Forbidden Food

What are the food forbidden to be eaten by an expecting woman? Don't know if it's just a myth or a fact, some of the food forbidden are raw pineapple, tea, starfruits, watermelon, papaya, basically anything that is considered too 'leong' (literally means cooling) for the body, lamb, crabs and the list goes. I have friends who ate these food almost everyday (especially Malays) yet they did not face any problems during their pregnancy and went on to deliver healthy babies. Since the Chinese forbide, I just abided and did not touch these food during the first 3 months or so of my pregnancies.

Last week, we had high-tea at Paya Serai Coffee House @ PJ Hilton. Since I'm about to deliver, I indulged in my favorite food, food that I haven't touched for months and geez, it feels good to be able to taste them finally, albeit I only ate them moderately.

Putumayam - I was already craving to eat this when I saw it at ChumsyAshley's blog.


Ooooh, my all-time favorite Sarawak pineapple..... tasted sooooo sweet and refreshing.


Starfruit juice and teh tarik.

Also ate assam laksa and sour mango (from the rojak counter).

Hubby was looking at me with sharp sideway glance and shaking his head as I ate these forbidden food, haha.....

The Future Ballerina

Read more about Alycia's ballet class here.

Just What's She Thinking About?

I just don't understand how some maids think sometimes. Yesterday, I asked my maid to put the old newborn baby clothes into the washing machine. When I checked the machine half way through the cycle, I found out that she had put a pair of dirty kitchen gloves and a piece of cloth which she wipes the dirty and oily counter top in the wet kitchen inside the load of baby clothes, together with hubby's stinky and sweaty sports socks! Maybe it's partly my fault that I did not tell her to wash the baby clothes separately from adults' clothes but putting in dirty cloth that she uses to wipe away chicken blood and oily counter tops in the wet kitchen? That's just no common sense. Moreover, she normally washes these cloths in a separate load in the evenings - all the bath mats and cloths that she uses to wipe the floor and tables. When I asked her why she had put the piece of dirty cloth and gloves into the washing machine together with the baby clothes, she just gave me a smile, coz she could not give me a reasonable explanation. I told her never to do it again and re-washed the load of clothes again. I think I should perform my spot checks on the washing machine during the wash cycle.

Sisters Yet Totally Different Eating Habits

That's the scene during dinner time almost everyday. Alycia who is a real 'fan thoong' (one who loves rice) will eat a big bowl of rice with lots of meat, eggs and greens.... which explains her body size. Sherilyn on the other hand hates rice and meat (though she is beginning to eat very little chicken meat) will be eating sandwiches or noodles.

Sherilyn is really content and happy eating egg sandwiches with piles of Japanese cucumber and cherry tomatoes. Luckily she still eats vegetables and adores cucumbers.

Grimacing in sourness......soooooo sour this cherry tomato.......

What's Sherilyn Up To Again?

Please hop to my other blog to read what Sherilyn is up to again.

Bad Sciatica Attacks

I'm having bad Sciatica attacks today, almost the whole day. It happens each time I walk or stand. I can feel my baby moving and kicking all the time and when this happens, the Sciatica tends to attack me. It gets so bad that I have to wince and flinch in pain and half squat while walking or sit down immediately if I am standing. If this continues, I think I need to be on partial bed rest for the next 2 weeks till I deliver.

I Am Just So Very Tired

Must be the pregnancy hormones... I am feeling really lethargic, sleepy and moody these days. Just don't have the mood to do anything but sleep, though I've been getting 6-8 hours of sleep every night. The moment I am seated in front of my PC, my eyes tend to droop and my mind goes blank! I was reading a story book to Sherilyn a moment ago and less than 2 minutes into reading the book, I could not open my eyes again. I told Sher that mummy needs to nap but she wouldn't allow me and I was forced to finish reading the book to her, with my eyes half closed. My brain can only function after I have taken a 10-15 minute cat nap to have it recharged, once or twice a day.

Sometimes She Can Be As Good As An Angel

On some mornings, Sherilyn will wake up being cranky and cry. Some mornings when she wakes up, she will reject my maid when she tries to bring her to the toilet to have her diaper removed and bum washed up. And on some mornings, she can be really angelic....




Yesterday morning, Sherilyn was really angelic. She had woken up at 7:30am, which was earlier than usual. After drinking her milk and being washed up by my maid, she sat at her desk quietly.


When I came closer to her, I saw her practising her writing skills in her exercise book. I was really touched to see her so kwai, doing writing without being told, and without bothering me. If only she could be so angelic everyday, throughout the day!

