Motherhood

It's really nice not having to wake up so early and rush to work. Life with the kids is so meaningful, yet sometimes it can be rather stressful, especially when the two of them cries at the same time. The big one should know better, and fortunately he's not like that all the time. Except that one night, just me and the two of them, and that wasn't very fun.

Anyway, the dearest son is a really good kid most of the time. Sometimes he does get jealous and scratches his little sister. But when I look at it, I see that he just wants the attention, especially that of his grandmother. He doesn't do that when I'm around. Except that one night when she cried non-stop, and he was trying to be helpful by beating her cos' she's naughty. *sigh* Of course that only makes her cry even louder!

He's an intelligent boy and knows what is right and what is wrong. It's rather amazing what kids know nowadays. I'm glad to be able to spend time with him.

Been watching the olympics. Didn't know that starhub had six channels dedicated to the olympics until 3 days before the end. Caught the rhythmic gymnast performance and am so impressed with the gold medalist individual, Evgenia Kanaeva. Her performance is so beautiful, so graceful, really a class above the rest. She seems to be dancing and floating, definitely deserves the gold medal. Catch her ribbon performance here. She performed the same dance in the olympics. The music is as beautiful as her dance. Photos of her here. I love her performance with the ribbon and the hoop best.

A crab, K Drama, Headaches

Just a few weeks with my little girl, and now I'm wondering if I should change her name. Emily sounds too sweet a name, and she's so grouchy in the morning, grunting like a dinosaur whenever she's left alone, or when she's dirty or hungry. Gee, she really loves to be carried at ALL times. My boy wasn't like that when he was little - he just drank his milk and went to sleep immediately. Not so this little girl. When she's dirty, she refuses to open her mouth for milk, and you have to clean her up before she'll drink. And after changing her diapers, she'll want her milk immediately and she starts yelling for it. So of course, after her milk, she'll poo again. *wipes forehead* ... Does that reminds you of Lucy in Peanuts? I bet she's going to bully her brother when she's bigger. Leonard is very easy-going after all.

Now I understand why all my galfriends are so hooked on Korean dramas. And my mom too. I watched a couple of episodes of The Legend with her, a couple of the daily 6pm to 8pm Korean dramas on TV with her, and I'm also hooked on them. I guess it's because the actors/actresses are really good-looking, and although the dramas can be quite long-winded, the stories are actually quite interesting. And it's all the romance stuff. And when you have nothing better to do, like lack of good animes to watch, you'll end up watching TV. So now, I'm going around either asking pple to borrow the K-dramas, or asking hubby to rent some nice K-dramas for me to watch. Heh.

My Whinings

If you click on the link to my very dear girlfriend's blog, you'll see a link to my blog under YP's whinings. Yep, I'm going to whine a lot. That's why one blogs right? To whine, because there's no one else to whine to. I bet Holly likes to whine a lot, and poor Biscuit has to be all ears for her.

Anyway, Whine no. 1. Mom disappeared off home with the big baby aka my son, and will not be back tonight. The difference between now and two and a half years ago when she does the confinement thingy for me is that she left me the maid. And dinner. I guess I'd better pop in more of those efficient painkillers tonight again. I think these painkillers are really good. They make you feel good, despite the pain all over. Today is only Day 4. Less than a week. Neighbour says she stays in bed for ONE whole week. Mom says I should stay in bed for one whole week too, but half-heartedly. Well, we can see how impossible it is when I'm all alone.

Whine no. 2. My nipples hurt like hell. But I'm still breastfeeding directly. Because pumping out requires: Step 1. Going down and storing milk in fridge. 2. Getting ready bottles = walking up and down stairs again. 3. Warming up milk = walking up and down stairs, and time needed while baby cries. 4. Feeding baby. 5. Washing and sterlising bottles = walking up and down stairs. I guess I can get the maid to do it, but I'd rather do baby things myself, and besides, it's rather tiring to yell for her all the time too. I still need to go down and oversee what she does. *sigh*

Whine no. 3. Hey, where are my birthday presents and birthday treat? *sob sob*

Whine no. 4. I want to go shopping. Didn't get to go at all!

Whine no. 5. I am working too hard and I am don't feel appreciated.

Whine no. 6. I want to go shopping. Got sale. :(

Whine no. 7. ...

One can never be prepared enough

So you thought you're all ready? The bag is packed, the nesting is done, work is completed, and you don't want to go back to work. And the waiting is just mind-numbing. And I'm putting on too much weight! And the cramps are just annoying. So in we went, and out she came. Finally.

25th June, a nice day to remember. The first thought was that, Whoops, she's dark! And she has lots of hair! Hubby is the kind who would count toes and fingers and check the ears are there. He was pretty worried because of all the bleeding in between, but I thought things were pretty cool right up to the end. My girl cried almost immediately and opened her eyes almost afterwards. And she's into the milk business two hours later. I always felt that my boy didn't take on to breastfeeding so easily because he was fed milk when he was brought into ICUC despite my insistance that he gets only breastmilk. Humf.

Anyway, so even if you're ready, my mom was not. Huh, so fast? That's her first reaction. *sigh* Anyway we don't really subscribe to the confinement foody thingy. All my mom cooks for me everyday is simply normal fare, except that she'll add more ginger and sesame seed oil. Pork and vege or fish, maybe chicken. Pork rib soup or herbal chicken soup. No prawns, no other seafood. And I don't feel so tired or in pain as the last time. Most likely because this time round, I'm popping the painkillers like water. It makes a whole world of difference when there is less pain. I was up and jumping like anything, and only when the painkiller wears off do I realise that I wouldn't have that much energy if I'm in pain.

Proper pain management is a very important thing.

Am trying to post a picture but there seemed to be some problems ...

I miss my dear boy

I realised that I haven't been writing about my dear boy for a long time now. I miss him very much, although life is like back to when I have no kids without him around. He's spending all his time at his grandparents' place and he watches lots of cartoons. I'm feeling quite unhappy about this, but there really isn't much choice is there? I remember last time when hubby and I discussed about it, we agreed that our kid should not be watching too much TV, as studies have shown that watching TV at an early age do cause ADHD when they're older. When my boy is with me at home, we hardly ever watch TV. The only programme I allowed him to watch, and it's watching with me is Animal Planet where I find it's soothing and there are lots of animals. Otherwise, sometimes he might watch some animes with me, but I don't really watch with him around, only when he's asleep.

So there he is, watching cartoons in the morning, my mom assured me they're educational cartoons, but still .....

*sigh*

Not that I spend a lot of time teaching him really, but most of the time, we'll be doing things together, like reading some books together, or playing some of his toys or painting, or just talking. He does not spend anytime with the maid at all when he's with me. But unfortunately, I can't care for him right now in my state, else I'll end up in hospital again, and this time my doc will definitely roll her eyes at me. It was so hard to get her to agree to let me get out!

My boy doesn't attend school. It was a bit regrettable that I had to withdraw him from his weekly enrichment class, but as I was expecting my second kid, and no one else wanted to bring him to class, I had no choice but to stop the lessons. My boy misses attending the school sometimes, but he has forgotten about it. Although sometimes he would carry his bag, put on his shoes and enthusiastically look forward to going to school. *sigh* Sometimes I feel so bad depriving him of such stuffs. One more month, and I promise to make up to him.

Nevertheless, he speaks extremely well and has a most logical mind ever. Cute things he would do:

In the car, he'll ask for the road directory, open the pages and proceed to direct his father which way to go. Go straight, turn right, turn left. Red light must stop you know. Papa, don't drive so fast. Drive slowly. Stop here. Etc.

We rented the rat chef cartoon on DVD. What's it called? Some Rat......(sp?) or something? It was a pretty funny cartoon, but it was a horror show for my poor boy. He watched with his eyes wide open, when the rats got attacked by the old lady in the kitchen, he clung to me so tightly like a koala bear and cried, and when I told him to cover his eyes and stop watching, he refused to close his eyes, instead he'll keep watching with tears running down his eyes, and kept saying nonono!

He cried and was sad when the papa rat and the hero rat was separated.

He screamed in terror and cried (but refused to look away or close his eyes) when the hero rat was chased in the kitchen in the restaurant.

After that I had enough, and switched it off and read a soothing book to him. Heh.

We also rented the cartoon CARS on DVD, and he enjoyed that very much. After which he took out all his toy cars and proceed to race around the house. Plus he pulled out the wheels on his model beetles and proceed to do change of wheels like that shown in the cartoon.

There was a three year old girl who came to visit her mother in the other bed, and she sang ABC to her mom. It was then I realised how impressive my boy is, for he can sing the whole song without a single mistake, with very clear and correct articulation at less than 2 and a half years old. Heh heh. The only thing my boy can't quite get it right is to speak proper mandarin, although nowadays he does know quite a few words, and the dialect as well. We're still trying to correct him on using too much singlish, but that's mainly our fault, because we use singlish ourselves. My boy may be very impressive in his vocab, but when it comes to numbers, he can't count for his life. He refused to count, he refuses to learn to count, and wild horses and chocolate bribes do not work on him. I guess when he's ready, he'll be ready for it.

