Yesterday, I took a day off from work, yes a day off from children, house chores and daily vicious cycles to go paktor (dating) with my hubby. We started the day with breakfast, wanted dim sum for breakfast but the shop was closed. Anyway our main reason to take a day off was to watch STAR WARS Episode III. Oh well, it has been so long ago since I set my foot into the cinema. The last show I saw was…was….it was that long ago that I forgot.

I was so afraid that the day off have to be cancelled when I received news, last Thursday that my babysitter’s son had to go for appendix surgery. I had to baby sit my gal on Friday while I worked. Amazingly, how children can recover so fast from a surgery. I saw her son walking like nothing happen yesterday.

Star Wars Episode III was definitely worth the money. It was better than I & II. I spotted 101 errors, here are some of it. The last part when Obi-Wan Kenobi send baby Luke to a new family.

Where was the baby bottle, milk powder, hot water? Doesn’t Luke drink any milk? Only the force knows. Not that Obi-Wan can breast feed?

Where was the nappy? Doesn’t Luke poo ppo, opps I forgot, he didn’t drink milk, how to poo poo.

Obi-Wan can carry Luke on a camel to travel so far away with no baby seat and baby did not make a cry.

No mittens and booties too, no clothes for baby Luke?

Sorry, this is from a mom point of view. I love the saber fights but it was going far too fast to catch any good moves. I think they should freeze it like Matrix and do a slow motion action. Poor Yoda, had to jump up and down to fight Lord Sith. Yet, he walks around with a stick. The best part of the entire story was the part where Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin mission to save the chancellor. I was wondering why the Jedi had to save him and later wanted to over throw his role, just asking for trouble. The best character I loved was R2-D2, how he fight against the 2 robotic enemy with fuel and fire.

I will be looking forward to my next vacation….

I studied in Australia for 5 years. One thing I learnt from there is how to eat Tim Tam. Tim Tam is actually originated from Australia. It is actually a chocolate coated biscuit and very rich. Here is how you eat it. Get a cup of hot choc or coffee or tea or whatever beverages that you prefer. Please don’t choose Chinese or Green tea, it doesn’t go with chocolate. Bite both end of the Tim Tam and place it right up into the drink and suck like a straw. Immediately after you taste your drink, push the whole Tim Tam into your mouth and let it melt in there. Superbly Delicious!!!! If you don’t do it right, the entire Tim Tam will fall into your drink and melt there.

My gal have the same concept, I really do not know where she learn it from. She loves to eat Rusk biscuit. I will give her in pieces to prevent her from choking. What she will do is stuff the whole thing in the mouth and wait for it to melt. When it melts, you can tell by the Rusk juice flowing out from her mouth. I see her, I feel like having one. Simply delicious!!

Son had fever on Sunday, fully recovered on Tuesday.

Gal had fever on Monday, now still have fever. Later I have to bring her to see doctor, maybe to change her antibiotic. Weird, her fever will go up after midnight, I had to give her a dose of fever medication and sponge after midnight. Her fever will go down after 1 hour.

Guess what? Dad got fever and knockout yesterday and MC today.

I am keeping my finger cross that I will not get knockout. Will keep drinking Ribena to boost my vitamin C intake. I dislike taking vitamin C pills, in general I try to avoid any pills unless it is really necessary.
Long weekend is coming, lets hope everyone recover by then.

New update, some folks in Penang felt earthquake shake during 10:10am today.

Yesterday my son played a trick on papa.

Son: pa pa pa pa pa pa
Dad: Yes dear

Son: pa pa pa pa pa pa
Dad: Yes

Son: pa pa pa pa pa
Dad: Yes, what do you want?

Son: pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa ya!!!!! hahahahaha *He was refering to the papaya that mummy cut for him*

Today while going to work, my hubby and I did a good deed. How? My hubby drove past a guy who was digging his wallet by the roadside behind his parked car. My hubby saw one whole chunk of money (some RM50 and RM10 notes) fell on the ground but the guy didn’t notice. My hubby already went past, about 10 feet away. He made a small honking sound. The guy was still very blurred and wondering what was that all about. He cross the road and didn’t know notice his missing $$$. My hubby made a joke, later this guy has no money to pay for his breakfast.

