Just another day – Page 17 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Our Saturday

The girls had a very pleasant surprise last night when half way through dinner, daddy (a basketball buff) came home after watching a basketball tourney with a bag of goodies for them. There were 4 devil’s horns headbands, one of which is battery-operated headgear with lights, a huge plastic toy axe, 2 huge foams in the shape of high-5 hands and some balloons. These Halloween themed items were given to VIP supporters of one of the basketball teams. Before even finishing their dinner, they excitedly wore the devil’s horns headbands and played with the balloons and toy axe.

Baby wearing the battery-operated devil’s horns headgear with orange lights.

Daddy (a huge doughnut fan) also bought 2 doughnuts from Krispy Kreme to try, which I find too sweet for my liking.

After dinner, daddy dug out his camcorder to test it as he will be using it to shoot Alycia and Sherilyn in action during their school concert tomorrow. Baby the samseng didn’t want to be left out and climbed up the dining table to join in the fun!

Later in the night, we all watched old videos that daddy had previously shot – videos of me in the hospital after giving birth to Baby, videos of Alycia’s ballet concert, Alycia’s school concert and other old videos of Aly and Sher goofing around. Everyone had a good hearty laugh watching the old videos. Watching the videos made me realized how much and how fast my girls are growing up right before my eyes.

Daddy and my mil are now in town attending Aly and Sher’s school concert and I am enjoying the peace and serenity at home. Baby is taking her nap but she will wake up anytime. Baby has been driving me CRAZY lately with her crappy crabbiness, diaper-removing rebel and heart-stopping stunts, HAIH……

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Our Monday

Today is a holiday for Aly and Sher’s pre-school. The hubs had to leave for work very early in the morning. So this meant no jogging or gym for me. Instead, I brought my 3 girls for a walk from our condo to the nearby stalls to get some soy bean milk – a bottle each for the girls. Lately, Baby seems to hate her Pediasure milk. Well, she has never liked it but the past few days, she would puke the moment I’d finished feeding her. She would also turn her head away from the spoon. 2 days ago, when I gave her some soy bean milk, she liked it. What a relief! Lately, she seems to have zilch appetite for food or milk, EXCEPT for tasty, salty food and of course mummy’s boobies, sigh! Yesterday I added 1 scoop of Pediasure Vanilla into 3 ounces of soy bean milk and she drank it without much fuss, thank God!

After getting the soy bean milk, the girls played for a short while at the playground. We would have loved to stay longer but the mozzies were feasting on us though we had sprayed mozzie repellent everywhere. Back home, it was business as usual for me – yelling at the kids, nagging them and chasing Baby who was climbing everywhere. No luck putting her into her cage coz she could climb out in a jiffy *wipes sweat from forehead*

We ate buckwheat pancakes for lunch (frozen and reheated in the toaster) which I had made the other day. Tonight I’m cooking chives with minced pork again, cooked ala Taiwanese style. I’m hooked on chives ever since I tasted this chives dish at Fong Lye Taiwanese Restaurant several weeks ago.

Being a SAHM is one of the toughest jobs God had ever created. My days are spent feeding, washing, cooking, yelling, coaching, etc. to no end. There’s no MC, no paid leave, no bonus, no fringe benefits. I want to go back to work!! But when I think carefully and weigh the pros and cons, I think this is just not feasible or possible…. for at least another 3 years. And I know I’ll most likely miss my girls like crazy again, like I used to, if I ever have to leave them at the sitter’s or at the daycare center.Here are some pix of my 3 brats at the playground. It was Baby’s second visit to the playground.

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Our Saturday

As I am typing this post, Baby is now being babysat by her 2 sisters who are entertaining her in my bedroom. Alycia is as usual inside the playpen cuddling her and letting Baby step on her head and all over her, hahaha! Sherilyn is on my bed experimenting hair styles and arranging out her clothes for tonight’s dinner. This vain pot is really vain. We’re only eating out at a nearby eatery and she’s all excited. She went through her wardrobe to search for outing clothes…..she has even chosen clothes for her jie jie and laid out both her clothes and her jie jie’s clothes on her bed neatly *slaps forehead* That will be another post to blog about, which I will do next week.

Here are some pix of my 3 gals enjoying kon cheen har loke (dry-style pan fried prawns) taken last week:

Baby is absolutely crazy over prawns. Her fight with her jie jie over the prawn made her say “I wan” (want)!

Me, me, meeeeeeeee……. I want mameee………!