I'm not sure if it's a bad thing not to send him to school yet. We haven't even looked at nurseries or kindergartens for him. I'm feeling a bit stressed about all this, but hubby seemed not too keen to send him to expensive schools (he doesn't want the boy to be atas), and I don't want to send him to playschools which are more child-care in nature - they're pretty expensive and they don't cover much if only in the morning. We tried looking at some church kindergartens but it's a bit difficult too. I'm not too keen on the Montessori, because they too are more child-care in nature, and there are so many different types, and there's no one to send our boy to school too. *sigh* I'm thinking that perhaps we'll skip the nursery all together, and just throw him a couple of enrichment classes, plus music class plus whatever he's interested in. How old do kids learn to read and write?

*stressed mother*

Now that I cannot spend much time with my boy, I feel that I'm losing him to lots of external forces. It's really so depressing, and I was looking so much forward to this time to bring him out to places with him and do lots of things together. *sigh* And why did this have to happen? I shall still blame the pple I work with for what happened to me. It's definitely their fault. So there. Humf. Not that they cared a single iota what happened to me. That's how it will be.

Hungry Hungry

Staying in bed all day makes one think of food. Now I have a craving for the Goodwood Park Hotel Durian Roll. Hmmm .... too bad, there isn't anyone who can get out there and buy for me. *sniff*

Home is definitely more comfy. There's music, when one's bored, there's work, and the bed is definitely most cozy. Of course, the downside is that I have to supervise my own meals, otherwise it'll turn out awful, like I went down yesterday and found that the maid did not turn up the heat on the oven when she roasted my chicken. Gah, she almost spoiled my lunch! I'm an extremely fussy eater. And of course, nobody will come and visit me at home, and the last of Min's chocolate was in my tummy a long way back. Heh heh. Still, one can't really complain since home is still the best.

The son has been banished to his grandparents, who take such delight in having him, that he has completely forgotten about his poor mummy who still misses him. It can't be helped, he's too energetic and everytime after spending time with him, things aren't too good for me. Don't wanna end up in the hospital again. My doc says I'm like a timebomb and I've got a feeling she's going to want me to induce again next week, but I'm so enjoying my holidays! It's rather bad to get baby out when she's still preterm ya?

So just lying in bed and listening to music, doing a bit of work here and there, and hoping for two more weeks of bliss.

Life's like that

I haven't been blogging for a long time already, I wonder if anyone still comes to my blog. Life simply caught up with me, all that work and stress and being a mummy. It's really not easy being a working mother, and I've decided that my children are going to be more precious than anything else.

It seems that my workload is extra heavy this year, even though they know that I'm expecting my second one. I'm not complaining, because it's not a big deal really. But I'm super pissed when my request not to do so much climbing stairs was turned down and inevitably a cause of my predicament now. Now I understand what politics is all about. Till now no one has called me to find out what happened to me. Except for one and it was work-related. Oh well, I guess I don't need that either.

So here I am, growing grass around my ears. I'm considering bringing my stuffs here to do, but those papers are rather important, and I don't want them to be moving around too much. Otherwise I'll need my work laptop to do real work, but there's no one I can think of to go down and pick the lock for me and bring it here for me. Was actually planning to get a good rest for two weeks and go back to do work, but my precious baby thinks otherwise. Everyone is very nice here, and I'm eating like a pig, not only the three square meals, but food from home, and sometimes begging my parents or hubby to get some dim sum for me to satisfy my cravings. Heh.

Plans went awry though, was planning to try out some Chinatown dim sum with PM and maybe Min, was planning to go Sentosa with my boy on Sunday, and the sale is on! But for now, I'll just lie quietly, watch animes, do light work on the bed and eat. :)

Things I'm impressed with my dear boy:

When I asked my boy a question in the negative form and change the same question into a positive form, he understands both and answers them consistently! Wow, I'm impressed.

Eg. You don't want this one right? - Yes. Do you want this? - No.

He talks non-stop and likes to tell stories.

He fed me my medicine. He said to me: Mummy, I hold the medicine for you. You drink water first, Mm. Then you open your mouth. And he pops the medicine into my mouth. Aaahmmm. And he gave me the sweetest smile possible.

Although the last time his hand was a bit wet and the antibiotic tasted awful after that. Euuugh.

He: Mummy Mummy! How's the walk, Mummy!
Me: Very nice, dear.
He: Mummy Mummy! Ask me how's the walk!
Me: How's the walk, darling?
He: Very nice, Mummy! *beamz*

We passed by the zoo, and he cried because he wanted to go to the zoo.

When he wakes up and opens his eyes and he sees both his mummy and daddy by his side, he smiles the most wonderful smiles every possible.

I love him so.

:)

And yes, I missed him so.

His eyes sparkle with happiness when I give him chocolates. He says: I promise to wipe teeth! I told him to be a good boy and stay with ah gong and ah ma, and he bounces from side to side saying: I will! I will!

And he says in the sweetest voice ever possible: Mummy I love you!

:)

Loving my boy

During the holidays, my mom went off to Macau for a short (5-days) trip. I was left handling my boy all by myself! Was feeling a bit apprehensive though, cos it's been a long time since I have to take care of him on my own, especially the feeding part.

So anyway, on Tuesday off she went, and that was the day I had to go back for some workshop. My family are so wonderful people though. My older brother actually took leave to spend time with him, and watch over him and the maid! My father came back during lunch to check on him and my younger brother came home early too. It really says a lot of how some people are huh. The other side could not be moved to return. *shrug*

Anyway, the rest of the week passes by so quickly. My boy and I spent our time playing, doing some artwork, and I got some time to myself reading when the maid plays with him. On Friday I brought him out to the Botanic Gardens and to an impromptu artclass. He enjoyed himself so very much and was deeply sound asleep by night. Must really do these things more often!

His favourite song is now Puff the Magic Dragon. :) And he listens closely to the lyrics and wanted me to tell him the story. And he'll ask questions regarding the lyrics too. Are all kids like that?

He'll be playing with his toys and listening to the song, then he'll suddenly run up to me and say, 'Mummy mummy! Why does it say 'but not so little boy'?' And he'll listen intently to my explanation and goes 'Mm'. And runs back to play with his toys again. Heh.

My boy loves going to parks. But he hates sand. He loves fixing aeroplanes and tanks and bulldozers and guns out of his lego blocks. He loves his playmobile motorcycle more than his bulldozer. He loves to listen to songs and stories. And he hums and sings songs when he's happy. And I love him very much. :)



That's him posing for the camera, rare actually, but because I told him to smile for daddy. :)

The Weekend

To cut the long story short, I dragged my butt down to Taka and bought a packet of Leonidas. As my boy would say: YUM YUM! :) I'm a happy girl again. My favourites are the ones with strawberry fillings and the alcoholic fillings. But can't take alcohol, so I only sneak in two alcholic ones, the ones with cherries. Heh heh.

They're all MINE! Not going to let my boy know. The last time he took almost half my loot. Humf.

Things pretty perked up after 5pm. Thank goodness, otherwise it would be quite upsetting. Must change strategy now. It doesn't make sense to work so hard and not be paid. Plus nowadays I'm really quite fed-up with the MIL and her antics. No more.

Anyway, do you know one can actually suffer from anime withdrawal? Arrgh.

Some other news: I heard that someone suffered a mild heart attack because he was taken to task. Tsk tsk tsk. Such cold-heartedness and tacklessness. If it's really true, I wonder how those people can spend CNY with a clear conscious. If you aren't willing to put in the proper funds, you can't expect so much. I think sometimes we just forgot what it is that we do. Apparently the new guy isn't very nice too, I heard.

*sigh*

Oh well. Four more months to go until I take a break. :) Well, sort of a break. Heh.

A Quiet Lunar New Year

So I didn't go to my mother-in-law's place after all. I mean one should stick to one's decision, and besides my parents were behind me all the way. Heh heh. And it was really hubby's idea. No loss. And if I were really the evil one as she thinks I am, I would not have let my boy go as well. Humf.

Anyway, it was nice to rot at home and watch animes. I should have been doing my work, but hey, it's a holiday and I had been working too hard for the past few days. I wished I still had my old animes with me. :( Still upset with hubby for frying my HDD. *sigh*

The rest of the holiday we spent at my parents' place. We played mahjong too! And hubby was slightly better this year. Except that sometimes in the middle of the game, I happened to look at his tiles, and exclaimed,"How come you are one tile short!" It happened a few times. We think he probably forgot to take his tile before discarding. Hahaha. Anyway, for the two days, the overall winner is ME! :) Even after contra-ing off hubby's losses, only me and my younger brother were winning.

My boy really gave me luck though. He came, he sat on my lap, he shuffled my tiles, and he knocked down a few tiles, and hey ... I won a self-picked max round! *beamz*

*****
We opened the clinic yesterday and only had one patient. Guess what actually happened? At four o'clock, we heard the patient banging on the glass door. Yep, dear hubby had forgotten to unlock the main door. *rolls eyes*. Today we realised that somebody did come around two, and the main doors were locked. *bleah* Oh well. :(

Some more funny things about my boy. He opened his ang pows and went tatatadum! as he took out his notes. Plus he went ding! when he found something I forgot what. And when my aunties came around to visit yesterday, Mom told me that he stood and faced the wall and was too shy to look at them, but after a while, he pulled up his own chair and sat in between them and chatted with them like old friends.

