Before we leave for Japan

The day has finally arrived! Hubs and I had planned for a trip to Japan, Kansai region since May and now it's finally going to happen. Been busy doing up the itinerary and reading up on the places we are going to visit these few days as I'm the one in-charge of the whole itinerary this time round. I'll keep my fingers crossed for a nice trip :)

Of course before going for the trip I have to spend some bonding time with my chubs since we are not bringing her along. Bad parents! Well, we were thinking she's too young anyways and by bringing her along, it creates inconveniences for us as well as for her. There's always the risk of her not adapting well to the new environment and falling sick and we are also not sure if she will take well to being on an airplane yet so we decided against bringing her along. Will wait till she's much older, at least old enough to understand instructions and enjoy before we will bring her for a trip overseas (by overseas, I mean those places where we need to fly to so Malaysia is not included).

put on the helmet for her again since she's going to crawl freely

bought a pair of knee guards for her when my dad and I went to Kiddy Palace last Sat evening to prevent abrasions from crawling - she looked like a geared up skater!

enjoying BabyTV nearing bedtime

getting into a more comfortable position

taking a break from TV and tried striking up a conversation with me



got distracted by the TV again

Random thought: Till today, I am still struggling if I should let her watch TV at all. I'm not talking about doing it in moderation or not. I'm thinking if I should even let her do it at all. There are 2 schools of thought. 1 school of thought - watching TV at such a young age affects babies' attention span and makes them more easily distracted. Another school of thought - watching educational programs let them learn faster. For me, there's an additional concern, I'm rather afraid that she might have myopia at an early age.

I'm actually leaning more towards the 2nd school of thought where I think a moderate amount of TV is good for her as she can learn through some of the educational programs (you'll be amazed at the wide array of programs BabyTV has!). She has actually learnt to identify the different characters and will turn her attention to the TV whenever she hears a familiar tune of voice coming on the TV and I'm rather pleased with that as that means she's developing rather well, yes? I hardly think any one of us in the family can teach her as much as what the TV is teaching her because none of us are equipped enough to teach her. Those with knowledge to teach her might not have the time, those with the time might not be equipped with the knowledge, or we are not up-to-date with the latest information for teaching her so I think the TV actually adds value.

BUT, my main concern is her getting myopia. It seems that my MIL does not take note of lighting for chubs when she watches TV. I can understand her being energy-saving when she doesn't see the need to switch on the lights during the day but when the sky is gloomy during the day, she also doesn't switch on the lights when chubs is watching TV. Even though I switch on the lights in this kind of situation, I will see the lights switched off when I get back to the living room after making a trip to the bedroom or the kitchen. Not sure how to convey the message to her tactfully yet but I need to find a way. Actually even for me, I will also neglect to switch on the room lights sometimes when I switch on the TV for chubs in my bedroom. So I constantly have to make a mental note to myself to take note of that.



Another possible contributing factor is the size of TVs now. TVs are getting bigger and bigger but the distance between babies and TVs are not getting further and further from what I see around me. We always make a conscientious effort to get her to move further away from TV but I don't think it's still sufficient since the TVs are much bigger than before and kids being kids, they love to be as near as possible. We just have to keep being vigilant and do whatever we can to maximise the viewing distance.

Wow, I didn't intend to write such a long entry but look what one random thought brought me. No conclusion reached regarding the TV issue, only reached my goal of clearing the thoughts in my mind at this moment. Let's just keep our fingers crossed about my girl not getting myopia OK?

OK, I will be flying off to Japan from 12 Oct - 20 Oct so there will not be any chubs' updates during this period. For the few friends reading my blog, please advise me if I should blog about my Japan trip here or should I just upload the chunk of photos in FB. I cannot decide! Let me know! Thanks huh :)