Snow in tropical Malaysia

I heard about the "snow" that falls at 8pm nightly at Pavilion KL, and since Yiu Yiu has been talking about visiting a snow country, we decided to make a trip downtown, since we also wanted to try foods at the acclaimed Lot 10 Hutong.

A picture with my girls while waiting for sis and mum to arrive

Unfortunately it was raining when we reached Pavilion KL so we had to abandon the plan and dine inside Pavilion instead. With 4 children in tow, we figured it'd be difficult having to bring our own food from the stalls at Food Republic so we went to Crystal Jade Kitchen. We had individual meal (rice or noodles) with a 2-in-1 roast pork and duck platter and stir-fried Hong Kong kailan. Food was nothing spectacular.

We finished dinner at 8pm sharp and headed to the main concourse area where "snow" fell. It was basically some form of soap bubbles but the children were happy nonetheless, with Yiu Yiu and Yihao busy chasing after the falling "snow".

Can you see the falling "snow"?

Reindeers pulling a sleigh

The beautiful fountain that changes colour every few seconds

One last shot before heading home

**Fun-filled weekend**

Mummy must be feeling VERY guilty about not spending enough time with me the last few weeks coz I got to do so many things with her over the weekend.

Yihao and Xiaoyu came over on Friday so mummy and 小姨姨 took us to the playground. We then went for dinner with the whole extended family from mummy's side. Mummy bought a really huge coral trout (七星斑) when she went to Kota Kinabalu for work the weekend before so we took that nice fish to the restaurant to be steamed.

Mummy took me and mei-mei to the park on Saturday evening. It's been ages since we last went so I was really happy coz I get to play water and sand in the stream again after so long.

I spotted an ice-cream man while I was playing in the stream and I couldn't help but ask mummy if I could have one. I was so happy when mummy said she'd buy me one once I'm done playing in the water. And this was how mei-mei kept herself busy while I played in the water.

On Sunday, together with 小姨姨 and Yihao, we went to the National Science Centre to attend an art and creativity workshop by this teacher, organized by Astro TVIQ. He taught us how to be creative in drawing – first to just squiggle, before imagining what the squiggles could be and adding in the details to complete the drawing. We can also start by making dots and randomly connecting them before adding in the details. That way, the end result could be something out of the ordinary. He also taught us to draw portraits with both hands. He's really funny but mummy didn't like it that he kept asking the same few children at the front rows to help him on stage, so many children at the back didn't get a chance to participate. But I got my two seconds of fame coz I just ran out to the stage so he had no choice but to let me draw on the board :-)

Waiting patiently for the workshop to start

See the cameraman filming me? I wonder if the clip will appear on TV?

After the workshop, we walked around the exhibits for a while but I couldn't really understand what they were all about but I had loads of fun in the play area.

When we got back home, mummy again took me and Yihao to the playground.



I was so tired that I slept right after my shower, and didn't even wake up for dinner. I had a really fun weekend; I hope you had a great weekend too.

Last minute holiday plan

I have been quite busy lately, coupled with travelling for the past two weekends and so have not been spending much time with the girls despite it being the school holidays for Yiu Yiu. For the last week or so, each morning when she wakes up, she'd say that she didn't want to go to Aunty Yoke Ling's house, but stay at home with me instead. When I reflected on it, I realized that it's been ages since I last took Yiu Yiu to the Taman Tun park, or the neighbourhood playground (though she still gets to go to the playground with her papa sometimes, while I stay home to tend to Yan Yan).

Seeing that every Friday for the next few weeks is a public holiday, I thought it would be good to take a short trip somewhere, and since Yiu Yiu loves water, she'll be thrilled with a beach holiday. I checked flight options to several destinations but since it was so last minute, the flights were costly. So I explored places where we could drive, but all the hotels that we wanted were fully booked for the long weekends.

Hubby and I decided to just take 2 days leave, so we would travel Sun – Tue, instead of the peak Fri – Sun, but even then, most of the hotels we wanted only had the really high end suite rooms available, so we settled for this hotel. It's only reopened in October after refurbishing (under a new management, I presume) and everything looks modern, elegant and new on the website. We got the promo rate of RM207 nett/room/night, with breakfast for two, so it was a pretty good deal.

When we told Yiu Yiu that we'll be going for a holiday and staying in a hotel, she beamed excitedly and said, "Mummy, when we go to the hotel, on the first day, we go to the pool. Then on the second day, we go to the pool again, OK." She is sooo looking forward to the trip, and so am I – seeing her happy expression when we broke the news to her was precious. Hubby is looking forward to the trip too – for food! I only hope the hotel lives up to its image on the web, and for us not to get lost in the island since neither of us knows our way around Penang.

