Okay okay, so Irene and Jean have asked for pic on me turning 33. Truth was I didn’t even think about it.  Yes, I went back to my camera and posted it again!

There we are, a very happy family of 4!  (BTW, Chloe was sucking her 2 fingers again, coz it was like 10pm, and she was getting tired!)  But not before she had a small bite of the chocolate torte! 

Celebrated my 33 birthday, gosh, already!

It was good day.  Lovely card from the kids, a gift from Phil n the kids, spent the day chilling out. 

When asked what I wanted for dinner, with no hesitation, I asked for black pepper king crab.  Yes, that was all I wanted.

It was a really nice night out for dinner. 

Not the fact that I turned 33.  But, it was the fact that when I rang my MIL to ask her tagged along, she took on the invitation right away without realizing it was my b’day.   My MIL enjoys good food once in while, but she prefers to stay home all the time.  So, it was so good when she said yes, went with us all the way into town, walked around enjoying the time with her 2 grandkids, have an ice cream before sending her home by 10pm.   It was good to see her doing something out of her usual routine!  That was the best thing.

JD loveeessss crabs, and is already asking when we can eat again

Chloe was just happy to munch on kai lan, fish, noodles, no fuss at all from her all night considering it was well beyond her bedtime

Sometimes after a busy day of work, I wish I could have a bit more time with her before tucking her in…and with that cheeky smile of hers, I just can’t help myself by spending another 5-10 mins with her reading, doing puzzles, tickling her and listening to her chuckles …

Once in a while, when having a bad day, my children have their ways of cheering me up. 

Since doing the “Beautiful Manners”theme last week, and our role play activities, JD surprised me with this beautiful gesture today.

While out shopping for some fresh seafood and meat at the supermarket, someone actually took our trolley that has been loaded with fresh tiger prawns, crackers, dips, bread, fruits, vegies and etc!  We looked everywhere and just couldn’t find it.  I thought I was losing my mind, you know the kind of forgetfulness when you are pregnant!  But this forgetfulness was driven by a busy working week with a lack of sleep the previous night.  Sensing that I was annoyed by my missing trolley because that means having to line up and reorder my seafood all over again, JD said to me gently:

“Mommy, that’s okay.  It’s allright that your trolley is gone.  If we see the person, we should just tell the person, that’s my trolley, please give it back to me”.  And he kept patting my lower back as he said it,  just like the way I comfort him all the time.   Hee hee hee.  My frustration just disappeared into the thin air when JD said that. Big smile on my face. 

 Later on that night, he was still thinking about the missing trolley.  Suddenly he jumped up from the sofa and told me this “I know mommy.  I have an idea.  I will go to the shop tomorrow to get some flying shoes like Astro Boy’s.  Then I can fly above the supermarket to see which man has got your trolley!” 

Just look at him, I wouldn’t dare to mess with this boy, heehee!

Today is my dad’s birthday, celebrating a wonderful 70th birthday!

10 years ago, we celebrated dad’s 60th at Singapore, with all his 6 girls (mom + 5 girls)

Today, I can’t be there.

So, dad, from us all here in Perth, me, Phil, your 2 grandchildren, JD and Chloe

Happy 70th birthday, and we love you very dearly so!

Thank you for being my father, the father-in-law to Phil, the waigong to JD and Chloe. 

And I thank you for for all the little things like…

• for being the dad whom will chat with me on Yahoo chat
• for regularly SMS me to see if we are okay
• for your love n hate relationship with Malaysian politics
• for your love of dogs and that you would bring stray dogs home to nurse them
• that you always remember some of our favourite food like Pao, Hokkien mee, satay, pork knuckles…

And for being the fun loving waigong, whom when visiting, will dedicatedly hold and carry the grandchildren one by one, walking through the street,  and always with a gladful heart. 

Peeved, that’s the way I felt earlier on.

I brought JD and Chloe out to IKEA with me this morning to get a few things for the house.

As we arrived at IKEA, after parking my car, I got out to make sure (1) it was parked properly (2) to get the stroller out from the boot.  As I got out from the car, I also saw a BMW pulled up behind me.  As I opened the back door, getting ready to put Chloe in the pram, the driver from the BMW beeped and shouted me saying ”C’mon, what’ya doing, get the **** out of here” and then pointing their middle fingers at me!

