It has been a stressful and painful day for Baby C and me today. We were at the hospital from 9am – 3pm today and baby bawled and screamed the whole day today, in pain, trauma and fear.
But the moment we were back home, my little trooper was all smiles again. Her smile really lights up my heart. Though she had to endure so much pain and torture, this little tough cookie of mine is amazingly resilient and really tough.
Check out my health blog to continue reading.
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Eversince we moved into our new condo about 3 months ago, daddy has brought Alycia and Sherilyn down to the pool for swimming only once. Both daddy and I have been really busy and the gals always complain why they can hardly ever go swimming. On Tuesday, daddy promised his 2 angels that on Wednesday, he will bring them swimming. For the entire afternoon yesterday, Alycia kept calling daddy on the phone, reminding and bugging him to come home early. She even cried when the sky turned dark as she thought daddy would not bring her swimming if night sets in.
Daddy finally came home at around 6ish pm. The gals were screaming away in excitement when they saw daddy getting into the house. Daddy helped them changed into their swimming suits BUT…… when they were about to go down to the pool, O_o, it started to pour! The gals were really disappointed and Alycia cried again. But daddy kept his promise. He quickly put on 2 bath overalls on the gals, brought a brolly and 3 thick towels along with him and brought the gals down to the pool. I asked him if he was crazy as it was raining but he told me a white lie. He said that he’s only bringing the gals down for a stroll by the swimming pool to placate them. I believed him, yah I did! Minutes later, when I walked into the wet kitchen to cook, I was shocked to see daddy and my 2 gals in the baby pool when I looked down … with daddy holding on to an opened brolly! Good grief, daddy must be out of his mind! I think no one in their right frame of mind would bring their kids to swim in the rain, holding on to a huge brolly! Anyway, 15 minutes later, they came home. I was enraged and was nagging away. I told him that both Alycia and Sherilyn had just recovered from a flu and Sherilyn was starting to show signs of getting another flu yesterday. He must be crazy to bring them swimming in the rain. The gals will surely fall ill! True enough, today Sherilyn is sneezing and coughing away. Haiz… see how true my prediction is. He better take care of Sherilyn if she runs a fever. I’ll definitely be unable to cope handling 2 sick babies and lose sleep. I’ll be the one to lose my mind then!
Daddy’s angels raring to go swimming… in the rain!
Alycia and Sherilyn, if you read this in future, you will know how much daddy loves you… and he even went all out to the point of losing his mind and do crazy things just to keep his promise for you 2!
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Alycia has just turned 5 years old (she’s a December child) but she’s in the class for 6 year olds. Last week when I checked her message book, I saw this message from her teacher:
I was a tad stumped to read the message. Oh dear, I can’t believe that my just turned 5-year old daughter will have to be given spelling every week… not only in English but in Bahasa Malaysia and in Mandarin. When I was in kindergarten, we never had spelling, never. I guess times have changed and the kindies now have to be really competitive to cater for kiasu parents.
See how tough the words for her spelling are… for beginners that is:
I thought that the pre-schoolers would be tested on easy first words like cat, dog, apple, pencil, etc but nope.
Thank God, Alycia could remember her spelling for some words. For the past several days, I’ve been making Alycia write the words Deepavali and Christmas. After making her write, I will ask her to spell out the words for me verbally and in written form. As of today, she could spell out both the words Deepavali and Christmas by memory. Tomorrow, I will drill her with the word Chinese New Year. Oh boy, this is quite stressful and she’s only 5 years old. When she’s in Primary 5, I think I’ll get even more stressed up.
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2 days ago, Baby C started doing the following :
…she discovered the joys of picking her nose with her forefinger!
She could also put both her hands together and move them up and down when we ask her to do ‘gong xi gong xi’. Daddy was in Cloud 9 when he saw his little baby doing gong xi gong xi to him with her tiny hands on the first day of Chinese New Year. That’s considered fast for my daughters’ standard coz I remember Alycia and Sherilyn could only do the gong xi gong xi thingy with their hands after their first birthday.
Not to mention, she could also clap her hands whenever we sing or hum the tune ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It Clap Your Hands’. She will also open and close her fists whenever we sing or hum the tune ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’.
This morning, I got a surprise when I went in to my bedroom and saw her playing with her soiled diaper! Luckily she did not give me some hot Chocolate mudcake or some hot Crysanthemum tea in her playpen coz that would be really really messy. She now knows how to unfasten the side tapes and remove her diaper. She also knows how to remove her pants.