Sisterly moments

Favourite sleeping position

She ain't heavy, she's my sister

Look ma, I can lift mei-mei up

What did you just say, che che?

Winning and losing

Yiu Yiu got this set of numbers snap cards from a classmate's party pack when he celebrated his birthday at the kindy few weeks back.

This set of cards has become one of her favourite game. Whenever she asked me to play with her, I would purposely win two sets, and let her win the other three, so she would end up having more cards than me at the end of the game. However she didn't like losing at all, not even the two sets of cards.

One day, she was in one of her foul moods and when I won the two sets of cards as usual, she threw a tantrum and started throwing the cards on the floor. I reprimanded her and demanded that she picked them up, or else I would toss them all in the rubbish bin. The stubborn mule that she is, she refused – so I started to pick up all the cards. When she saw me doing that, she started to cry and pulled my shirt to stop me from picking up the cards. I gave her another chance but still she refused to pick them up as instructed. I brushed her hands off me, picked up the cards and threatened to tear them. She was bawling at this point and finally surrendered, "Mummy mummy, I don't want to win already. I let you win." I explained to her that in any game, she would win some, and she would lose some – and that's a fact of life. That she can't expect to get her way ALL the time; that things don't happen they way she wished ALL the time.

After that episode, whenever we play the game, she'd take defeat in her stride, though I still let her win the three sets. And the babysitter told me that when she played the game with the two boys at her place, she would even let them win, and said, "My mummy say I cannot win all the time, so this time I let you win."

I hope she has learnt her lesson, that life throws her a lemon sometimes. A little too deep for a 4-year old, but I guess it's never too early to teach her to accept defeat graciously.

Bangkok hotel grouses

I stayed at this hotel when I was in Bangkok the last couple of days. From the outset, things were not going right:

1. Check-in was a pain – the reception took forever to sort out the room. I was checking in with a guest who brought along his wife. And after waiting for 15-20 minutes at the counter, they issued my guest with two rooms – one for him and one for his wife, despite us booking the room ONLY under the male guest's name!

2. When I got into my room, the luggage bench, which is usually placed against the wall, was in an upright position in the bathroom, and the digital weighing scale was out of place. It was obvious that housekeeping forgot to put them back in place after cleaning up. I had to place the luggage bench back to its original place myself, as I couldn't be bothered to call the housekeeping.

3. The bottom of the transparent soap dish at the wash basin had unsightly black stains/spots, giving me an impression of dirtiness whenever I use the soap.

4. The toilet roll was placed in a very odd position, making it difficult to reach while sitting on the throne.

5. I used the complimentary creamer and sugar on the day I checked in, and they were not replenished for the whole three nights I was there.

All these incidences, to me, were just minor discomforts which I could live with, but what annoyed me most was what happened to my breast milk. On the day I checked in, Nov 28, I passed my Fridge2Go bag and Techni Ice sheets to the concierge at 7pm with the instruction to keep them FROZEN. Subsequently, on Nov 29 (7pm) and Nov 30 (2pm), I handed one ziplock bag with four packs of breast milk inside, again, with the instruction to keep them FROZEN. When I want to collect them prior to checking out on the morning of Dec 1, I was kept waiting for almost 30 minutes because they couldn't locate my things. And when they finally found them, everything was NOT FROZEN. I knew that they kept them in the pastry freezer at the coffee house but I don't understand WHY all the things were NOT FROZEN despite having been in the freezer for between 18 to 60 hours. Anyway, since it was only a short 2-hour flight back home, I was cool about it coz I could just pack the breast milk with lots of ice cubes to keep them chilled, and freeze them when I reached home.

Then I realized that they only handed back to me the Fridge2Go bag, Techni Ice sheets and ONE ziplock bag, i.e., another ziplock bag containing four packs of breast milk was missing. They even allowed me into the freezer to search for myself but the bag was nowhere to be found! I was really annoyed but there was nothing much I could do as I was already late leaving to the airport, due to the 30-min wait they subjected me to.

