KLCC EG Mother, Baby and Kids Expo 2016

Decide if you need/want to go to this weekends' Mother, Baby and Kids Expo at KLCC.

I managed to swing by the Convention Centre and noticed that they were having a Baby Expo in halls 4 and 5. Since it was after lunch and the crowds weren't that bay, I decided to go in.
This proved to be another one of my regrets in life because I had to spend 10 minutes in line to register myself (why?), filling up a form sandwiched between two large burly, stinky men. In return, I was handed a minuscule rectangle paper the size of an SD memory card, which could be exchanged for a free door gift. (Spoiler alert! Don't hold your breath, ladies).

I then proceeded to enter the halls and was immediately taken back by its small-ness. I managed to maneuver through the whole 'exhibition' in less than 10 seconds. There were loads of strollers and car seats, two major breast pump booths (Medela and Spectra), quite a few vendors selling cheap baby clothes (onesies up to 6 months and tops and bottoms for the older kids) and several post-natal care services.

The clothes, while cheap and vast in variety, proved a little lack in the quality side. However, if you have the gift of selecting diamonds among dirt, this could be your coal mine.

The door gift was a medium sized pink and blue fabric bag (which couldn't hold my lunch) with 'Bepanthen' in large bold letters (free advertising!) and a sample sized Bepanthen nappy rash ointment as well as a Zam-Buk ointment (I have no idea what this is).

In summary:-

Go!
- if you're expecting your first baby or it's been awhile since you gave birth.
- if you like decently spaced pathways
- if you like Pigeon, Pureen, Philips Avent and Tommy Tippee (these are the booths that take up major real estate)
- if you like brownies that claim to help you increase your milk supply

Don't go!
-if your baby is older than 6 months
-if you think Mothercare is one of the participating brands (so disappointing)
-if you think throngs of people milling about with no action plan is hell on earth
-if you value your weekends like they were rare and precious flowers, blooming only in the light of a blue moon.

Prioritize the babeh!

I hate having regrets. It’s the one pet peeve that really bugs me. If there’s any time in my daily routine that I find myself going “oh, I wish I could have..” it would totally ruin the rest of my day. That’s why I try to plan things down to the little itty bitty details so that I don’t have any grief. It’s almost to an OCD level but (hey there, regret!) I try to keep that to a minimum as well. It’s a circle of destruction if you really think about it.

But I digress.

Here is the one thing I wish I knew after coming back from the hospital with a bouncing baby girl.

Prioritize.

I know it sounds over-simplified but nothing could be further from the truth. I just had to prioritize and during that time, baby was number 1.

Maybe it was because I had look forward to the time off from work and had unintentionally planned on stuff I’d like to catch up on. It was like waking up every morning, seeing a film of dust on a hard to reach shelf and thinking, oh that’s ok, I’ll get to it when I’m on maternity leave. I’ve got loads of time.

I did not have any time. In fact, that shelf is still dusty (even more so).

Thinking that I could masterfully juggle putting the baby to sleep while re-filling the sterilized water for Baby’s bottles was a hard lesson to learn. I ended up being frustrated and close to tears, hiding my anguish from my then 3 week old.

It wasn’t until I was at my breaking point, until I looked into my baby’s eyes and noted her wonderfully long lashes (from her dad) that I finally understood the simple meaning of PRIORITIZE.

So what if the couch was piled high with laundry? They will always be laundry to do, but this moment, this very second when Baby was looking at me like I was her whole world; that will not always happen.

So what if the rain is getting all the fresh linens wet again? The sweet child is snuggled close to your chest, her trust so complete that she feels safe to let out a little snore.

Since then, I’ve come to realize that as long as I have my Number One Priority decided and reminded in sight, I could force myself to care less about the other things that are screaming around me (dishes! un-made bed! laundry! clutter!dusts!).

I still tend to unconsciously slip into supermom mode more often than I’d like to admit, but I try my best to remind myself what my Number One Priority is. After that’s done, I find myself breathing a sigh of relief and becoming more focus at the task at hand.

I can also say that I do work more efficiently with less errors as well when this is applied to my workplace. It can get really crazy in the mornings when there are so many fires to put out (metaphorically speaking), but once I shake myself (sometimes literally shaking myself) and figuring out the most important thing to attend to, the other tasks somehow gets done as well.

So it’s true what that say; you have to prioritize. It’s as simple as that.