It's A Torture When You Can't Sleep When You're Sleepy!

I am actually farking tired and sleepy today. I was about to doze off on my massage chair while doing some work but darn, each time I tried to get my forty winks, someone just had to startle me up! Sometimes I wished I live alone and can sleep, eat, watch the TV and do anything however I like and whenever I fancy! Oh well, anyway... but I didn't get to take a cat nap, not at all. Was really jonked out with my online store, having to supervise the renovation in the wet kitchen, manage 3 kids who seem to be 'deaf', amend an advertorial for the umpteen times (gosh, this client is SUPER fussy but I have to stoop lowly coz they are paying me pretty well!) and supervise #1 and #2 in their homework. During dinner at the Chinese restaurant just now, I had drank some Chinese tea and now, fark, I can't sleep though my head is throbbing. Darn the caffeine flowing in my blood now. I am jinxed. Oh fark! So that's why I am here typing this post at this ungodly hour where I am supposed to be in bed as I have to wake up by 5:45am tomorrow.

Food Fair at Isetan @ KLCC - 25 February 2012

We were at the Japanese food fair at Isetan @ KLCC yesterday. For those of you who are fans of Japanese food, you will love this fair and get 'drown' there. I say drown coz you'll bound to pull out a few big notes from your wallet after sampling the food at the fair, hehe.... I'll bet no one can resist the wide array of seafood cooked in a few varieties of style, ala Japanese.

An assortment of seafood cooked in a variety of Japanese styles

Wide array of deep fried seafood and fish

Baby and Alycia ate cups after cups of handmade Udon... but we did not eat for free. We bought 3 packs of handmade Udon and green tea noodles, costing over RM20 for a packet.

Just one of the delicacies which we 'succumbed' to - fresh scallops cooked in Terriyaki sauce, YUMS!

Kids Ask The Darndest Questions

During shower time last night, Baby saw a mozzie flying past her, right in front of her eyes and she wanted to smash it with her hands but as elusive as they may be, the mozzie vanished into the thin air.

Baby - mummy, why did God create mosquitoes?

I paused for a moment, thinking of an appropriate answer to give this inquisitive toddler.

Baby - mummy, I asked you, why did God create mosquitoes??

Me - God created many animals and insects when he created the world.

Baby - but why did he create mosquitoes and tigers to bite us? Why did he create animals that can bite us?

I could not give my baby girl an answer and just told her that I wanted to know the answer too! This rascal always asks me questions which I am lost for answers. Anyone can give a proper answer to this question?

Dining Trays To Minimize Cleaning Up

Do you know what's indispensable at our dining table when #2 and #3 have their meals? A dining tray!

If only I could have it my way, I would want rascal #2 to wear a bib with a food catcher but nope, she wouldn't wear it. NO WAY! After all, she's already 7 years old but a very clumsy and messy 7-year old. Whenever she has her meals, I can be rest assured to see bread crumbs, rice, bones and food scattered on the table and on the floor around where she sits. That's why each time she eats, I will place her bowl, plate and cup on a huge dining tray so that food and spillage of drinks will drop on the tray. Even Baby is not as messy as she wears an Ikea bib with a food catcher, which is her faithful and cute pink froggy bib. Speaking of the Ikea bib, I hope Ikea has replenished their stock for the pink and green froggy bib set that comes with a sippy cup and cute froggy bowl. Last month when I was there, I could not find the bib set. I hope Ikea has restocked this bib set and if they do, I'll make sure I get 3 sets when I make my monthly trip to Ikea next week! They are really affordable, durable, dries up so quickly after washing and damn cute!

And I want to get this cute and colorful Barbar tray with colorful birds too. Planning to get 2 units of this tray - one for Miss Clumsy and one for rascal #3! I'll bet they will love this birdie tray to bits!

Still Very Much A Dilly Dallier After 1.5 Months

After 1.5 months into her first primary school year, Sherilyn is still pretty much the same in terms of her sense of urgency. She still day dreams every morning at the dining table, struggling to finish her mug of milk . She still sits on the throne in a daze and moves about looking zonked out. Each morning, I need to rush her like mad, with Alycia and my mil nagging her along side me.

Every morning, I still need to dress Sherilyn up hurriedly - put on the white shirt for her, help her button up, put on the pinafore for her, comb her hair, feed her Scotts Emulsion, put on socks for her and put on shoes for her at times! If I don't do that, she will be gravely late. She does not have the least bit of panicky feeling even when it is already time to go to the lobby to wait for the transporter and she is totally not ready yet. She was late several times and I felt so bad that the entire van load of kids plus the van driver had to wait for her.

