Victoria's school picnic and William's first day on the swing

Last Friday I joined Victoria's school for a picnic at Aman Recreational Park in PJ. I brought William along, and we arrived early at the park, about half hour earlier than the kids as they were slightly delayed. William and I took a walk around the park, then I put him on a swing. He loved it immediately! This baby was swinging himself happily and squealing in delight.

Soon later, the kids arrived, all 15 of them together with two teachers, and some of the grandmothers and another parent of the kids. They played at the playground, blew bubbles, looked at the lake hoping to find some fishes (but nothing like CityPark in Seremban 2) and then all sat on a nice cloth, initially supposed to be in the concrete shade, but some kid asked, "Teacher, can we sit on the grass?" and Teacher Yoke Fong said, "Hhhmm.. why not. There's always a first time." Then as if to explain to the grandmas and parents there, she added, "The kids won't die from germs" which I thought was quite funny. Yes, the emphasis from the principal is to be hands on, to be inquisitive, to learn from trying and knowing, and not simply by reading. So the kids happily move to the grass, and we all moved the picnic basket and supply of food to the designated spot.

The day before, Victoria and I made jelly to bring to the picnic. Kakak made a satay of salmon bites, fish balls and rolled bacons. Yummy! Oh and did I mention that last Friday Victoria had the same special breakfast because I misunderstood the teachers and thought that the picnic was two Fridays ago, and only found out that morning itself. At the picnic, there were also another jelly, apples, grapes, bananas, cocktail sausages, cakes, Pringles...!

Daddy popped by on a surprise visit at the park too! William knocked off just as the kids were about to settle down for their picnic. It's just a joy to the heart to hear the laughter of many children, and see them run and play together.

William enjoyed walking around the park

Enjoying himself on the swing... I was surprised that he could moved his body to swing the swing himself

Happy.

All gathered on a picnic mat... the kids were very disciplined and well behaved.
Come hug me!!
Sitting on a baby swing : )
So hot... but great appetite. She finished all her 3 sticks of satay and small container of jelly, and whole bottle of water.
Group photo... see Vic (3rd from the right) holding a boy's hand? Well, that's Joseph. He's also 4, and Joseph got distracted with the fishes in the lake and we were all trying to get him back into the picture, and I dunno how he and Vic just held hands!! Hhmm... this is not the first time btw.

Victoria's progress in kindy

Last Saturday I went with Victoria for the parent-teacher meeting to discuss the progress of her work in school. It's a bi-annual thing, just before the kindy closes for the semester break.

I was really excited as this was a great opportunity to share our thoughts in a formal two way session. Of course, I meet the teachers daily and exchange short chats, and they'd tell me about Vic in class that day. A couple of weeks back, Vic and I bought this mother-and-daughter sesame street blouse, which we wore together during this PTM. : )

As I talked to the principal, Teacher Yoke Fong, Vic played with her other teacher outside the room. We both noted that Vic has settled very well in school, unlike last year where she'd still feel emotional, and would not participate in class. This year, she has somehow blossomed, if I may put it that way. She's her cheeky self with her friends, runs with them, pokes them for fun, helps her teachers, and participates in the games and classroom activities. There are days when she just doesn't want to go home when I pick her up, because she wants to play with her friends.

I'm happy she's developing well in class, but we need to brush her up still on her reading skills. This girl has her moods. We always have our bedtime stories, and I'd point the words out to her as I read them, whilst she sit beside me. I think she sees the words, but does not really register them in her brains, or she's more interested in the pictures and memorizes the stories and words. She loves simple arithmetics and I would like to develop her further on that.

The teachers tell me they enjoy teaching her, and I was really encouraged when the teachers tell me that Vic is very special and steady in class, because she has her mummy to guide her at home. There is this emotional bank, which she knows will be filled when she goes home. It is because of encouragements like these, and knowing that I make a difference in her life, that I forego yet another lifetime opportunity to take up a project with my ex client from a listed FMCG (with a heavy heart, though).

We enrolled Vic for JMC class with Yamaha Music School. Their HQ is just near our house, so it's very convenient too. I hope this class will allow to develop her love for music in a matured way, and provide her the opportunity to express herself through music.

