Po-po and gong-gong

We were in Nilai yesterday to pay respect to my dad. Before we went, Yiu Yiu said,
Yiu Yiu: Mummy, please don’t tell gong-gong that I bumped my head.
Mummy: Why?
Yiu Yiu: Because I don’t want him to be worried.
How thoughtful!

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This happened the last time we were at Nilai. We bought a double niche in the columbarium, so there’s an empty space next to the inscriptions of dad's details on the plaque covering the niche.
Yiu Yiu: Mummy, I know the empty space there is for po-po. Next time when po-po dies, we will come here to pray to po-po also.
Mummy: Yes, that’s for po-po. Do you want po-po to die soon or live long long and be with us?
Yiu Yiu: I want po-po to live long long with us.

Few days later, mum related to me that Yiu Yiu told her that the space in the niche is for her when she dies. And mum asked her the exact same question I did, and she answered exactly the same way. Really don’t know how she got the idea, as nobody ever told her so.

FGS Dong Zhen

This is a very nice place to visit during CNY as it’s specially decorated with flowers, lights and statues; but it is also extremely crowded! The last time I went was when Yiu Yiu was still a baby in my arms. Mum had always wanted to revisit this temple but somehow, over the last few years, we didn’t manage to. So one Saturday before the CNY ended, I drove there with mum, with my two girls and their cousin, Xiaoyu in tow.

We arrived just before 6pm while it’s still bright enough to capture some daylight photos.

Rabbits welcoming visitors to FGS

Thank goodness there were some amusement rides at an open space just outside the temple, so the girls were kept entertained while we waited for night fall to capture the beautiful lights.

Entrance to FGS is free, but I suppose profits from these rides more than made up for it. I think I busted close to RM40 just for these three rides.

Yiu Yiu slipped and fell while I was trying to take a photo for her here, and she refused the camera after that. What a pity coz the lighted decorations were really pretty.

Love the reflection on the little puddle of water

So long rabbits...till the next time.

We went for a late dinner at about 9pm at one of the restaurant in Jenjarom town – nothing spectacular but the price was quite a rip-off. I suppose they were not worried about overcharging, as they know we were simply a bunch of once-in-a-year customers.

Dreadful Sunday

The girls woke up yesterday morning to find that their papa was already out of the house. Yiu Yiu was a bit upset as she didn’t know where her papa was. Just then, my mobile phone rang and it was papa at the other end. Turned out, he went for a morning walk at Bukit Kiara with his buddies, and he was having breakfast. He called to ask what we would like so he could tapau breakfast home for us. When Yiu Yiu found out that papa went for his morning walk without her (sometimes he’d bring her along), she got even more upset and started getting emotional and cried. At the same time, Yan Yan, naughty as she always is, tried to snatch the phone away from her. Amidst the commotion, papa hung up.

Yiu Yiu got even more upset and when I called again, his line was engaged as he was also trying to call back. When we finally got papa back on the line, I told her to go to her room and speak to him, so that she won’t be disturbed by Yan Yan; I also distracted Yan Yan by nursing her. I don’t know exactly what happened but I suppose papa hung up again as he probably thought no one was at the other end of the phone. She came back into the room, crying even harder, and spoke rudely. My patience was running a little thin and instead of consoling her, I spoke harshly to her.

She left the room in a huff, and I let her be, and when she returned to the room, still in her fit of anger, she accidentally walked into the corner of the dressing table partition. I wasn’t wearing my spectacles, and I thought it was just a minor knock, until I heard her frantic cries and screams of “Mummy, mummy, got blood coming out!”.

Bloodstains on her face, floor, arm hand and arm

She suffered a deep gash just above the right eyebrow, and blood was oozing out from the wound. I quickly took some tissues to stop the bleeding, carried and consoled her. I cleaned her up after she calmed down, and by the time papa reached home, she was back to her normal self, and even managed to finish her nasi lemak breakfast.

We took her to a paediatrician but he advised us to go to the hospital, as he said the laceration was deep and jagged, and it would be better for a surgeon, or better still a plastic surgeon to perform the stitching, so that the wound would not leave an obvious scar. After making some calls, we ended up in the hospital just before noon. Yiu Yiu was examined in the Casualty, before the plastic surgeon on call arrived and did the stitching.

