Are These All For Me?

This morning, I got a real surprise when I logged into one of my favorite advertiser's websites to see if they have sent me any assignments. I've not received offers from this advertiser for more than a week but this morning, I saw 18 tasks there! As I have astigmatism, I had to blink my eyes and rub them to see the screen, just to make sure I'm not imagining things. Well, there were indeed 18 tasks there. Luckily the deadline for submission is next week, else I would have to stay up late to complete them.

My Computer Needs A Memory Upgrade

My computer has been acting up lately. The upload time is extremely slow and it tends to ‘hang’ everyday at certain hours of the day. My hubby’s friend who is a computer engineer came to check my computer the other day. He told me that my computer memory is running low and advised me to have an IBM memory upgrade real soon, else I will have to delete files from my computer hard disk on a regular basis. If you’re also facing similar problems as I am, then I think your computer most likely needs a memory upgrade too.

Tag : Autograph Book

Got tagged by this banker mommy who comes from a family of bankers (want to know who her dad is? Go ask her) who coincidentally is the sil of a very good friend of mine. What a small world! I am supposed to list down my likes and dislikes, just like how we did in autograph books when we were young.

Here it goes :

#1 What is your favourite movie?
Let me tell you, eversince my 2 gals came along, I never had the time to sit and complete a movie.

#2 Who is your favourite singer?
My all-time favorite singers are Air Supply.

#3 Which song gets you grooving in the morning?
No song in particular. Each morning I'll just turn on my radio and tune in to 94.5 or 105.7 and I'll get groovy.

#4 What is your favourite fruit?
Sweet Pineapple

#5 Who is your best friend (excluding your family) :
I've got a number of good friends since my school days but at the time when I left school, my best friend then was Yi Yi (who is coincidentally Phai Ling's SIL!) and till today, we're still very good friends.

#6 Name one activity you would like to indulge in, in your free time.
Massage and spa

#7 When was the last time you laughed so hard till your sides hurt?
Sorry, can't recall.

#8 Do you recall your last dream?
Lately i've not been having continuous sleep at night - I've had too much disruption lately coz my gals were not feeling well and I've been waking up at crazy hours to grab offers too. When I have disrupted sleep, my brain can't seem to dream well too!

#9 What is your all-time favourite hobby?
Shopping

#10 When was your last holiday without the children?
Never - everywhere that we went, including overseas, we brought our gals along.

Now, I am passing the tag to :
1) Annie-Q
2) Anggie's Journal
3) Jo-N

Yellow Ginger Chicken

This is my all-time favorite dish - 'wong keong kai' or yellow ginger (kunyit) chicken. It's wholesome and delicious. I can't wait for my confinement days to arrive (though I hate the 'pantang' part) so that I can ask my confinement lady to cook this dish for me everyday. Yes, when I love a dish, I don't mind eating it everyday. I never got tired of my confinement dishes during my confinement. Now, I'm just so looking forward to eat those dishes again.

It's quite easy to cook this dish. Just coarsely blend some yellow ginger (make sure you use enough, else the chicken will be quite tasteless) and shallots and pan-fry them till fragrant and brown. Add chicken, some salt and some water and voila... you have a fragrant, mouth-watering dish on your table.





Even Alycia loves this dish. She ate so much till her mouth and face were stained yellow!

Enlarged Lymph Nodes

Remember I had written about the swollen lymph nodes in Sherilyn's neck sometime back? Well, after more than 3 months, the lump can still be felt on her right neck. Though it has shrunk in size considerably but the fact that it's still there made me uneasy. So upon the recommendation of her paed, we brought Sherilyn to Pantai Cheras Medical Centre last week to have an ultrasound scan of her neck. The radiologist explained that the lump was only an enlarged lymph node and said that it's very common in kids, especially after an infection or flu. It's not a lump or a cyst. So that gave me some relief but I still have to monitor the size of the lymph node.