Pregnancy Problems

Of my 3 pregnancies, this is the only pregnancy that I have not suffered from constipation and vaginal yeast infection, knock on wood! I suffered from bad constipation and VYI when I was carrying Alycia and Sherilyn. The VYI was so bad that I got it every other month, despite being prescribed oral and topical antibiotics. But for all 3 pregnancies, I tend to have minor piles that don’t cause bleeding, just some discomfort. The piles will go away after delivery of my baby. Did you suffer from piles too during your pregnancy?

Neck Pillow That Stops Stiff Neck

I used to suffer from stiff neck quite frequently but ever since I started to sleep on special concave neck pillows, I rarely have stiff neck anymore. I find that soft pillows are normally the culprit for stiff necks and I have since ditched them or put them downstairs for my cat nap in the afternoon. So if you suffer from neck pain and stiff necks, it's time you swap your pillows with special concave neck pillows. They are not very expensive and you can buy one from as cheap as RM20-30 each. They are really a good investment for a good night's sleep!

Body In Discord

The left side of my body tends to be weaker and more prone to disorders ranging from an outbreak of unsightly Varicose & Spider Veins on my left leg, leg cramps (always happens to my left leg and never the right leg), Sciatica, a pregnancy tumor on my left gum when I was carrying Alycia, short sightedness and carpal tunnel syndrome. I wonder if some of the pains were partly caused by the spinal cord anesthetic administered to me during the c-section for both my kids. Does this sort of thing happen to you too?

Lunch At Delicious

After my 36th week check-up in the hospital today, daddy brought us to Delicious @ Bangsar Village for lunch. Alycia can really eat like an adult. I had already packed some noodles in a lunch box for her to eat in the hospital but she was still hungry. When daddy asked her what she'd like to eat, she chose spaghetti @ Delicious and got her wish granted. So these are what we ate today :


Spaghetti Bolognaise

Creamy spaghetti with bacon and mushrooms.


Gado-Gado with creamy peanut sauce.


Prawn sambal rice

and a slice of mango cheese cake and apple & peach crumble with ice-cream for dessert. We finished lunch at around 3pm and was feeling really full.

The food was really delicious and the restaurant's name Delicious is really apt.

Colorful Personality

These are Alycia's 'art work'. I find that Alycia loves to color her pictures with many colors. Any object that she colors will be multi-colored - a person's face, clothes, an animal, a fruit, etc. She never sticks to just one color or a few colors but she uses a multitude of colors. Does that mean she has a very colorful and vibrant personality and likes to see things colorful?

Sherilyn is quite the opposite of Alycia. There was a period of time when she only likes to use pencil (black), pen or black color pencil to color her drawings. After some time, I think Alycia cheh cheh's colorful style sort of rubbed off on her and now, she too is beginning to color her objects with multi colors.

Our Sunday

Today, Alycia and Sherilyn had a real swell time in Sunday School. They decorated Easter Eggs with stickers and tonight, they even get to eat the Easter Eggs (which are hard boiled eggs). There was a small party in class and the gals had a whale of their time munching on junk food. I had forgotten to tell my new maid that the gals are not supposed to eat junk food given out at parties. Alycia knows that her new kakak will not stop her and quickly gobbled down 3 sausages, 3 jellies, 2 bottles of Vitagen, cookies and some Easter chocolates! Sherilyn also ate a fair share of sausages, fried fish balls and drank a bottle of Vitagen.

During service, there was a very good video presentation on how Jesus had died on the cross to redeem our sins and how Abraham had obeyed God and brought his only precious son Issac to be sacrificed. The video was really very touching and moved many parishioners to tears, including moi. Today, I also met Dato' Ng Yen Yen, our new Deputy Finance Minister face to face in church and I must say that she is indeed very friendly.

After church, we had high tea at PJ Hilton coffee house. Though there was a lot of delicious food on the buffet spread, I could only eat like a cat and did not have much appetite. As my tummy is ballooning, my appetite is being suppressed. I can visualize how my guts are being pushed and squeezed to its limits by the ballooning uterus. Just can't wait for this little one to pop out.

How was your Sunday today?

Shower Time Accident

About 2 years ago when my former maid just started to work with us, she gave me many heart attacks. She was really careless when it came to taking care of the kids. Sherilyn had hurt herself countless times under her care. I remember once, she scalded Alycia’s body with hot water from the shower when she turned on the shower that has a single handle. She had forgotten that if the lever points to red, it means hot and blue means cold and without testing the water first, she turned on the shower with Alycia directly under the shower. Alycia went yelling and yelping in pain. Luckily, her skin was only a little red and she wasn’t seriously hurt in the accident as I put her under running cold water for more than 10 minutes. For our new home, I will be fixing shower faucets with double handles in our bathrooms – one handle for cold water and one for hot water so that my maid will not get confused.