I send Alycia and Sherilyn to bed by 9pm every night but on some days, they will only fall asleep by 10pm, which is on the day that Sherilyn has ballet class in the evening or when the hubs watches TV and they are too distracted by the TV. On most days, they will have at least 8 hours of sleep.

Poor Baby is the victim as she will often be jolted up from her sleep from the commotion every morning. On some mornings, she will wake up at 6am and not go back to sleep at all. This means, I will not get to go to the gym as she will insist in following me. Not liking this at all. Hopefully things will get better over time.

Throes of Motherhood... Of Checking School Bags, Tuition Bags and Homework

During the CNY holidays, I had the time to go through the pile of books and 'rubbish' in the girls' room. During the spring cleaning, I 'unearthed' one of Alycia's Mandarin tuition Math book. After checking the book, I discovered that the last homework that the tuition teacher gave to Alycia was in Nov 2011 and that the homework was never done and the book went MIA! The tuition teacher had kept quiet and so did Alycia. It then dawned on me that this could be just one of the MIA homework books. There could be more in the past. In the past, I was too busy to ever go through the girls' school bags and tuition bags. My new year resolution this year is that I must be more involved in the girls' academic side. I must know what's going on everyday. I hate to have bits and pieces of tiny rubbish swept under the carpet, which are only discovered many months later. As I went through Alycia's school bag the other day, I also discovered some of the things that she did not show me like her weekly Ejaan, Spelling, Ting Xie and Xiao Kau marks. Not that she failed or did not do very well but did not score a 100%. Anyway, I am glad that I realized where my mistake was in the past.

I must now take an effort to check their school bags at least 2 - 3 times a week. And ensuring that their tuition homework is completed and whether the tutor had marked the homework is very important. My mum used to sent me to the supposedly best BM tutor in Ipoh but this VIP and famous tutor was so popular and busy that she never marked our homework! I scored a C6 for my BM in my SPM. My mum never checked my tuition homework back then. Hence, I must ensure that this mistake must NOT repeat itself on my girls, ever!

So coming back to the Mandarin Math workbook that was MIA. I spoke to the tuition teacher when she came and highlighted this matter to her. I then suggested to her that there must be a 'Homework Message Book' for Alycia and Sherilyn each. Each time she comes to our house to tutor the girls, she has to write down the details of the homework in the Homework Message Book. This way, she and I can monitor the girls' homework and ensure that homework given is not missed out for marking / correction during the next tuition lesson. I find this very effective. I have just checked Sherilyn's Homework Message Book and found out that she had 'forgotten' to do a Math tuition homework -- 5 pages some more! She bawled when I reprimanded her. I was very firm with her and told her " finish everything or NO DINNER!" Yes, I am quite a tiger mum and I think this is more effective on my girls.

I wonder, for you working mothers with 3 kids and more, how do you find the time to go through your kids' school bags,tuition bags and homework everyday? Do you ever do it and if yes, how often? It's pretty tough to be a good mom, isn't it?

Sherilyn's 7th Birthday

Since Sherilyn's birthday falls on a Thursday this year (16 February), we decided to have an early celebration for her at a restaurant of her choice, which was Xenri Japanese restaurant @ Wisma Elken last Saturday. Sherilyn also invited her best friend, Berlyn to the dinner. Berlyn and Sherilyn were classmates at pre-school since they were 3-year olds and now they are in the same class, goes to school in the same van and attends swimming lesson and mental arithmetic class together. The 4 rambunctious girls had a fabulous time chatting, talking nonsense, laughing and playing and drew a lot of stares... first on the noise and then on the 4 girls. We even heard a woman exclaiming her surprise that I had 4 daughters! And I am sure other people must have had the same thoughts and that they were thinking that my 4 daughters were a very rowdy lot too!






Some of the sumptuous Japanese spread that we ate...


Scallops, prawns and seafood teppanyaki...


Sashimi and soft shell crab maki...




Hello Kitty was Sherilyn's choice of character for her birthday cake but the bakery did a very shoddy job. The Hello Kitty's face looked a tad distorted and the taste of the cake was a shame too, sigh... that will be our last time buying a cake from that bakery.


Baby over-ate that night. Daddy gave her too much food without me noticing as I was not seated next to her that night. With just a tiny frame, my baby girl slurped down 1 big bowl of Udon, ate 1 piece of soft shell crab maki, had a cup of Chawan Mushi, had Japanese fried rice and popped lots of Edamame beans. All of a sudden, she gave us yet another of her 'over-ate pain in the tummy and I feel like puking' look on her face and told us that her tummy hurt a lot. This girl is very fond of over-eating and puke all her food right on the dining table of the restaurant. So I quickly distracted her and brought her for a stroll outside and then walked up and down the restaurant with her, so that the exercise will help with the digestion. Thank God it did and she managed to hold her food! She skipped the birthday cake that night.

