October 2008 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Doing Revision With Alycia… Part II

Coaching Alycia in her homework and doing revision with her require tons of patience. Each time I sit with her over her homework or revision, I would try really hard not to loose my cool and blow my stack at her coz I am an extremely impatient person. Being too pushy and hard on her will only frighten her and jam up her mind…. though I must admit that at times I did raise my voice and said nasty words to her…. which I feel really bad afterward. So most times, I use the carrot on the rabbit to motivate her. I use food to ~~bribe~~ motivate her…. and it worked…. coz she’s a real foodie, just like her daddy.

I used the Deepavali cookies that my Sikh neighbor gave us to reward Alycia if she got her sinonim and antonim (in Bahasa Malaysia) correct…. and I could see that she tried her level best. Her eyes were just fixated at the cookies and she was almost salivating as I asked her each of the sinonim and antonim last week, muahahahaha…

Picture taken on Sunday. We did the revision over lunch as we did not have much time left.

No. of times viewed = 406

I Will Tell Daddy….

My hubby has a tendency to spoil the girls rotten. His daughters’ wishes are always his command and he hardly ever says ‘no’ to them. He is a yes-man when it comes to his 3 princesses. Oh, how I wish he too is a yes-man to me…. but dream on! Anyway, Alycia and Sher have now taken advantage of their daddy’s leniency and yes-man attitude towards them that they will ask him for everything under the sky whenever I am not around! They are like rats when the cat is away! I am always the bad guy when it comes to disciplining the girls and the one tightening the pockets. Daddy hardly scolds them. In fact, I will be the one being chastised when his princesses are being reprimanded by me. Fair or not you say? Angry or not you say?

And I just hate it when Alycia and Sherilyn tell me this whenever I discipline or forbid them in doing something…. “Hmmmph, I’ll tell daddy you don’t want to give me (this and that)” or “Hmmmph, I’ll tell daddy not to bring you out” or “Nevermind, I’ll tell daddy to give me” or “Hmmmph, I’ll tell daddy to scold you” …. in a tone that’s meant to threaten me! This happens all the time whenever they (especially Sherilyn) are being reprimanded by me. With 2 toddlers constantly challenging me physically and mentally and a baby who is practically breaking my back everyday, I don’t even need the best diet pills to help me loose weight.

Who’s the bad guy when it comes to disciplining your kids at home? Is it you or your hubby? Do your kids ever say “I’ll tell daddy….. (this and that)” to you, in a tone that’s meant to threaten you?

No. of times viewed = 369

Second Car Would Have To Come Later

My wish of owning a car next year would have to be mothballed until the world economic crisis is over. With such gloomy news on the world economy, the hubs just isn’t bold enough to make another big commitment. Every morning as I flip through the newspapers during breakfast, every page on the business section of the newspapers is on recession, retrenchment, unemployment, financial bail-out, countries requiring financial assistance, large banks and corporations on the verge of collapse, etc. Even if the hubs suggests to buy another car, I would stop him. Though the government had recently reduced the prices of petrol, it’s really hard to predict if they would increase it again. Everything is just so unpredictable and uncertain now. It’s best that we keep our cash in the bank. Errmmm, I think it’s not even safe to keep our money in the bank for the bank might just collapse one of these days….. knock on wood!

Anyway the hubs and I would have to think of a plan on how to bring Alycia to and from school when she enters Primary One in a year’s time. It’s difficult to rely on the hubs’ car as he is always on the go or at his client’s place. I guess I will have to find someone whom I can trust and pay him/her a car allowance to chauffeur Alycia to school. That’s still way economical than buying and maintaining a car.

No. of times viewed = 239

Doing Revision With Alycia

I have been doing revision with Alycia since Friday last week to prepare her for her pre-school exam for 5 year olds this week. It ain’t easy coaching her as her mind tends to wander off somewhere else except to her books…..to the TV, to food or to the bed! Sherilyn my brat would also be asking me tons of questions to get my attention, not to mention having to carry Baby C with my left hand and hold a pencil with my right hand.

Anyway, I find that Alycia and Sher’s pre-school has quite a tough syllabus for pre-schoolers. I really don’t remember learning all those things when I was 5 yo or even 6 yo and attended kindy. And yet I turned out ok now! Maybe most pre-schools these days are very competitive and have to raise the standard of their syllabus to entice kiasu parents… eerm like me?

I was teaching Alycia synonyms and antonyms, common nouns, proper nouns, punctuation marks and other things meant for Primary 1 and 2 kids! I doubt she remembered everything that I revised with her. Even I would forget. Her Bahasa Malaysia is not easier either and they have been learning simpulan bahasa, kata kerja, kata tanya, antonim, sinonim, penjodoh bilangan and much more. Not only is she feeling the stress, I am also feeling the stress and anxiety for her.

