##### <center>Life began to change ever since I joined Steemit last year dated 12th December. Blogging, discord, communities and engaging had become part of my lifestyle, which before that, none of those existed, except some micro-blogging in Facebook. Literally, like literally, life revolves around offline and online; offline being life outside Steemit and online being life inside Steemit. Therefore, to look at my 2018's achievement and failures, I would need to recap on my life outside Steemit and life inside Steemit.</center>

<center>![20181214_025812_0001.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcg5kpvMckCgEuWS6LuE3yvGDRkHuMLD9XzJg6JqBNbLr/20181214_025812_0001.png)</center><center><sub>*Designed by using Canva app*</sub></center>

<center>![Line Big Steem Pink Divider.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXHsQ2t2CE7BawN1rV8bhkAkaRtdPZfvezijHTdJZh4ng/Line%20Big%20Steem%20Pink%20Divider.png)</center>

<center>![IMG_20181214_030005.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQme5rx1FgPCXkBQ8VtrHwVtFMJWroiGQXbJrKc34jS4Q2e/IMG_20181214_030005.png)</center>

# <center>On Life Outside Steemit</center>

## 1. Oral Feeding
My husband and I started off this year weaning our CDH son from tube-feeding. Actually, the journey started on 1st December 2017 by introducing hunger to Jansen. Tube-feeding child with 3-hourly tube-fed usually didn't have the chance to experience hunger. So it was the first process, a painful one. We had to take away one tube-feed meal and let him be without food for hours. The most painful part was to see him drop in his weight tremendously in the span of one month &#8212; from 12.5kg to 10.5kg. I don't know, but to us, dropping 1kg was already a disaster considering our doctors classified him under "failure to thrive". 

But we persevered. The tendency to stop the seaming was there. The tendency to give up and just let him be tube-fed whole life was there lurking at me all the time when I saw his bones and his tiny little arms. But yes, we continued.

<center>![20180212_182648.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSzKfr86VBBM2tEUb6HWPpAok5DDS6dZrnTYCe7mGjgA8/20180212_182648.jpg)</center><center><sub>*Tube-fed CDH son with the feeding button at stomach*</sub></center>

On January onwards, we noticed a glimpse of light when he took interest in what we ate. That scene, was precious. Never in our life, we noticed him looking at any food. And he did, beginning of this year. And he was already 3 years 6 months old that time, looking at food for his first time and actually associated food with hunger and of course, mouth. Eat from mouth. Not stomach. 

#### Our greatest achievement ever! Or should I say, Jansen's achievement! 

To cut the story short because I would not want to journal all the challenges involved, he is eating till today, with some tube-feeding top up for sufficient calories of the day. Although not the desired amount, he is eating! He is using his mouth to chew and swallow. And he really love chicken drumsticks!!! 

<center>![20181214_033842.gif](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcCiFwL5VyRBqovwJbpSnQRZLYffZ3cPTa4ZLnYhpizBP/20181214_033842.gif)</center>

## 2. Going out more often as a family of 4 instead of 3
Due to Jansen's condition, doctor advised us to keep Jansen at home more often to protect his lungs from infection. His half-right-lung definitely could not cope any infection at all and we would not want his left lung who is doing the main job now to be affected by viruses and bacteria too. But this year, as his parents, we decided to let him have some exposure to the world outside. To be out of his cocoon, and to challenges his lungs a little to breathe in the air outside. And he had the chance to go out with us more often, with alot of hygiene practice and sanitisation. 

<center>![Screenshot_20181214_041036.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYmnZfXoZ9euvLvMmfZ4wdDX644zRAMHbK86gjv12ZAW7/Screenshot_20181214_041036.jpg)</center><center><sub>*His first time on walkalator and escalator*</sub></center>

To be able to bring him out with us, as a family of 4, is indeed a great accomplishment. Was there any challenges? Yes. We needed to factor in packing his set of feeding apparatus should he not eating at all. And going to baby's room to tube-feed him or we just tube-feed him in the public, with eyes looking at us with pity while us smiling back at them with assurance that our son was alright. 

<center>![IMG_20181214_041839.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXuWta8Bza7xC7eHdd7krhhCoiRSGX4juxHSt57nrziDE/IMG_20181214_041839.jpg)</center><center><sub>*He is always in awe of mannequin and wanted to bring them back, lol, the world*</sub></center>

## 3. Learning Mandarin
As a half-banana parent myself, and my husband being 100% banana, we figured that there will be alot of disadvantages if our son does not know Mandarin (aka Chinese language). Oh, by the way, we have this way of describing people who are Chinese but can't speak or read or write Chinese and mainly speak and write English &#8212; the banana people, yellow skin on the outside but white on the inside. So yup, I am half-banana because I do speak Mandarin but I can't recognise alot of the Chinese characters. Nevertheless, we enrolled our son to Chinese school and he was somewhat 90% banana at that time too. 

All of a sudden, we came home with all the text books in Chinese. I flipped and looked at them, with much overwhelming sensation. Especially the Mathematics and Science subjects, which are my best, but not in Chinese characters. Fear gripped when I found out I did not know almost 98% of the words. Because they were not the simple conversational sentence. Words like photosynthesis, five senses, magnetic field, etc, and subtraction, fraction, addition were all in Chinese characters which I did not even know how to read. 

