In His Time

This is the continuation of our Sunday. After the Baju-less at the Beach episode, we went home for lunch then to my mom’s house for some cartoons; my house has no Astro. We left them there and went to clean our apartment that has recently been vacant. Anyone looking for Holiday Apartment in Melaka? Look for me okay.

By 5pm, hubby went for futsal. To those who never seen a futsal shoe, here is how the studs look like. Slightly different from the soccer shoe. Psst..this is my first time too!

After hubby left, I went to fetch my children. B & C just woke up from their nap but A did not nap at all. So, to get them away from the square box, I brought them to watch their daddy play futsal.

See how they unconsciously arranged themselves…like Do Re Mi.

This is my first time too watching futsal live.

I have so much to spend by end of this year but so little income coming in. The compulsory spending would be for my youngest sister’s wedding which will be held a day before my birthday. Not only I have to save for her angpow but I need to buy gold for her tea-ceremony session. This will be the last wedding in the family; I can’t be giving only angpow. Furthermore, I am the eldest in the family. Relatives will be whispering behind my back of I just hand to my sister angpow unless I wave to them a 4 figure cheque.

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It all started with playing “Catch me Wave.”

Running away.

Running away.

Running away.

Clarissa didn’t get herself wet at all. That is the nearest she went near the water.

Going off balance.

Mommy stopped snapping and run to the rescue. He got himself wet and requesting me to change him. “No need lar…just go get yourself wet some more.”

He insisted me to change him but this mommy was snapping away. He cried and shee-shee in his shorts. Ok lar, since shee-shee already, have to change lor…

After stripping him off, I went to car to get his dry clothes. While waiting for me, he paraded his baju-less body on the beach! He refused to wear his shirt and shorts until we were about to head home half an hour after that.

This is the most decent one. Got lots of others showing his cute lil bum but that I shall keep for his viewing only when he became a young man!

Nowadays having just their ears pierced is not enough, they want their nose pierced, belly button, lips, eyebrow, nipples and God knows where else! This gives me an idea to start body jewelry web store.

During my teenage years, having 2 holes on the ear lope is something out of the norm. A few years later, 2 are not enough! As for me, I stick to one hole on each ear. And I really pity some young children that got their ears pierce before 1 year old. They so small what, what they know about beauty and fashion.

As for my children, I am not going to force upon them having their ears pierced. Once they grew up and they want it, they can do it themselves; maximum 2 holes on one ear and no more holes elsewhere!

Hubby might need to work full day for this whole week; meaning from 10am till 12 midnight. So, the children will only see him sleeping before they leave home to school. Normally when this happens I will usually bring them along to their daddy’s internet cafe when I send him dinner and also release him for a lil while for him to bathe.

However, hubby is not so keen to have them around for long at the shop because their will mess up his place and the worst part is getting his CAT6 cable pulled put by Barnabas. So…my children, you shall see your daddy this weekend only!

Me: Barnabas, it is time to sleep.
Him: Tak mo sleep. Barbas mo go art class.
Me: Huh??? Art Class???
Him: Arh…mo go art class.
Me: Pengsan!

*****

Me: Barnabas, you stay at Mama’s house ok?
Him: Tak mo Mama (h)ouse. Barbas mo go school.
Me: Cannot. Barnabas is still a baby.
Him: Barbas no baby!

Since I am a SAHM now, my planning is to teach Barnabas, my 2yo to learn how to read and write before sending him to kindergarten. If that works out well, he will only go to kindergarten at 5yo unlike his sister who started at 4yo.

Teaching preschool children is a very challenging task. First task is to get them to sit still. 2nd task is to get the to pay attention. In order to do that, the learning must be fun and exciting. So I have been searching the net for good materials for my son and found Funetics. The program has been developed by top educators, incorporating research-proven instruction based on phonics teaching theory.

I am going to out their free 3 days lesson and see whether their early literacy program that involves games, activities, songs and fun will work for my son. And also my active 3.5yo girl, Clarissa!

The girls are fighting over a decorative item; a glass vase that contains some shells in it. Since they do not want to share or take turns holding and admiring it, I took it away from them and put in on top of my wardrobe. Don’t want to share, no one gets it.

The next day, Clarissa came in my room, point to the glass vase requesting me to give it to her. I said, “No.” She asked, “Why No?” So I asked her back, “You tell Mommy why.” She answered, “Fight.”

See see see.

When I see the price of gold keep on increasing, I am so tempted to convert my children’s Personal Savings account to Golds Savings account or buy gold coins because in long term, the return would be much more than the paper money. The Personal Savings account interest is so little.

