Guess what she saw?

After reading DomesticGoddess blog about her piano, it makes me want to blog this. I have no music talent whatsoever. I am tone deaf, please don’t ask me to go for karaoke, you probably kick me out after my first song. I tried to learn music when I was 12, took organ lesson. The teacher asked me to go home and never to return. Somehow I cannot follow the rhythm and I have poor coordination. Imagine playing with 2 hands and 1 foot.

The funny thing is my Dad, he can play the harmonica very well. He just listens to the song and reproduces it using his harmonica. He can play by ear. He played his harmonica during my wedding. Everyone enjoyed it. None of my sister and bro can do that.

Now I wish my children have my dad’s musical genes. I want them to at least learn 1 music instrument be it the piano, violin, organ or guitar. If they cannot, I will not force them, at least they tried. While I was pregnant, I listen to some music. Some say the baby in the womb can hear music if we plays it. I also played soft music when they are about to sleep. I find that it helps to simulate their right brain (creative side).

My son is very creative, I can tell by his speech and action. Example, I have been giving him multivitamins and told him it is vitamins. The vitamins come in shape of the hearts. Once he came up to me and asked me “Mummy, I want vita-hearts”. Isn’t that creative or what? There are other examples.

If you look at western countries, most of their children start to learn music when they are young. As you know the famous “Barney” and “Hi 5” that all children loves. Now my gal starts to like it and watch it with her kor kor.

Let’s hope my children will have interest in Music.

Many of you know that Mybabybay.com was down on whole of Monday, due to over exceeding of bandwidth. It was partly my fault as I was not paying attention to warning emails triggered. Anyway, I have extended the bandwidth now and it is back on.

I pay for Mybabybay.com and it is not free. It is a good thing that it is down because it shows the popularity of this site. How this works, you may ask. As you access Mybabybay.com, my server uploads files to your browser. The amount of files in bytes traveling to your PC is called bandwidth. There is a limit to the bandwidth in my server. The more you access, the more bandwidth it takes. That is how it works.

The reason I started Mybabybay.com is to help mothers, to get mothers together to share so that other new mothers can enjoy their experience. I want mothers to be connected so that they can learn from one another. Laugh together and share worries together. I love gatherings with mothers and their children too. I met so many mothers when I started this. The friendship just carried on. Of course, we will not forget the daddies too. I love to teach and help other non-IT literate mothers to blog too, to write a diary of themselves and their children. Sometimes, I feel that mothers can share their feelings through blogging or let out their depression by writing. Sorry that I am not the Guru, but I am learning myself when I teach.

Secondary reason was that I want to keep up with the new Internet technology out there. Being in the IT line, I have to keep up to speed with technology. I learn about forum, blogs, and lots of other Internet tools like WordPress, Mambo, PhpBB, Gallery and etc…etc. The cost is very minimal, I only pay RM120 per year for the domain, server hosting, storage and bandwidth. The value I got from it is priceless.

For mothers and daddies out there who want to join us in mybabybay.com forum, please register yourself at http://mybabybay.com/forum . It is free.

My family went out for a quiet dinner today at Gurney Mall. My hubby and I could not decide what to eat. It seems that we are always choosing the same old food every time. Anyway we stroll down on all the eating-places outside of Gurney Mall and see what they have. We came across this “Fish & Co”. The waiter outside told us they serve seafood. First thing I asked them, do they have any baby chair. I really don’t like going to restaurant without a baby chair. I want my gal to sit in her baby chair when she is having her dinner, same goes for my boy. He is now big enough for an adult chair. He is tall so he has no problem reaching the table. They did have baby chair.

I didn’t know what to order. The waiter recommended crab (opps, I meant real crab). I guess everyone knows that they will always recommend the most expensive. Like crab will keep us full for the evening. I don’t want to go home and worried about supper. Anyway, I saw the side menu and order the Family Seafood Platter for 2. I also order a kid meal for my boy. My gal has her own porridge and will take some from our order.

Our dinner came:

RM: 48.90

Source of the picture was from myBest, member of forum.mypdacafe.com. Sorry we didn’t have a camera to take shots of it.

It looks delicious and it was great!! It has prawns, clams, calamari, rice with raisins and fish with chips. We also had 2 humongous drinks called the Jungle Freeze and Sharkie Freeze. It is a blend of tropical fruit juices in a giant mug.

My children also enjoyed it. My gal was enjoying the fish, rice with raisins, and her porridge. My boy was enjoying his kid’s meal with fish nuggets and of course his passion fruit drink. Both did not make any fuss. My hubby and I did have a great time.

Later we dropped by MPH to get some colouring books for my children. We had an expired voucher worth RM38. Fortunately, MPH still allowed us to use it. By the way MPH was newly renovated. It was close like for a few months. We really missed it.

Crazy mother like me started collecting milk powder scoop from Day 1 since my son was born. He was drinking Similac. My gal is on Isomil, heavy drinker too. These scoops can be toys for my children to play. I kept them in a basket. I have about 70 of them and counting.

Two days ago, as I was buying Isomil for my gal, the Abbott promoter ran up to me and told me in Hokkien to keep the scoop. I asked her why. She told me that I can exchange gift with it. However she didn’t have much information. It is like chicken and duck talk, she spoke Hokkien and I replied in English or Cantonese.

Being a resourceful mother like me, I surf the Abbott website, no details found there. No email address listed but a KL contact number. I asked another mum in KL to call for me and ask for details. She told me that it is an exclusive membership, sounded so grant. I need to fill up the form and send one scoop handle in for them to accept me as their exclusive member. I have already done that and now waiting for them to reply. I am not really sure why they want to make it so exclusive.

