More on his peculiarities

I forgotten to add to my earlier post, that William has also the following peculiarity (if I can call it that) to:

1.  Draw according to the sequence of pages in his drawing book.  No scribbling on pages here and there.

2.  His new Spider Man phonic books has 12 in a series.  When he has finished reading them, he takes his time to put them back according to the number on the book.  Again, no jumping numbers. 

He can't wait for his birthday obviously.  One at school, and another over the weekend at this restaurant that he has been celebrating his past 3 birthdays at.  We were told that they will specially prepare a costume hat of William's choice... sssshhh, let's see first. 

William approaching the BIG 5

William wants to be a BIG BOY now, and he just can't wait to be 5.

He reminds me very much of Victoria when she was at his age, only that Vic was definitely more matured in thinking (girl mah) and serious.  Yes, she was playful and laughs and jokes but if I have to compare, William laughs a lot more, plays a lot more, and cries a lot less!

Having said that, William is one joyful child to have.  He still adores his sister like nobody's business, if I may say that.  Just a couple of days back, he insisted to hug AND kiss his jie jie with his oily mouth during lunch time.  Then yesterday when I picked him up from kindy, he checked the back seats in such a cute manner.  I asked him if he was looking for Kakak and he said yes, and also Jie Jie.  That was quite weird, and funny because he knows Vic studies in the afternoon and NEVER picks him from school.  Maybe to cover his mistake, he got into a small sulk and insisted that jie jie has to pick him from school!

When we were packing the party packs for his oncoming birthday celebration in school, he quickly reserved a Little Mermaid sticker for Vic, not knowing that Vic has already taken another piece for herself.  : )

He's also quite a sweet talker, saying things like "Mummy, your hair is so smooth." I seriously have NO IDEA how he learned this because my hubby never says this to me.  : ) Yes, he definitely knows the way to my heart, even when I reprimand him I have to put in effort to keep a straight face and the worse part is, I believe he knows it.  He'd try to smile and laugh and say something funny just to break me up.  A few times I had to look away, or drink some water just so I can keep my stern face on but hubby definitely can see through me.  The solution I believe, is to totally avoid eye contact with either men.

A couple of months back I realized his first streak of OCD (also known as obsessive-compulsive-disorder) whilst driving him to school.  I offered him his sunglasses due to the glaring noon sun.  A normal child or person would immediately put the glasses on but no, not William.  He took the piece of clothe in the casing and starting wiping his sunglasses, both frame and lenses over and over again in case he missed a spot.  From the corner of my eye, I saw him checking for any missed-out spots and then quickly reminded him that we are nearing school!

Shortly after that incident, he asked me in the car one day if he could have permission to rearrange my CDs in the album.  So I said, OK, just be careful not to scratch them or Daddy will kill us.  I was amazed that he took the CDs out a few pieces at a time, not all, and started to sort them according to color code!  I checked, and he did quite an impressive job there!

This reminds me of when he was a toddler of 2 or 3, and arranged his clothing on the bed just the way one would wear them.

I like the way he unashamedly display his sensitiveness and care for all his little soft toys which he fondly call them his "children" and he names each one of them creatively.  Yet at the same time, he shows so much boyishness and playfulness.  His laughter is contagious, and it's hard not to smile or laugh when William is around.  Just yesterday after bathing, he jumped onto his sister's bed naked and pretended to be SpiderMan spraying his webs at make-belief villains!

William and his frog toy that we bought from Pavillion for him when he was still a baby.  He held on to it and refused to put it back.  Today, he call fondly calls the frog, "Ra bek"

With cousin Grace

He talks passionately about the Bumblebee character from Transformers - his current craze!  He counts every single yellow car and truck on the road this week and calls them Bumblebee.

This boy can be dirty in his own way - wiping his oily fingers on his shirts, getting grains of rice stuck on his clothings, and his most irritating habit is the length taken to finish his meal!  Oh, this really test my patience.  Imagine, rushing the kids for tuition and school.  At least Vic response to my time checks, while he remains oblivious, until I start my car engine - almost literally! 