Now... do we get her a 2nd hand original piano, or a brand new piano, or a digital piano, or simply a keyboard???

My shoes, my shoes!!!

Yesterday afternoon I went downstairs upon hearing William cry. My first thought, "Haiyaa, must be something between Vic and Will again" afterall, she went downstairs shortly before William started to cry.

Sure enough, I found two of them sitted on the floor, with the Maid. The maid explained to me that Heh Heh wanted to wear William's shoes, and William didn't allow. He tried to pull it off. I looked at Heh Heh whom Victoria was holding. One shoe was on her feet.

So I took off those shoes from Heh Heh and returned to William. The crying stopped. But just a second later, the sister started to cry. William looked shocked, as if he's thinking, "Why are you crying when it's my shoes that you took for Heh Heh?"

I told the Maid to take him upstairs. Then it's consoling and explaining time to Vic.

Just another incident of "you're not sharing your things" added with a tinge of sibling jealousy. It's hard to get Vic to understand that as William grows older, he is more expressive with his desires. He now knows how to throw a little temper by lying on the floor, any where, and starts to manja cry. He's also started to kick his legs sitted, just like the sister, besides throwing things away when he's cranky and frustrated.

Last night during our nighly pillow talk, I explained to Vic again that sometimes we just have to give in to William because he's a baby. Yes, it's all about sharing, but how much does a baby know about sharing? Then she told me, "Mummy, but William doesn't share his clothes with Heh Heh, he doesn't share his shoes, he doesn't share his socks..." Another round of explanation that William's old clothes are always available to Heh Heh, she just have to ask for them. But when it's clothes and things which William are currently using, it's a NO NO to Heh Heh. More so, shoes which he only has two right now, which are so important and precious to him because he's started to learn to walk. Ahhh, the joy of walking... he would just go to his shoes, indicate to us to wear them for him, only to walk around the house or go out.

Wiiliam's 2nd hair cut

Not including his hair shave when he was 4 months old, William had his second hair cut in Ipoh a month back. I forgot to write about this, and I think although it's a delayed entry, I should put this down.

The event is kinda historic as Tai Gong, the Great Grand Pa brought him to his usual barber joint, and and old chinese uncle went straight to the job, after getting the brief to make it short. I think since Hubby was carrying William, the uncle just copied Hubby's hairstyle onto William's little head. : )

Little fella didn't cry. Just busied himself looking around.

I was at my Aunt's place resting, and Vic followed Hubby and bb. These photos were taken by her. Enjoy.

William can walk!

My boy is finally walking! Though not for long, he can manage easily 10 steps or more at one time, and depending on what or who he sees. We will hold his hand (and he only wants us to hold just ONE hand) when he walks, just in case.

He's also exceptionally "manja" today. When he is in that mood, he'd just lie on the floor, or he'd fall backwards (if sitted) onto our laps.

A Getaway To Penang Without the Kids

It has been sometime since hubby and I last went for a couple's holiday together so a few weeks back when hubby announced that he had to clear his leave by end of this month, we initially toyed on whether to bring the kids along. As it is, we decided to be selfish just for 3D2N.

Day 1: Saturday 16th May

We left on Saturday morning after breakfast tapau-ed by my FIL who has also agreed to take care of the two kids with the assistance of the maid. Vic was still sleeping but we have already anticipated that she will not wake so early, thus we have said our goodbyes and explained to her that Daddy Mummy will be away for the few days. William was awake early and we said goodbye to him that morning.

The weather was good, the traffic was light, and we took a relaxing trip within speed limits up to Penang, passing the bridge around 12noon. We went straight to QueensBay Mall to purchase our Sell Out! tickets for that evening and grabbed our lunch at the food court there. As both of us were craving for some really good Penang char kuey teow, it's not surprising that we both ordered the same, albeit from different stalls. I must say, my plate of char kuey teow was the most horrible, over cooked, over sauced noodles I have ever tasted, and tasted far from what it was supposed to be! Anyway, no sweat as I was already prepared to overstuff my tummy for more yummy, authentic local delicacies during this trip.