Perhaps it was my mistake for not asking the concierge to write clearly in Thai something like "Breast milk inside. Do not remove" but still, I am utterly disappointed with the hotel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ooXXoo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a brighter note, when I went to the babysitter to fetch my girls upon my return, I was greeted with lots of hugs and kisses and expressions of "I miss you a lot mummy", "I love you a lot mummy" and "You are my best mummy in the world" from Yiu Yiu. But then, when I reprimanded her for something that night and the next morning, she said, "You are away for so long and I miss you so much. But after you come back you still want to scold me." Aiks!!! Just because she loves me and misses me, I cannot reprimand her? :-)

Bento post #101 - #107

It's been a loooong time since I had a post on bento. I had almost cease making bento for Yiu Yiu, as my mornings are now occupied with nursing Yan Yan, pumping, washing and sterilizing the bottle and pump, getting myself ready and sending Yan Yan to the babysitter, before rushing off to work. So the poor dear had been surviving only on boxed cereals, bread and cakes from the neighbourhood bakery, and the occasional muffin/cupcake/fried rice that I bake/cook during the weekends, sans decorations, besides the biscuits given by the kindy.

On the odd mornings when I woke up extra early, she got to bring these to kindy, which have been exceptions rather than the norm, since Yan Yan came along.

Chicken floss bread roll wrapped in nori sheet, with checkered apple

Dolphin and heart shaped French toast, with mini orange

Smiley bear shaped onigiri, with pan fried chicken drumstick

Home-made chicken nugget, potato wedges and checkered apple. In the blue strawberry shaped tub is some ketchup

Mickey shaped French toast with pear

Sushi (only rice with seaweed coz she doesn't want anything else inside) with checkered apple

Pan fried roti canai with rose apple

Finale of 1st year in kindy

Last Saturday was the 2nd Parents – Teachers Day at Yiu Yiu's kindy, where we met up with her class teacher for her progress report as well as her second term exam results. The first thing her teacher told us was that she was awarded the "Best Conduct" award for her class.

She said they had a simple ceremony last Thursday and Yiu Yiu was so proud when she was called to the front to receive the award and have her photo taken with the rest of the award winners.

The award was given to the student with the overall best behaviour throughout the year. I was surprised that the award was such a BIG deal coz she had shown me the laminated card when she got home that day, but she didn’t mention anything about getting called to receive the award or had her photo taken. I had assumed that it was just something the students got as an encouragement and/or souvenir for their graduation. How wrong I was!!! Anyhow, hubby and I still can't figure it out coz she doesn’t quite behave THAT well at home. But we are really proud of her nonetheless, and I feel a little guilty too, for losing my patience with her sometimes. Gotta remind myself to be more patient, and that she's just a 4-year old child.

Developmental wise, she has improved in all aspects, be it gross or fine motor skills, work habits, learning skills, language as well as mathematics skills. Exam wise, she scored full marks for Numbers, and 96 for Chinese and English.

The mistake she made for her English (L) and Chinese (R)

Her writing improved from B- to A-, and there was an obvious improvement, when I compare the previous and current writing exam sheets.

Her writing at mid-term (L) and now (R)

She is still very bossy with her classmates :-) Sometimes she will imitate or pretend to be the teacher and order her classmates around, even in the presence of her teacher. She'll say things like, "Teacher Esther says keep quiet", "Teacher Esther says sit down" or "Teacher Esther says don't do this". We were also told that she's one of the better students in her class and sometimes, she'll be asked to assist/coach her classmates. And again, little Miss Bossy will go around telling her friends, "No, it's not like this. You're wrong" or "Don't write this way. It's this way" or to the extent of erasing her friends work and holding their hands to write the proper word/alphabet. You say la, pengsan or not?

She's still very TALKATIVE and can talk non-stop with her friends. When she doesn’t get her way (e.g., when she's not awarded stickers or when the teacher refuses her requests), she loves to question why. But as long as she's given a reasonable explanation, she'll understand and comply.

This first year in kindy has really done her a world of good - she has really learnt and developed much, and she's looking forward to be in the 5-year old class next year.

Garden theme school party

Yiu Yiu's kindy had their year-end school party last Friday, the last day of school. This time, the theme is Garden, and the children were asked to dress as a flower, fruit, vegetable or bug, things commonly found in a garden.

Yiu Yiu wanted to become a butterfly and I bought these from a party supplies shop near my office.

I needed to get her a pair of leotard/bodysuit to go with the wings and since I had no idea where to get them, I asked this mummy who always dresses her two princesses in pretty outfits. She graciously offered to lend me Ashley's ballet costume, since Yiu Yiu only needed it for the party. Thanks Christene.

As with the earlier party, the kindy was already a hive of activity when we arrived at about 8.15am.