Over the past few days, Baby C could also stand for a few seconds unaided. I think she will soon be taking her first few steps… which means more trouble for me as I will have to watch over her like a hawk.
Other than getting recurring UTIs, Baby C is a healthy and happy baby.
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It’s a shame that I’m a yellow banana and every time Alycia or Sherilyn asks me “mummy, what Chinese word is this?”, I feel ashamed to tell them “mummy’s not sure” or “wait, let me check out the dictionary“. Alycia and Sherilyn’s pre-school emphasizes on Mandarin a lot and the standard of Mandarin taught to pre-schoolers is high as the school is working towards preparing the pre-schoolers for primary school. The pre-school even sets Ting Xie or spelling in Mandarin for 6 year olds every week and Alycia will have to memorize writing her Mandarin characters starting from next week onwards. On top of Ting Xie, she also has English spelling and Ejaan (spelling in Malay) every week and I’ve started to drill her with spelling this week. It’s really putting the stress on me… and she’s only in kindergarten!!
Right now, I’m already very lost when it comes to coaching the gals in their Mandarin homework. I’d asked the gals’ koo por (the hubs’ aunt) to help me buy a Chinese-English dictionary so that I can refer to it for help. While the dictionary helps to explain the meaning of a word, it doesn’t help much with the pronounciation and sounding of each word (though there is hanyi pinyi).
Alycia can write her Mandarin characters pretty well but most of the time, I think she does not know what she’s writing coz when I asked her what word she’s writing, she tells me that she doesn’t know. Sometimes her teacher writes the meaning of the word in hanyi pinyi but sometimes, she doesn’t.
I can foresee Alycia will have a hard time coping in a Chinese school primary school next year when she enters Primary 1. I will definitely send her for Mandarin tuition classes.
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Presenting our new Crocs :
This Dora Crocs belongs to Sherilyn. My lil’ vain pot tried out on almost all the Crocs at the shop while Alycia told me that all the Crocs shoes are so ugly! Well, Alycia is quite right… when I first saw Crocs more than 2 years ago, I think they are hideous too…. bulky, made of plastic, look so choa loh (not dainty) and so frigging expensive. But I must admit that Crocs shoes are durable and long lasting coz Alycia has been wearing her Crocs for close to 2 years…. and she wears it to school everyday.
This pair of platform Crocs is mine. I’ve been eyeing this shoes since last year and I finally decided to buy it when I went to Mid Valley on Thursday… which darling hubby paid for. I was contemplating choosing between the pastel green and pink. I chose the pastel green but the size that I wanted had only 1 pair left and there were some black stains on the shoes, so I had to settle for the pink. Also, Alycia kept telling me that pink is nicer than the pastel green. Hubby thought so too, but I still like the pastel green.
And this one belongs to hubby.
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Daddy brought us for shopping at Mid Valley Megamall today. He had wanted to buy Sherilyn a pair of Crocs coz the shoes that she normally wears to school is soooo ‘chan‘ – black, torn (and repaired once) and looks really worn out and pathetic. After lunch at Canton I, we went to the Crocs shop. Everyone got a pair of Crocs except Alycia coz she kept telling me that all the Crocs shoes are so ugly! Huh, ugly? Better still, saves daddy money, coz Crocs ain’t cheap. I kept telling daddy to buy the imitation Crocs from places like Giant but daddy said ‘no’… oh, so ok lar, you pay, not me… and I happily chose a pair of platform Crocs…. I’ve been eyeing this shoes since last year! Shall post pix of our Crocs soon.
After buying our Crocs, we shopped for groceries at Jaya Jusco. Before we left Mid Valley Megamall, I suddenly remembered that one of my blog readers told me that I can get cranberry capsules from GNC, so I asked daddy to bring us to the GNC shop. When we were busy talking to the sales assistant at GNC, I asked my 2 older gals where kakak is. O_o… they said don’t know…. daddy panicked. Kakak was no where to be seen. Luckily my 3 angels were with me and not with her. Daddy then asked me to stay at the GNC shop with the gals and he went to search for kakak. After a frantic half an hour search, he found her near Jaya Jusco supermarket, with a guard. Kakak was obviously day dreaming and lost sight of us while we were walking to GNC. Even when daddy brought kakak to GNC, she lost sight of daddy again! Daddy was irate coz he was in a hurry to go back to his office for a meeting with his staff. He gave kakak a good long lecture. Kakak is quite a day dreamer and I can never ever trust her to manage the kids alone. I also gave a short lecture – that in future, her eyes should be fixated at us when she walks. In future, she should also jot down our mobile phone numbers, just in case she gets lost again, she can call us. Kakak really gave me a scare today.
