Settling A Tug-Of-War

What would you do if your kids fight over a toy or just about anything? I normally take the item away so that no one has the item but more often than not, both will put up a sulky face for hours. And #2 will give me more than a sulky face. She will whimper non-stop (which would surely send a migrane to my head!) until she gets the item or until I give her a spank!

The other day, #1 and #2 were fighting over a pink China bowl over dinner. I didn't want a headache, so I told #1 to give #2 the pink bowl and then dug out a Mickey & Friends compartmentalized plate which was new and never used before... and gave it to #1. She was placated instantly... and I whispered this to her "your sister will surely want your plate when she sees it" and true enough, when #2 saw the new plate, she abandoned her pink bowl and wanted the new plate... that's very common of #2 to do that.... she wants what her jie jie has, even if she does not like the item as she just wants equality.


Alycia's new Mickey & Friends compartmentalized plate which koo mar bought from HK.



To placate #2, I dug out another compartmentalized plate (which was not new but hardly ever used) and gave it to her. She whined a little coz she only wanted her jie jie's plate... which was very common of her but when she saw her dishes nicely arranged in her 'new' plate, she mellowed down and then slowly settled down, looooooong sigh.... talk about middle child syndrome.... you really need loads of patience and ideas to placate the difficult middle child.

And here's what we had for dinner that night:



Stir-fried veggie, steamed eggs with minced pork, steamed salmon fish, stir-fried french beans with homemade fish balls, steamed brown rice and chicken curry.

Our Saturday

Today the hubs and mil went to the wet market to shop for our weekly perishables - veggie, meat and fruits. Whenever they go to the wet market, they will also pack back hawkers food for brunch... and also kuih-muih, egg tarts, chicken pies, coconut tarts and all the fattening stuff lar...which iLike but iScared. Anyway, I quickly walloped a slice of my favorite swiss roll with kaya the moment I saw it on the dining table. See how impatient this fei por was. I haven't been eating that for almost a year and it's only available at the SS2 wet market. I so missed it and I finally had it today, hah!



Whenever my mil goes to the SS2 wet market, she would always buy homemade kuih-muih from this lady who claims that her kuih-muihs are free from coloring and are only made from good and natural ingredients. Her kuihs are all slightly more expensive but really nice and very rich in santan. If only I don't have to worry about my darn waist line, I can really polish off everything here. The hello kitty, flower and shell shaped santan jellies are also very tasty - my gals love them. The slice of cake inside the plastic bag at the top left is blueberry yoghurt chiffon cake - it's really fluffly, soft and tasty. In fact, all her kuihs and cakes are really tasty. The maroon color ang koo on the right is made of beet root and has red bean filling - very tasty, iLike!


Egg tarts and coconut tarts...


... and my favorite swiss roll with kaya and chicken pies.

So here goes my diet *shake head*. Better wake up early tomorrow to jog jog jog! Sunday is another eating day, haih....

Baby C Loves Beet Root Soup

My sweetie-pie is a soup lover so I make it a point to prepare a pot of soup everyday. She does not fancy plain water much, so one good way of making her drink enough fluids is through soups. Drinking enough fluids is very important for her (or for anyone with frequent UTIs) as it can flush out those pesky bacteria out from her urinary tract. The more she pees, the better, as there are more chances of the bacteria being flushed out through the pee. Of all the soups, her favorite is beet root. Yup, the bright red soup that resembles blood haha! I guess it's because beet root is naturally very sweet and that makes the soup really tasty and sweet. Even my 2 older fussy pots love beet root soup with sweet corns.



Double boiled beet root soup with lean pork, carrots and sweet corns.





Baby loves beet root soup so much that whenever I feed her, it has to be continuously... spoonful after spoonful without any pause, other wise she would scream! If only she would drink her formula milk with such enthusiasm, life would be so much more easier for me.

Can Never Get Sick Of Durians

I have been feasting on these every single week for almost a month and I am still not sick of them yet. In fact, I yearn for them very much. Though high in sugar, carbo and calories, I for one can immediately forgo my diet regimen and gorge on them. There is always an exception when it comes to the king of fruits!