Check out my other blog (aka my food blog) for the recipe.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Assortment Of Topics

I was sitting in front of the PC, cracking my head to come up with a proper title for this post as I have several things to write about. So I finally settled for ‘assortment of topics’.

First thing first. Today is my mum’s 63rd birthday and I’d like to wish her a very happy birthday. I pray that God will bless her with many, many more blissful birthdays and good health always – free from aches and pains.

Secondly, I am glad that Baby has finally established a routine to poo poo at almost the same time everyday, which is immediately after her breakfast. For the past 3 days, when I put her on her potty, she had no problem pooping within minutes. It’s fuss-free and she’s happy. It helps that she’s been off the daily prophylactics antibiotics since 27 August 09. In the past, she had watery stools and purging all the time, no thanks to the antibiotics that she’d been taking everyday for 14 months, which had wrecked her guts and caused them to go haywire. Today, we pooped together – I sat on the throne and she sat on the potty inside the loo, with the door closed 😀 We can do this everyday, it’s fun and it saves time!

Now that Baby’s poo poo pattern is established and is partly potty trained (she is brought to the potty to pee every hour), she can start wearing her cloth diapers again, yay! Which means there will be some savings on disposable diapers!

Today I fried vermicelli again. It’s something that all my gals love and it’s simple and quick to cook. Here’s the big pot of fried vermicelli cooked with organic miso paste (in replacement of the unhealthy thick black caramel sauce and oyster sauce), lean pork, brocolli, sawi, tofu pok and eggs. We will eat this for lunch and dinner. For dinner, I will pan fry some steaks that the hubs had bought from Lee’s Frozen yesterday.

Baby eats the fried vermicelli too but her portion is without the seasoning. I dished up her portion before adding in the seasoning. It has a little soy sauce and pepper though.

Guess what happened to Sher’s fried vermicelli today? This fler asked for tomato sauce, so I gave her some. But when I turned my back, she poured some more tomato sauce onto her plate of vermicelli, SO much that I was shocked to see a plate of red stuff there! I shall blog about this later.

To all my Muslim readers, Selamat Hari Raya and happy holidays to everyone else!

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Headache And Backache And Steressss!

I’m in no mood to blog today coz I’m having a heavy pounding head and feeling a tad dizzy. All these are symptoms of steresss! Stress over petty things – my maid, my kids, etc. The sight and sounds of my maid ‘step-mothering’ and tongue lashing my kids, the sounds of my kids retaliating when my maid scolds them (which drives me nuts), the shrieks from Baby, the whining from #2, etc, etc. etc …. and when #2 scribbled on her Mandarin homework (AGAIN) with color pencil despite strict warning from me not to, I blew my top. I gave her a good whipping and then she turned angelic after crying! She obediently did all the work that I gave her consisting of writing suku kata and some simple Math additions.

I’m also in a dilemma – whether to get another maid (which is an expensive bet) or just forget about stay-in maids once and for all. Should I just get part-time maids and send #2 to daycare instead? Sigh… too much pondering to do. I think about the future and all the ‘what ifs’ too much, so much that I feel I’m trapped in my own deadlock.

My mil has just flown off to Hong Kong today. Now I have one less helper at home…. which means more steressss for me. I’m thinking of sending #2 to daycare next week coz I can’t manage her. She’s just too mischievous, too wilful and has too many tricks up her sleeve. Just last night, she gave the hubs and I a big headache when she poured the entire bottle of my expensive Crabtree and Evelyn talcum powder in the bathroom and caused a BIG, BIG powdery mess. I had stepped into the room to ask the gals to give me a good back massage for my backache but I ended up washing the bathroom floor. Me, the hubs and the maid spent almost an hour washing the bathroom floor and wiping the bathroom cabinet, doors and counter top which were all covered with powder. She also peeled off the new bathroom stickers (which are like sticky jelly) and tossed them high up and made those sticky jelly stickers stick on the ceiling!!! I shall blog about these 2 incidents next.

Sometimes I wish I can just close both eyes to all the things surrounding me that bother me and stay cool. I always remind myself not to sweat over the small stuff. This way, I don’t have to think too much and I will have less steresssss. Many of my friends can just leave their maids to manage the entire household including the kids whilst they are at work. I know I can never be in their state. I worry too much.

I have lots more to rant and rave but I guess I’ll just stop here and mind the gals now.

