Just came back from Kuala Lumpur today. I’m relieved it was a pleasant and smooth trip as this is the first time I’m travelling outstation without my mother’s help to take care of baby Clarisse. We planned to stay for one night initially but ended up staying for two nights instead. I was expecting baby Clarisse to be a handful without my mother around but as it turned out, she’s been rather well-behaved. I’m glad baby Clarisse had no trouble sleeping in my aunt’s room. So we decided to stay for another night

With a baby around, there’s not much time for shopping. By the time I’m done with my breakfast, then feeding and bathing Clarisse every morning, it’s already 11.30am when we leave the house. When we arrived at Ikano Power Centre to meet up with my sisters, it’s already noon. Time for our lunch and baby Clarisse’s too. Feeding her is very time consuming, from the minute I started preparing her meal until she finishes her bowl of cereal porridge, it takes about an hour. By the time we left the diner, it’s already 2pm.

We did some window shopping at Ikano Power Centre and The Curve. By the time we got to Ikea an hour later, baby Clarisse started to show signs of sleepiness so we headed towards Ikea’s baby room which is very well sound-proofed and free from annoying ambience music, thus very quiet. I like that very much as baby Clarisse gets distracted by noise easily. I was able to nurse her to sleep easily in my baby sling. Come to think of it, this is the first baby room I’ve managed to nurse baby Clarisse to sleep, I swear. The room is quiet, the ambient lighting is dim and the walls are free from distracting cutesy and colorful imagery.

We continued with our shopping in Ikea. In less than an hour, baby Clarisse woke up, it’s already 4.30pm and husband told me that we need to leave before peak traffic after office hours. Furthermore, since I am to meet my sisters for dinner later in the evening, we have to go back to feed baby Clarisse her evening time meal and clean her up before we go out again for dinner.

Instead of going back to my aunt’s house in SS2, I decided to go to my sister’s house near Kota Damansara to refresh and it was 6pm when we arrived. Baby Clarisse was able to finish her meal in less than 15 minutes. My sister’s kids, aged 3 and 7, were busy playing around and baby Clarisse was so distracted just by looking at them. So much so that she didn’t put up much resistance when I was feeding her.

As usual, I couldn’t really enjoy a quiet and peaceful dinner because at around 8.30pm baby Clarisse became very restless. I knew she was geting sleepy but she refused to sleep when I tried to nurse her to sleep. So I had no choice but to cut dinner time short and leave as soon as I’m done with my meal. Less than 5 minutes in the car, baby Clarisse was already sound asleep as we make our back to my aunt’s house.

Frankly, with baby Clarisse around, 2 days in KL is really not enough for me. Now that I know baby Clarisse sleeps well in unfamiliar places, I wouldn’t worry about planning longer travelling trips anymore.