I heard this from a friend of mine and it is a true funny story.

Sometimes when you buy children cereal like honey stars or coco crunch, you get free toy or free stuff. It is written outside the box. If you get milk powder, you also sometimes get free tumbler, lunch box or free children stuff. I can tell you my children look forward to all these free stuffs to.

This child like any other children always looks for these free stuffs. One day, his mum brought some chips that have the word “FREE” in front of the packet. He was looking and looking inside the pack of chips.

Mum: What are you looking for?
Child: Free stuff.
Mum: What free stuff?
Child: In the front of the chips packet, it is labeled FREE. *He didn’t know how to read the other word.*
Mum: *She read aloud* Cholesterol FREE. :giggles:

The child was a little disappointed when the mum explained to him.

I had the last Häagen Dazs voucher left and I decided to take my children for an ice-cream treat. Boy, were they excited.

They took the menu. They picked a choice together and went for banana split. Timothy wanted raspberry, Emily wanted Mango and mummy go for Belgian chocolate. Yummy!! However both of them, like my choice better, sapu (wipe out) my chocolate and theirs. They told me that I can have the banana. :roll eyes:

Well the pictures paint a thousand words:

Pop over to parkbay to read about the Melamine Products in Malaysia. There are pictures too!

I would want to remember today because it is one of the joyous occasions of my life. My mother accepted Christ. I have been praying for her for a long time since I was in secondary school. Praise God for accepting her. Now I have to continue praying for my dad.

Do you know what it means? It means that she can be in heaven with us. It means she will have life after death. So many people are so troubled at one point in their life and many are afraid to die. If you know where you are going after death, maybe you will not be afraid. Yes, it may mean separation with your love ones. However the separation will not be forever.

I remembered my mom used to scold my sister and I, when we refused to put joss stick on the altar. She was a staunch believer of Taoism and Buddhism. She will celebrate every Chinese festival and prayed to many idols. After a while, she gave us our freedom to believe anyone we wanted. I am glad that everything she did is the past and now she has a new journey with God. God will prepare her for that, the creator of the Universe, isn’t that great?

Aside from this, my hubby celebrated my blood result by taking me and the family to TGIF. Although the meal is not that great but the evening was fun!

Both Timothy and my hubby is a morning person. However Emily and I are not. Emily has a hard time waking up in the morning, no matter how early she sleeps. Lately she been acting up and telling me she doesn’t want to go school. However when she is in school, she will tell a different story. She doesn’t dislike school but I think she prefers to sleep in.

Previously she didn’t give me much trouble and I suspect only after she recovered from her fever she started acting up. She wanted to stay home with mummy. Every day I been talking to her and hope that she will be a good gal in the morning. The funny thing is she will tell me she won’t cry tomorrow but when morning come she just cry! Let’s hope she can break her crying cycle.

Anyone has any tricks to make this gal of mine wake up automatically and go to school without any fuss?

Last Raya Holidays, I was down in KL with my family. We had to get a white pair of shoe for Emily’s concert. We shopped in Mid Valley and she was so excited because we were shopping for her white shoes. There were a few pairs but some were too small and some were too big. Finally found 1 that she like and had the right size.

I also got a pretty orange cloth for Jess to sew a dress for her. I cannot wait for Jess to send that to me.

Papa always complained that Emily has messy hair. We wanted to get her a hair band. We went to this shop called Sinma. I saw a few nice hair bands for Emily. She loved it. She also wanted a necklace and a ring to go with it. Fortunately for my pocket, they have a set with hair band, ring, clips and necklace. Here is what makes a gal pretty…

Hop over to parkbay.net to check out why I am so happy today.

Why oh why, I had my first fever of 2008 and it has to be on a Friday night. Don’t worry I am all recovered now after a day of sleep. You know that I haven’t used any of my 22 days of MC. How sad. In US at least for my company, their leave consist of both MC and day off together. You can even utilize the MC when your child is sick. Here, you cannot really do that but to take your own day off for that. However I have a nice manager who allows me to work from home to take care of them.

Anyway how the fever started? Both my children had high fever during the weekdays. Both of them had higher than 39°C. They had bad throat infection and the antibiotic really works from them. After 2 courses, they are recovered and gave it to me. Both were dancing on the sofa on Friday night. Maybe both of them had drained my energy out.

On Thursday night, Tim had 39.5°C and I inserted a suppository for fever. I put him to sleep, I saw the suppository pill on the door of the bedroom. Sigh, I am not sure if it fell off while I carried him to his bedroom or what. What if it wasn’t the one I inserted in? I hate when this thing happen. I decided to wait for 30 minutes and kept sponging him. I realized that it was the suppository I inserted in that fallen out because his fever didn’t go down. I inserted a fresh one and waited for another 30 minutes. Finally his fever came down and I was relieved.