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Our Sunday

Today was yet another typical Sunday – I woke up at 6am so that I could have some computer time without any distraction, then a half hour jog… and then the crazy rush began…. 101 things to accomplish… with some temper tantrums from the gals and Sherilyn dilly-dallying as usual…. before making a mad dash to church… but we were 15 minutes late *shame shame*

After church, we went to my former Ipoh classmate’s baby’s fullmoon party at Equatorial Hotel KL. The gals enjoyed themselves the most as there was a clown there to entertain them with sculptured balloons and a magic show. There was also a live band. They didn’t eat much – Sherilyn only ate 3 fishballs and 1 scoop of ice-cream. Baby C enjoyed the magic show too and she had a time of her life walking round the hotel but as we were about to leave the hotel, bummer… she fell and hit her cheek on the floor… thank God it was carpeted. I wanted to catch her but was too late. I hope her cheek won’t turn blue-black later. Oh well, falling, bumps and scratches on the body are just part of growing up. And Steph, if you are reading this, it was really good catching up with you and meeting your cutie baby Sarah.

The gals are watching TV now – my best babysitter. It’s too late to nap now, I’ll just put them to bed early today. Baby C is so worn out that she has been napping since 4pm! I better check on her now, I heard her calling me from the bedroom!

Alycia and Sherilyn volunteered to participate in the balloon blowing competition.

Magic show by the clown.

How was your Sunday?

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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…

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A Day’s Out Shopping

We reached Mid Valley Megamall at 10:30am today. It was hubby’s idea to leave the house early as it is a public holiday today and if we reached there after 11am, traffic would be really horrendous and it would take ages to find a space to park the car. Finding a parking space was a breeze today and we found a nice parking space within minutes.

We first had breakfast at The Toast at Gardens. Hubby seems to like this hawker-style cafe that sells such breakfast items as kaya toasts, French toasts, curry mee, chee cheong fun, western breakfast, white coffee, among others.

After breakfast, hubby brought Alycia and Sherilyn shopping at Metro Jaya while Baby C and my maid followed me. My mil went shopping alone. It was the first time I brought Baby C along with me to shop for clothes and the mall was packed with people. I went to my favorite place to look for my clothes and my eyes quickly scanned the place for my type of attire. I saw a few that I liked and grabbed a few tops and dresses and headed for the fitting room. While I tried on the clothes hurriedly, my maid waited outside the fitting room with Baby C. Within 20 minutes, I bought 2 dresses and a spaghetti strap top.

The queue at all the check-out counters were very long. Whilst my maid queued up, I hurriedly shopped for other items. I also let my maid choose a t-shirt and I gave her the t-shirt as a gift. Though she has many flaws, she is nevertheless very good to Baby C.

After shopping, we had lunch at MacDonald’s as Alycia wanted to eat McD. It’s been almost a year since we last had McD. After lunch, we shopped for groceries at Jaya Jusco. I almost wanted to buy a sugar-free mooncake, with fruits fillings made in Taiwan but when the sales girl told me it cost RM6.50 each, I flipped coz the size of the mooncake was really small, almost half the size of a regular-size mooncake and I can even gobble it down in just one bite. RM6.50 for just a mouthful of mooncake? No thanks!

Baby C looked kinda ‘blur’ here as she was just about to doze off.

Luckily there were baby rooms provided at Jaya Jusco, I could nurse Baby C (twice) and changed her poopie diapers.

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My Sunday

Today I had a Sunday filled with activities. I got up at 7am and quickly took my bath, checked my email and fixed milk for Alycia and Sherilyn. My mil went to the market and brought our maid along. It’s always tough when I don’t have someone helping me with the 3 girls in the morning. Whilst I was busy bathing Baby C upstairs, Sherilyn who was alone downstairs and still eating her breakfast (she takes forever to eat all the time) peed on the floor. After cleaning the mess, I brought her upstairs and hubby helped me bathe the 2 older gals. Alycia kicked up a big fuss and cried as she didn’t want to wear the dress that I had chosen for her, which was a new Disney dress that koo mah bought her from Hong Kong. She insisted in wearing her new Zara Kids jeans (also bought from HK) but it was loose and we haven’t bought her a belt yet. When it comes to choosing her clothes, Alycia always wins and she ended up wearing a loose jeans and had to keep pulling up her jeans which kept falling off her waist the whole day!

Next, when I was nursing Baby C, she choked and puked. Luckily hubby came to our rescue and managed to catch her puke with a little pail (that I use to catch vomit) just in the nick of time. Otherwise, we would be terribly late for church if her vomit got on my clothes and on the floor. After all the rushing, we finally reached church, albeit a little late.