William and Victoria share a little love-hate relationship for certain vegetables.  He, for one, loves, and loves is an understatement because he goes crazy ga-ga over pumpkin especially make into soup (Mummy's signature soup, ahem!) and lady fingers.  He loves wolfberries and tomatoes whereas Vic shares no common love for these.  However, his fancy for onions has rubbed off on his sister, so whenever we order thosai or roti, it has to include onions (or eggs, at least)!

Well, that is William for now.  Almost 5, he is truly a blessing, a wonderful addition to our family.     

Always fascinated with sharks

Close of one chapter, the beginning of new

Our Cambodian maid, Kea Net, who worked with us for exactly 33 months, left for her home on 29th March 2013 - which also happened to be hubby's birthday.  As we were in Penang for a few days early that week, we came home with tonnes of laundry and on top of that, I had to bring her to the hypermart a few times to buy a new luggage, souvenirs, clothes and stuff.  We changed all her savings to USD as per her request on the second and last day after reconciling all the costs. 

On her last day, I was in a big rush to settle the kids in the morning (thank God they had no school as it was during their term break) then going over to the money changer to buy USD.  Before I left the house, I saw that she took her own initiative to iron all Victoria's white school shirts (the best ever, compared to the other times when it didn't even looked ironed) and hubby's working shirt for Monday.  I was deeply touched.  The night before she even worked till late just to finish off her daily evening chore.  I didn't expect her to as most outgoing maids would gladly give a slip short, half hearted work performance knowing that they will never come back. 

During lunch time, Vic generously told Kakak to "choose whatever you want to eat" and Kea Net had her favourite curry noodles.   At the airport, we bid and hugged her farewell after checking her in and seeing her off passed security.  Kids did not cry, but Mummy did shed a few drops of tears.  It's just never easy to say goodbye. 

Kakak Kea Net in her new pink blouse, skinny jeans, wedges, new purple handbag, ear rings and her handcarry bag given by Gong Gong a year back.

The next day, on 30th March, we welcomed our new maid, Joanne who is from the Philippines.  She's in her early 30s, speaks fluent English and doesn't carry a heavy local accent.  In fact, I find myself consciously readjusting my level of English from basic-broken to prim-proper.  She was quiet and almost considered unpleasant the time when the agent handed her over, and when asked by the agent's secretary, she said that I didn't look like what she saw me in Skype.  Well, I guess I disappointed her in looks then, and that was not really a good start.  To top it off, she was picky on her vegetables when we had lunch that day.  After a little advice from us of not to waste food or choose food (so we can set good examples to the kids), she did apologize for not finishing her vege (but still not eating it, it shows she has a strong will).

Joanne learned fast in her first week.  I must say, she exceeded my expectations, and I thank God for that.  She is pleasant, jokes and knows her boundaries / status.  She asks permission when she needs to enter my room to bring out the rubbish, and talks politely to the children.  She doesn't much cooking, from what she admits and also from observing the way she slices a cucumber.  However, she is willing to learn, always coming to my side when I explain to her.  The second time she fried a fish, she perfected it.  I secretly think she's not thrown out all her Aces yet.

Joanne eats very, very little.  So little, that I worry she may fall sick.  She is also very clean.  Much cleaner than the Cambodian in all her 3 years here.  She wiped my kitchen tiles squeaky clean, and performs her work fast.  She knows how to find her own work too, even taking out my pots and pans and cleaning my sauce bottles.  On this, she reminds me of my Indon maid no.3 who did the same within her first week here.
 
Thank you God for answering my prayer.

I hope things go well with Joanne throughout her contract here.  She did shared that her aim was to work in Hong Kong, and Malaysia is only her stepping stone.  She is not married and have no current boyfriend, so she is also worried that she may not find a man at all if she works here long.  I appreciate her honesty, yet I cringe to think of our dilemma in the future. 