So overall, it was a quiet lunar new year. I'm feeling rather down in the dumps for this holiday season doesn't feel like a holiday at all. I didn't even have new clothes to wear, and the lack of meeting up with friends and relatives (every year there are less and less relatives to meet up with) does set the mood, or lack of it. I guess it'll just get worse. In other words, it's really a dull and boring holiday. Maybe I should just go for yoga too. Hmm, I wonder if the spa is opened.

Now I just feel like having Leonidas. The other day I had Calbury's at my mom's place, and those tasted really wierd. Guess my tastebuds have become more refined and cannot take these cheap chocolates anymore. Heh.

There's something about stories

My boy loves listening to stories. The other day, I was telling him the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, when it suddenly hit me that, hey ... Jack was a thief and a murderer! He stole from the poor giant, and killed him too! Tsk tsk tsk. What are we teaching our kids here eh?

And a while ago, I told my boy the story of the three little pigs. There are many versions of the story too. He cried when he heard that the big bad wolf ate up the two little pigs. Really! He cried! Oh dear.

*bleah*

I had to calm him down and ended up with telling him that the third little pig being the smartest of them all, finally killed the wolf, cut open the tummy and rescued his siblings. Still quite morbid actually.

*bleah*

I think we shall look at the Aesop Fables instead.

Come and Go

At a tender age of 2 years and 16 days old, my boy knows the difference between come and go. When he sees me and runs towards me, he would say, 'Mummy I come already!' and when he walks away from me, he actually says, 'Mummy I go already!'.

We were taken aback.

I looked at my hubby in shocked, and asked my parents who taught him that. Nobody knew.

We were so impressed.

:)

And the sentence for today is 'I dunno' with vigourous movement of the head from side to side, even to things he does know, which he says with laughter in his eyes and a big wide smile. He sure knows how to joke.

That's my cute boy.

I love him so.

He can sing:
ABC
Twinkle twinkle litle star
Jack and Jill
Mary has a little lamb
This old man (incomplete)
Motorcycle song
London bridge

His current favourite is Jack and Jill. I wasn't fast enough to record him on my hp. Will try again next time!

*****
In other news, my hubby fried my HDD. 200G worth of data. 10 years worth of treasure. All burned. Sob sob sob.

What a bad Xmas.

:(

A long long time later

I know I haven't been blogging. Just didn't feel like doing it. It just got boring after a while. I think my mood is like duh... duh... . What do I feel like doing? I feel like shopping, but clothes are to be on hold again. Anyway, I've got so much clothes, this morning I was just clearing out bags of old clothes, new clothes, clothes I wore only once but will never wear again, some clothes I never even wear before! I haven't finished clearing out my cupboard yet and I really have lots of clothes. Must stop buying!

What about bags? I'm just too lazy to change my bags often. Once I carry a bag, it just takes too much effort to transfer all those wallets and dunno what other stuffs women carry in their bags into a new bag. Besides all my bags are kept quite out of reach, so do I really need so many bags? Although it was quite disappointing this last Tods sale. All the way down there, and I didn't spend a single cent! Didn't quite like the bags, well .... I did quite like the nylon ones, but they weren't on sale. Sigh.

Books, bags and clothes. What else is there to buy? I didn't buy anything for myself this Christmas, perhaps that's why I'm feeling down. Add to the fact that I'm working today and on Christmas too. And it's raining almost everyday. What a foul weather. Yesterday was nice, and I brought my boy swimming. It was very cold though. We didn't make cookies as we had wanted to. For a few reasons. 1. Butter expired. 2. Was too tired, stayed up late to watch Pirates of the Caribean: At World's End. Quite silly show actually. Soooo showy. I like the first one best. I need more chocolates. Finished Min's chocolates too fast. Had a sore throat after eating four continuously.

Sad there's really nothing nice to eat around here. :(

Anyway, I could really get used to and love not doing any housework! And house is still spick and span. Am I going to suffer next time if I don't have a maid, or am I going to be addicted to have one forever?

Thirty plus and counting

Dressing in the thirties can be quite daunting. Yesterday I walked around town looking at the current fashion, while waiting for Min to turn up for dinner. The clothes seemed to be catered more for teens and the old boring working folks. What about stylish thirtish young adults? And to add on to the insult, most of the stuffs are winter wear, so dull and no-no. Hmm. It's no wonder Wen has turned to K-fashion, although I haven't seen her as of late, so I've no idea how K-fashionable she is, although her stories in her blog brings imagination to rot.

She is years too late in K-fashion though. I myself owned a couple of Korean stuffs - dresses no less, once upon a time when one of my current ex-colleague introduced me to this quaint little shop which sells Korean fashion. Not the teenage Lucky Plaza type, nope. And I don't even wear them often. I'm not sure how the K-fashion has become right now though, but the way Wen writes in her blog, it seems that they are more suited for young punks than thirty-something stylish adults. Heh.

So I walked around feeling a bit down, and empty-handed, till I decided to visit the French boutique. And spent an unbelivable amount for a pair of super short shorts. Winter fashion has no shorts elsewhere, can you blame me for needing a pair of super short shorts right now?

That's the danger of waiting too long for a friend to turn up for dinner. Heh heh. And hey, the black T was so cute ...

And not to mention, I spent a bomb on my rebonding again. Maybe next time I just need to go elsewhere. I might want to highlight this time, except it's so hard to maintain colour, especially when the colour fades, it looks really awful. I'm still in the super-straight look and will wait out one more year before I'll try anything different.

Besides it's been a long time since I pampered myself. It's just so depressing if one doesn't go out and doll oneself up now and then. My boy loves my new nail polish. He said,'So nice! So pretty! What is it?' Yep, he really said that. And last night when he saw me with my new hairstyle, he did a double take, thinking that I was someone else. Hahahaha.

Anyway, today I've finally threw in the towel and called for help. We'll be getting a maid. I'm sick of cleaning the house. The current part-time cleaner is not doing a good job.

Man, I'm going to be very broke.

My boy and his lamboghini

This picture speaks a million words. So there I was, vacuuming the floor, because I just couldn't wait one more day for my maid to come. And my boy got all excited and wanted to sit on the new car! Oh, he knew that it was the vacuum cleaner. He said so himself, then he laughed and said he wanted to sit on the car.

And when I turned it on to clean the floor, he kept yelling, Mummy! On! On! On! On! After a while, it didn't take a genius to realise that he really meant to switch it off, because he didn't like the noise. Then again, when it was off, he yelled, Mummy! On! On! On! On! Did he really know what he wants?

Now my boy says words like. Why? Why? Why? and Because Because Because. He's still asking What's that? But it's been peppered with Why. On top of that, he's really good at telling stories. He would say, in his oh so serious voice, that he just didn't want to touch the elephant.

Mummy: Did you like the elephants?
Son: I just dunwan to touch the elephant. *sob sob tone*

Yeah, we went to Bintan again. This time the resort hotel wasn't so great. I told hubby that he should just be assertive and ask for the best hotel. *bleah* We went for the elephant show, and baby freaked out when he was brought near the elephants. He screamed in terror. *rolls eyes* We fed the elephants bananas, and baby was so unhappy. We sat on the elephant knee to take a picture and he had tears running down his cheeks. Okay, so when the ordeal finally ended, and I asked him if he liked the elephants, that was what my cute little boy said.

*sigh*

How to be like a man eh?

Out comes the mountain lizard

Imagine this scenario.

A huge light-browish grey reptile crawled out from its dank dark hole in the ground under a rock. The sun up ahead was hot and glares accusingly. Gingerly, it popped its head out. Blink *flash fat yellow diamond* blink *flash fat yellow diamond*, its big round eyes went. It looked right. It looked left. Blink *flash fat yellow diamond* blink *flash fat yellow diamond*, its big round eyes went.

That. Describes my dear hubby perfectly.

Heh heh heh.

Whenever we have to drive to town, that is how he feels like to me.

And the other day we drove down to Shenton. Was I so underdressed in my three-quarters and Burkies! And yes, I was carrying the street directory too. We missed a turn somewhere, went round a block once (fortunately) and I managed to direct hubby to where he was supposed to go. He'll be totally lost I'm sure! At least me, the geography student can read maps. :P The wonton noodles was great though. And food always taste good when two people are snatching for it. Don't believe me? Go ahead and try it! Snatch food with your partner I mean, and the wonton mee too.

So we laugh at the owlet twins, but I got a sneaky feeling we aren't too unlike them. But definitely better. Definitely. At least hubby dresses much neater, and I don't dress too badly too, I hope. hahahaa. Definitely not over-sized T-shirts. :P Those two are definitely from another world, though they are really nice people. But it really feels strange talking to them. Serious.

And we passed by the big construction site where the IR is being built, and this time hubby laughed at me and my wide-eyed blink *flash fat yellow diamond* blink *flash fat yellow diamond* look. Wah, the whole landscape is totally changed. Cold it feels. New it feels. Reeks of money too. Are they doing a drive-in for cars up in the ferris wheel or what? New money. Corrupt money. Paper money. Whatever. Money makes the world go round. Doubt it's going to be a place for poor plebians like us.

*****
Found some kakis at work who speaks same language as I. Quite nice actually. To be able to discuss somewhat. And quietly we share and exchange. Stories and gossips.