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I wish our condo has sufficient space to fix garage storage to store our paraphernalia. Ever since we moved into our condo 2 months ago, we have discarded many things (some of which were very dear to me but I had no choice but to give them away and discard them) and many of our stuff are now stored in the hubs’ office. It’s a tad inconvenient for the hubs to have to transport the things from his office to our home and vice versa.
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I have to put this on record today itself coz this morning, Baby C talked! My maid and I have always been encouraging baby to talk. We’ve always been asking her to say “daddy”, “mummy” and “cheh cheh”. This morning, as usual, I was saying this to baby “baby, say cheh cheh, say cheh cheh“…. and to my utmost surprise, baby said “jeh jeh“! I was shocked, elated, speechless and in seventh heaven. My baby said jeh jeh! Then I asked her to say “daddy” and after prompting her to say daddy several times, she said “da dah“. For the next 10 minutes, I was continuously asking her to call “daddy” and “cheh cheh”. When I asked her again to say “daddy”, she said “da… dee“! About 15 minutes later, she said jeh jeh and da…. dee again when I asked her. Wooot… baby really said da….dee and jeh jeh! Remember I posted about 2 weeks ago that baby said “hey daddy”? Well, I think that was coincidental that she managed to babble that out but today, she said da….dee and jeh jeh when being asked!
Despite all the challenges and sufferings that she has to grapple with, my little tough nut is one very determined baby… just like mummy…. stubborn and determined! I hope to hear more surprises from my baby in the days to come.
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Alycia’s kai yeh (god father) bought her and Sherilyn some toys on Saturday. I think you can guess by now which of these toys belong to who right?
Sherilyn my princess wannabe chose this Barbie doll.
Alycia my pretty girl who loves boys’ toys chose yet another hideous Ultraman that can kill raksaksa (lol!), an Ultraman pouch,
a battery-operated aeroplane with remote control,
and a battery-operated Ben 10 monorail that can run on tracks…
Sherilyn loved the Barbie to bits and she spent the whole of her Saturday afternoon combing Barbie’s hair with the toy Barbie brush. She even told me that she will ask daddy to buy her a pair of high heels like Barbie’s pink high heels! Remember my previous post on Aly and Sher skipping their afternoon nap and they konked out on the couch? Well, they were playing with their new toys.
Sherilyn was experimenting with Barbie’s hair…. combing and brushing, pulling and tying Barbie’s hair in all sorta styles. She even asked me for her hair rubber band and asked me to tie up Barbie’s hair in a ponytail. She wanted me to tie a bun but I told her I didn’t know how to! She brushed and pulled Barbie’s hair so much that the floor of our living room had Barbie’s blond hair flying everywhere! She even told me that when she grows up, she wants to be a hairdresser! Sei moh!
And you know how Alycia discovered Ben 10? Nope, not from the TV but from her classmates. See how easily kids are influenced by their friends.
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If I would just allow it, Alycia and Sherilyn would be more than happy to just play and watch TV the whole day…. and they would avoid taking their nap, bath, avoid drinking water and for Sherilyn, she would love to avoid having her meals too.
On Saturday, Alycia and Sherilyn played and watched TV the moment they got up from bed in the morning. They also followed daddy out for lunch and shopping at a nearby mini mart while I stayed home with baby. During their afternoon nap time, they didn’t seem sleepy and they continued playing until around 7pm…. and that’s when they began to feel sleepy and jaded. But still, they refused to admit that they were sleepy but just sat on the couch and watched TV…. quietly. When I asked them if they were sleepy, they were still adamant that they were not tired or sleepy…..hah! Minutes later, they konked out like this :
They were obviously really worn out and had I not wanted to bring baby to the ER of the hospital to get treatment for a UTI attack and had to bring the both of them along, they could have slept until the next morning! Are your kids like this too? Do they always avoid taking their nap?
