Baby C's 3rd Post-Surgery Anniversary

Every year at the start of May, since May 2009, I really cannot help going down the horror memory lane that lasted for 3 nightmarish weeks. This morning as I was going through the list of May 2012 public holidays on a piece of paper from Sherilyn's ballet school, which is stuck to our fridge door, I remembered that in 3 days' time, it will be the 3rd anniversary of Cassandra's surgery.  On 5 May 2009, my then 13-month old baby went through a major surgery that lasted over 5 hours. Something really wrong happened after the surgery and she was cut up again 2 weeks later... after daily X-rays, a CT scan and other invasive scans failed to diagnose what was wrong with her intestines.


Day 1 - after the 1st op which was a Ureteral Reimplantation surgery. She was down with high fever for over a week. Surgeon suspected something was wrong as there should not be a fever for so long. She was devoid of food via mouth for 3 weeks and had to be fed with nutrients through a tube that was inserted through her right chest.


Day 2 of the 1st surgery. I myself was down with high fever, throat infection and flu, whilst hubs was hospitalized and isolated at the same hospital (suspicion of H1N1). I wore a face mask 24 hours a day but Baby's immune system was weak and she too got bitten by the bug. It was a triple whammy for me! 




And my baby girl 3 years later... a very happy, chatty and charming girl. She has definitely come a long way and is the toughest little girl I have ever met.  May God bestow upon this girl with an abundance of good health forever and NO more surgery for her.

Our Saturday - 28 April 2012

I was glued to my desktop PC the whole of yesterday to check on the Bersih 3.0 Rally updates from Facebook. My 3 nosy parkers who have eyes like an eagle saw what I was doing and kept sticking their noses and eyes behind my back. I gave them some exercises to do from workbooks but each time they saw the yellow pictures from my Facebook page, they zoomed to the PC exclaiming Oh my God!, WAH!, OH NO! and all that jazz! It does not help that my work area is just next to the dining table and that is where they are seated to do revision.

Check out what rascal #2 did after she saw pictures of her best friend wearing yellow holding placards bearing the word BERSIH from my Facebook page. She too changed into her yellow clothing, scribbled the word BERSIH on a piece of paper and colored it yellow *slap forehead*

Don't get me wrong. I am sitting in the middle of the fence, neutral to either party, but just have to post this pix as everyone had a good guffaw when we saw what this clown of the family did.

  And check out our dining table - what an eye sore and total mess!

Casa Del Cocco @ Taman Danau Desa, KL

Being a health freak who tries to eat only healthy and wholesome food and trying to train my girls to have similar preference, I scorn at food cooked with excessive oil, salt, sugar and other flavor enhancers. But due to time constraint, we have no choice but to eat out or take away food several times in a week. I so scorn at those 'chap fan' aka economical rice dishes. Just have a look at the inches of suspicious looking oil covering all the dishes while some dishes are heavily coated with flour and thick, black sauce! I'll bet after eating them for a week straight, my tonsils will flare up. I am so glad that I have finally found an eatery nestled at my neighborhood that serves really good Italian and Western food with a touch of home-cook feel and taste. I so nodded approvingly after tasting the breakfast served at Casa Del Cocco. 

When my hubs brought us to Casa Del Cocco or Coconut House for the first time 2 Saturdays ago, it was slightly over 10am and Casa Del Cocco was still devoid of customers. We were the only customers at the restaurant and I had reservations with the quality and taste of the food. But when the omelette dishes came and after the first bite, it was love at first sight! All the breakfast dishes were very low on sodium and MSG and were naturally flavored with lots of Italian herbs. I love it that the omelettes had generous amount of fresh mushrooms and herbs and were not salty at all. After a very satisfying breakfast, my foodie hubs ordered some desserts and they earned yet another nod of approval from me. The sweetness level for the Tiramisu and cakes were just perfect - not choking sweet.

We even booked a place for lunch for the next day (Sunday) so that I could snap some pix of the dishes and at the same time try their lunch menu dishes. I did not snap pix of the omelette and breakfast dishes when I was there on Saturday as I had qualms on the food presentation and quality.  Well, never judge the book by its cover!  So my hubs (who is very supportive of my blogging :) ) told me that he would bring us to the eatery again the next day to have the pix taken. 

Pix of the food that we had at Casa Del Cocco taken on both visits : 

The breakfast menu . We tried all 5 dishes on the breakfast menu and were very satisfied with every dish.

 


 Wild mushroom soup @ RM9.50 and Crostini Toscani @ RM5.50
 



Veal Pramigiana with mushrooms @ RM25 - meat is juicy, flavorful and rustic.

 



Italian sausages, root veggies & beans soup (RM7.50). This broth is nourishing  and lip smacking too.

 

Steamed Mussels - pretty good
 

Slow-roasted pork shoulder -- oven-cooked overnight with fennel seeds and herbs. Very juicy and flavorful and costs only RM22 a serving.

 


Classic Carbonara
 


Classic Calzone aka stuffed pizza or turnover, stuffed with thick gooey cheese and ham. In the background is Parma Ham and Rocket Leaves pizza. I prefer the open face pizza as the crust is thin and crispier.  The pizzas are all baked in a huge stone-like oven using wood.  At the facade of the eatery, you will not miss out on the huge stacks of wood for the oven.

 


 


 Blueberry cake, baked lemon pudding and a chocolate cake...
 



 



 

Casa Del Cocco is a must-go place for fans of Italian food and health freaks. Food served is low in sodium and MSG, almost every dish is generously flavored with Italian herbs and eating there gives you a warm feeling, both from the ambience and taste of food. Food taste and presentation get a 4-star rating from HFM with  a 2-star price tag.

It gets a 9/10 rating on the HFM scale!

 

Casa Del Cocco, 18, Jalan 5/109F, Taman Danau Desa, Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 03-7972-3288

Daily Morning Bliss

Ever since Cassandra started pre-school early this month, I have been enjoying 3.5 hours of serenity and bliss at home every morning! I wish it could be longer! It is during this time that I have the peace and presence of mind to write my online assignments. Otherwise, my train of thoughts is always interrupted by my rambunctious, screaming and demanding kids when they are around. I now have exactly 10 minutes to write 3 ads, including one on HR block coupons but I doubt I can finish them in under 10 minutes, unless I let my poor baby girl wait for me in the school. Nah, not doing that. Shall have to steal some time from here and there throughout the day to finish off my work.

First Baby vs. Third Baby

Alycia my first born is a very lucky girl. Ever since she was born, almost everything that she used and the clothes that she wore were brand new. We bought her loads of cute baby clothes and accessories, personalized baby blankets, toys, educational books and baby stuff. Fast forward 4.5 years later when Cassandra was born. I hardly bought her any new clothes as there were still an abundant of hand-me-down clothes and baby accessories from her sisters. Toys and educational books were recycled and used again. Though Cassandra did not get many new clothes and toys of her own, she is nevertheless very much loved and is the pet of the family.

Pests In One's Life

If only my life can be free from some people who are likened to head lice and leaches, I will be a much happier person. You do not want them in your life but circumstance is such that they just have to be in your life. They make my blood boil, they make me wonder why they have to make other people's life so miserable. Maybe they get high from making people's life suck and from sucking them dry? I wish there were some sort of pesticides formulated just to rid them which I can just spray to rid them off my life or easier still, just a button on a machine which I can press to zap them out from my life. I better stop now. I can go on and on ranting and raving and this will get out of hand. Just want to vent out my frustrations here as there is really no other means I can vent it out!! And I pray that God will remove this unwanted ill feeling that I am having now. It is bad for my soul and against my religion too.