Ohhh, my boy understands the word 'exchange' too. You want him to give you something he has in his hands, never snatch it from him. Tell him exchange, and he'll gladly give it up. And wait for something better. :)

*****
On a side-note, I'm not sure if this will betray confidentially, tell me if it does and I'll remove it. I laughed my head off the other day, just because the poor chap came out with his ear stud on back-to-front in a strange position in the ear, and when asked about it, was told that the young man was shown if it was ok like this and he said sure, you'd know best. So there you go. And I laughed and laughed and laughed and said that no wonder he looked amiss, and that you don't show your butt to the world like that. Poor guy, his friends are all going to laugh at him. He was young and some girls might find him cute, and sincere and he went specially to withdraw crisp new notes for it. Okie, so I exaggerate somewhat, but I just couldn't stop laughing. Please help me.

Count my blessings

After watching tonight's episode of Jamie's Chefs, I think we really got it easy. I guess starting your own restuarant is really tough, tougher than anything that could be. It makes me think back when we started our business, and it wasn't that bad. At least we weren't arguing. Most of the decisions were made by hubby, and I declined being his partner, mainly I couldn't if I want to, and I really didn't want to. So he got his mom to be his main partner, and boy ... she did give a lot of trouble, and she did make things difficult for me and for hubby and for everyone else too. But especially for me, sometimes I find it really difficult to face my friends, and I lost a friend too, but I'm glad I really have friends like Wen, although I'm sure she was pretty pissed off with us as well. I would certainly be pissed off too.

When you are faced with unreasonable people, there's no way you can win any arguments unless you are simply as unreasonable as her or you can just walk away from it all. Except that you are kinder and nicer than she is, and you'd never do that to a friend of a friend of a friend, and basically you'd never stoop to her level of unreasoness.

And at the end of the day, it's really your choice right? Are you going to let one nasty lady spoil your life?

When I'm old, I won't be like what Wen says. I shall go and do my yoga and spend more time with dear hubby. We do have quite a lot of stuffs in common, actually. I shall also go out for nice dim sum meals with my galfriends, and pour through my cookbooks and cook something nice. And if Wen promises not to complain about me putting in oyster sauce (which, excuse me, I never add oyster sauce nowadays!), I might just cook something simple for her. Haha. Cannot live up to her standards, especially when I go over her place and she really whipps up something fantastic from her cookbooks. I shall go back to my mountain and read my cookbooks again. :P

Come to think of it, I never really really did cook something authenic from all those cookbooks I have!

So anyway, have a little nasty run-in with the MIL again today. For some reason she must dislike me. Oh well, the feeling shall be mutual eh?

She was just completely unreasonable. What happened was this: Just because I spent a little more time with my boy in the living room because my boy wanted to play just a little bit more with me, and he didn't want to go to the kitchen, so when I went to the kitchen, hubby had put the rice in the bowl for me. Isn't my dear hubby sweet? And we didn't even think much about it, until the MIL critisised and scolded me. Wah lao. Like I owe her something in my life. Like I am the maid huh. Isn't she really pathetic or what? I was quite upset about it until I told myself that she's just plain pathetic if she wants to be unhappy about such things. Ha. It's not going to make me upset, although it did make me lose my appetite. Completely. You can really feel the stomach drain its hydrochloric acid down a hole and suddenly you just don't fell hungry anymore.

Not that the food was any good as usual.

*****
Anyway something sweet happened today. Dear baby was saying 'Papa, zip! Papa, zip!', and when I told dear hubby about it, and he did what dear baby wanted, my precious boy said 'I love you, Papa!' without any prompting! Although I prompted him to say 'Thank you, Papa.' :)

It's really quite sweet, because nowadays he (the son) is always saying 'Don't want Papa, don't want Ah Ma, don't want this, don't want that etc.' And 'Papa, hand.' because I told him he mustn't say 'Papa, hand go away'. So he cut the last two words out. Heh.

Well, my boy is now at this stage where he only wants mama. :)

The book says that kids won't get spoilt, if we are firm with them. I don't think that my boy is spoilt. He listens to us quite all right, and now that they are in this stage of development, they are trying to see how far they can go with things. And it's really up to the parents to teach him what is acceptable and what is not.

For a period of time, my boy is always crying to want to sit up in the front of the car. He'd howl when we disallow him, until one day, I held him tightly, looked into his eyes and told him that he cannot sit in front and because it's dangerous. He knew the words 'cannot' and 'dangerous' and from that point in time, he never asks to sit in front anymore. Right now I'm trying to teach him that he must sit in the car-seat at all times, but this is a bit hard to maintain because we can't be consistent in this ruling all the time. Still, we'll try.

The other thing I need to teach him is not to spit out his food. Not having much success here, must get a cane for this.

*****
I guess at the end of the day, we just need a big hug from the people we love and for them to tell us that you are doing all right.

My boy gives really fantastic hugs. He even pats you on your back. hahaa.

More stuffs about my boy. Not yet two, nope, but the things he say:

Water boil. Very hot. Dangerous. Don't touch. Ah Ma cooks for L. Fish got bone. Chicken got bone. Cannot eat. Cat meow meow where are you? Dog woof woof where are you? Pig oink oink. Chicken tok tok KE! Elephant bom bom bom! Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Konichiwa. Morning wake up cannot cry. Say good morning papa, good morning mama. Papa I love you! Mama I love you! Mama carry you (still trying to correct him on that!) Sing twinkle twinkle little star! Not lemon. To eat. Frrrruuuuuit. Star. <-- he actually means (it's supposed to be diamond) it's not supposed to be lemon. Lemon is a fruit that can be eaten. A diamond which is like a star! --> Sing abc. Sit bicycle with ah gong. Go down slope. Very fast. Almost fall down. Wind whooooosh. Watch cartoon.

He is quite demanding, when you sing abc, he would want you to sing twinkle twinkle little star. When you sing twinkle twinkle little star, he would want you to sing abc. :P

He can sing along with us twinkle twinkle little star, abc, doh re me, london bridge, old macdonald. Not sure if there are more.

He knows about Mr Uppity, Mr Skinny and Mr Bump. Yeah, I read him these books in the car or at night. Other books are too boring for me to read to him. Heh.

:)

The good, the bad and the ugly

Another mommy who goes back to work and finds no place to express. I'm amazed how some of my colleagues can actually use the bathroom. I refused to do so too, put in a suggestion but was typically ignored, and finally just used the sick-bay and the photostating room. Most people just couldn't care less. I remember reading a point of view from someone (a female) who wasn't a mommy, and how irritating it was for her to have a colleague who is a mommy needing a room to express. I can't remember who it was, but there you have it. Society is still not open towards such ideas and stuffs.

I quarralled with my father again yesterday over breastfeeding my baby. They want me to stop, but it's easier said than done.

Anyway, don't want to write about unhappy things.

My boy's favourite phrase nowadays:

What's that? What is that? And he points at every single thing. And he expects an answer. Like he really understands. *rolls eyes*

He's cutest when he's sleeping. I think he's really into the terrible twos stage now. Must buy a cane soon.

Why I feel stressed Part Two

I spent the whole day with my boy today. I wish I have more time to spend with him. I wish when I'm with him my mind is not elsewhere, like how I need to clean the house, to cook, to feed him etc. Why can't I simply enjoy being with him?

He didn't want to eat his porraige. He kept spitting them out. I yelled at my mom when she nagged for the nth time that the fish was sliced too big. OKie, fine, so she always manages to feed him till his bowl is clean. Yeah rub it in, Dad. You weren't a great parent when we were young either. Why do I have to hear so much crap from you?

The thing is, I still need encouragement. My boy is almost two and yes, I'm still breastfeeding. To my parents, it's like ... 'disgusting'. Big boy still breastfeed. Breastfeed already he won't eat anything else, he'll only want milk. See? When you are around he won't eat his food. When I go to my parents' place, I'm told to 'disappear' when they want to feed him his dinner, otherwise he won't finish his food, because there's always his milk. I'm made to feel guilty that I'm causing him not to eat proper food. Yep, that last sentence definitely hit the nail on the head. But I'm too thick-skinned to really let it affect me, but it hurts inside. When my boy doesn't want to eat his porraige. What should I do?

For all people say that breastmilk is good, if he doesn't want to take his solid food, he'll be hungry. And he'll suffer. If only my dear boy would take his solid food. If only if only if only.

And I tried. A different tactic. I canned him today. Not once, not twice, but a few times. There were red streaks on his arm. I felt like crying. The first two times he looked a bit amazed. Was it a new game? Only when he cried, after the nth time he spitted out his food. Did he learn? I'm not too sure. I explained and explained. And looked at him and told him he cannot do it. But did he understand? It seems that my mom is doing it better than I am. I'm just not spending enough time with him.

I wished I could have more time with him. Holidays are coming, but hubby doesn't have any help. He called me earlier. Five times no less, cos his assistant didn't turn up. But what can I do? How does telling me help? I was happy until I knew. It just makes me stressed. I'm expected to do this, I'm expected to do that. What to do?

And the best part of it all, is the voice at the back of my head. Whose voice? The MIL, her accusing voice that I like working more than taking care of my boy. Yeah right. She might not know what she have said, but the words will always be remembered. If I'm rude enough, all hell will break loose.