Look how cheap the parking rates are! Only RM1 for 5 hours!!

We checked into The Northam around 4pm, and I immediately checked out the hotel spa, booking for the two of us a session at 5pm. I chose a sampler for hubby, the Balinese treatment (a relaxing massage) where else I went for the double session Oriental treatment prepared for the "pain" I have been warned, afterall, no pain no gain. Half way through, my massuer asked if I wanted to be stepped on, and I politely declined her. Don't think I want to start my holiday too ambitious. :)

This was the first time for hubby and it was really nice to have him join me. There was a TV in the room, and hubby was so cute, he immediately switch it on to Discovery Channel... I almost laughed and told him that he will unlikely have a chance to watch it! At the end of my 2hour session, the nagging neck pain which I had for almost one month was gone.

The room, with the screen opening to the jacuzzi

The view from the hotel livingroom... we had a complimentary upgrade to seaview


Dinner was a hurried one at a nearby hawker centre, before we make our way back to QueensBay Mall for our 9:15pm show. We ordered pasembur (indian rojak with squid that comes with stuffing), char kuey teow (the REAL one), prawn noodle and kungpoh frog meat.

Dried chilli frog meat


Day 2: Sunday 17th May

We visited Wesley Methodist church at their 9am service. We ate a light breakfast at the hotel before that. After the service, we had dim sum brunch. One of the objective for this trip, besides relaxing and just rekindling our love, was to walk down memory lane, somewhat. I told hubby I wanted the dim sum place where we had to refill our own teapots, and he brought me to this place which I can't recall. I'm sure I've been here before, but my memory was to this other dim sum place which we've been. But it's fun, and one of the "fun" things is to see the price list where a plate of hau kau (prawn dumpling) with whole scallop stuffing cost not more then RM3.5 whereas in KL it'd have easily cost us RM8!!

The dim sum place
Ka gi lai ie self service

You have been warned!
You won't see this in KL... not any place that I know of

Then we went back to The Northam, checked out, and checked into The Gurney because the former didn't have room for our 2nd night. But look at the similarity... from the toiletries to the lift doors to the hotelroom chairs, to the (description of) spa treatments! (Because they have the same bosses)

See any similarities? Not just coincidence, I must say

After that, we drove around town, parking only to walk down a morning market which was almost closing, then cendol at the famous Lorong Selamat.

Enjoying a bowl of cendol at Lorong Selamat. Actually I think I prefer James' cendol in Sitiawan more

We sat on a trishaw which was opened price at RM15 for half hour, but we ended up paying him a 30% tip because we felt he deserved more than that for all the energy he has to put in to ferry the two fat asses to Khoo Kongsi, wait for us, then ferry us back.

Come on... let's go. The ride was smooth, the trishaw man was polite the price, not even cut-throat as we expected.

The majestic Khoo Kongsi

After that, we looked for this old man uncle who makes all kinds of apoms with innovative fillings... we ordered egg+cheese, egg+hotdog and egg+banana. We ate this in the car on the way back to Lorong Selamat for the LAST bowl (because it is, hubby convinced the aunty to make this last bowl for us before she closes her stall) of asam laksa. Hubby ordered lobak too. Yummy, piping hot lobak with the thick gluey brown sauce!

Lo bak and some other stuff...

This uncle still operates his stall, selling all sorts of apoms. We used to order from him 5 years ago.

After that, we continued our eating spree, this time at this open hawker street, ordering our fried oyster omelette and pig intestine porridge.

Pig intestine porridge aka chee chap chok (Be warned: this is VERY unhealthy and contains super high cholesterol)

Look at the size of the oysters here! Juicy and just the right texture. In KL, we'd be considered lucky if we get half that size

Just as I thought I was going to burst from overeating, we left... for Batu Ferringhi. We walked into Rasa Sayang Shangrila Hotel (and I can't help checking out their spa rates there, which is obscenely expensive even if you halved it, and I'm so glad we paid decent rates for our session), then basked on their lazy chairs outdoors for a while, enjoyed the sunset (kinda) then strolled down the beach.