Sherilyn was so tensed as she lay on the bed in the cold air-cond room.

When the radiologist put the cold gel on her neck, she cried and struggled, so daddy had to hug her and carry her throughout the scan.

Delicous Food at Delicious Restaurant

Last Thursday, daddy brought us for lunch at Delicious Restaurant, Bangsar Village. The moment we stepped into the newly renovated Delicious at the new wing, the gals went crazy on the sofa with big bright blue cushions.



Then, daddy ordered a sirlion steak,

a spaghetti bolognaise for the gals,

a nasi kerabu for our maid

and I ordered Delicious' shephard pie.

and despite me stopping daddy from ordering desserts, daddy brought the gals to the dessert display shelf and this was what the gals chosed :
a lemon meringue chosen by Sherilyn

and a strawberry cake chosen by Alycia.

After our heavy meal, daddy brought the gals to New Zealand Ice Cream and bought the gals a scoop of ice cream each. I didn't touch the desserts as the sight of sweet stuff sent nausea down my guts now.

Thereafter, we went to Village Grocer to do our grocery shopping.

Big Expectation

Ok, I'm not keeping everyone in suspense anymore. I'm expecting alright, 12 weeks. I didn't want to inform everyone earlier as my gynae had warned me that being a PCOS sufferer, I am at high risk for miscarriage. I had suffered a miscarriage at 8 weeks before I had Alycia. With the 2 gals, I was on partial bedrest for most of my pregnancy. I won't know how this one will turn out but it does help a great deal that I am not working. Looking back, I just don't know how I had managed to pull through the 9 months for both pregnancies when I had to drive more than an hour thru and fro office each day, braving through horrendous traffic jams, with my all-day sickness. Plus, I had a highly stressful job as a PA. My pregnancy this time is still not completely smooth sailing as I have had some spotting initially.

As with my 2 earlier pregnancies, I am on medical support to help me sustain this pregnancy - jabs and hormone pills (oral and insertion). Consequently, both Alycia and Sherilyn were very expensive babies as we had spent a lot of money on the drugs to support the pregnancy. Looks like this will also be another expensive baby but not as expensive as Alycia and Sherilyn. I tend to be more relaxed and not so 'kan cheong' with this pregnancy and I had even at each of my visit to my gynae's office 'negotiated' with my gynae not to give me too much drugs. I had even rejected certain expensive drugs and asked for cheaper substitute. The hormone drugs make me really sick and nauseous, not to mention my face is filled with zits. Want to know how much I spend for each visit? Between RM400-500. If not for my negotiations with my gynae to reject these expensive drugs and begged not to have jabs twice weekly, my bill for each visit can even reach RM700+.

to be continued.....

Sherilyn's Better Today

Sherilyn's body temperature has gone down today. Her temp was at 37 degrees celsius this morning. She's also acting like her usual self - mischievous, active and her she has regained her appetite. I had a sleepless night last night - kept touching her body, sponged her, fed her with water and ensuring that she's ok. Sherilyn kept talking in her sleep last night, saying "I dont want mummy" - she must have been terrified with the suppository coz she was very tensed when I inserted it into her backside.

Alycia also went back to school today though she's still got cough and phlegm. I hope she'll be fine. I bought some pearl powder from the chinese medicine hall last night and I've just fed 1 sachet to Sherilyn. She hated it but I hope it will help remove the phlegm. Thanks to those who have prayed for my gals.

Yuuuuuum Sssssseng

This picture was taken yesterday evening. Sherilyn had high fever and I had to put on a Cool Fever patch on her forehead. She hates this cold patch and cried when I stuck it to her forehead but after some coaxing from daddy and me, she accepted the patch and refused to take it off. She also refused to drink water so daddy had to coax her again. Tried all sorts of methods and in the end, the 'cheers' and 'yuuuuum ssssseng' did the trick - she happily finished her mug of water.