*****
I need to chill with friends.



Anyway, this is the second time I tried making baked rice. This round it turned out pretty good. I loved it. Ate a bit too much too. Hubby seemed quite neutral with it, but he did say it was better than the first time. The first time the prawns and other stuffs were boiled before added to the rice and baked. It didn't turn out that nice. This time, acting on a hint from my brother (younger), I fried the prawns and chicken and squid and onions in butter before adding the rice and cheese. Yep, my younger brother is quite a cook. He's pretty proud of his fried-rice, but I wasn't too impressed, since I think my fried rice is pretty good too. Plus fried rice is so chicken feed. HAhaha. Anyway, for a time, he was pretty obsessed with baking bread, and actually borrowed books to read up on it. I even saw some dough being covered up, waiting to rise. But somehow the final product was elusive. And he was very very elusive too when I kept bugging him to let me try his bread. So one day, I asked my mom, and finally found out that ALL his bread attempts failed. Big F9. They were as hard as rock. Ha. Ha. Ha. Man, I'm evil.

Coming back to my baked rice, I added some pasta sauce and I kinda regretted it. Tasted a bit sour. Hmm, have the pasta sauce turned bad yet? Hubby wanted to eat spaggatti and pasta and bought this big bottle of pasta sauce, and we only had spaggatti once, and the sauce was kept in the fridge. There didn't seem to be any mold growing on it, so I assumed it was still safe to use. Maybe I'll skip the pasta sauce the next time. Will need to add bell peppers and pineapples. Yep, that'll do the trick.

Still, I'm quite pleased with my baked rice. Heh. :)

Need to add more prawns though. Was fighting with hubby for them.

*****
There was a German fair, and I bought more German knives. *bleah* And two latte glasses. :) Not that we drink coffee, but the cats were sooooo cute! Can't I buy some stuffs to cheer myself up? The cats were all so cute. I want to get more!! Hubby got no money to buy for me. *sniff* And I got a boy who'll break my things if I buy too many deco stuffs. So perhaps next time.

I'm stressed too because I'm undergoing some withdrawal symptomes from something I shall not talk about anymore now what with all that stuffs going on. :(

Why I feel stressed right now

It's not because of work. It's because hubby's problems have become my problems. *sigh* It's hard to find good help. We called a few to come down for interview, they say they will, but they never turned up. Is the job market that great nowadays that people have lots of job such that no one wants to work? Looks like we might have to look at the foreign market. I wonder what really is happening. *sigh*

Another sleepless night

My sense of time has been completely screwed up. The last couple of weeks of late nights have finally led me to this wide-eyed state. And I didn't even drink coffee. We had been staying up late catching movies and doing work. Some were pretty good. The movies that is. My dear boy caught his first horror show too. We watched Monster House. It was pretty cute. Not really frightening, but must be pretty frightening for him. He held onto us pretty tightly. There was Battle of Britian and Because I said so. Both were quite good and really enjoyable. Battle of Britian seemed so familiar. I think I might have played the game when I was a kid. All those bombers and fighters and spitfires and those views seen from the airplane ... so nostalgic. Maybe I watched my brother played when we were kids. On the computer that is. I doubt I've watched the movie before, or haven't I?

Seems that baby will not have a fever tonight anymore. But the true test would be at about 1am, 6 hours since the last dose of medicine. I hope he won't cough so much too. Poor dear, it's so painful to see him so sick. Kids are so fragile. I really hope his fever doesn't come back up. It's so difficult to give him his medicine that for the past two nights, he slept without taking medicine and yes, with a fever. Hubby said it's okay. I guess we'll leave it to the expert. I'm so tempted to be paranoid.

We are looking for people again. It's so hard to find good help. Maybe the pay is too low? I think this time we would seriously consider finding foreign help. Perhaps it's for the best eh? I wonder where all the employable people have disappeared to? Probably pay is too low for them. But rent is too steep for us. You really wonder what you're doing at the end of the day!

My little painting fell off the wall again. This time it left a little crack on the study table. This little painting isn't really little actually. Once upon a time a long time ago, Wen was shopping for her funiture and stuffs and we went into this woody place in Balestia and I bought two wooden frames with tiled paintings in them. Well, I hung both of them up above my study table, using the famous 3M stuffs, one above the other, and strangly enough, the bottom painting never drop off. Only the top one. The third time it happened, I switched both paintings, and guess what, the top one dropped again!

Dear hubby rolled his eyes all the way to the back of his head. I told him that as the painting on top is higher than the one below, the top painting will have a greater gravitational potential energy, therefore it exerts a greater force and thus is more prone to falling.

Hubby told me: Murphy's law. Murphy's law. When you least expect it to fall, it will fall. I think that's what he said. Gotta check with him again, except that he is sleeping right now.

What do you think actually happened?

Hey, I even changed the 3M tape each time! A new one okay!

Now only one painting sits on the wall. My table has a little crack. *mutter*

Hubby rolled his eyes again as I taped the 3M tape on a shelf on the wall. heh heh heh. Perhaps I'll take a picture the next time I tidy up this place.

In other news, hubby tried his hands at repairing the air-con, and inadvertably killed it. And he did not even turn off the mains when he was doing the work! How not angry can I be? Grr. Not only did he spoil the air-con, he put himself in bloody danger. Duh. I thought he was only going to put it back, but while I was cooking, he went and did so many things to it. Now it's dead. RIP.

Boys.

See, blogging always make me sleepy. :) Yep, time to sleep. We are now camping in the study room cos cannot live without air-con!

Blah blah blah

So what am I doing? Still up so late? Last minute work as usual, but my mind is already too saturated, and I'm taking a break, write a post and going to sleep. Datelines be damned. Actually I should try to be more productive as this is the only time I can get to do so much, and the many cups of tea really kept me awake. But my mind is really not working anymore. Can't be help eh?

I got a few things to blog about, but baby just took this time to whimper. SIGH.

I guess that's it.

Destination - Banyan Tree

The whole place is beautiful, especially when you have a whole villa with a private pool and an outdoor jacuzzi.

The view is absolutely fabulous, the company is great, and the food is pretty good. Sort of. Unfortunately we didn't have time to get out and sample the kelong seafood. Sis-in-law said that they have changed the chef so the food is much better. I can't imagine how horrible it must be previously. So much of a super-high class resort, if the food isn't too good, it just isn't that good.

When we got there, all of us got down to the beach to get dirty. Well, sandy. The kids ran around and tried to make sandcastle but the sand was too wet to stick. I brought baby down and tried to get him onto the sand. He didn't like the sand very much. When he got sand on his feet, he said, 'Mummy, feet got something!!!'

Here is me trying to put him down onto the beach, there he is gripping very tightly onto me with his hands and feet. No way is my little boy going to have sand on him. How fastidious can he be?

On the second day, we sneak out to have a nice massage. Hmm ... I think I must have become extremely spoilt. Thought the massage was only so so. Ex too. After that, we went to play in the mud. Not too sure what the vehicle was called, you know those four wheeler buggy or something where you drive through some muddy trek. Hubby said, 'Think of them as horses with wheels.' And in the middle of the forest trek, it rained big cats and dogs and we were soaked to the skin. I've never felt so cold in my entire life or so wet! Not to mention, the manaic hubby was driving at full speed through puddles of water, thus splashing mud and water onto me. At least the muddy water was warm compared to the rainwater!

We had to turn back when the vehicles started to have engine trouble. There were five vehicles all together. And we also had a entrouge of engineers on bikes with us to lead the way as well as to start our engines when we stalled. Which was pretty often when it started raining. On the way back to the starting point, the kids stopped and with their mother, they all ran into the sea. To wash off the mud. What the hell. Hubby and I threw down our helmuts and joined them as well. They were screaming at us 'The sea is warm!' Anything was better than being cold and shivering to the skin eh? And we were all in T-shirts and shorts. Only my sister-in-law was smart enough to have her swimming-wear under her clothes. Duh.

So we rode up and down the beach for a while, in the rain, which had become a drizzle, and when we finally reached the starting point, the sun came out and smiled at us. Duh duh duh. What a mean weather! One of the kids exclaimed. Indeed. So the nine of us came back dripping wet and mud. It was fortunate we didn't bring our boy along. I can imagine him turning up his nose at all the mud and water! He didn't want to hug me when he saw me dripping wet! Tsk tsk.

It was too soon when we had to go back. There was water-skiing and more stuffs which the boys arrange. They sure know how to play. It's pretty fun when there are lots of people I guess. If it's just us, we probably wouldn't do all these things. My poor baby. When he grows up would he still have his cousins to play with? They'd be all big and maybe boring. :P

I guess baby enjoyed himself in his own way. Here he is, playing hide-and-seek and catch and eating fries. :)

I am feeling fat. And lazy.

I read that Wen was complaining about her sagging boobs. Maaann, what can be worse? I'm fat. My boobs are sagging too. Arrgh, and the worst is, sometimes one is bigger than the other. Arrrgh.

I think it is more than two months since I last went for yoga. It's lots of ice-cream and junk food lately. Sigh. When one hits the big three, there is no more turning back. The fats just creep up quietly and sticks there for a long time. Yucks.

I really need to do something healthy. See my tummy? Someone actually thought I was having another baby. *sniff*

Breathe in deeply .... hold ....

*****
Life was a bit depressing lately because of all the hoohah over a certain matter. I was quite disappointed. Really really quite disappointed. If you'd ask me, I'd be very happy to pay for it, if I can get the most up-to-date ones as well as good quality of course. Monopoly is just tyranny. In this day and age too. Can't we just have a peaceful hobby?