A Birthday Celebration

We had a lovely celebration last Saturday, 6th April at our home to celebrate the birthdays of Victoria, hubby and Gong Gong.  Coincidently, this day was Gong Gong's actual birthday.

Initially I wanted to have a simple steam boat party but Vic was not keen as she preferred Western.  As our guestlist exceeded ten, I figured it will indeed be a better idea to cater instead of being Martha in the kitchen myself.  So Western it was, and we finally settled for a caterer and chose food that the kids loved most - lasagne and spaghetti bolognese.  In addition to that, I also ordered a tray of Shepherd's Pie, mini chicken pies and chilled creamcheese with nestum base dessert.  From my own kitchen, I added watermelon, grapes and cherry tomatoes.

We added in decorations that morning itself as we had our cell gathering in our house the night before and so couldn't put up the balloons and "Happy Birthday" signs yet.  Daddy did most of the decoration work - pumping up the balloons, tying them up until his fingers felt numb, hanging up the HB sign.  The ladies did the last part of tying the balloons in pairs along the staircase railings.

Popo Gong Gong arrived in the morning with cousin Grace.  In the evening, Yi Yi / Yi Jiong with cousins Andrew and 11-month old Sharon (last seen when she was a newborn), Mama Yeh Yeh with cousin Theodore and Yee Sok arrived.  3rd Aunt and 3rd Uncle joined us too. 

Funny glasses for the birthday kids

The kids had a blast, running up and down the stairs from the living to the dining, with the younger boys chasing each other around the coffee table.  Toys were strewn on the floor, they build and tore down and they laughed and cried.  We didn't had to put on any music which was initially the plan, because the conversations and noise from the kids would have drowned it anyway.  This was, in my opinion, what a party should be and it was great that we could do all these in the comfort of our home and not having to worry about runaway kids or getting weird stares from strangers if we had held this in a restaurant.  :P 

Nearing 7pm, Daddy dedicated a Bible verse to Victoria from Psalm 37:4, which says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Mummm Mummm

"I'm almost 8 now.  But still a baby in Popo's eyes"

3 generation and a bunch of plastic cats

Despite warning telling William (who thinks that blowing out birthday candles is his official duty) NOT to blow his Jie Jie's birthday candles, he was the first to blow out ALL his sister's birthday candles....

But fortunately Daddy forgot to light the number "8" candle the first round, so the second round, Vic got to blow this off all by herself.  We had to do a little restraint on the brother, though... hehe

A few days later (12th April exactly) will be my parent's 40th wedding anniversary so to commemorate that, we opened a bottle of Carbenet Shiraz to go with the lovely egg-free, orange flavour birthday cake.

Having her cake and eating it too... yummz!

She couldn't resist NOT opening her presents, so she picked one to open first, which was from Yi Yi and Yi Jiong - a Hello Kitty watch in a sweet HK box!  She's elated beyond words!  On top of that, the day before she received another watch - digital with various buttons from a cell friend.  So, two new watches for her birthday (nasib baik Mummy didn't cave in to her wanting to buy a new watch a few weeks back)

The second present that she opened came from cousin Theodore, and it was a Hello Kitty stationery set - perfect for a girl crazy over stationery.  As for Daddy and Mummy's present to her, she asked to keep it till her actual day but later in the night, she asked me if she could just take a peep.  That peep resulted in her taking out the smaller of the two presents in the package...

Thank you Popo Gong Gong, Mama Yeh Yeh and 3rd Aunt for your ang pows.

Vic is truly blessed.  Now I tease her that there are so many "cats" in this house... she laughs at this because she knows Mummy is not a cat-person.

Happy birthday, sweet girl...

"My dearest Vic,

Take time to grow up, don't be in such a hurry.  Take time to discover and embark on your likes and passions, keep God's word close to your heart, and know that you will always have Mummy Daddy to confide in and support you.  I'm proud of you - all the time."