Last Few Weeks Of Pregnancy

I have an appointment with my gynecologist for a check-up tomorrow. I have made a mental note to inform him that I would like to change the c-section day from a Friday to a Wednesday. Since my gynecologist is charging a few hundred bucks extra for c-sections on Fridays, I might as well change it to a Wednesday and save the money. Initially, I chose Friday so that it will be more convenient for hubby and the kids to visit me in the hospital during the weekend. I hope my gynecologist will not perform a cervical check on me tomorrow. I just hate this part of the routine check-up during the last couple of weeks of the pregnancy, where he has to put on a pair of rubber exam gloves and stick his hand into my cervix to check if it has softened. I am sure any woman who had gone through a pregnancy would agree with me how disgusting and uncomfortable this feels.

How Was Your Saturday?

Mine didn't start off too well. I woke up late today as Alycia didn't have to go to school. Tried to log on to my dot com blog but couldn't. I then called Streamyx and after about 20 mins on the line with the customer service officer, I was informed that the problem could be due to my host's server. I was also told by Montessorimum and Miche that they could not access my blog. I then called my host in Penang and spent more than half an hour on the phone with the technical assistant. I bet the phone bill will cost a bomb. I tried umpteen times trying to ping my blog but all I got was a 'request timed out' reply. Also tried to log in using my IP address and a temp URL but nothing seemed to work. I had also rebooted my PC many times but still couldn't log in to my blog, the cPanel or view the statistics. Geez, I tell you that was really frustrating. I was also told to download the latest Firefox Mozilla as my browser and to log in to my blog using Firefox but that also did not help. Finally, I decided to hang up as I was really worried of the escalating phone bill for the outstation call made to Penang. I then rebooted my PC again and voila, this time I could log in to my blog. Really don't know what exactly happened.

We were supposed to have dinner with my brother and SIL who came from Singapore but was later informed by hubby that the roads in KL will be closed for the F1 GP celebration, so plan cancelled. I have just taught my maid how to make homemade chicken nuggets and lamb chop. My maid has very shallow culinary skills and sometimes I get really pissed off with her when she tries to do things her way without asking me and spoils the entire dish. She also tends to forget what I've asked her to cook and how to cook them. I think Chinese and Western cooking are completely alien to her. I have since taken over cooking from her, which is really time consuming. She's unlike my previous maid who knows exactly what to do after teaching her only once.

Pregnant Belly At 35 Weeks

That's my big baby belly at 35 weeks. Most people have commented that my belly looks small for the gestational age and that I look neat. They think I am having a real smooth pregnancy because of the neat and 'small' belly but they don't know that I am actually having lots of discomforts and pains now. I can't walk or stand too long, otherwise my Braxton Hicks contractions and 'tummy tightenings' will become more intense. When the baby kicks me too hard and hits some of my nerves, I will have Sciatica, which is a sharp pain that attacks my buttocks and legs. I have Sciatica attacks everyday. Sometimes the pain is so bad that I have to sit or squat immediately and wince in pain. I started to have Sciatica when I was carrying Sherilyn during the last trimester. The pain went away after I delivered Sherilyn.

I have 3 more weeks to go before the big day but I am really hoping that the baby will come out a little earlier, naturally and without much labor pains.... to save mummy from having to go through another scary major surgery and to save daddy from having to burn a big hole in his pocket.

Sherilyn Is Finally Eating Meat!

I can't believe that Sherilyn is starting to like to eat meat. Last week I bought a Terriyaki roast chicken for dinner from Jaya Jusco @ Mid Valley. I did not intend to let Sherilyn try the chicken as she has never liked chicken meat. While we were all eating the roast chicken with rice for dinner, Sherilyn who was eating sandwiches asked to try the chicken since she saw her cheh cheh enjoying the chicken. Sherilyn has a tendency to follow her cheh cheh Alycia in everything that she says and does, most of the time. So I gave her a small piece of chicken, but nope, Sherilyn wanted a bigger piece.... and I gave in. I was surprised that she loved the chicken and kept asking for more and more! I found out that Sherilyn actually loves to eat meat that is very well marinated, i.e. salty and sweet and not too tough for her to swallow. Since that day, I have been introducing meat to her every now and then and so far, she's been accepting the meat, provided they are coated with lots of sauce.

Alycia and Sherilyn attacking and savouring the Terriyaki roast chicken.

Alycia Can Button Up

Alycia has finally learnt to button up and unbutton her clothes. She has been trying hard for days and finally, managed to wear her pre-school uniform herself 2 weeks ago.


Look how intent she is here trying her best to put the button through the tiny button hole, with furrowed eyebrows and scrunched up lips.

And how happy she is with her achievement.