After becoming an excusive member, I can exchange all this scoops for gifts. Happy with my 70 scoops. Simply Precious!!

Today, I took my gal for MMR shot. She is supposed to take the jab 2 weeks ago but she was down will diarrhea. She is now 15 months. I carry her into the clinic, she was happy to see so many toys there. There was no queue, the paed called her in. My hubby just put her on the chair and she sat there by herself. She gave a cheerful smile while the paed checked her heartbeat. The paed ask my hubby to hold her while she jab. The paed did a good job, it was pretty fast. She didn’t cry at all. I was so proud of her.

Later she wave bye bye and gave the paed a flying kiss.

My son and gal are not afraid of the needle. Not like me. When I was young, when I saw the doc preparing the needle, I scream. I told the doc, please don’t jab me, just give me medicine will do. I remembered once, I was struggling when the doc jab me and the needle broke in my buttock. Ouch! I was a weak child and always get sick. When ever I have fever, the entire family will be worried. My fever can shoot up very high and followed by seizure. My mum will put a cloth wrap spoon beside my bed to prevent me from biting my tongue when I have seizure. I am not sure whether it is medically sound for that. Fortunately I grew out of it. Mum said it was due to the Chinese medicine (deer’s horn) that she gave me. Honestly, God saw me through.

Finally we got to go to Spice Garden with my family. It was the haze, wedding dinner and rainy weather that keep us from going. The Spice Garden is located somewhere in between Batu Ferringhi and Teluk Bahang of Penang. It was not what I expected. No doubt the scenery was very beautiful with lot of greens and water falls. The place has alot of hiking trails that you need to climb. Lots of stair way up and of course no place for stroller. I had to carry Emily to hike up. My children had fun and so did I (exhausted), to enjoy God’s creation again and always remind me there is someone out there who created the world perfect.

The above picture shows that Emily actually was holding a big giant spice called the Kayu Manis (Cinnamon).

My son was detected with acute bronchitis when he was 7-8 months old. He was admitted to the hospital. Doctor told us the cause is probably due to allergy. Being the first time parent, obviously we do not know what to do and was over worried. He didn’t want his milk for consecutively 3 days. All he drank was water. I tried to give him Ribena, doc allowed it but he didn’t want. I stayed with him in the hospital. At end of the 3rd day, I forced him to drink. He screamed and screamed, but when he sucked, he found that he was hungry and drank it all up. It was a real relief.

After that incident, every other month he gets runny nose and wheezing. I am not sure whether it is the environment and pollution that make him sensitive to dust. Before he was born, I shifted to a new house in a new area. After he was born, the surrounding neighbourhood was doing renovation.

Whenever he wheezes, we have to take him to the clinic or the hospital to nebulise. If you do not know what is the word nebulise, take a look at the picture. Anyway, it is a way to turn medicine liquid into vapour for someone to breathe to clear the lung airways that could be congested by mucus.

It was a real hassle to do that as I need to take him to the clinic like every 3-4 hours. Although where I work is near the clinic and babysitter place, I have to get permission to come out of my office to bring him there. Nighttime is the worst, because the clinic will be close and I have to bring him into the hospital (5 mins away from my house). The hospital will have its lengthy procedure and on top of it, it is very costly.

In the end, we bought the machine that only cost RM300 and we can administer it on our own. By the way, the clinic charges 10 per course, also depending on the prescribed medicine. It saves us a lot of money long term, and time too. On normal days, he had to take prolong medication called sykofen. He was not allowed to have any cold drinks, ice cream or watermelon. Poor boy deprived of ICE CREAM.

When he was 2, I tried something different. I bought something called Lampe Berger. It is similar to aromatherapy. The oil I bought is Eucalyptus that helps relieve the respiratory. I burned for him every night for 15 minutes. It also kills dust mites. By the way, he is still taking his daily medication. I can see a lot of improvement. On top of that, he takes multivitamin and cod liver oil.

The essential oil relieves asthmatic symptoms and respiratory canal infection, alleviates bronchitis and flu, cooling, stimulating to the nervous system, improves respiratory circulation, refreshing, reviving, stimulates mental activity and alertness, reduces pain and aching and sore muscles, disinfectant, repels insects.

When he was 3, he is totally taken off his medication. He only wheezes once a blue moon. Oh well, it could be that he outgrew it, lungs stronger and immune system is better. It could be that Lampe Berger, by the way, now I only burned it once every other week, sometimes once every month.

Now he can enjoyed his ice cream….

My hubby bought my son to the barber to cut his hair. As compare to the last incident of my hubby attempt haircut, it looks better this time round. I dare not cut anyone hairs, I always have nightmares of making mistakes in a haircut and the person is left with no hair.

Previous hair cut:
http://mybabybay.com/blog/index.php/2005/06/15/hair-cut/

Barber Style:

Last week, my son won first in writing competition in his pre-school cum nursery. I didn’t know that he can write that well. When he was 2, my MIL said that he can write well because of the way he holds the pencil. My jaw dropped when the principal told me the news. The funny thing is my hubby and my writing is not that good. At least mine is readable, my hubby’s writing is like the doctor’s.

I bought quite a few boxes of color pencils for my son. He loves coloring and joining dots. He also love painting, actually playing with water. There is this color pencils from Faber Castell which you color and put water over it, it becomes paint. He loves doing that. I also have a doodle board for him to draw and learn. I draw something and he guesses what it is.