I wonder how Alycia fared in her English and Bahasa Malaysia test today.

No. of times viewed = 383

What’s Your Plan For New Year’s Eve This Year?

I remember very vividly our new year’s eve last year. It was one of my best. I was 6 months pregnant with Baby C then and our whole family (the hubs, Alycia, Sherilyn and my former maid) checked into a hotel in the heart of KL city. We took a monorail train ride to the Bukit Bintang area and walked all the way to Pavillion where we had a sumptuous dinner at a Japanese restaurant. After dinner and shopping, we then walked all the way back to the monorail train station. We then had another round of dinner at the fine dine restaurant in the hotel. At the stroke of midnight, we all watched the spectacular fireworks display taken off at the KL Towers and KLCC twin towers from our hotel room, which had a perfect view of the entire fireworks and laser lights show.

This year, well, I think we would most likely be staying at home. Where can I go with Baby C being so clingy to me? Anyway, we can all view the spectacular fireworks and laser lights show display again at the KL Towers and KLCC twin towers from the 5th floor of our new condo, which coincidentally also has a good view of the KL Towers and KLCC twin towers. I wish I could have a glitzy New Year’s Eve Cruise in New York City. My friend told me she had one last year and it was simply mesmerizing as she went on board a boat at the New York Harbor and watched the sparkling lights of the city. She and her hubby enjoyed a full open bar, champagne toast at the stroke of midnight, non-stop DJ who supplied the soundtrack and a front row seat of spectacular fireworks display on New York Harbor. Once again, I can only day dream of the day I can finally travel again, which will be in another year or so, until Baby C outgrows her Kidney Reflux and does not need to be on constant medication anymore.

What’s your plan for New Year’s Eve this year? If you’re thinking of visiting New York to celebrate New Year’s Eve, be sure to take a JFK Airport Shuttle to provide you with the airport transfers. I was told they are always reliable and on time and you can make your reservations online 24/7.

No. of times viewed = 164

When All Else Fails To Wake Her Up….

Whenever I have problems waking Alycia up from her sleep in the morning or in the afternoon from her nap, I don’t have to drag her up or use threats or bribes anymore. I used to have a real hard time getting Alycia to wake up on some days but not anymore now. All I need to do is to place Baby C next to Alycia and put her hand round Baby C and voila…. Alycia’s face will instantly light up, with a smile on her face, though her eyes are still closed. And she will give Baby C a peck on the cheek or on the hand… and she will say softly to her baby sister “cheh cheh loves you baby“! That’s how much Alycia adores her baby sister…. and she just loves having Baby C next to her when she sleeps.

No. of times viewed = 310

Get Free Images For Your Blog

It’s mind-boggling to think how some bloggers can maintain dozens of blogs. Samm, I really don’t know how you manage to maintain close to a hundred blogs, handle your 2 kids with no maid helping you. Even with 3 blogs, I am cracking my brain for ideas, dying for a gush of brainwave on what to write on some days. To those of you juggling your time maintaining more than a dozen blogs, can you tell me where on earth you get your ideas to write from? And how do you manage your time? Most of you are a mother, a wife and a full-time blogger who blogs for money. I wonder if you guys actually sleep at all!

Sometimes when my brain is half-dead and I loose my zeal to write, especially when I am stressed up with Baby C’s recurring UTI, my 2 older girls or are drown with my own problems, I just don’t know what post to dish out in my blogs. I have hundreds of people from all over the world reading my blogs everyday and I feel bad that I can’t whip up a good post in my blogs. At times when I don’t even have the time to snap pictures for my blogs, I have the slight urge to copy pictures from other websites to publish them in my blogs to keep my readers entertained. But I know it’s wrong as this would mean infringing other people’s copyrighted pictures and I can land myself in a hot pot of boiling soup if I did it.

Today, I found out that I can copy pictures from a website called acobox.com. Acobox has free images for bloggers and if you want to copy the images into your blog, just hop over to their website. Go to their photo galleries, choose a picture that you like, copy the image code with a click and put it into your blog post with Ctrl-v. It’s so simple to do it and I don’t even have to resize or upload the image. Blogging with image gets really easy when you can copy free images without landing yourself in trouble!

No. of times viewed = 160

My Little Helpers

There are 9 mattresses currently in use in our house, which includes 2 baby cribs, 1 playpen, 4 single mattresses, 1 queen-sized mattress and 1 king-size mattress. Though there aren’t that many people living in our house, there are many rooms in our house and my 2 brats has the option to choose where they want to sleep every night. Sometimes they sleep in their own room, sometimes they camp out in my room and on most nights, they sleep on the floor on a single mattress with mah mah. The bedsheets are changed once every 1.5 weeks. When my maid is busy, I will help her change the sheets. Last week, I enlisted the help of Alycia and Sherilyn to change the pillow and bolster cases. I thought they would ignore me as they were in the midst of playing but they were more than happy to help, especially Alycia.