Yiu Yiu was so excited and was running all over the place with her friends. Dunno how I managed to capture this, but I love the sense of motion in the photo.

With Chloe, who's also dressed as a butterfly

And Faythe, who's dressed as a flower

The wall decorated with artwork made by the students. Yiu Yiu's class made the whale, starfish and clams.

I initially wanted to bake some Oreo cupcakes for her to bring as snacks for sharing. As it was a new recipe, I baked a batch the weekend before just to try out and ensure they would turn out right, which they did. Unfortunately, the little butterfly pronounced that she didn’t like it, and so didn't want to bring them to her party. When I asked her what she wanted to bring, she said guava. Haha! But I thought guava would be a little too plain and simple, and some children may not like the fruit, so I prepared these.

Plenty of food for the children: (L) Perishable food items to be consumed (R) Individually packed biscuits, candies, etc to take home.

Tucking in

Hooray for a wonderful year with her classmates in Jasmine class

Yan Yan – 4th month update

Yan Yan is four months old today. I missed updating her 3rd month progress, as I was away in Montreal then and was really busy throughout that trip. I was caught up with work upon my return and when I finally was able to afford some time to jot things down, Yan Yan was already 3.5 months so I decided to just wait it out till her 4th month.

We took her to the paediatrician for her vaccinations two weeks back and she weighed 6.7kg, was 62.1cm in length with a head circumference of 40.5cm.

Physically, she's learned to do quite a bit over the last two months:
- holding her head steady when held in a sitting or standing position at 3 months
- loves to stand and would push down on her legs to bear her weight
- rolling over while lying on her back to the front at 3 months, and started to inch forward while lying on her tummy at 3.5 months.



As such, it's getting difficult to change her nappy, or to dress her up, as she's really quick to turn herself over. And since she gained a little mobility, she has had a few accidents – once she rolled herself down from the bed onto the mattress beneath, through a slight gap between the bed guard rail and the head of the bed. Luckily her papa was sleeping on the mattress so he cushioned her fall. She also rolled and got herself caught between the bed and the bed guard rail several times. So we’ve really got to be extra careful when leaving her on the bed now.



Emotionally, she is a joy to wake up to. She's a really happy baby, and always has a gummy smile on her face. The other day at the paediatricion, she only let out a quick cry while being jabbed, but very quickly returned to her chirpy, cheerful self when carried, while flashing her gummy grin.





She responds by smiling and laughing excitedly whenever people coo or talk to her, and has recently acquired the habit of ooohhhing and aaahhhhing loudly, as if to invite you into a conversation with her :-) She definitely has a much better temperament compared to her che-che. She also loves to look at her own reflection in the mirror.

Most nights, she sleeps after her last feed at about 10-11pm till 5-6am the next morning, waking up only occasionally. On the nights that she does wake up for her midnight feed, it's still pretty easy on me as I'll nurse her lying down and continue sleeping :-) I'm truly thankful for her sleeping through the night as Yiu Yiu only stopped waking up for her midnight milk recently, after more than 3.5 years! Part of the reason why Yan Yan doesn't fuss as much at night is because she sucks her fingers to soothe herself. Sometimes she even sucks on her whole fist.

Sucking on her index finger

Sometimes it's her middle and ring fingers together

Che-che saw me snapping photos of mei-mei sucking her fingers and insisted I took one of her too :-)

TWO thumbs together also no problem :-)

I still can't decide whether it's a good or bad thing - good because she can soothe herself and fall asleep by herself without much effort, bad because she may carry this habit into toddlerhood and beyond.

It's also a breeze when ferrying her to and from the babysitter's house, or the occasional outings. Yan Yan will lie in baby carrier without any fuss, and entertain herself by looking out the window at buildings zooming past.



Again, in contrast to Yiu Yiu when she was a baby, who would scream the moment she was put into the carrier, and all the way home. I remember having to make several stops on the drive home to carry and calm her, or else she'd cry till she had no more voice. When I mentioned this to her the other day, the cheeky little girl said, "When I was a baby that time, I cried because the car seat is 不舒服 (not comfortable)". Haha! What a clever excuse.

The only worrying thing about Yan Yan thus far is her bowel movements. She passes motion only once in 4-5 days, and when she does, it's always yellow with a pasty, sticky, consistency and slightly foul smelling, very unlike the typical stool of breastfed babies which is soft and quite sweet smelling. When I was in Montreal, she actually went seven days without passing motion so hubby had to bring her to the paediatrician who inserted a suppository to help her pass them out.