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Though both her hands are bandaged, Baby C’s still very determined to crawl and cruise. I thought that since her left hand is also bandaged, she wouldn’t be able to meddle with her right bandage (with the IV line) or put things into her mouth but I was wrong. My little tough cookie keeps moving her left fingers to wriggle them out from the bandage…. which she managed to successfully loosen the surgical tapes. She also keeps licking the paper that’s wrapped round the board until I had to cover the bandage with one side of the socks on her left hand! This very determined trooper can also use her fingers that are exposed in the bandage to pick up her toys… ! She even tried lowering her head to her toy, which was a plastic book, and tried flipping the book together with both her bandaged hands!
When Baby C kept whining and fussing the moment she’s placed in her playpen aka. cage, I had no choice but to carry her out and place her on the floor to crawl…. and used plastic bags to tie up the bandage. Though a little immobilized, my tough cookie was all smiles the moment she was put on the floor…. and she was swiftly gallivanting the floor by crawling and cruising.
Hehehe…. nothing’s gonna stop me from crawling….
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One of the many things that I have had to consider before I made my decision to leave the corporate world to be a full-time mom to my kids 3 years ago was whether the hubs would be able to provide us all a fairly comfortable life with just one income in the household. It was one of the toughest cross roads in my life that I was faced with. It took me almost half a year to come up with that decision – a decision to leave the job that I loved to be a ‘yellow face’ lady and a yelling mom!
The hubs has been reassuring me time and again that he will try his best to provide us all a comfortable life and does not want me to return to the workforce. During the initial months of my leaving the corporate world, I was plagued with worries that should anything happen to the hubs, the kids and I would be left in a lurch. The hubs has also always been telling me not to worry as he has a life insurance policy and our future would be secured should the unforeseen happen to him. This gives me a tad peace of mind and I’m glad that he was wise enough to have purchased a life insurance plan more than a decade ago.
Having a life insurance plan is essential if we have people who depend on us. Both the hubs and I have a life insurance plan, along with a medical and hospitalization insurance plan. Having a life insurance plan gives us a security that should anyone of us be stricken with any misfortune, our kids would still be able to go to college and hopefully university.
If you do not have a life insurance policy yet, wait no further. Do check out usalifeinsurance.com today for some free quotes and they can even help you with the financing of your life insurance products. Remember, life is so full of uncertainties and you never know what’s going to happen to you tomorrow.
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That’s just what happened to Baby C yesterday. She was so happy playing masak-masak and Lego blocks with her 2 cheh chehs in the afternoon. However, she was screaming her heart out the next moment…. in the ER of SJMC.
Check out my health blog to find out what happened to my poor baby.
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On most nights, Baby C will wake up between 2-4am and she will stay up to play on our bed for at least half an hour. She will crawl on our king-size bed, pull our hair, give us a little massage, climb over us, cruise on the bed, bang on our bed headboard as if it were a drum and then reach out for our alarm clock like this:
Sometimes, she would only go back to sleep after an hour of playing on our bed.
Baby C loves music, just like Sherilyn cheh cheh. When she hears us singing or humming the tune “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “Itsy Bitsy Spider“, she will clench and open both her fists repeatedly, in her attempt to immitate the kids she saw singing and acting out on the VCD “Teach Your Baby To Read.” When she hears the song or tune “If You’re Happy And You Know It Clap Your Hands“, she will clap her hands. She also knows what clock, lights, fan, lemon, bread, water, soup, porridge, cup are and would turn her head or point her hand towards the object when being asked where it is. Despite all the challenges that she has to go through, Baby C is a pretty fast and eager learner.
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I hardly buy toys for Baby C coz I know she will get bored of her new toy in just days or sometimes in just hours. What I normally do is go through my kitchen cabinets to fish out some plastic containers, cups or plates or go through Aly and Sher’s Toyogo toy box to pick out some old plastic toys. The other day, I wanted to get some work done on the computer but my little Energizer Bunny doesn’t want to take her nap. So I gave her 2 pieces of papers and voila, she was so fascinated by the papers that she spent a good half an hour playing with the papers and crawling everywhere on the floor with the papers…. and helping me clean the floor too with those papers!
See how happy baby is playing with her new found ‘disposable toy’.
But this BIG toy is too dangerous to play with baby…
On another note, we brought Baby C for an ultrasound scan of her urinary tract system today. Check out my health blog to read on.
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