Since savings for my children is for long term; they won’t be using the money until they go to college and that is another 10 to 15 years to go. Just imagine if the price of gold keeps on increasing; by them, their savings would be doubled or even tripled! I think I will go to the bank tomorrow!

I received my 2nd set of Bento Tools: Tigger & Pooh and Fried Egg/Pancake Mold yesterday.

This time I tried to introduce to them Egg Mayonnaise Sandwich since they love eggs. I used the Tigger & Pooh Stamp Mold to make them cute lil sandwiches.

This is Barnabas taking his first bite.

This is Barnabas spitting the first bite out.

This is Belle being forced to take her first bite. One look at the Egg Mayo, she refused to even smell it!

This is Belle spitting her first bite out.

Wondering where is Clarrisa? She is not interested in breakfast no matter how cute the breakfast can be. I told you that my children don’t go for appearance.

I wonder why they don’t like the taste. Nice what???

I mentioned in my previous post, Barnabas at 25th month that he is pretty good with feeding himself; using the spoon and also his fingers. Here’s a prove of him eating with his fingers. He is a pure Baba Boy. Speak Malay and eat with hands.

He eats more this way. Btw, he was eating rice with Ikan Goreng Chili Garam. My mom uses the fresh chili which is not hot at all; it has very nice fresh chili taste. Barnabas and Clarissa love this dish. Belle; a lil chili will make her scream and stuck her fingers in her ears; like to prevent smoke coming out from them!

One of my dreams is to see that my children go into medical line such as doctor, medical assistant, pharmacies, dentist or nursing. This professional skill is very useful when we go for mission work especially to the third world countries.

Since I am planning to homeschool them later, I am glad to know that there is online medical assistant school like St. Augustine School of Medical Assistant. For the Medical Assistant Certificate, the program only requires 6-8 weeks to complete. The medical assistant training program is very affordable too; only $645.

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Nowadays, many children have all kind of allergy. I wonder where it went wrong. Must blame the food, the water and the air we breathe; all so polluted. During my younger days, we hardly hear so many children have so many kind of allergy. Now, each time we bring them to the clinic the doctor will ask whether they have any allergy; those days where got.

That is why, it is so crucial for doctors to own an iphone because their can get the drug guide for iphone from Epocrates immediately in emergency cases. They don’t even have to leave the examination room. Save time, save lives.

“This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.”

It is so difficult for me to snap a decent picture of Clarissa. When I say “Clarissa! Smile” Then will immediately make funny faces of the camera. Then I would tell her that I won’t snap her picture. She will go, “Ok, ok, I smile.” But seconds before I press the shutter button, she will start making her silly faces.

I really envy her smooth flawless face and I always pray that she won’t have my hormones that produces lots of pimple and needing to spend a lot of money on acne cream.

I did mention that once I resigned I would get myself a cellphone coz I thought I won’t stay put at one place for long like when I was in the office. However until today, I still have not got myself a cellphone, I would love to own the HTC Touch Diamond but as for now I don’t see the urgency to own one because most of the time I will be at home with the children.

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I read that many mothers are “complaining” that sometimes they cannot cope with the children asking endless question, “Why, Why, Why”. So how they stop their “Whys”? They diverted their attention to other things that is not of their interest.

I too had my “Whys” moment and I too did the same. Sometimes I even scolded them for asking too many question. Hubby came to the rescue; he suggested that I should ask them back their “Whys”. Get them to think of the possible answers. If they get it wrong, correct them; they learn. When they amazed you with their unique answer; you learn.

So, I don’t hear many “Whys” from my girls because they know their parent will ask them to think. I know some of you might be thinking that due to that, they stop wanting to know the reason behind everything and just take it whatever that they see, hear, feel, touch and taste. I too have the same thought.

So what we did is, from time to time we ask them question when they don’t, to test whether they are using their brain to rationalized what their 5 senses perceive.

Do try them out and see whether it works or not.

My youngest sister just came back from her company trip to Cameron Highland last weekend. When you go for a holiday in Cameron Highland, 2 things that you will surely bring home; roses and strawberries. If not strawberries coz most of them are sour, you will surely buy their roses because they are very cheap. The last time I was there, I paid RM10 for a dozen of roses. I wonder how much the price is now. Here, one stalk of rose will easily cost for than RM2.