At the beachside

Dinner plans was supposed to be a drive to Batu Kawan in Butterworth for seafood, but I don't think I will do justice to the dead fish and crabs and prawns and everything else that's on our table, so we decided to go search for End of The World for seafood as well.

Yes, the restaurant is called End of The World. We found one, but not the one that we've been. Maybe it's not there like we used to remember, or maybe it has closed down. So we ended up at this fishing village and paid RM67 for deep fried squid, two grilled tiger prawns, stirfried "mee teow" noodles with seafood, nestum soft shell crab and a bottle of carlsberg to wash it all down.

We ended up here because we saw a bunch of gwai los tourists eating here. Will we come here again for the food? Unlikely.

The night stalls along the pedestrian walk ways along the main road gave us just the right opportunity to burn off some calories. Also one of my "things-to-do" in Penang, I found some nice cushion covers and a table runner, and we happily picked up some pirated DVDs that went for only RM20 for 6! What a bargain!

Just before returning to the hotel, Vic called us and told us she missed us. We already had two long animal balloons as a surprise for the kids, but decided to pop into Gurney Plaza to pick some socks for her and William. Victoria love socks, and if I can put it this way, she has a collection of them (though not in mint condition) and William's feet has outgrown one batch of his current socks. Vic said she wanted blue socks. Why are we not surprised? Then she told FIL to sms us, if don't have blue, "then purple, brown, black or yellow. In that order. If no yellow socks, then nevermind."

15minutes later, she asked FIL to ask us, "so what colour socks did we buy?" Haha. This girl. We like her follow up.

Still very much awake (from all the eating I think) we decided to test out one of the DVDs in our hotel room, Made of Honor and it was clear enough.

Day 3: Monday 18th May

Breakfast at the hotel. The spread, was surprisingly much better than The Northam's.

Another walk down memory lane, we went for our wan tan mee near the old Toyota office. Ordered fried mee sua as well. Prices here have increased by around 40cents, but the portion seemed just a little bigger.

Fried mee sua... ok only lar.

After that, it was back to Khoo Kongsi again, to get some forms. Then I went for my second session of spa (booked this yesterday as the price was much cheaper than Northam's) this time, a relaxing Balinese massage. Then we checked out, tapau-ed mee goreng and hailam chicken rice as our lunch. We took the ferry back to mainland, and ate whilst on the ferry.

This time around, we hurried home as we were really excited to see the kids again. Last night Victoria called us, and told us that she missed us, for the second time during this trip. She asked when we will be home.

Both kids were having their afternoon siesta when we arrived home. Vic pretended to be asleep eventhough she knew we were back. William woke only once on the first night, but was missing us badly on the second night. Poor FIL and maid didn't have much sleep, and we truly appreciate FIL again for helping us to babysit the kids.

Thanks for the great holiday, hon!

William's 5th tooth

It's coming out! We see it! William's 5th tooth on the upper right gums has finally arrived. No wonder he's been biting me and the maid so much.

William on his bicycle

William loves this bicycle which used to be jie jie's. We bought this for Vic when she already knew how to walk, so I think she was around 1.5yo or 2 yo at that time. William simply loves riding on this bike because of the bright colours and also because Victoria also rides on it although she has to be careful not to tumble over due to her size now.

There's a duck air horn in the front, that sounds rather like our putu mayam vendor who comes by every morning. There's a basket in front, and a basket at the back. Nice to put toys in, and Heh Heh used to hitch a ride in it too.

William's birthday celebration in Ipoh

William's birthday was celebrated the second time, this time in Ipoh on his actual day. I didn't blog about this earlier as I was really busy and the other blogs somehow came in first.

We travelled up to Ipoh in the afternoon after picking Vic from kindy at noon. She had her chap fan lunch in the car. In the evening, we ate at Movenpick Restaurant in Ipoh, booked by their 5th Grand Aunt, and celebrated with herself, Aunty Maria, Tai Gong and our family as well as their maid Umi. 5th Grand Aunt booked a jelly cake earlier that day.