At the A&E waiting for her turn (L); doing homework in the ward while waiting for the surgeon to arrive (R)

She was strapped up to prevent her from wriggling and that must have terrified her coz she started crying even before anything was done. And when the local anesthetic was injected, it must have hurt a lot as she screamed in pain. She continued sobbing when the stitching was done, but I think it was more out of fear than pain.

The rather appetising hospital dinner

Savouring her dinner after the procedure

We had to admit her for a night, but took home leave and by the time we left, it was already 7pm. Hubby went back to the hospital to settle the discharge procedure this morning, and the bill totaled RM 2187. Thank goodness we had insurance!

The very obvious stitched up wound on her forehead. Hope it'll heal nicely and the scar won't be too obvious.

Violent behaviours

The two sisters were eating some biscuits when the little one went near to jie-jie and offered jie-jie a bite of her biscuit. Jie-jie, thinking that mei-mei didn’t want the biscuits anymore since it’s only a teeny weeny piece left, ate the whole piece away from mei-mei, instead of taking a bite.

The little rascal got angry and pulled jie-jie’s hair so hard that some strands of hair ended up in her hand. Jie-jie yelped in pain, and gave mei-mei back the biscuit.

Guess what happened next?

Mei-mei shoved back the few strands of hair to jie-jie, and said, “Nah!” As if saying “Here’s your hair, since I got my biscuit back.”

Mei-mei was beaten by papa for attacking jie-jie, but I tell you, she didn’t cry. Didn’t even flinch when she took the hit. Haiyo!

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Mei-mei shoved a book to jie-jie (probably with the intention of asking jie-jie to read to her), and jie-jie took it from her. But when mei-mei asked for the book back, jie-jie didn’t want to hand it over. Mei-mei struck back by biting jie-jie on her tummy.

A small section with the skin bitten off, and another bigger section with a bruise

So ganas, this girl. Wonder where she learnt these bad behaviours from!

The (not so) surprise Valentine’s dinner

We don’t normally make a fuss over Valentine’s day, coz I think it’s just ridiculous to have to pay so much more for flowers or Western dinner compared to any other day. Come to think of it, I cannot recall the last time we actually did something for V-day. Oh wait, this was the last time hubby got me something for V-day. Now when was the last time I got him something? Probably aeons ago, probably never…Oopss!

Anyway, on the morning of V-day, hubby casually asked if we should cook something special for dinner. That being a working day, I was not keen. So he asked me to pick up the girls from the babysitter, and he’d be back early to prepare dinner. Okie…

And this was what laid before me on the dining table when I got home…

It was just supermarket bought marinated rack of lamb and beef steak, instant soup and prepacked salad, not some super duper made-from-scratch fare, but still, he made an effort and even took the trouble to decorate the table and the food – and that’s all that matters. My beef steak tasted really nice, by the way :-)

He had to go out for an appointment right after dinner, so guess who got to clean up the mess in the kitchen?

Anyway, Yiu Yiu was really impressed by papa’s efforts, and in her drama queen kind of way, kept saying, “Today is the best day ever.” And while I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, she came in and we had this conversation:
Yiu Yiu: Mummy, I love you and papa. You love papa or not?
Mummy: Yes, of course I love papa.
Yiu Yiu (in an accusatory tone): I know, you only say you love papa because he cooked a nice dinner for you.
Mummy: No lah, (even if he didn’t cook dinner), I love him lah.
Yiu Yiu (in an authoritative tone): Then why you always complain papa never help take care of me and mei-mei, always go meeting, meeting, meeting?

This girl ah, always gotta have the last say in everything!

CNY 2011

CNY 2011 came, and in a few days time, will officially be over. This year, we went back to Kuantan as usual, and we had a rather quiet CNY – not as much visiting nor visitors as in previous years.

We hit the beach twice, on the first and third day of CNY. Yiu Yiu really enjoyed having the waves splash onto her, while mei-mei was content just playing sand by the beach.

Enjoying McD sundae treat after frolicking at the beach

On our second trip there, I brought mei-mei into the sea but she didn’t quite like it. So back to the sand she went.