Her Screams Can Pierce Through My Ears!

Of my 3 girls, Cassandra's screams are the loudest and each time she screams, my ear drums vibrate, though I am more than 10 meters away from her. I kid you not and I am not exaggerating. I really felt my ear drums vibrating when I heard her screamed on top of her lungs the other day... and I was about 10 meters away from her! GOSH, her screams were ears piercing sharp!! I think if there was a wine glass on the dining table that day, it would have cracked on its own when she screamed that day!
I must help her kick off her habit of screaming. She screams when she's overly excited during plays with her sisters. She screams when she is bullied by her sisters. And she screams when her whims and fancies are not met. I do not want her to grow up being a spoilt brat who gets on everyone's nerves. I admit we have all been spoiling her rotten ever since she was a baby, caused by her very difficult and painful babyhood. After her 2 surgeries, we spoiled her even more. Now, she's a spoilt brat! A very cute one that is but when she screams when her fancies are not met, stomps her feet and ignores my instructions, I get so fuming mad I feel like strangling her at times!!





My baby girl will surely konk off by 8pm if she skips her afternoon nap. We were at a Chinese restaurant on the 5th day of CNY and waited for almost an hour before we finally got our first dish of yee sang. And Baby waited till she could no longer wait and snoozed off. She slept through dinner and only had bread with butter for dinner that night!

Fashionista

Rascal #2 is truly a fashionista. Wearing fashionable clothes and anything that makes her look good is the name of her game. Games and sports is out for this princess wannabe, except for gymnastics. Yep, she has already told me that she wants to join gymnastics in the extra curricular activities offered by her school. But I have to say that at times, her sense of fashion can be rather atrocious and makes me flip at her creation LOL!

Here's what Sherilyn did to her baby sister...



I was freaking mad with her that instead of doing what I had asked her to do, which was to read her BM book (she will be tested under the LINUS government program and streamed in Std. 2), she zoomed away and played with Baby. But my anger quickly dissipated the moment I saw how she had 'transformed' her baby sister into, which was a supposedly Arabian princess LOL!!!

Hmmm, never mind that she dislikes Math and studying *self consoling myself*, I should tell myself that she still has a 'talent' in her, which is being artistic, imaginative and she has a gift of gab too. Who knows, she will be the next Melinda Looi!

Chap Goh Mei 2012

Enough of expensive lunches and dinners at restaurants and the crazy long wait during the 15-day period CNY. Enough of expensive yee sang. My hubs' aunt made her own healthy yee sang and we had homecooked food at home on Chap Goh Mei.

Hubs' relatives came over for dinner and as usual, we had a dining table filled to the edge with dishes - roast duck, steamed chicken, steamed sausages with arrow roots, char siew, onion omelette, 2 types of fish dish, veggie and soup.

Our homemade healthy yee sang made up of julienned radish, turnip, carrot, pear, parsley, lime juice, plum sauce, toasted sesame seeds, ground peanuts, pomelo, and we replaced the fattening deep fried rectangular wheats with sugar-free corn flakes. Very yummy! Everyone tossed and ate without the guilt. Yep, the restaurant type of yee sang is fattening with loads of gluey sweet plum sauce, oil and deep fried wheat rectangular chips.



There were 2 large plates of yee sang and the kids had their very own plate to toss too!

3kg of Weight Gain For 3 Babies

The CNY snacking and binging continues. It does not help that mil is around and she cooks such nice dishes every night! I find that keeping dinner the lightest meal of the day very effective in keeping weight gain at bay but how can I resist all those mouth watering dishes that she whips up every night? Braised nga koo (arrow roots) with pork, fried fish, braised pork ribs, braised Hakka pork, pork knuckles, etc... I doubt anyone can turn their head away from these dishes. I still indulge in them but take half the portion. Instead of gorging on 4 pieces of pork ribs, I only take 2 pieces, 1 spoonful of nga koo instead of 1 heapful. I stuff myself full with lots of green veggie, soup and lime or lemon juice after dinner. Rice is a NO NO, albeit she only cooks multi-grain rice mixed with Ponni rice (carb reduced).

Good thing I do not have to rush home to prepare Sherilyn for pre-school every morning now. I can work out longer on the road and in the gym. Even with an extra 15 minutes of work out now, I can only maintain my pre-CNY weight. Absolutely no movement on the scale's needle to the left. Heck, I find that as I age, my metabolic rate slows down and stamina decreases too. My weight is still hovering at 45kg. My pre-Cassandra's weight was 44kg, pre-Sherilyn's weight was 43kg and pre-Alycia's weight was 42kg. A gain of 3kg (1kg each for 1 baby) for 3 miracles is all worth it, still!