#### Wait, there was still time to switch to Malay school! Then, I would have no problem at all. 

But, I stayed put. Chinese school for my son. And stayed that way till today. Not without challenges, but up till today, my son can converse well in Chinese and actually speak to me in Chinese too. He fairs well in Chinese writing as well. 

All thanks to application in my phone. 
<center>![Screenshot_20181214_035622.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmP97ngwydPD2bHUjXbJE6cTV1ZaqfrcXXtfPGvMLf3DJJ/Screenshot_20181214_035622.jpg)</center>

# <center>On Life Inside Steemit</center>

There are any achievements in Steemit, so I prefer to list it down for easier reading. 

1. Learning to blog properly with correct formating and crediting source images. 
2. Supporting Steemians with active engagements and contribute to communities such as @teammalaysia, @steemitbloggers and @steemitmamas (only recently join @thealliance).
3. Joining @mariannewest's Daily freewrite which then helped me in my daily content creation. Being part of @freewritehouse and as an Encourager for freewriters. 
4. Successfully toured around my town for 3 days taking pictures of everything (I tried my best) to join @anomadsoul's contest "My 2018: Tour My Town" and won the prize with other winners. 
5. Joined the ~~crazy~~ challenging @sndbox's summer camp quest and won it to enter the final quest and then the summer camp. 
6. Joined countless contests and won a handful. 
7. Organising my own #foodmodel's contest for 10 weeks and generously gave out prize to winners and reward all participants via @steem-bounty.
8. Become part of @esteemapp curation team. 
9. Recently, successfully collected all the courage to step out of comfort zone to do videos via @dtube. And joined Dtube Revolution by @nathanmars and be part of the DtubeFamily777 to empower Dtubers as well as to grow to platform's life in terms of engaging with Dtubers. 
10. Getting to know so so so so so many Steemians and from fellow Steemians to friends. And was proud to be chosen by @coruscate to be her Minnow of the Month. Yay! 


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<center>![IMG_20181214_025953.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmata3NJU5Am6jGfTFYyjgA3mAJ4owRZSxcoayjLgFJwcs/IMG_20181214_025953.png)</center>

# <center>On Life Outside Steemit</center>

## 1. Lesser time for eldest son Jayden
With my life revolved around teaching my CDH son to eat, counting his calorie intake and water intake day in and day out, and life inside Steemit, I neglected my eldest son, Jayden, alot. If everything was ideal, I would prefer to have time with Jayden every night to look through his school books and some time to revise with him. 

But, I did not successfully fulfill that task of mine. I was so worried about Jansen's weight gain and whether he had enough food or not, so much so I just thought Jayden could wait. By the way, Jansen's weight had dropped till 10.5kg as I mentioned above and had been like that the whole year (which to me is my failure too, but doctors and spouse said it wasn't and that I had tried my best). 

So, as a consequence, Jayden mastered his Chinese subjects, but he failed in his English subject. How irony is that when he supposed to be doing well in English since he was a banana. Well oh well, fact is fact. And I acknowledge, it is my lack of time to go through with him the English language, focusing too much on my 2nd son and Jayden's Chinese language. 

He also was left most of the time on his own while I attended to my 2nd son. He played by himself or he attended to games in ipad. So much so, one day he told me "I wish I can be a toddler again like brother, so that I get your attention all the time". I cried that night knowing I had neglected him and caused him some emotional setbacks. Telling myself I needed to strike the balance next year, giving balanced attention to both sons.

Thankfully, my husband spent alot of time with him but daddy can never substitute mummy. The caress, hugs and smell, are just different. Typing this, I miss Jayden so much. He is such an understanding and big-hearted brother, always think on behalf of his younger brother, but he is only 7 years old who still need alot of tender loving care from his mummy. Sob sob.

<center>![IMG_20181127_192819.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmapoXTub9W5hfAESARdk2AY5CnbjVE5MQN99DLX7p5xZB/IMG_20181127_192819.jpg)</center>

## 2. Did not clean the house enough
I used to maintain the house cleanliness tip top, being perfectionist and really can't tolerate mess and dirt. Saturday used to be the day I did thorough cleaning, but that was thrown out of the window ever since excessive weaning from tube-feeding and also Steemit. I guess, it is time to go back to allocating Saturday is a day for thorough cleaning but I am not sure how, because with children around, how am I going to dust the house, wipe everything, vacuum, etc? I will know when 2019 comes. Haha. 

# <center>On Life Inside Steemit</center>
It is very difficult to think of any failure inside Steemit because practically there are none. Seriously. I am thinking very hard now. Because everything to me is a success as far as Steemit and Dtube is concerned. Engaging and curating &#8212; no problem at all. Content creation &#8212; no problem too. Let me just squeeze out one.



#### Didn't spend enough time at discord, with my challenging life outside Steemit, it is just impossible. Is that even a failure? I don't know. 

<center>![Line Big Steem Pink Divider.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXHsQ2t2CE7BawN1rV8bhkAkaRtdPZfvezijHTdJZh4ng/Line%20Big%20Steem%20Pink%20Divider.png)</center>

##### <center>This is my entry for blocktradescontest organised by @anomadsoul [here](https://steemit.com/blocktradescontest/@anomadsoul/contest-my-2018-achievements-and-failures-or-100-steem-in-prizes-4dac490ac4b85est) and thank you so much for reading my long entry. Have a great day ahead. 


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