Musang King variety... notice how yellow and thick the flesh are. Yums, simply irresistible... even to a health and fitness freak!

For my readers who cannot buy fresh durians in your country, sorry, this post is not meant to tempt you :D

Keeping Baby C Still On Her Chair During Meal Times

Before feeding Baby each of her meal, I need to crack my head to find novel entertainment and toys that will attract her so that she will sit still on her high-chair. She has now gotten bored of most of her toys, as well as her jie jies', so I have to give her OUR toys LOL.... things from the kitchen, remote controls (my mil will freak out when Baby throws the remote controls on the floor lol!), mobile phones (I will freak out if she throws my mobile phone!), the house phone, etc.

Baby is now really cheeky and active and can hardly sit still on her high-chair. When she gets bored during a meal, she will try to remove her bib (telling us that she doesn't want to eat anymore). She will then stand on her chair and try to climb out of the chair.

Baby is still very much fascinated with Alycia jie jie's Marie The Cat multi-button with multi compartments pencil box. But I will only let her play with it during real stressful times like when I spoon-feed her formula. Other meal times, she can remain still for at least 10 minutes coz she still loves her porridge... provided there are toys for her to play on the table.

Random Pix Of My 3 Angels

Baby joining in the fun and ruckus that her 2 rambunctious jie jies are into....

Baby now knows how to pull the sliding mozzie net to get into the wet kitchen, pull a stool to the window, sit down or stand on the stool and watch kids swimming in the pool below.

And mummy has burnt quite a bit of fat chasing her around all day... that's the plus point of having a hyper-active toddler :)

Our Sunday

After church yesterday, we went to Equatorial Hotel KL to attend my former Ipoh school classmate's baby's fullmoon party. It was good catching up with my former classmates and the gals had a swell time watching the clown sculpture balloons for them and there was also had an entertaining magic show by the clown. My 2 gals had so much fun watching the clown that they did not even feel shy volunteering to be the clown's assistant and went out to participate in the balloon competition and other activities.

The clown was too much of a distraction to the kids and they did not eat much, especially Sherilyn who only ate 3 fishballs and a small scoop of ice-cream. As for me, I ate quite a bit, hehe... afterall, how often do I get to eat in such peace... my maid was feeding Baby C and my gals were having so much fun they did not bother me much.


My first plate of grub, which I shared with my maid. The food and desserts were really good and I gorged on quite a bit of cakes. I'm all set to jog an extra mile today to burn off those piled up calories.

Sausages Are A Kid's Best Friend

Whenever I run out of ideas on what to prepare for the gals for lunch, I'll always fix them sandwiches. It could be a simple peanut butter or kaya + cheese sandwich or sandwiches with fried eggs, tuna, ham or sausages. Yes sausages, they are Alycia's and Sherilyn's favorite food and they can never ever get enough of them. But no, they ain't healthy and are loaded with sodium, preservative and food additives. And yes, they can really make my kids shout hooray whenever they come back from school and see sausages on the dining table.

This is what I prepared for Alycia and Sherilyn yesterday.... homemade fast-food... haha coz I only needed 10 minutes to prepare them.

Multi-grain bread with fried egg, hi-calcium cheese and chicken frankfurters.

Since I don't have a Wiener sausage cutter, I cut the sausages with a pair of scissors. I wanted to cut a sheet of seaweed to make eyes and mouth for the octopus' face but my 2 brats were so excited and famished that they could not wait to lay their hands on the sausages the minute they saw the octopus / banana shaped sausages.

Do This Or Else.....

Every single morning, I am bound to have a stressful and blood-boiling time coaxing and hurrying my #2 to finish drinking her cup of milk. She would just be seated on the chair on the dining table or on the couch, staring into space and in a daydreaming mode. Sometimes, she would make me blow my top when she spills all her Milo+milk on the table, on our chair, on our newspapers and everywhere on the floor, aargh! No amount of coercion will make her drink her milk. Most times, I will threaten her with the cane. Let me tell you, I hate to resort to the cane all the time but it looks like that’s the only way to move my #2’s butt. Today, I found a solution haha! I threatened her that if she did not finish her milk by the time I step into the living room (I was inside the kitchen then), she would not be allowed to go swimming or play her tricycle today. Dang, dang, dang… voila, it worked like a charm coz I think it hit her on the right nerve woohoohoohoo! Bingo, bull's eyes! Before I could step inside the living room, she had already gulped down her cup of milk and had hurried to the bathroom to wash up. So I learnt a lesson today. Threaten my #2 to have her favorite activities removed and she’ll obediently toe the line, muahahaha!!