Who is Victoria?

My first born will turn 8 next Wednesday, but because her birthday falls on a weekday which is both a school and work day, we will celebrate this occasion on the Saturday before.  Which, also happens to be my dad's actual birthday... so, we will have a double celebration!  And since Daddy's birthday was just about a week back, we will do a triple celebration instead and have sing a song for Daddy too!

I've been meaning to write a post about my little girl, who's not so little now.  She stands very tall for her age, standing at close to 140cm now and looks more like a Standard 4 student instead. 

In many ways, she's just like me.  In other ways, she is like Daddy such as her love for outdoor activities.  Or, don't all kids anyway?  She likes cycling and her fall a couple of months back has not stopped her from wanting to continue, albeit this time with a helmet.  Daddy introduced badminton to her too, and on good evenings after school, the two of them find time to flick a shuttle cock up in the air or at my plants (better than William who aims the shuttle cock at poor Mummy reading her magazine in the living room).

Vic laughs her silly little laugh that sounds like a half cry, if I may say.  She can laugh even when the people around her don't find funny in whatever she is laughing at.  But she sulks like a typical lady, because when you ask her what's wrong, she keeps quiet until you pester her a few more rounds, and you get a standard answer, "Nothing." 

Sounds familiar? 

I don't have patience for that, but Daddy does.  Because although Daddy may be too strict at times, she's always Daddy's princess and he takes time to find out why and explain and literally talk till she assures him that she's ok. 

She's fairly independent, and definitely a lot more independent than William even when she was at her brother's age now.  The only problem is, she's never a morning person but always a night owl.  She can take ages to clean up if she has her way. 

I have so much fewer "incidents" with Vic now and the last was months back when we caught her cheating in her worksheet at home.  Mother's instinct, if you may say, or just my gift of snooping out cheats, haha... it happened when I found brilliantly answered BM questions, some that I was even surprised she could answer.  When I erased off her answers, tore away the answer sheet at the back of the book and asked her to redo, she couldn't.  Bingo! 

Other than that, she's always the helpful little girl that I know.  When the previous maid was on her mood swings and didn't want to cook, Vic immediately sprang into action, offering to help me cut the vegetables, etc.  She'd be a great helper in the kitchen, if only we give her free reign.  If she needn't go to school, I think she'd be happy to do the chores for me too especially mopping and vacuuming the floor.  Even at school, her class teacher commented that Vic is very helpful. 

Oh, and have I mentioned how Vic gets defensive and ticklish when her friend teases her about boys?  These girls talk like boys are their enemies eventhough "T" is probably Vic's secret BBFF (boy best friend forever). 

I'm also pleased to note Vic's progress in her music lessons.  Her music teacher and I both felt that Vic's sight reading has improved and Vic loves her theory.  She wouldn't be able to learn so much under the other syllabus that she was on in the same duration of time.  But as always, my girl is a shy girl at performing or public speaking.  Her self esteem needs to be bucked up a few notches! 

Her love for all things pink has dwindled because she doesn't want to be called "Pinky Pig" - coined in school.  So she goes for the next new pink - PURPLE!  But she has already many pink clothes, a pink school bag, many other pink bags, and a bunch of other pink stuff which is so hard to avoid because everything is almost pink for girls out there. 

Moving on from Barney to Ben 10 and then graduating to Smurf and now she's into Hello Kitty.  So guess what, we hunted around and found Hello Kitty figurines perfect for her birthday cake this weekend!  Even if we did not find HK decos, she says she's alright with a plain cake.  She's even alright if she didn't have a birthday cake (because of her allergies), but Mummy and Daddy will not have it that way.  That's how understanding, how giving, and how obedient she is, to some extent we tell her to fight for her rights, stand up for what she believe is true and never give up so easily.

Happy growing up, Victoria!