Anyway, I'm still feeling a little blue over the whole matter. Where's my psp? How else can I destress? Maybe can grab PM out one of these days and blade with her. She asked me but how can I with my boy? *sigh*

Speaking of which, I signed my boy up for this most atrociously expensive enrichment class. After speaking to a neighbour who mentioned something about dunnodunnowhat school, dear hubby and I popped down to have a look, and somehow got persuaded into paying over a thousand dollars for a twelve hour lesson. Hmm, I'm still feeling a bit surreal over this thing. What right-brain training? Don't really need actually, but I guess I was just feeling a little bit guilty for not spending enough quality time with my boy. He is growing up so fast, and I don't know how to teach him, how to play with him etc. I think I lack the patience, and I just let him play with all those toy cars. *sigh* Sometimes it's so hard to be a mother. Well, hopefully this money will be well-spent because I get to learn alongside him. :)

The other reason being I think my poor boy is feeling very lonely and doesn't know how to socalise with other kids. Hopefully this will let him mix around more with kids his age. When he sees other kids, he becomes so shy and twiddles his thumbs. Poor him, no cousins to play with. Or little kids. The neighbour girl is a bit violent. My poor baby got smacked on his head when he refused to return her her toy car. He was shocked and cried a bit. But after she got canned by her mom for doing that, he pitied her and quickly returned her her toys. Later when I asked him if he still wanted to go over to play with her, he said 'dunwan!'. Whoops. :P Then again, he doesn't want to share his toys with her when she comes over too. haha. Kids are so funny.

Ohh ... something to look forward to ... hop hop :) Lunch with Min. :) Dim sum. yum yum. :)

Anyway, I figured that I haven't been going for yoga, so that saves quite a lot of money. All the exercise I get is from carrying my boy up and down the stairs, and I didn't manage to get a slot for the bobbi brown make-up workshop. Wen didn't ask me to go with her. *sniff* *sniff* :( So that is some money saved. Not that I've been saving a lot. Just been spending on different things. *bleah* There's just so much things for a girl to buy!

*****
Have been watching some rented dvds with hubby. He borrowed three over the weekend. The first was something called The Last Dance (I think), the second was 300 and the third was some Japanese movie.

Hubby was quite impressed with the first one and he told me it was some award-winning show. I wasn't very impressed at all, especially when I saw that it was a 'raintree' production. I raised my eyebrow. Isn't that local? It's not that I have anything against local production, but I mean, how impressed can you be? In the middle of the movie, hubby asked me, 'Are you being tortured yet?'. I can't agree more. Oh man ... it was the worst movie I've every caught in my entire life! I thought it was some exciting Hongkong flick, got HK actors what, but the entire plot was sooooo lame. It was like trying to be some momento-wanna-be (but failed miserably), some matrix-wanna-be (but failed miserably too). I mean the still shots are ok-nice, but for goodness heavens, it's a movie, not some photoshots. Arrgh. And it is just simply so unreal. Spore is too clean. Too too too too damn clean. It send shivers down my spine. Maybe Stephen King can do a horror show, those fouth-dimension thingy, where the whole world is seen through filtered lens. And the story seemed to be written by some nine year old school kid. Well, that was what hubby said, and I damn well agree. Pretty arty farty with a big F. For failure. Actress is ugly. The HK actors with their dubbed voice grated on my nerves. The only redeemable feature is the chemistry between the two vetern HK actors, the police captain and the assasin. There is absolutely no chemistry between the lead actor and actress. And the little girl. Arrgh, can't they choose some cute girl? And what's with that one quick shot of some half naked old man with guitar and prostitute with nipple-piercing in S&M style? So absolutely unneccessary. It's not even a redeeemable feature. Maybe they thought it was so bad already that might help? Gross.

300 wasn't that great either. Lots of half naked men with rippling muscles, not bad actually, but close to 30 men rather than 300, and what's with that smooth black tight underwear? And another arty farty show. Rolls eyes.

Baby's awake. More critisism if I ever got time again.

*****
Finally one little thing that really make me really warm and fuzzy and proud of my dear hubby. He's in the news. In a good way. *beamz*

And that is the only incentive that makes us go out to get a copy of the newspaper. Heh.

Baby, 20 months

We are the indulgent parents all right. What to do? Only have one precious kid. I'm not sure if it's because of the guilt we feel because we don't really spend lots of time with him, or we truely in our hearts just want him to be happy, or simply because he looks really good in it. Whatever.

But here he is, aged 20 months, and he owns a German car. In the likes of Volkswagon, BMW, etc. A red sporty one which can go at a topspeed of 40km/h and take up to 80kg.


Yes, he's actually posing in it. And he smiled when I told him to. And he refuses to let anyone else sit in his car, although he was rather mild about it when we tried. He'd say: Papa, go away. Mama, too big. Go away. The neighbour girl came over and tried his car. He was so worried but was too polite to tell her to get lost. You should have seen his eyes go as big as they could get and he started wringing his hands. Good thing her dad told her to return the car and my boy quickly reclaimed his prized possession. Heh.

Ah, next time when he's twenty and asked for a car, we'll tell him he has already got one at the age of 20 months. So no more, eh?

*****
More milestones.

Took his toothbrush and started brushing his teeth himself. Refused to put it down even after his bath. I guess I needn't be worried about him brushing his teeth after all. Heh. Was a bit worried for a while though cos the last time I thought I saw him brushing the toilet floor with that toothbrush of his. Hmm.

More words.

Commented that 'man wears specs' loudly in the lift whilst said man was carrying his 26 month old boy who had a pacifier in his month. Said mom then pulled out said toddler's pacifier and exclaimed that so big still use pacifier. Said people in lift seemed impressed with my boy. *glowed*

Have started asking questions: Mummy doing what? Papa doing what?

Have started answering his own questions. That Ah Gong's car? Noooo.

Can answer our questions correctly: Is that Ah Gong's car? No. Is that Papa's car? No. Is that a taxi? Yes!!

Is very demanding: Sit car. Take off shoes. Then drink milk. Gugu go away. Close door. Mummy sit here. Then drink milk. Go upstairs. Sit on bed. Then drink milk.

I love him to bits. He's just so cute. :)

*****
Have been busying playing on my psp so have not been doing any other things else like blogging. Found this game called Puzzle Quest. It takes Yahoo! Bejeweled to a higher existance. If you loved Bejeweled to nutz like me, that is. It's simply amazing what the Japs can do. Turned a simple game into a RPG quest which comes with magic, hit-points, pretty exciting story-line. And you can even play with a real opponent. Like my dear hubby, whom I got him addicted. Who is also so extremely competitive. Humf. Am so not going to play with him anymore. Yep, we each got one psp to ourselves. :)

What's the next game going to be?

And the latest anime crazed is Denno Coil. The storytelling is simply amazing. I'm still reeling from the last two episodes, one which made me laughed till tears come to my eyes, and the other was so sad that I cried. Definitely a gem.

*****
So have been pretty anti-social. Should go out and meet up with old friends. Have not seen or heard from Wen for a long time already! I guess she must be busy with her studies. And I'm so busy with my boy. It's so hard to bring him out by myself nowadays. His table manners are so totally spoilt by my parents. So I've been going out for dinner with them. At least they can pander to him while I eat in peace. Relatively peace, that is.

In other news, poor baby has been sick again. Thankfully last night seemed to be the turning point. After he vomited onto me, that is. And twice diarrhoea today. Otherwise we'll have to be drugging him with his flu medicine again. This time he caught it from me, and I caught it at the clinic. Life sure is tough! We couldn't go to the zoo as we had wanted. The flu medicine works wonders though. He takes it and is completely knocked out for two hours at least. That's why I only took it for one night when I was sick. Don't have the luxury to sleep so much!

Sis-in-law was in town. To be more accurate, bro-in-law's wife that is. The whole family was in town. Exchanged some gossips with her and am assured that MIL has been extremely tame towards me. I guess I should be feeling lucky. And to think that she actually bought TWO sports cars for my boy. They're not that cheap too. Gosh, she wouldn't even spend that sort of money on food! I guess he's also extremely lucky. But then, back then baby was calling her auntie for a time. That might have made her rather worried. Now she got him to call her correctly. heh heh.

I was so thirsty after that MSG laden Ramen, that I drank coffee milk. Right now I'm feeling zombified. Brain's not working too well. Darn.

Thoughts and sniffles

People (not my parents) have been asking me when I'm going to have a second kid. Not that I'm not seriously considering, now that my boy is pretty big, but it's rather tough to get around the idea of doing it all again. Can't we just skip that nine months of pure torture and get down to business? Hubby said I shouldn't have anything to complain about, seeing as how I did not even experience any morning sickness and was for the most part very happy-go-lucky throughout that period. But one wouldn't know what the second time would be like, ya?

I was just tired most of the time, and couldn't get up on time to go to work. And my reporting officer sure made my life hell making me feel awful all the time about that. Now that I think of it, I really dislike her. There, I've said it. I should have just asked my doc that time to give me lots of MCs. Ha. The way some of my colleagues are doing now. Doh.

Then again, do I really want another kid? We are still financially unstable, and I don't think I've been a good mother at all so far. Sometimes I feel like I'd rather work, and free time? I'd rather have the time for myself. To do my own things. As it is, I've not been doing to yoga. And there are still so many things I want to do. Watching animes is definitely one of them. :P

I guess I'm just tired. Baby is cutest when my parents are around to take care of him. He is so difficult especially when it comes to feeding time. Why did it turn out this way? He was such an angel once upon a time. Arrgh.