Can't Get The Best Of Both Worlds

After living in a condo for 8 months, I must say that I prefer condo living than living in a double storey house. Apart from the cool condo facilities that we get to enjoy, I think it is also easier to maintain the cleanliness of a condo as the built-up space is smaller. However, there are certain things that I miss about living in a house. I do miss jumping on my trampoline at the porch and sitting at our outdoor chaise lounges while watching my 2 gals play with their tricycle and scooter. Oh well, one can hardly get the best of both worlds, right?

Something Fun In The Bathroom Discovered

Alycia and Sherilyn had just discovered something fun in the bathroom! They discovered that they can twist the shower faucet to change it to ‘water massage’ mode, which in this case, the water will shoot out real fast and hard like some kind of pressure washers muahahaha! And it’s a good thing because now they look forward to taking their shower and I’ve even taught them to shower on their own. This relieves me of at least half an hour a day :)

I Had Supper Last Night

I have not had supper for aeons but last night, I put aside my health freak regimen and had supper consisting of durians and fried noodles (albeit only 1 tablespoon hehe!). In fact, I have been feasting on the king of fruits – Musang King variety for the past few weeks. After all, how often can you indulge in durians right? It’s seasonal and you only get to indulge in them several times a year. I think very soon, I will need to get some Kettlebell workouts to help me rid my jelly belly! Jogging alone can’t do the job effectively. Durians are the king of fatty fruits too and are really high in sugar and calories, I better have some self control or my diet plan will be thrown out of the window.

Sacrifice Of A Mother

I was up at 1:30am again early today. These days, I will doze off at 10ish pm when I put Baby C to sleep. Hours later, I will wake up to get some work done on the computer for half an hour to an hour. This morning, my mind was totally blank and I had absolutely no idea on what to write about cattle supplies, bleh! Instead, I was reading up a lot on UTI prevention for Baby C. Baby, you better be good to mummy when you grow up. Mummy has sacrificed everything just so you will have no more UTI attacks and no more hospitalization stays.

Up Again At Ungodly Hours

It's now almost 2am and I'm up again, hoping to complete some of my online assignments. These days, I can hardly do anything during Baby's waking time. Baby is at a very mobile stage now and is happily roaming the house with her new found feat - walking! She can hardly remain in her playpen these days.

When Alycia and Sherilyn are away in school in the morning, my time is normally spent feeding Baby breakfast, spoon-feeding her formula milk (which takes ages!), bathing her and by the time she is taking her first nap, her 2 jie jies are back from school. When they are back from school, my hands will be tied fixing them lunch, bathing them and coaching them in their homework. If only Sherilyn will just obediently listen to me without whining, complaining and irritating me with her endless whims and fancies and unreasonable demands every single day. My temper will sure hit the roof whenever I hear her whine and her turning a deaf ear on all my instructions, aargh!

My days pass by really quickly these days without me realizing it. When your plate is full to the brim, you won't even realize time ticking away at a frightening speed. Well, it's good isn't it? When you have 3 demanding toddlers, life is never a dull. Ok, back to work.... better stop crapping now.

Crazy Over The King Of Fruits

Everyone in our family loves durian, the king of fruits. Even Baby C likes it! Several days ago, we bought some durians from a nearby mini mart. The durian store was located next to the retail POS systems, right at the entrance of the mini mart. As the guy manning the store priced opened the durian shells, the sweet and tempting aroma of the durian wafted through air and into our noses, exciting our palate. All of us could not wait to get home to lay our hands on the durians and sank our teeth into the durians at the entrance of the mini mart… standing there walloping the durian and oblivious to the by-standers who gave us stares! Before we could pay them, we had already polished off more than half of the durians that we bought.

