a terrible ordeal for hubby and I since we didn't have experience. I think we went KKH Children's Emergency 2 times and spent 5-6 hours there. Dear son's fever lasted for almost 4-5 days and it took more than a week before he recovered and that week seemed like eternity.

Anyway, he started walking quite steadily from 12-13 month onwards and all the more I had to keep an eye on every minute. He also became more assertive of his needs and demanded my full attention on him constantly. It got tougher to find activities to engage him all day at home so I began bringing him to parent-accompanied playgroups and kids' gyms. But bringing him out daily was also challenging and tiring, and I couldn't do much chores or cooking properly.

It got to a point where I couldn't handle anymore so decided to enroll him in a half-day Child Care Centre when he was about 17 month old. I thought it was also good for him to start learning independence and engage in communal/social activities. Most of the CCC around my area were running full capacity but managed to find one which was further away. The CCC is located 10 minutes away from hubby's workplace so it's quite convenient to send him in the mornings on his way to work. But slightly inconvenient for me to fetch him as I have to take 2 buses to fetch him at noon time. Well, it was better than nothing, at least I could have a few hours in the morning to complete chores and cook. By the time he was 21 month old, he started on school bus home so things became so much easier for me nowadays :)

Well, he's now "officially" into the terrible twos age, I wonder what challenges would there be in this coming year and I hope that I could muster the courage and have more patience to deal with more upcoming tantrums.

Travel/Diving

I'm so glad that we managed more overseas trips in year 2011 =D Being wanderlusts, hubby and I need constant renewal of energy through getaways! We brought dear son to Koh Samui, Genting Highlands, Melaka and KL; also did family trips to Cameron Highlands and Pulau Redang. Best part, just the 2 of us to Bangkok, Tokyo (to attend a wedding), Hong Kong/Macau (with a group of friends), Maldives (our 9th anniversary) and Hiroshima/Miyajima (extension of hubby's worktrip, post upcoming!). So yep, I'm happy! For diving, unfortunately we only managed a few dives in P. Redang and Maldives.

I sincerely hope that I could travel more in year 2012 :p We already have plans for Bangkok, Phuket and Hokkaido (10th anniversary), and probably a dive trip to Manado/Lembeh Straits in the Philippines.

Cooking/Baking/Workshops

Cooking is now a daily affair since it's more healthy for dear son, which also means that it was a challenge devising a weekly menu suitable for the whole family. It was tougher in the first half of the year since I had to cook separate meals for dear son as our food was still not suitable for him. Things got easier after he turned 18 month old, I began adapting our dishes to suit him mostly. Which means more soups and steamed dishes and less spicy or fried food whenever possible. I also acquired more cooking books/recipes naturally :p Some experiments can be found under my food-homecook posts.

I also baked more, and a lot of times were just simple recipes that were suitable for toddlers. Baking continued to be a form of therapy for me, and somehow I found that I became more efficient these days, probably due to experience gained over the past few years :) Some examples can be found under my Baking posts.

Managed to attend a few Baking and Cooking Workshops, but I was more selective since I didn't have the luxury of time.

I guess I would be continuing to cook in 2012, and probably would need to spend more effort in coming up with different menus since dear son is becoming quite a discerning eater. As for baking, definitely I want to bake more, I have a long list of to-bake recipes to complete!

Blogging

Glad that I managed more posts in 2011, than the previous 2 years. So hope that I could keep up with momentum and pace. Have also changed my blogskin recently and there are some pages I have in mind to update like my travel, spa, recipe lists... yep gonna find that to complete the task in 2012.

Looking ahead

So what does 2012 entail? Well, we are looking for a new place and really hope that we can make a move within these 2 years. And if we manage to settle, I would probably look for a part-time or contract job and then convert dear son to full day CC.

2012, may be a year of change and hopefully change for the better.