After church, we had lunch at Zipangu Japanese Restaurant at Shangri La Hotel. I really enjoyed the food there but lost my appetite half way through eating when Baby C poo pooed big time and I had to break my back cleaning her bum with her on the stroller in the washroom, that was really cramped. Oh yes, she also poo pooed in the church and I also broke my back cleaning her bum. Gosh, I really hate to clean her pooed bum when there’s no baby changing room.

Back home, when the 3 gals were asleep, I worked out on the trampoline for half an hour to burn off some of the calories that I had piled up during the Japanese buffet lunch today. Then, I bathed the 3 gals and off we went to hubby’s uncle’s house for dinner and came home at around 9:30pm.

I’ve just put my the 3 gals to sleep and it was easy peasy tonight as the 3 of them didn’t nap long today.

Though the Japanese buffet spread was really good, I stayed determined to stick to 80% protein and 20% carb. I ate terriyaki Unagi, grilled salmon, salmon fish head, salmon salad, cod fish stew, a little beef and chicken and some salmon and butter fish sashimi.

I even managed to resist myself from touching the tempting cakes and Japanese mochi and just ate fresh fruits and Edamame beans for dessert. My determination and sacrifices have paid off. I can now fit into most of my old pants!

Throughout lunch, Baby C refused to sit on her pram. She kept whining till we took her out from the pram. Daddy, mah mah, kakak and I had to take turns to carry this fussy princess. But we all enjoyed carrying this sweetie pie who kept smiling at us. Doesn’t she look sweet in this Baby Disney dress that koo mah bought her from Hong Kong?

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How My Tuesday Went

It was another tiring day today, with most of my time devoted to Baby C and I only have the time to sit down and blog now. In the morning, I managed to work out on my trampoline and went for a short jog…. all these I did with Baby C with me. I can never go out of her sight, else she will wail her lungs out and my mil can’t even placate her. Only managed to work out for 20 minutes. I must increase the duration slowly, to at least half an hour a day. Then had a quick bath, quick breakfast and then nursed my demanding princess, bathed her and put her to nap.

Baby C did not nap for long the entire day today. I spent the entire afternoon talking to her, singing to her, putting her on her tummy and encouraged her to lift up her head and tried putting her to nap…. but she just wouldn’t nap for long. Before I knew it, it was time to bring my 3 gals to our paed’s clinic – Alycia for her chicken pox booster jab, Baby C for her Pneumococcal jab and to get the urine culture result and Sher – to check if she’s got ring worm or eczema on her body.

The urine culture result showed that there’s no growth in Baby C’s urine…. thank GOD! The Pneumococcal jab caused her to wail her lungs out as expected. Alycia was very good again as she was very brave and wasn’t scared at all when the dr. administered the jab on her bum. She even smiled after the jab…. and the dr. treated her to 3 honey stars! The bill came up to a whopping RM500++!! The Pneumococcal jab alone cost RM268! I’m praying that Baby C and Alycia won’t have fever after their jabs.

Back home, it was already 8:30pm. I had a quick dinner…. of merely swallowing my food down without tasting them coz Baby C was restless and wanted my teat teats. Half way through dinner, I had to nurse her and after that, I lost my appetite and couldn’t continue eating the cold food. Then, quickly went upstairs for a quick bath. In my bedroom upstairs, I could hear her cries downstairs. This happens most of the time when she can’t see me. Long story cut short, I only managed to put her to sleep after she had latched on to my teat teats for almost an hour.

I better go up to my bedroom now…. I can hear Baby C’s voice from the baby monitor!

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My Monday

I expected this to happen. Telekom has yet to call my hubby to sign the contract for the change of name for our fixed phone line, thus I can still access Streamyx. I wonder when they will call.

Anyway, this morning, hubby brought Sherilyn to the dentist as her gum is a tad swollen and bleeding. It appears that her molar tooth is sprouting out on her right gum. The dentist prescribed her with some antibiotics for the swelling. In the afternoon, we brought Baby C to the paed as the rashes on her face have become real bad. The paed said she’s got eczema. I was really upset to hear this coz eczema is linked to asthma and sinus problems and both Alycia and Sherilyn had eczema when they were infant. Now, they are very prone to sinus problems, have sensitive nose and sensitive throat. I hope Baby C will be spared from all these problems. Anyway, the paed prescribed Baby C with a moisturizer and 2 types of cream to get rid of the eczema (shall get the name of the moisturizer and cream tomorrow).

Baby C has been sleeping the whole day today. She even slept through during the consultation with the paed. I bet she will be wide awake tonight and wants to suckle my teats the whole night….. which means no sleep for me tonight!

Baby C is crying again. It’s time for her milky session now.

to be continued tomorrow with pix………

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