Blog Marathon

I've published 12 posts today, of which 5 are sponsored posts and 7 non-paid posts. This post will be my 13th post today and I tell you, I really feel like puking now. If not for the deadline of these assignments, I would have delayed them. I need to sink my teeth on my favorite fish keropok now to get rid of the nauseas feeling. Yeah, what disgusting taste I have now eh? How can some fishy stinky keropok make me feel better? Yeah, blame it on the hormones. What hormones again? I'll let you know later.

Rocking Food Cover

Sherilyn my little rascal can find ways and means of entertaining herself. One of the things that she loves to do is to sit on the inner part of our stainless steel food cover and begins to rock herself inside - backward, forward, left and right, like a wooden chinese rocking doll. Each time she rocks on it, I try to reprimand her but she looked so hilarious and cute that I just can't get angry with her. This is how she looks :






Notice that the food cover is now lopsided?

Sherilyn's Down Too

Remember I posted earlier today that Sherilyn puked in the morning after bawling? After lunch today, she complained of tummy ache and cried. I put her on the potty but nothing could come out. Minutes later, she puked - everything came out. After puking, she was still clutching her tummy and cried. I put on some 'yuyi' oil on her tummy and took her temperature. One ear showed 38 degrees celsius and the other ear showed 38.3 degrees celsius. Her symptoms are exactly the same as Alycia - lots of phlegm which induced the vomitting, tummy ache, loss of appetite and general malaise. I think it must be the ice-creams that they have eaten over the weekend - 1 scoop on Thursday and 1 scoop on Sunday. Their little bodies just can't handle too much of cold stuff and sweet stuff since I hardly feed them these stuff at home? I don't know. It could be Rotavirus. Anyway, half an hour later, her temperature shot up to 38.7 degree celsius. I quickly gave her a Paracetamol Suppository and sponged her body. I hope she gets better later. Looks like it's going to be another sleepless night for me tonight - checking temperature, feeding water, sponging body, changing diaper, etc the whole night. Well, no complaints, that's part of motherhood!

Surprise

I've got a surprise for everyone. I've kept it for 6 weeks already. I'd actually like to keep the surprise for a little longer but I just feel like announcing the surprise today. If you're observant enough, you'd have noticed that there have been a lot of changes... changes in me that is, my eating patterns, my exercise, my diet, my mood, etc. Wait, I'll release the cat out of the bag later today ok. Let me have my lunch first. My maid is frying pumpkin noodles now. I'll blog about my surprise later. Stay tune k!

Tag : Nothing But The Truth

Got tagged by this wonderful and dedicated dad, whose blog I love to read and that's where I gain a lot of tips and information on parenting.

The idea is to tell you things that I don’t like or things that irritate me. Ok, here it goes :

1) I hate people telling me lies.

2) I hate people who 'blow their own horn or trumpet' - loud and annoying, sometimes to the extent of belittling other people.

3) I detest men who live off women's hard earned money.

4) I dislike cheating spouses.

5) I don't like pushy sales people.

What else? I think I have a lot more dislikes but at this moment, these are all I can think of.

Now, would you like to share what you don't like too ?

1) Chin Nee
2) Everyday Healy

Miss Pukey Puked Again

Miss Pukey Puke Sherilyn puked again this mornng. She got scolded by daddy this morning as she was playing with her water tumbler on our bed and spilt water on our bed. I was busy downstairs on my computer trying to book an Air Asia ticket for my maid to go back to Indonesia. When daddy brought her downstairs, she was still sobbing and refused to let go of daddy. She wanted reassurance, lots of reassurance from daddy that he still loves her. When daddy left the house for the office, she bawled and screamed and cried till she puked - the curdled milk that she had drank minutes ago all splat on the floor and the smell of it that wafted through the house was strong enough to make me nauseous instantly.