Oh no, he's awake.

...

I think I've caught some bug. *sneezes*

Tra...la...la

Things my boy can do at a tender age of 19 months:

1. Use a pair of chopsticks to pick up food. Well, at least he could hold his chopsticks pretty well now, and he managed to pick up his favourite prawn once. After a while, he threw his chopsticks down because his fingers were tired. (I got photo and video to prove) :P

2. Help me vacumn the floor. I got photo and video to prove too.

3. Play the piano and read music. At least that was what he was trying to do. Playing my piano and flipping through my score sheets like he knows how to read. Ha. Whenever I wanted to practice my Schubert, he'll quickly come look for me, and demanded to 'sit here sit here' and starting pushing me off my seat, [Mummy, go away] and even pawed (poured) at my music sheets like he can read the beansprouts. Yeah right. *rolls eyes* When he's done, he say 'close piano', and I have to close it and he'll squeal with laughter whenever I'll narrowly miss his fingers.

:)

In other news, Schubert is coming along nicely. I can play the first two pages of the sonata pretty well now, and that's because I've only got the first three pages with me. And besides now that I listened to Nodame and followed the score, I realised that she only played the first two pages and skipped to the end. Darn, must get a Schubert CD. I hardly have any Schubert at all, or do I even have any of his music?

Come to think of it, it's so much easier to learn a new piece when you get to listen to it. To think that when I was little, my teacher was/or appeared to me, at least, to be quite against listening to tapes of people playing the pieces. I think he once said that I shouldn't listen because I shouldn't be playing like that for exams. Only can listen to the exam pieces played by exam-approved players. It's no wonder I hate playing the piano when I was little, when each piece was an exam piece. School ya, Yamaha, ya. Got to make sure the little pesky kid pass her exams ya. It wasn't until I stopped learning, and made friends with Xel that I started listening and appreciating classical music more. If I have not known her, I think I'll never play the piano ever again. Or learn the violin. I wonder how many people have teachers like mine and got their interest killed.

I love Nodame Cantabile! The anime is extremely cute too! :)

Just watched Blood Diamonds last night. Thought L D'Capro looked extremely good in this show. No more that immature silly boy look. Heh. The story was pretty good, but we felt that it was too hollywood for anything. And I'm just too poor to afford so many diamonds. War is war is war. I wonder if the chap is a real story.

The wheels on the bus goes round and round ...

So I have this piece of music going round and round in my head. Schubert Piano Sonata in A minor. At least it's better than my boy's children's music going round and round in my head!

Eversince the first time I heard it, and saw it being played (by Nodame) I just fell in love with it. Managed to get my hands on the sheet music, and am wondering when I'll get to try it out. The last time I did, my boy quickly ran up to me, and started demanding that he 'sit here! sit here!' too, and 'Mummy go away!', trying to push me off my seat.

Maybe later, he's still asleep. :)

The things my boy says nowadays:
'Excuse me! Go away!' and he tries to push you off your seat
'Hand, go away!' and he tries to slap your hand off from holding him
'Ah Gong eat what?' Last night, he saw his Ah gong munching something, he actually asked that!
And lots of other stuffs. He's very chatty for a nineteen month old.

Last weekend we went to eat at Le Maison (spelling?) at the new Central (Soho?) place. It's a kind of fusion Japanese place, my younger brother said. I thought it was French infused Japanese. Anyway, food was really good. I love it, except that portion was rather small. Was still a bit hungry. Not too expensive too. Nice, can go back again. I remember the last time Wen and I had French. Portions were really small. *shrug*

Oh well, I think I'd better get some housework done before everyone wakes up!

Baby, aged 18 months

It's been a while since I've put up any of my baby's photos. Here are some taken from my handphone. Gosh, the resolution's pretty good, eh? I was thinking of buying a small camera to carry with me, but maybe this handphone also can do. The only problem is the lag time is very slow. What to do?

Baby is learning to twirl his pen. Can probably do better than me.


At my hair-spa salon. Not that he has got any *hair* to speak of.


I love him so. :)


He is a big boy now.

Life is tough

There, I've finally done it. Fell asleep at the wheel and kissed someone's butt. There was just a slight scratch on my number plate, but boy oh boy, the lady's fender was totally bumped. Plus she bumped into the car in front as well. Hmmm. *sigh* I guess I'm just too tired and stressed nowadays.

Baby is really very very tiring. I need to stop pandering to his whims. Really stop. Harden my heart and let him cry. I need my life back. I need to have time for myself and stop running around like a headless chicken. I need to stop. Period.

*****
Bad stuffs aside. On my last day of my holidays, before all the horrid meetings (which took up two days of my holidays), I invited PM over my place to do some baking. She was supposed to come at 10am in the morning for my pancakes breakfast, but I'm sure you can guess what time she arrived (finally). Almost 1pm. Oh well.

Anyway, breakfast was pancakes which I made for dear hubby.

Hmm, does it look good? I didn't quite drown it in the maple syrup because hubby didn't like it too sweet. But it tasted pretty good. I cooked more for my neighbours and for PM when she arrived. Baby took a couple of bites from hubby before refusing. He always refuse food from me out of some principle only he knows.

Lunch was more japanese udon with PM, after which we baked apple crumble again. PM made my crumble too hard and we ran out of flour, but I substituted with a little self-raising flour and crossed our fingers hoping it'll work. It turned out pretty good I must say, except the crumble wasn't as crumbly as I had hoped. My boss liked my crumble too. I hope he'll give me a raise next year. But then if he does, it'll be hard for me to leave. *sigh*

Do I really want to stop work? Baby dearest is the one who'll suffer. Poor baby.

Part Two

Okay, so the clothes are up. I've got a sneaky bad feeling about tomorrow, but let's not think about it right now. There's nothing I can do about it now anyway.

Min's vouchers bought me two more cookbooks. Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries, and Donna Hay's Classics 2. I'm always a sucker for Donna Hay's books. Her pictures are beautiful, although the instructions aren't always a hundred percent clear. But then again, I never follow instructions to the dot. Furthermore, if I were to compare with Nigel Slater's book, gosh, some of his instructions are even worse! Like how long am I supposed to leave it in the oven for? What in the world is *blank*? Hey, where's the recipe for this one side dish etc. Still, it was pretty fun to read. It's a different style of a cookbook all together. Very refreshing!

My birthday book present from Wen: Shunju New Japanese Cuisine, is a bit more complicated. It has those kind of very beautiful pictures, really mouth-watering stuffs, which looks really difficult to make. They're those kind of stuffs which you'd really like someone else to cook for you. But it's really nice to look at the pictures and drool drool drool drool. :) Well, maybe I might try the oxtail hotpot. I feel like making oxtail one of these days!

All together I have now ... wow. More than 20 cookbooks! Including bake books. Waah. :) My collection is coming along nicely. I wonder how many books does Wen have? :P

*****
Am going to try making pancakes. Bought some ingredients and some utensils. Heh, it's always nice to buy new toys. :) Am looking out for a simple hand-held mixer. I remembered mixing some dough manually and being extremely tired after that.

Holidays are coming to an end, it's kinda depressing to think about it. I haven't really got a chance to cook something really different and special and nice or bake something yet. *sigh* It's quite difficult when my boy is into this super clinging stage. Plus he's only eighteen months and yet undergoing the terrible twos stage already. I can write a whole chapter about his naughiness. But, mothers are always terribly proud of their babies, and we are terribly proud of him because he's starting to speak in sentences. :)

Like: Ah gong sweeps floor. Lenny wears hat. Papa drives car.

And he can use many different words to express the same meaning. His favourite meaning now being:
No. No no no no. No need. Mai. Bu Yao. Dun want. Plus vigourous shaking of his head, and sometimes hands as well.

To chocolates, it's always a nod of his head.

Did I mention that he can say 'McDonald'? Especially whenever we pass by the McDonald's place (and I think whenever he sees that clown, whatisname). Can we send him to earn some money for us as their poster boy?

:)

My yellow lamborghini, revenge of the cow and all things domestic

Over the last week, a stamp of approval was given to get a new expensive vacuum cleaner. Ohh, just because it was the colour of one of his favourite cars. The infamous yellow. Yep, even my little boy likes it too, and quickly sat on it while I was playing with the controls. My boy didn't quite go vrooom, but he helped me with the vacuum for a while until his arms got tired. Metal tubes this time, not plastic. And it's so quiet.

Five minutes in all to vacuum the carpet. The old one kept dying on me which I think because the bagless bag needs emptying. So it got overheated. Heh. That was supposed to be the hubby's job. Anyway, my part-time maid was on leave, and a couple of times of using the old vacuum cleaner drove me nuts. I'm a happy vacuumer now. :)

Will continue to vacuum the floor during weekdays. Hey, it suddenly became fun!

*****
I've also got my lovely table-top electric grill plus hot pot. Can only do one thing at one time though, but who cares eh? So I went and buy the corn-fed beef especially for grilling. And we had grilled beef plus pork (because I didn't realised the packet contained pork as well, kinda felt cheated really!) for dinner tonight. Plus special lemon dipping sauce, from my Japanese recipe book. Oh ... the beef was mouth-watering. Even writing it here now makes my mouth water.