With the family and relatives, minus Mummy who was photographing

It was a simple yet meaningful dinner. William was really tired as he didn't rest well in the car, and hardly rested when we arrived Ipoh due to all the excitement and new environment. We could see that he was really tired towards dinner time, and silently we were worried that he may fall asleep when we serve out the cake and sang the birthday song (just like the Barney celebration). So we decided to serve the cake after putting in our order while waiting for the food, and our friend was very cooperative. Guess he knows.

Hhhmm... why is there a Cinderella on my cake? (Jie jie picked it for him)

Earlier we explained to Vic that we let William blow his own candle this time, since she did it for him the first time. I doubt William knows how to blow at this age, but we just want to give him the chance. Vic said OK. Guess what, when it was time to blow the candles, our little girl quickly blew out the candles before her brother can even have a chance. Hhmpk. What to say. Sigh. Next year then, coz he was getting restless.

Vic enjoying her meal with her fav aunt, Aunty Maria

Victoria's Mother's Day artwork

This is Victoria's Mother's Day artwork which she did at her kindy, of course with the help of the kind and wonderful teachers there.

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day. This is my 4th year celebrating Mother's Day, and every year it gets more special and I learn to be a better mother. I feel Mother's Day should be a two way appreciation. Just as the family show their appreciation to me on this day, I feel blessed that God has given me two beautiful kids and a loving husband.

Despite some people who explicitly disagree with my style of mothering, today I am reassured. Yesterday Victoria wished me Happy Mother's Day in advance. Today in church, Victoria shouted Happy Mother's Day to me in the midst of the worship. She told Daddy that she wants to share her lunch with me later.

For lunch, we celebrated at TGIF and we ordered Sizzling Chicken & Cheese, Fish Mac & Cheese, Honey Pecan Salmon, Jack Daniel's Burger, and two free dishes as kids' eat for free. The kitchen manager came out to chat with us, as we ordered Vic's Honey Pecan Salmon dish "allergy-free". William busied himself walking about after lunch, and the kitchen manager spent sometime with him. So nice.

I shared my Jack Daniel's Burger (which Vic picked for me) with Hubby, and Hubby ordered me this Ultimate something-something which was an alcoholic cocktail of kahlua, bailey's irish cream, and some other stuff. (Note: Effective only while you drink it, so no excuse for not being on "mother duty" after that drink)

Enjoying my sip of the Ultimate something something cocktail... haha!
This is it!! Mixture of vanilla, kahlua, cocoa, chocolate chips, bailey's irish cream...

The entree - sizzling chicken and cheese
TGIF specially took out the butter, and put aside the sauces, ensured it's "allergy-free" for Vic.
My Jack Daniels' burger

Happy Mother's Day to all mother's out there!

First visit to the Zoo

There's this children's song which we used to sing when Victoria was a baby... it goes like this,

Daddy's gonna bring us to the zoo tomorrow... zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow,
Daddy's gonna bring us to the zoo tomorrow... We're gonna play all day!

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...
How about you, you, you...
We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

So a couple of days before we set off to Taiping Zoo, I sang this to Vic.

We arrived Taiping Zoo the day after William's birthday, Thursday 30th April in the morning. Weather forecasts shows scattered rain the mornings and thunderstorm in the afternoon.

In the train looking at the animals

When we first arrived, we hopped into the zoo train for a quick 10 minutes tour of the whole zoo, then hopped off and walked by our own to get a more "personal" encounter with the animals.

Vic was quiet, but I think she's quietly excited. First time to the zoo and seeing real animals. Thank God she was not afraid. William, likes what he saw, and pointed to the animals, sometimes wanting to get out of his stroller.

Aiyooo, so hot!! Thank God daddy brought the portable fan.
Wearing long socks to protect against the hungry blood sucking mosquitoes!
Here are some animals we saw

Camel in Malaysia? Victoria asked what animal is this.
A giraffe.. a REAL giraffe!
A family of elephants
The Malayan Gaur. I learnt something new too. Graceful swans swimming in the lake (I linked this to the Ugly Duckling story)
We left the Zoo at 12noon and tapau-ed duck rice from town, then headed back to Ipoh. We ate our lunch in the car, whilst William went straight to sleep.