Caffeine-Free Herbal Tea

This is the box of caffeine-free herbal tea that I bought from Village Grocer last week. There are 5 packs of flavours inside - lemon zinger, peppermint, sleeptime, chamomile and wild berry zinger. I have not tried all the flavours yet but I find the chamomile very soothing. If you're looking for caffeine-free tea, do check out Village Grocer. They sell a wide range of them. I did a google search on Celestial Seasonings and found out that their ingredients used are in accordance with the guidelines set by the FDA. Want to know why I'm so into caffeine-free products now? Come back for the updates.......

First Teeth Toothpaste Is Still Their Favorite

Of all the brands of toothpaste, Alycia and Sherilyn still prefer their banana flavored toothpaste from First Teeth. I have 2 brands of toothpaste for them to choose, one is First Teeth, the other is Pureen strawberry flavored but each time, the girls, especially Alycia will request for First Teeth. I'm trying to train her to use cheaper brands of toothpaste but sometimes she will act up and puke the moment the cheaper brand of toothpaste touches her lips. She's only a toddler yet she already knows how to choose branded stuff. First Teeth costs almost 8 times more than regular brands of toothpaste!

Chinese Remedy For Phlegm

Alycia has a little phlegm, thus the reason why she puked this morning, I reckon. She also has a little tummy upset and indigestion coz daddy has been feeding her with too much ice creams and cakes over the weekend. All these contributed to her phlegm. Daddy never listens to me, he shows his love towards his 2 precious princesses with food and each time, this is the consequence.... sigh.... and he has to spend lots of money on their medical consultation later. Sigh...... what to do, that's daddy's way of showing his love!

Each time Alycia has phlegm, she tends to puke and choke easily. My cousin recommended 'hao zhou san', a type of chinese medicine made of monkey's internal organs which she swears by its effectiveness when mixed with pearl powder. I've also heard of its effectiveness in a parenting forum but I somehow tend to have qualms about chinese medicine, especially about monkey's internal organs, eeuuuu!

I know many parents here have been feeding 'hao zhou san' to their children and swear by its effectiveness but I've also heard of an isolated case which came out in the chinese papers recently that a toddler slipped into a coma as a result of eating 'hao zhou san'.

Right now, I'm contemplating feeding Alycia with 'hao zhou san' and pearl powder but the paranoia in me feels doubtful. Would be glad to hear your stories and experience with 'hao zhou san'.

I Need To Breathe Some Fresh Air

It's been a hectic day for me today. Brought Alycia to the clinic this morning, typed 9 posts today and chatted online with Elaine for almost an hour as she was guiding me in my new blog. Settin up a new blog ain't easy, luckily Elaine has been super patient with me. Despite her spotting yesterday and today (35 weeks preggy), she still tried her best to help me. I just don't know how to thank her. Now, I feel a bit dizzy and I need to bring the gals out for a walk to breathe in some fresh air, oopps.... polluted air in the park.

Alycia Has Super Sensitive Nose

No wonder she's always having runny nose. We brought Alycia to the paed again this morning as she has been sneezing and feeling a little under the weather. Also puked this morning. So she didn't go to school for 2 days since Monday. Her paed said she's got super duper sensitive nose. She does not have a cold or flu but the sneezing and mucous are caused by her sensitive nose and allergy. Remember the fluid built-up in her ear 2 weeks ago? It's also caused by her sensitive nose. No wonder she always seems fine one day and the next day, she'll be sneezing her nose away. Her visit to the paed's office is almost certain every month caused by her sensitive nose and her paed has been prescribing her with this medicine for her sensitive nose which she has to eat at night for 2 weeks. Today, the paed prescribed her with a nasal spray which I have to spray into her nostrils each night for 1 month. Hopefully the nasal spray will keep her allergy at bay. I really don't like the idea of spraying some steroid-containing chemical into her nose but looks like we have no other choice coz her visits to the paeds' office are just too frequent.

Meanwhile, I'd appreciate it if someone would just let me know what food is good for preventing nose allergies. As for other preventive measures, our paed says no air-cond or migrate to a country with cleaner, fresher air!