My girls were so excited to see so many roses in their Ee Ee’s room. They kept asking me to bring them to my sister’s room so that they can admire and smell the roses. They wanted to have a rose each but dare not ask from my sister. You see, even small girls like roses. So I told them that one day we will bring them to Cameron Highland since daddy already promise our missionary friends that we would visit them sometime this year. Unfortunately that won’t be that soon coz their mommy is broke and jobless. With the petrol hike, we would think more than twice before traveling to far away land.

One of the reasons I was tempted to jump into the boat and started Bento-ing is because of those testimonials from Bento-Mommies that their kids wipe out their Bento lunch box.

Unfortunately, my kids are different. They go for taste not appearance. But I still wanna try it; kids sure love cute stuff right?

So I made the above cute lil’ animal sandwiches, some trees and stars cheese and pear (i put the pear in another container); I don’t think the above can be called Bento; doesn’t look like one…they are only sandwiches in a container.

They were fighting for the sandwiches in the car on the way to school but the moment they stepped in the car after school they told me that they did not eat their sandwiches because they wanted to eat the Black Black Noodles (Fried Noodles) served by the school.

Anyway, Belle finishes the sandwiches before we reached my mom’s for lunch. Clarissa took the fruit container and kept a piece of the teddy bear sandwich together with it are left untouched; even till now!

So, Cute Animal Sandwiches Vs Black Black Noodles; Black Black Noodles won.

I am waiting for the Bento lunch box to arrive. I hope with nicer presentation they would be tempted to wallop all the food prepared for them.

Life is easier if things are simple and familiar to us. We get irritated and frustrated trying to learn new things that are so very complicated. The term “user-friendly” should fulfill its purpose when we try out new gadgets or products. And this is especially true if you are talking about computer products and/or softwares. It amazes me that many software programming companies would announce a new program that is user-friendly when it is actually the opposite. The user would have to read in details the manual book and hopefully he can understand the terms and jargons used in the manual book or else he would be scratching his head continuously.

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I received my first Bento Tools from HK yesterday. So I head to the nearest supermarket to buy bread, cheese and chocolate spread.

Upon reaching home, my girls wanted to eat the bread and they wanted a bunny sandwich. So I did one and left the table to catch some opp. While I was busy at the computer, they got themselves busy too. Look what happened to my bread and my Bento Tools!

They made their own bunny, teddy bear and elephant sandwich! I think they thought that those cutters are toys! Thank God I kept the cheese in the fridge already. If they do this often arh, wasting my food, I will need to look for mortgage lenders to refinance my apartment for more money! =P

Gonna make my first Bento breakfast for my girls today.

The above prom dresses is chosen by Clarissa, my 3.5yo! She does have good taste ya.

It is scary how my children are growing up like a bullet train right before my eyes. Today Belle corrected Clarissa’s English, Clarissa reminded me to love her more and Barnabas do not want be referred as a baby. Soon they will be going to primary school then secondary and before I know it they will be asking me to buy them their homecoming dresses. I hope that Belle will slim down by then, if not she has to pick one from the plus size dresses! hehe.

We experienced Malacca City Tour on Double Decker Bus in Sept last year with the girls and another time with Msau and Jess family when they came to visit. It was my first time seeing Malacca from above. It was totally a different view; some parts are more beautiful than looking from down under and certain parts are better to be viewed from down below.

I planned to hop on the bus again when Barnabas is older; maybe when he is 3 years old. I hope by then, there will be much more to see and the bus will make more stops for us to snap pictures of the Historic Malacca. I hope I would not become history by then!

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Before I talk about toys. Let me tell you the story behind the above picture of Barnabas playing with his trucks which I bought from the wholesale toys shop two days ago.

Every morning Barnabas sleep will be interupted at 7am when I wake his sisters up for school. By 8am, he will wake up when I carry him to the car to send him to my mom’s before sending his sisters to school. The only day that he can wake up later is on weekends. So I decided to let him sleep over at my mom’s on Sunday night so that he can have enough sleep after a whole day of fun on Sunday.

The thing with most mommies is, we will deeply miss our child/children when they are away especially one that sleeps under your armpit and cuddles you like a teddy bear when sleeping. I kept thinking about him the whole night and even heard his cries for me!

So today, after sending the girls to school I went to pick him from my mom’s and brought him home to have one on one time with him playing with his boys’ toys; blogging can wait. You see, when his sisters are around, he will normally play all the girls toys with his sisters!

It’s 8.15am…”Mommy switch on the TV.” I kept quiet. “Kakak bukak TV, Mommy cakap ada cartoon.”

Alamak, she remembered I told her than weekends there is cartoon on TV in the morning. All this while she never ask for TV first thing in the morning.