Alycia struggling to put the pillow case into the pillow…. Baby C was having a ball gallivanting the floor and playing with the pillows…

… she tried all sorts of ways to put the pillow case in, including sitting on top of the pillow…

…and after more than 5 minutes, she succeeded and was really proud of herself!

Sherilyn my playful brat also lent a helping hand when she saw her cheh cheh helping…. and she also succeeded in putting the pillow case into the pillow. She would normally not help me and would prefer to play but since her cheh cheh was helping, she doesn’t want to be left out. Sher is like a rubber stamp… she has a tendency to follow EVERYTHING that her Alycia cheh cheh says or does…. like a parrot lol!

No. of times viewed = 267

Baby C Can Stand… And Loves Freefalling Too!

My little samseng managed to pull herself up by holding on to the crib railing to a standing position for the past one week. 3 days ago, she discovered the adrenalin rush when she let go of both her hands and freefall onto the mattress, landing on her back… and instead of crying, she giggled *slaps forehead* Looks like this little samseng likes ‘chee kek’ (exciting, extreme acts) stunts. Oh boy, I just hope she’s not like Sherilyn who always gives me heart-stopping moments when she grows up.

I’m almost there mummy…

I’m almost up mummy… hmmmmm…. let me balance my weight on my hands and legs…

All done…. how nice the view is when I’m standing… it feels even better when I let go of my hands and fall onto the mattress….

Today, I tied another layer of cot bumper into her crib (making it a double-decker cot bumper), so that she will not hit her hand on the crib railings when she freefalls! I think this little samseng will start to cruise in a couple of weeks’ time, when she turns 7 months old. I just have a feeling she will start to walk at 8 months old!

No. of times viewed = 461

When You Have A Baby, You Never Enjoy Your Meals Anymore

That was my breakfast yesterday – black sesame bread spread on a slice of multigrain bread, cut into easy-to-bite sizes so that I can put them into my mouth with a fork.

When Baby C is crabby and fussy and does not want to be placed in her playpen a.k.a. her cage, I will have to carry her whilst I eat my meals. It ain’t easy carrying her and eat at the same time coz my little hyper-active baby will be moving and arching her body away and grabbing my plate/bowl with her hands. I have to put her on my lap and keep her body away from the table, holding her with my left hand…. so that her hands will be out of bounds from my food…. and reading my newspapers at the same time, so as not to waste any time. One time, I had placed my styrofoam lunch box too near me just for a few seconds when I put the food into my mouth and my Miss Itchy Hands grabbed the lunch box in a split second and all the food was flung and strewn everywhere on the floor! Luckily it was a styrofoam lunch box and not a breakable plate/bowl, otherwise, my maid and I would have to clean up an even bigger mess.

No. of times viewed = 255

Our Saturday

We had all-you-can-eat dim sum for lunch at the Chinese restaurant at Sunway Lagoon Hotel today. There is a promotion on-going now where HSBC credit card holders are entitled to a 50% discount off the total bill. The lunch cost around RM56 per pax and half price for kids aged 4-12 yo.

Apart from the regular dim sum that we have to order from the menu, these are some of the food on the buffet spread:

Chilled cooked prawns. There were also smoked salmon, raw oysters, salad,

stewed duck, chicken, vegetarian meat,

Peking duck wrapped in egg sheets.

stewed lamb, stewed duck, herbal eggs,

a whole spread of Chinese desserts…

The view of Sunway Lagoon Water Park from the Chinese restaurant at Sunway Lagoon Hotel.

After I am done publishing this post, I have to do some revision with Alycia as her pre-school is having an exam for 5 and 6 yo students next week. I am feeling the stress and anxiety for her now…

No. of times viewed = 361

Baby C Exercising On My Fitball

That’s me doing some physical stimulation exercises with Baby C on my fitball. I started this exercise with her 2 days ago. The first time I placed her on the ball, held her legs and moved her backwards, she cried a little. I then carried her up and gave her a big hug and comforted her a little. I then tried the exercise with her again and this time, she giggled!

My fitball is my life savior. With regular exercises on my fitball, I rarely suffer from backache. However, the backache will only be kept at bay if I exercise on the fitball everyday or every other day. If I slacken for a few days, the backache will slowly rear its ugly head again and nag me. So for those of you with backache, I strongly recommend getting a fitball and arch your back on it. All you need is just 5 minutes a day.

Find out what our nephrologist told us about Baby C’s urine culture test report today.