I always wanted to blog about this but I always forget about it. Everyone tells me that Timothy is tall for his age. Yeap, he follows his papa’s gens. Having a tall boy is very convenient for mummy. He is able to help himself with the toilet light switch by 3.5 years old. Now he is helping his sister with it. He is also able to get cups and bowls from the kitchen bars by himself. Of coz the kettle area is prohibited area for both of them.

Beside the toilet light switch, every morning when he wakes up early, he walked downstairs and helped himself with the lights and fan. Of coz he also switched on cartoons himself. He is an early bird also from papa’s gens.

That’s the good thing of having a tall boy. I am waiting for Emily to reach the toilet light, she is 1 inch away. Let see whether he can make it by 5.

Timothy Height Chart

Emily Height Chart

School Days: 5 Jan 09 to 13 Mar 09
School Break: 14 Mar 09 to 22 Mar 09

School Days: 23 Mar 09 to 31 May 09
School Mid Year Break: 1 Jun 09 to 14 Jun 09

School Days: 15 Jun 09 to 21 Aug 09
School Break: 22 Aug 09 to 30 Aug 09

School Days: 1 Sep 09 to 20 Nov 09
Year End Break: 21 Nov 09 to 3 Jan 09

Penang Public Holidays
1 Jan 09 – New Year’s Day
26-27 Jan 09 – Chinese New Year
8 Feb 09 – Thaipusam
9 Mar 09 – Prophet Mohd Birthday
1 May 09 – Labor Day
9 May 09 – Wesak Day
6 Jun 09 – Agung’s Birthday (aka King’s Birthday)
11 Jul 09 – Governor’s Birthday
31 Aug 09 – Merdeka Day (Malaysia Independent Day)
7 Sep 09 – Quran Day
20-21 Sep 09 – Hari Raya Puasa
17 Oct 09 – Deepavali Day
27 Nov 09 – Hari Raya Haji
18 Dec 09 – Awal Muharram Day
25 Dec 09 – Christmas Day

In total, Penang has 17 public holidays which 2 of it does not apply to me. I do not have Awal Muharram and Quran days as holidays because my company had to restrict the number of holidays. I bet Malaysia has the most public holidays in a year. Maybe it is because we are a multi cultural country. I hope all of us act like one.

Next year Chinese New Year’s days are not in my favor. There are no school holidays surrounding it and I probably have to take my son away from school to go back to home town. Do I have to write a permission to the school to do that? What are the school rules and am I allowed to do that? Any mom cares to share?

From next year onwards, I will have to plan vacations during school holidays and maybe have to rush with other parents. 2009 is not a good year for me as my company decided to cut back a lot of rewards because economy doesn’t look so bright. Most of us said, at least we still have a job or no pay cut. My hubby said, we don’t need so much money and he is right. We shall live as contented souls.

1 Tim 6:6-8
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

Yesterday before bed, I had a fun time with my children. We switched roles, pretending to be each other:

Timothy, the mummy: Faster go brush your teeth now or I get the “sar tan” (aka cane)

Emily, the Timothy: It is Transformers, not transform us. *with angry expression*

Mummy, the Emily: Don’t touch me, go away. *whining sound*

I shall go no further otherwise all our secrets will get out.

We had a good laugh. We also acted out how the other person actions. It is really a good way to see ourselves in their eyes and let them see themselves too. You can try it at home with older kids.

I created a way to discipline my children by themselves. I told them during Christmas each will receive a present. The size of the present will depends on how good they are. When they are naughty, don’t listen to me or disobedient, I will start to put 2 hands apart and shrink, saying your present is getting smaller..*tit* *tit* *tit*. Instantly they will obey or listen.

Of coz, when they are good by doing things on their own, I will say “your present is growing bigger, bigger, bigger….oooh mummy cannot carry”. They will be very happy and excited. Emily would say, “Quick ask papa to carry!” Let’s hope this will lasts till Christmas.

My children love to play with water for whatever reason. They will be very delighted playing in the pool or river. I am glad in Penang, there are places for water play that is close to nature. We went to a little water fall in Botanical Garden. I must say that it is clean and beautiful. In fact my children love it there.

It is a good place to bring your children there and have a picnic by the greens. You can catch small fish, play sand and water. I bet your children can have hours of fun and best of all, it is free!

Isn’t the water fall beautiful? By the way, I had a wedding photo shot there too….