Well, I need to make them glued somewhere while I prepare breakfast. TV is the best babysitter besides my computer. =P

Breakfast for today; Carrot Fried Rice with no egg but with Char Siew.

He is potty trained but NEVER pee or poo in a potty. He does his business on the toilet bowl. He doesn’t like to get his pants wet or having poops in it too. When I started to wear him pants, he peed and pooped in his pants but after realising that it is way too messy than peeing and pooping in his diaper or clothe diaper, he started telling when natures call. He pees like a boy now; tilt his butt, lift up his birdy and shoot! hehe But when he does that in the bathroom before bathing with his sisters, he pees like them; squat. Next task, to get him diaperless at night too.

He is pretty good with feeding himself; using the spoon and also his fingers. When he is with me, I seldom feed him coz when he sees his sister feeding themselves, he wants the same too. He is a small eater and due to that, he is only 10.5kg; light weight. Ok lar, coz he always wants to be carried!

The sun. He doesn’t complaint when playing outdoor in the afternoon but if the sun shines at him in the car he will go…”Hot, hot, hot, on (air) cond.” If he is sitting on the front seat, he will shift to the back seat.

His speech. He speaks more Malay than English but he understands both languages pretty well. I speak to him in English but most of the time he will reply me in Malay! Influence from MIL and the maid. But sometimes both of us are frustrated when he mix both language and only say the last syllabus. I don’t understand him and he will get very upset.

Psst…he still don’t know his ABC! Coz I didn’t teach him. Not going to though coz I am going to teach him phonics instead, don’t want him to get confused.

He is still mommy’s boy and love to sleep under my armpit and wrap my leg with his like a bolster.

Belle and Barnabas are fast asleep but not Clarissa because she napped late and still fresh at 11pm. So we dragged her along with us for supper! She was so excited to be able to tag along with us. She even told us that she wanted to eat Roti Canai with sugar.

I ordered Roti Bom because it is small and it is prepared with sugar in it. When her Roti Bom arrived, I took away the Curry Dhal gravy from her to give it to her daddy but she pulled it back. I told her that it is hot. She said, “No! I want.”

Look at her eat. Cucuk, Celup, Makan and Minum! She finished half of the gravy. Mine only quarter consumed, the rest I gave it to hubby!

Everyday on the way back home from school I will ask my girls what they had during their 10.15am break. So far I only know that they have 3 menus; either it is thin (rice vermicelli) or fat (yellow noodle) brown noodle or Milo and biscuit. I am so tempted to ask the principal for a better menu since the school fee is quite high. My sister who runs a kindergarten too always prepares good and nutritious food for her kindies. The kindies there are so blessed to have a good cook as their Principal! Anyway, I don’t think I would make a fuss about it since it is only a tea break.

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This is how the Pisang 40 Hari looks like. I don’t think you can find this type of banana selling at any fruit stall. They are not commercialized. They are smaller than Pisang Emas. Their skin are hard to peel. The inside (the white strips) always got stuck to the flesh but it taste nice, very sweet and smooth.

It is called Pisang 40 Hari or Pisang Masak 40 hari because it takes 40 days for the banana to turn yellow (ripe).

Cannot get hold of any generic Phentermine? Try eating this banana. If your tummy can’t stand it, purging will surely help you loose some weight!

The moment he woke up, he told me that he wants to ngk ngk (pass motion). He went out of the room and look for Kakak.

Then I changed to him. While standing on the bed, he almost shouted, “Mah-Mee, ngk ngk ah-more (somemore)!!!” He can’t hold it like always coz he is purging very watery stools.

Wash, change and ngk-ngk again right before he entered the car. All in he purges 6 times from the moment he woke up. After giving him the medication around 10am, the purging stops.

At first I thought he ate too much fruits in a day; durian, red and yellow rambutan and langsat. He did the same before but no purging.

Later I saw some bananas on the table; it was Pisang Masak 40 Hari. That is the caused of his purging coz it happened to him every time he ate that type of banana.

Now I wonder who gave him the banana. Maid and MIL denied it, maybe his daddy!

We are supposed to go back there after a month but busyness kept us from bringing her there. We will go tomorrow since hubby will be back early tomorrow. I hope that her power does not increase. Even though she wears her glasses, with every opportunity she gets, she will remove it.

I wonder whether the optometrist there hold stocks of the Incredible Stylish New Frames From Zenni. From their website, there are Variable Dimension Frames From Zenni that we can choose from but we need the smallest for Clarissa because she has a small face. I like the range of Zenni Optical $ 8 Rx Eyeglasses, I might want to get one for myself because it is very cheap and comes with casing too.