Gasp!  I was horrified.  These were 2 middle aged women, looked well groomed to me from the outside, driving a pretty good looking car, but was just plain rude.  Simply because they were peeved that I wasn’t leaving when they thought I was.  Thus leaving them with another round of driving around looking for an empty spot!  Huh!

Well, tough luck, you 2 rude wrinkled women!

So I left it at that.

2 hours laters, as we were ready to go home, we adjourned to the IKEA cafe to get JD an ice cream.  Since it was lunch time, moving spaces in the cafe was obviously a bit tight. 

So, after getting the ice cream and as I tried to leave the cafe with Chloe in the stroller and JD walking in front of me, we came to a stop when the aisle was blocked by a baby sitting on a high chair.  I asked the mom of the child politely if she could move the high chair a bit to let me pass through.

Get ready for this.

Her answer to me was “NO!”.  So I apologised for causing the trouble, and she reluctantly then asked her own mother to move the child.  This time, the grandmother said to me “NO!  I AM EATING!”.  And then to have the mother of that child said to me again ”Look, we are not going to move, you could go back other way and walked around the other aisle.”

And that’s when I put my foot down.  Firmly, politely and with a straight face, I said to her “Well, I am already here, all I need is for you to move the high chair by just an inch.”

Finally they did and I turned around to say thank you but not before giving them a look.   (My sis would kow that look is a trait of our family, and is only reserved for very extreme case!)

What frustrates me was there they were, a family of five, father, mother, grandmother, grandfather and the child.  Easily, one member of the family could have picked up the child from the high chair, the other one could have moved the high chair a bit and all would be done.  But instead they refused to help.

I walked away shaking my head, and the lack of basic manners in that family.  Because if I have been them, I would have moved my child quickly, and allowing another parent with kids or a person to walk through.  Because I know that’s basic courtesy and it’s good when we help one another out.

I think these people need a course of lesson on “Beautiful Manners” from me and trust me, what goes around comes around!

Role Reversal

“Hey mom, what’ya think?  That I go to work in the city and you stay home to look after Chloe?”

Pins and Needles

JD walked into the kitchen exclaiming out loud “Mom, hey, my foot feels funny, it feels soft and it feels heavy and if feels like ants crawling around on my foot!” 

“Looking after” the sister

Sometimes when Chloe gets into mischief  and upon seeing me discipline her, he will jump to her defence and say:

“Let her mom, is okay, she is just curious, not naugthy at all” Yah!

Big boys are “macho”

After sending JD off to pre-kindy and just when I was about to kneel down to give him a kiss n cuddle, he says to me:

“Mommy, I don’t need kisses today, I am a big boy now!”

And the other day after dropping him off at gymnastics, he instructed me to:

“Mom, you go wait for me in the car or go for a walk with Chloe, I will come and see you when I am done”.  Okay!

Being Funny

JD’s kindy teacher is away, so there is a replacement teacher this week.  Upon picking him up, he said to me

“Mommy, my teacher today is Maddi, Mandy and there was another teacher call Andy!  They all sound the same, all are “Dys”!” Hahahaha, I had to laugh at this comment.

Since Chloe started walking, her favourite activitiy has been picking up boxes of toys, walking from one corner of the house to the other, with much joy and satisfaction.

She also loves reading.  She loves bringing books to us, pointing to pictures, babbling away…and she was reading her favourite Chinese picture book!

And another of her favourite is sitting at the front steps of the house. waiting for daddy to get home in the evening.

PS - Aunty Shir, recognise the boots Chloe was wearing?

Since started work again 2 months ago and this time in a very different field, I must admit that I felt a bit weary this week.  It was easy to put everything else aside just to focus on the new job and the family.  Somehow the ME time was quickly disappearing and I know the alarm bell was signalling for some time out.  On top of that, like every other woman and mother in this world, we still have meals to cook, dishes to wash, groceries to get, shopping to be put away, laundry to wash, hung out, taken in, folded, ironed, put away, kids to bath, to be read to, bottom to wipe and clean, husband’s business pants and shirts to be sent for dryclean, bills to pay, kids activities to attend, places to go, kids to be be droppeed off and picked up from school, appointments to go, sick kids to tend to, garden to be tidied up, floors to vacuum and mop every few days, showers and bathrooms to scrub and the list goes on. 