Anyway, it was already 7:45am and I have a telecon at 8 am. We stop, and I got down from the car, shouted at him “Oiiii encik, duit tercicir”. (My bahasa still as good.) He still look at me blur blur. I shouted again and pointed at the place he drop his money. He look and he wave to say thank you.

Fortunately I made it to the telecon and was 2 minutes early. I don’t like to be late for telecon. Imagine people waiting for you to start, it is quite rude but most Malaysians don’t realize it. If I am going to be late, I will always call someone to say I am going to be late.

I also complemented my hubby for being so observant and sharp, ha ha usually he is not.

Both of them got fever last weekend, making mummy and daddy very busy. I had to sponge them middle of the night to keep the fever down.

Tim started the fever on Sunday and I took him to the clinic after church. There was a queue in the clinic. First thing, I ask the nurse to measure his temperature and give him a dose of fever medication right away. This is to prevent the fever from rising.

I had a bad experience once, when my son had high fever and the clinic was pack with sick children waiting for the doctor. I didn’t give him any fever medicine and waited quite long. The doctor was new and took his own sweet time. He is not the usual in house doctor. When he saw him, he didn’t give fever suppository which he should because the temperature was above 39ºC. While queuing for the medication, my son started to have seizure. Quickly I alerted the doctor and he came put my son lying down by the side, to prevent him from choking if he vomits. After a while, my son return conscious and he gave him fever suppository, the nurse sponged him to bring his fever down. The doctor was very kelam kabut. Anyway he was not seen in the clinic anymore.

Usually when a child has very high fever, it can cause seizure. I was not afraid as I have plenty of seizure experiences during my childhood and my mum always tells me how she handles me. Every time when I have a fever, she will be very worried. At one time, the doctor had to freeze me in the refrigerator to bring my fever down. I have no memory of that. The only memory I had was that I hated injection and struggle so much that the needle broke. It was fortunate that I did not go brain damage, probably I was a genius but the seizure could have killed the genius cells.

Lesson learnt, always give the child his fever medication if he has a very high fever to prevent it from rising and in turn cause seizure. It is advisable to keep fever medication in the house. During the night, you can sponge your child. I like to use the cool fever patch on their forehead, not every child likes it. I do it when they are in deep sleep.

I read many articles in magazines and forums for parenthood. I found a lot of mothers like to either compare or make criticism/negative remarks over certain topics. A few topics that I have constantly come across are:

SAHM (Stay At Home Mothers) supersedes Working Mum.
Exclusive Breastfeeding vs Formula milk powder.
Normal Birth vs C-Sect
…etc…

I shall not harp on what is good and what is bad or pass judgments. Who am I to pass judgment and who are you to do so either? How do we know that whatever we proposed is 100% suitable in every family? Why do we always look down on Working Mums, over SAHM or vise versa? I always get very frustrated at people who claim SAHM is best for the children and every mother should quit their jobs and do the same. It is so narrow minded thoughts. Hey one mother actually made a comment over this, which I love. If all the mothers quit their job, there will be no motherly teachers, nurses or doctors.

For mothers out there, whether you are working or stay at home, you are doing a great job. Whatever it is, look at what is best for your family and spend quality time with your children. Think positive.

I find that it is really sad when people criticize. Why do people always look at other people in a negative manner? How often do we actually look at people in a positive manner and pick up his or her good points? Hey I am guilty of doing the same. I am learning to see people good character and harvest on it. Don’t you feel good when someone compliment you? Do the same for your children and they will grow up in a healthy manner.

When you criticize, you frown and when you compliment you smile. It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.