Darn The Thunder

It’s raining cats and dogs now and there’s also continuous roaring thunder. My 3 kids are napping now and it’s the only time I can sit down in front of my PC to do some blogging, some online shopping or get some online term life insurance quotes but darn it, I have to quickly hurry up and publish this post before my modem or my PC gets zapped by the thunder. What a bummer, it’s my only free time now and I have to shut down the PC, aargh! It looks like I have to pull myself up from bed in the wee hours of the morning again to work on my PC.

Blessed To Have 3 Angels

People always tell me that I am blessed to have 3 daughters and I think so too. Tell me, would your son brush your hair and give you a good head and body massage? Most likely no, right? You're lucky if your son doesn't mind massaging mummy from head to toe muahahaha!

I mentioned in my earlier post in my other blog that I am wiped out each day having to walk behind Baby C and be her bodyguard. This fler is now super active and mobile and her energy level is also at an all-time high... and I'm really glad. Anyone who sees her wouldn't believe that this cili padi had undergone 2 major surgeries exactly 2 months ago.

Today I felt tired and sleepy doing nothing but following baby round the house. So I brought baby to her 2 jie jies' room (her 2 jie jies followed suit) and locked the room door. I then lay on the bed and told my 2 older brats to play with baby. When my 2 brats saw me lying on the bed, they happily volunteered to give me a good massage. Alycia quickly dashed to my room to bring my jar of Rosken cream and Sherilyn quickly fetched the hair brush muahahaha. Alycia then started to apply the Rosken cream all over my hands and legs and begun massaging me. Sherilyn who is obsessed with her hair and her Barbie dolls' hair had a swell time brushing my hair... and pulling gobs of hair off my scalp too! As for Baby, she was happily playing with her jie jies' toys and I need not worry much as she was confined to a small room and had no chairs to climb on. After a good 15-minute massage, I felt recharged!

And just for laughs....

Baby still finds thrills playing with my undies. She loves opening my drawer and fish out my undies... and then put the undies over her head, as if she was wearing a tudung (head scarf) or a shawl , muahahaha....



And she loves my grandma's panties best muahahaha.... I used to wear them when I was preggers with Baby.

My Nosy Parker

My naughty KPC (nosy parker) ransacking the kitchen drawer....


... first she brought a pack of crackers to the living room and crawled back to the kitchen for more...


... Alycia jie jie said that baby probably wanted to have a picnic on the floor muahahah..... and Alycia jie jie had to close the kitchen door to prevent baby from bringing more junk food to the living room.

This is our typical afternoon at home. Baby will be busy ransacking our things, pressing on our Astro decoder and switching channels (and enraging her 2 jie jies), climbing on chairs, sofa and beds, opening doors and playing with her 2 jie jies' toys. She is now a big distraction to her 2 jie jies coz it's really hard for them to concentrate in their homework and hard for me to coach them as well. But I'm not complaining, I would rather she be a distracter than to lie in bed in the hospital.

Maid Woes - Part III

Called up my maid agent yesterday. Well it seems that my maid's passport that has been sitting at the Immigration Dept has now been located and brought back to her. When I spoke to my maid agent at 6pm yesterday, she has yet to see the passport yet. Now I just hope that the big issue that is screwed up can now be un-screwed and remedied. We have no extra cash for hiring a new maid all over again, which would cost up to RM10k. Even if we have, is it worth the risk taking? It's just too costly and there's no absolute guarantee that the new maid is going to be better than my existing maid. Moreover, changing maids until I finally get a satisfactory one is going to involve way too much money. Keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I can keep my existing maid.

What Did She Draw?

One afternoon early this week, Sherilyn was supposed to be doing her homework but as usual, this brat was doodling and scribbling on every book that was on the table. I was nagging and nagging at her and then when my eyes caught a glimpse of what she was drawing, I was amazed.









Can anyone guess what my brat had drawn here?

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<

<


I think you would have guessed it right looking at the cross and the red color on 'Jesus' hands and feet right? When I asked her why she colored the hands and feet red, she told me it's blood. I think our recent visit to St. Anne's church in Bukit Mertajam must have inspired her to draw this picture of Jesus on the cross. I am really amazed that my brat drew this... of all things.