So, in an impromptu moment, I rang up a friend to come over for a barbecue on Sunday night.  On a night when I would usually chill and go slow as it is the start of a workimng week the next day, we ate, chat, laughed, watched the kids play, shut one eye to them overindulging in ice cream, one pretending to be A Ninja Turtle while the other attempts to be Spiderman, then out came the pretend shield made out of the lid from the laundry basket, then watching both the boys looking for snails with a torch each in the dark … it was all good fun for them!

Amazingly, I felt ALIVE the next morning.  No hang over, but felt amazingly refreshed. 

A break from routine is as a good as a holiday. 

Tonight after a busy day, I dragged myself to my Pilates class that I have missed for the last 4 weeks.  Ahhhh…the stretching, breathing, the pulsing, the pain were all worth it and my mind was all on the body, making myself stretched beyond my comfort point.  I came home feeling glad that I went to my class though my mind was earlier telling me to just slouch in front of the TV….

Yes, I realise that my 60 mins Pilates class is a ME time already…I need to do more of it, just to get that flat tummy at least, hee!

I work with kids everyday, as part of my job and as part of my life as a mom.  And manners play a very important part in making our everyday life pleasant and much happier to live with.  Sometimes, we forget that the basic gestures of saying “thank you” or “sorry” can make a big difference in how we feel about a situation.

Likewise, for children, they need to be taught about good manners and in our home and my work I address it as beautiful manners and behaviour.  I make it a point to discuss with JD what we considered as beautiful manners and what aren’t.  And when an unpleasant situation arise such as one not being appreciative, unwillingness to apologise, being impatient, toys snatching, not sharing, screaming, running inside the house, interrupting someone’s conversation, sneezing and coughing without covering up, burping out loud at dinner table and etc ….. all these need to be corrected on the spot.

It is important to address it on the spot when the child can still remember it.  And by addressing it on the spot, it gives them the opportunity to replay the whole situation, and then re-enact it again with the appropriate action.  For instance, if a child has burped out loud at the dinner table, I will remind the child to say “Excuse me”.  Then I will get the child to pretend burping followed by saying “Excuse me”.  By doing that, it helps the child to remember the situation and the appropriate manners to follow.

So this week’s theme was on “Beautful Manners”.

As part of the theme, we did a craft on “Cover your nose when you sneeze”.  It was a simple craft by using a paper plate, some market pens for drawing a face, some black yarn for the hair, tissues, glue and scissors.

JD chose to draw a face and I noticed that the eyes he draw lately have pupils and eye lashes!  Hee hee.  I reminded him and the others again about the importance of using a tissue or hankerchief when we sneeze.  And since it is Spring/Hayfever season, all the more important we should cover our nose when we sneeze.  The children had fun in pretending to sneeze with their “sneeze puppets”. 

We also did some role play during the week which included:

• If a group of friends were sitting at the table.  One child needed a blue crayon but the other child was using it.  What should the other child do?  The right response can be “May I have the blue crayon please?” or the other child can also respond by saying “Okay, sure, when I am finished with the blue crayon, you can have it.”
• If someone has snatched a toy off your hand or smack you on the head, what should you do and say? 
• If daddy and mommy are talking, and the child wants to ask a question, what should the child do?
• When we wake up in the morning, and before we go to bed at night, what should we say to our daddy and mommy?
• When we see our teachers in school, how should we greet them?

Children usually enjoy role play because they can pretend to be someone else.  But I felt it was important to spend some time on reinforcing beautiful manners in our daily life.

As part of our Chinese lesson, we learn a few greeting terms such as 早安, 晚安, 再见, 谢谢, 你好. 

JD is also remembering some of the words we use daily.  This was the conversation I overheard when he was playing “masak-masak” with Chloe.

JD: “恺仪, 来来, 快吃!” (Kai Yee, come here, quickly eat now)

JD: “好吃吗?” Yummm (Is it yummy?)

And another day when he saw Chloe playing with the house phone, he walked over and said to her “恺仪, 不可以!” (Chloe, no no no!)

At home JD usually adress Chloe by her chinese name (Kai Yee) and it is actually very cute.  Likewise, I get Chloe to address JD as 哥哥 (brother).   

Since Chloe started walking 2 weeks ago, she has just been busy practicing her new found skills.  And she was not willing to sit down at the activities table with us, but was much happier and contended bulding blocks.  She can now build 5 or 6 blocks together and it looks like the siblings share a common interest, apart from eating, what a joy!