On Friday, after a tired day from work, my hubby came and said “Dear, I have a surprise for you, please close your eyes”. He was really excited, hehehe more excited that I was. He came out with a box and said “Happy Mother’s Day!!!”. Wow, here is the box:

From the outside of the box, I knew what it was. I was surfing Dell site last year and wanting to get a PDA but never did because I cannot find a PDA with everything in it (smartphone, wifi, camera, PDA…trying to be greedy). Wanted to get O2 but battery life is not good.

Here it is, wahhhh lahhhhhh:

360º view:

Don’t you think my hubby is the coolest hubby in the whole wide world. I was busy playing with it the last 2 days, installing free stuff on it. I even upgraded the ROM, the VGA screen, etc…etc… I invested extra RM150 to get a NIV Bible installed.

Now, I am wondering, why Mother’s Day only have 1 day and Secretary has a whole week (Secretary Week). We should have Mother’s Year, in fact we have, whole year round our children keep giving us surprises (good and bad). Now I have to crack my brains to surprise my hubby, Father’s Day is next month.

Happy Mother’s Day To All….

Here is a touching story I received from email:

Moms’ love is always unconditional, it is also a good piece to remind us of values in life.

A little boy came up to his mother in the kitchen one evening while she was fixing supper, and he handed her a piece of paper that he had been writing on.

After his Mom dried her hands on an apron, she read it, and this is what it said :

For cutting the grass: $5.00
For cleaning up my room this week: $1.00 For going to the store for you: $0.50 Baby-sitting my kid brother while you went shopping: $0.25
Taking out the garbage: $1.00
For getting a good report card:$5.00
For cleaning up and raking the yard: $2.00 Total owed: $14.75

Well, his mother looked at him standing there, and the boy could see the memories flashing through her mind.
She picked up the pen, turned over the paper he’d written on, and this is what she wrote:

For the nine months I carried you while you were growing inside me: No Charge.

For all the nights that I’ve sat up with you, doctored and prayed for you: No Charge.

For all the trying times, and all that tears that you’ve caused through the years: No charge.

For all the nights that were filled with dread, and the worries knew were ahead:No Charge.

For the toys, food, clothes, and even wiping your nose:No Charge.

Son, When you add it up, the cost of my love is: No Charge.

When the boy finished reading what his mother had written,there were big tears in his eyes, and he looked straight at his mother and said “Mom, I sure do love you”. And then he took the pen and in great big letters he wrote: “PAID IN FULL”

I have good neighbours. I may have a bad impression of them when they first moved in, next door due to some minor petty things. However I still greet them and smile when I see them. Somehow through time, our relationship got better and found out a lot about each other.

A few months ago, I was desperately looking for a babysitter because the former babysitter had to go for surgery. It was emergency. I turn to my neighbour for help to see whether they know anyone around who is babysitting. I knew that they have a friend across the road that baby-sits. My neighbour did talk to her and the babysitter agrees to baby-sit my gal. I was really happy because of the conveniences.

After 2 weeks, the babysitter had a serious back problem and told us that she could not baby-sit my gal any longer. Back to babysitter hunting again. One night, my next-door neighbour came and told us that she would like to baby-sit my gal. She is a mother of 3 and never baby-sits before. She is a good cook, I can always smell her delicious food from my house. I agree to let her take care of my gal.

It has been 10 months now and our relationship grew better. Her family is big, she has a FIL, MIL, hubby, 3 children and SIL leaving in the house. She doesn’t mind helping us during certain holidays. She bring over some of her delicious asam laksa for us a few times. We also bring back sgifts for her whenever we go on vacation. During festive seasons, we will buy specialties for them. Sometimes our kids play behind the house. There is a small lane behind the house whereby the kids will cycle their bicycles or play badminton.

2 nights ago, my hubby forgot to lock the gate before he went to sleep. We got a call from the neighbour tell us we forgot to lock our gate. How sweet of them. There is a true story that one family got rob during their vacation and their neighbours didn’t bother to do anything due to bad relationship.

We should build good relationship with our neighbours. First impression may not always be the truth. As you know your neighbours, you may find things are different. Avoid being frustrated with petty things. Be good to your neighbours and they will return the same.