After dinner, I realised the drawback of grilling in the dining room. The whole house is oily. Arrgh.

So it took half an hour to mop the floor, wash the dishes and mop the floor again.

Arrgh, I just remembered I haven't hang up the clothes! Arrgh.

Much ado about nothing

I haven't been able to log in to blogger recently, I think there's a problem with netscape. Now with IE, everything seems to be smooth going. But somehow something is irritating me. Using this verison of IE. Maybe I should upgrade to the latest version. Hmm. The alternative is to login via someone else's page. Hmm ... anyway, no worries, here I am.

If I could have written something a couple of days back, the title of my post would be 'The things that made me angry'. Oh, I had a whole list of things that made me angry. So angry in fact, that it's not going to be good for my health. Venting it out might be good, but writing it down may not always be a good idea, since it serves as a reminder how angry one can get. So perhaps it was a good thing I did not write them down after all.

Then again, I'm still angry because I couldn't quite vent them all out. The next best thing is to indulge in guilt-laden shopping spree. Yep, Tods sale is around the corner. I shall have my shopping therapy. Paid up my credit card bills in anticipation of spending big money. hahha. There's a feeling of recklessness. One bag and at least two pairs of shoes. How's that to soothe my anger?

Of course all the money I spend will be from my own account. Here's to pay-raise and some bonus. I think there is some bonus, isn't there?

*****
Anyway, I just came back from visiting my Granny in Malaysia. It was a short trip of two days and nights. In future, I must remember that my aunt has very low taste. Of course she meant well, but her idea of an excellent hotel and an excellent breakfast fell short of our expectations. One look at the place instantly placed it to at most two stars. I rolled my eyes and muttered under my breath to hubby who rolled his eyes at me. Hey, and it wasn't cheap for a two star hotel too. Grrr. I mean, I don't mind if I've to stay in a two star hotel, but I don't expect to pay so much for that sort of place! I'd rather spend slightly more and have at least a four star resort. Grr. Next time I shall book online myself. The other place wasn't too bad. It was new if nothing else. New places are always nice. Until it gets old.

Grandma is stil very strong, if not a little forgetful and blur. Baby allowed himself to be held for a short while. On the second visit, he pointedly decided that pretty girls are much preferred over old ladies. He played with his little aunties so delightfully, and had so much fun being the center of attraction with my cousins aged twelve and below. He obviously didn't care who were the ones giving him angpows. Nope, not interested right now, except for pretty girls who swoon and held his hands. Lady killer, him. No, make that pretty ladies only. heh.

My poor dear came back with a fever, a bad cough and runny nose. It's been almost a week, and he's still coughing away, with lots of phelgm too. It breaks one heart to hear him cough like that, plus wheezing away when the phelgm blocks his airways and he coughs till he throws up. It is the nights that are bad. Moreover, giving him his medicine is also a nightmare. One look at the bottle and he starts crying. The teaspoon comes out and he starts struggling. And flailing his little fists. We had no choice but to syringe it, hold him down, and force feed him. And he's smart, he wouldn't swallow and goes phuuuutt and onto our face and hair and clothes. Or he'll just use his fingers and dig all out. So we have to grip him tightly, and pour it down his throat. It just make it worse, for he cried and cried and cried and eventually he threw up everything. Last night he seemed to be better. Last night I tried giving him his medicine with a bit of a bribe. One hand holding chocolates, he nodded his head decisively. The other hand with the medicine bottle, he shook his head and cried. Oh he knew what he wanted definitely. So I tried a sleight of hand, but it could only work once. I finally resorted to putting the chocolate (a smear of it) at the tip of the spoon and poured the medicine into the rest of the spoon. He saw, he knew and he grumbled. And still grumbling, he conceded. I guess he agreed to compromise.

So today for the whole day he seemed to be much better and I missed his medicine all together. It's stressful for both him and myself when giving him medicine. Sometimes I really feel like a single mother. Alas, he seemed to be worse tonight, and a few mintues ago, we fed him his cough syrup and phelgm medicine again. I hope he'll be okay for the rest of the night.

*****
The other thing which irritates me is some inane remark made by someone at work. A couple of weeks back. One's special profession doesn't make one a god. Ask me if you want to know what inane remark that person make. I'm just grouchy, because baby is still sick, and I missed yoga on Monday.

My cleaning lady will not be around for the whole month. I just scrubbed my yard three days ago, and it's cleaner than ever she could clean. This morning I tidied up my little terrace garden. The plants are growing nicely. Hubby sees me watering the plants and commented that the poor plants undergo draughts and floods. I think I shall pour some bleach on the floor on Friday. My vacuum cleaner works for about ten minutes before it dies everytime. I think the bagless idiot needs to be cleaned. But I'm allergic to dust, so I shall get a new vacuum cleaner instead. It's someone else's job to clear out the dust in the vacuum cleaner, but that is never going to happen. I shall get a better cleaner. Besides the dust and hair always get stuck in the duster (or whatever you call that thingy). Yep, certainly due for a new vacuum cleaner. :)

Other wants: a hotplate grill and steamboat. I've spied a tiger. I thought of getting one of those electronic rice cooker, but the sales lady said it takes like 45 minutes to cook rice. Hello?! Forty-five? You gotta be joking. I'll save my money then. Must get a new hood. Actually I'd like to change my whole kitchen. But that's another story for another time. Have been slowly putting things away too. The house looks just slightly neater now. Just ever so slightly. It's still too messy really. I'd like to visit Ikea too before the holidays end, but the next week seems to be looming up fast, and next week equals no more holidays.

*****
One last thing. The use of the miso paste I bought in the last post was a failure. Must. read. recipe. again. and. carefully. too.

Play. Start.

Blogger login seems to have a bit of a problem. Everytime it kicks me out of my browser when I tries to login. Have resorted to some tricks to get in. *sigh*

It's been a busy and tiring period of time. I'm really glad it's holidays now, although my first week is so burnt. Nevertheless, it'll be nice to be able to spend more time with my baby dearest. He's growing up so fast and oh-so-cute. He talks a lot sometimes, and has a really cute sense of humour. He'll do things like pretend to give you something, then take his hand back and chuckles. Or he'll hide behind me and do peek-a-boo at his daddy. And he'll hug and kiss you when you ask him to. The kisses come with a big smacking sound too. :)

Dearest baby my big boy is now fast asleep though.

The Great Sale has started, but I don't really have anything I wanted to buy. Thought of getting some nice kitchen stuffs, but don't really feel like buying anything especially when it's so crowded. I hate crowded places. Perhaps get some nice storage stuffs to make the house look neater and nicer, but lazy to go shop actually. This year, I've decided I'll save my money and wait for Tods sale. It's time again to get a new Tods bag and maybe even shoes. Heh heh. I spied a white Tods bag. Hmmm .... Then again, usually I'll end up not using them because they're just too damn heavy.

A friend called asking to catch up for my birthday. That day is long past, and somehow it just didn't feel very sincere in asking me out. Seems like she was more interested in telling me someone had a girlfriend. I wonder if she was disappointed that it was not her being the girlfriend. I used to tease her about him, but she always adamently insisted that she wasn't interested. So why is she still so interested in his love life? Am I missing something here?

My birthday itself was quite disappointing. Nothing much happened, and to make things worse, my phone broke into two parts on the day itself. I was one week without phone then. Somehow some things seemed rather forced. The birthday cake didn't arrive in time, only one week later, and three hours late. Still, it was a lovely birthday cake, and I left one bite-size in the fridge which I consumed five days later, and boy, that really tasted good. Baby dearest celebrated my birthday with me, and looking at the photos, one wonders whose birthday exactly it was. I bet six more months later, he'll be all ready to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. I haven't really bought anythine really nice for myself this time. Perhaps something T might be nice. I've spent a bomb on my face care, and don't really feel like buying anything else. But face care doesn't really count as birthday presents right? *bleah*
Yep, something T might be nice, but $900 for a piece of silver is just too steep. Silver oxidises too fast. I wonder how Wen can stand it. So we'll wait for the Tods sale. Yep yep.

On animes. Ouran High School Host Club is such a kick. I wondered why I thought it wasn't nice at all last time. I laughed and laughed. My cheeks felt rather tired after that. The rest are still on a weekly basis. Dennou Coil is really really interesting. It reminds me of Studio Ghibi's type of animes.

Other news, just bought a packet of miso paste. Time to try out some new recipes! :)

Bits and Pieces

The other day I wanted to blog, and tried logging in but my computer kept hanging. I'm still not sure why that happened, but I'm glad that today I managed to get through! It's been quite a while since I've written anything. I'm still lurking around reading other people's blogs and being super duper busy otherwise.

My boy is growing up very fast now. He's a big little boy, and he's super duper cute. :) Well, everyone says so. Heh. Here are some pictures of him I managed to take recently. Nowadays it's quite hard to take any pics of him since he's always in motion.


My dearest boy trying his hand at housework. See the mess he makes?


He loves sweeping the floor. I must show him this when he's older and tell him that he loves sweeping the floor. heh heh.


Awww ... actually I hate to complain, but after he swept the floor for me, he left lots of broom hair on the floor. Grr. And the broom isn't very clean. Looks like I have to buy him a broom for him. A real broom no less. When am I going Daiso again? :)

*****
My baby boy all ready to go swimming!

I guess he'd rather just play with the water.