No. of times viewed = 418

My Self-Defense Gadget

Many of my friends will express their concern whenever I tell them that I go for my daily morning run between 7am-7:30am each day. I used to run even earlier when I was still employed. I would start running at 6am each day for half an hour, rushed home for a bath, got myself ready for work and reached office by 8am. My friends always ask me if I bring any self-defense weapon or gadget with me when I run in the morning as it is dangerous for a woman to be running alone so early in the morning. Of course I do. I never leave my house to run without the pepper spray. I used to hold a baton but ever since the hubs got me a pepper spray, I’ve been keeping this handy gadget in my pocket each time I go out to run around the neighborhood. This pepper spray not only helps me ward off bad hats and perverts, but also crazy dogs let loose my some irresponsible owners. My kids and I were once chased by a crazy dog let loose by its owner and that gave us a scare of our lives. We had forgotten to bring an umbrella or the pepper spray with us and we ran for our dear lives as fast as we could! Luckily the dog stopped chasing us after a while. If ever I am bitten by this crazy dog, I will definitely get a good personal injury lawyer, like the Austin Personal Injury Lawyer to sue the owner off his pants and get compensation from this irresponsible owner.

No. of times viewed = 152

Baby C Trying To Do Somersaults… And Sherilyn Can Fix A Jigsaw Puzzle

My samseng Baby C loves attempting to do somersaults whenever she’s placed in her crib or on her cheh cheh’s queen sized mattress. Here are some of her stunts (it wasn’t easy to snap these 2 stunts and I’d taken more than 10 snapshots before I finally captured her in action) :

I’m almost rolling forward mummy, I just need to push my head down a little more….

Alycia snapped this pic… she has really good photography skill!

Trying to cross from one mattress to the other…

Getting a hug from her favorite cheh cheh…

For the past few days, Baby C is attempting to pull herself up the crib and she can even stand for a few seconds on her own by holding onto the crib railing. Looks like she will start cruising soon. Uh-oh, I think it’s too soon to cruise baby, you should crawl more… good for the development of your brain baby!

Notice my lil missy Sherilyn on the right? She can now fix the whole Starfall jigsaw puzzle by herself. I started her late on jigsaw puzzle as I have been too busy with Baby C since her arrival 6 months ago. But Sher sure got the hang of fixing a jigsaw puzzle fast and after 2-3 nights of attempts and ‘training’ from Alycia, she finally got it right!

No. of times viewed = 1593

Who Rules The TV And Astro Remote Control?

When your kids fight with you over the TV and Astro remote control, who win? In my case, my kids normally win. They rule when it comes to deciding which channel to watch and I let it be as I have many other better things to do than to sit and watch TV. I wish I had more time to watch the TV but these days, my hands are really tied with Baby C. This afternoon, I was listening to the radio on my TV via Astro. When Alycia came back from pre-school, she grabbed the Astro remote control and pressed 707. Yes, this brat knows that channel 707 is for Travel & Living and she loves watching travelogues as well as cook shows. That’s my favorite channel too and we all love to watch Samantha Brown, Nigella, Kellie Kwong, Anthony Bourdain and other famous cooks with their fascinating travels round the globe cooking up a storm and tasting sumptuous and exotic food.

Anyway, what came on was a travelogue on America. It featured the beautiful Hawaii and also New York City. I stopped working on the computer for a moment and joined her in the show. I was mesmerized by the beautiful beaches of Hawaii and the shopping in New York City. In one scene, I saw a group of tourists on a New York Bus Charter touring New York City through the eyes of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte on this ‘Sex & the City’ photo tour of Manhattan. I can never resist watching travelogues and I can only daydream of the day when I can finally visit those countries shown on travelogues. So back to my question. Who wins when it comes to ruling the TV and Astro remote control? You, your kids or your other half?

No. of times viewed = 155

2 Square Meals Of Bread Today

I am a bread lover. I can eat bread everyday yet hardly get fed-up of em. I’m talking about wholewheat and multi-grain and seeds bread. Though I love white bread, I hardly eat them as they are fattening and not that healthy.

That’s what I had for breakfast today :
2 slices of toasted Adventist sprouted wheat bread with peanut butter and kaya, with my favorite Lemnos Black Forest fruit cheese and Seriously Matured Cheddar cheese.

For lunch, we had boiled fat BBQ sausages and Japanese cucumbers wrapped with pancake-thin pan-fried eggs and bread. This time, I ate the multi-grain bread which my mil bought from Bread Talk yesterday. I spread some organic black sesame bread spread on my bread.

Alycia and Sher couldn’t be happier to see big fat sausages on the dining table when they came back from pre-school. They just love sausages to bits. I guess food that you rarely get to eat taste better huh? I hardly buy them sausages and other deli meat as they are one of the unhealthiest food around. They are loaded with sodium, preservative, MSG, other food additives and I have no idea what sort of meat they use to make the sausages and hams.

Read more about the sprouted wheat bread at my health blog.

No. of times viewed = 56241