On the fourth day, we drove back to Ipoh. We would typically cut through Gohtong which exists at Kuala Kubu Baru and we would enter the North South Expressway in Tanjung Malim. However just the night before, hubby’s friend suggested that we try using the Bentong – Cameron Highlands way, which is supposedly faster. I was against it as hubby wasn’t sure exactly where to access that road, and we wouldn’t know for sure where we’d end up at. Anyway, the East Coast-Karak highway started to crawl right after the Temerloh rest area, so hubby decided to take a chance by using the new route – BAD decision – as we ended up reaching Ipoh after EIGHT freaking hours. The Gohtong way would normally take us 5.5 – 6 hours, but with the terrible traffic on that day (we were tuned in to the trafiic report, and it repeated reported the terrible crawl at Bentong and Karak highway), we couldn’t really be sure either.

The girls got to enjoy fireworks and sparklers in Ipoh, courtesy of their 大姨姨, who is becoming our family’s official supplier of CNY fireworks and sparklers :-)

This year's loot - please don't call the police :-)

The children with their CNY fireworks supplier

Sunway Lagoon

We had initially planned to drive back to Kuantan on Monday but we also didn’t want to waste the Sunway Lagoon tickets. However, since it’s been raining the past few days, we told Yiu Yiu that if it was still raining on Monday, we would have to forego Sunway Lagoon, and head back to Kuantan as planned.

We woke up on Monday morning with a very slight drizzle and since we didn’t want to disappoint the girl, we decided we’ll just give it a go, and she promised that if it got too cold or the rain got heavier, we’d leave. We hit the waters right away upon arrival, and though the sky was gloomy with the occasional drizzle, we were thankful that the weather didn’t get any worse. We spent the better part of the day at the wave pool and Kalahari Kids, before going to the man-made beach.

I asked Yiu Yiu to pose, and this was what I got. How? got model potential or not :-)

Cruising down the Zambezi River

I asked Yan Yan to pose, and this was what I got

We left the Water Park at about 5pm, so that didn’t give us much time for the rides at the Amusement Park, as all the rides came to a halt at 6pm. We managed quite a few rides nonetheless, and Yiu Yiu the daredevil (just like her mummy, haha) enjoyed them so much without any trace of fear! Good thing we went on a weekday, as there wasn’t many people and there was no queue at any of the rides.

Clockwise from top left: The Vultures, Butch Cassidy's Trail, Niagara Falls Flume Ride and Buffalo Bill Coaster

Lastly, the very mild, but colourful Chief Crazy Horse Carousel

Wild Wild West

Yogi Bear 3D special screening

I received a promotional email from Citibank last Wednesday, stating that cardholders who spend RM250 (can’t remember the amount now) in a single receipt between Jan 24-28 stands a chance to win four passes to the Yogi Bear 3D special screening & four Sunway Lagoon tickets. It was already Jan 26 then, and I didn’t anticipate that I’d be using my credit card for the next few days, but I sent in my sms registration anyhow. As luck would have it, I had to buy something for work on Friday, and swiped my card for RM810. At that moment, I thought to myself that that could be my lucky shot. True enough, that night itself, I received an sms informing me to collect my movie passes at 10am on Sunday at TGV Sunway Pyramid, and the special screening would take place at 10.30am.

So we headed to Sunway Pyramid on Sunday morning, collected our passes and trooped into the cinema for the 90-min show.We brought Yan Yan along – her first trip to the cinema. I was all prepared to have to bring her out should she start fussing halfway through the show but my little missy sat (OK, she roamed a little between our two rows of 2-seats) through the show! We were surprised, but glad nonetheless. Of course the popcorn helped a bit :-) It was the first time for us (hubby, me and Yiu Yiu) watching a 3D show.

Yiu Yiu with her 3D glasses, and Yan Yan with her popcorn

It was raining after the show and we decided to postpone the trip to Sunway Lagoon since the ticket was valid till the next day (Jan 31), in the hope that the weather would be kinder to us. We spent some time in the mall, and caught a lion dance performance.

Mum on print ad

This ad appeared on several Chinese dailies the last couple of days.

The lady in the ad is my mum, and the kiddos are my niece and nephew. The gentleman is unrelated to us.

My first reaction when I saw the ad? It was awkward seeing mum posing with another man surrounded by her grandchildren – how wonderful it would be if it was my late dad sitting there.

Happy Chinese New Year dad, wherever you may be.