Timothy:

Emily:

More to discover about them and myself….to be cont.

I was having a conversation with Emily before bed time while I was ironing and she was having her milk.

Emily: This is papa’s “sam” (aka shirt).
Mummy: Yes, papa sam
Emily: This is kor kor uniform.
Mummy: Yes, kor kor uniform.
Emily: See mummy, got sound one. *making some sound with her leg hitting the bed*
Mummy: Yeap, got sound.
Emily: Mummy, see so funny one.
Mummy: Yeap, so funny. Faster finish up your milk.
Emily: Mummy cannot scold Emily.
Mummy: 😯 Mummy didn’t scold you, just asking you to finish your milk.

She is growing to be kind of sensitive. I have to be careful my tone of voice with her. I think she learn it from her kor kor. She does imitate kor kor once in a while like:

Emily: Later buy for Emily yeahhhh…. *give a funny but fake expression*

Emily: Aha! There you ah!

Emily: Oh no, I donno.

Lately she allowed me to dress her up and tie up her hair. She looks so adorable and sweet. Now I can buy more pretty dresses for her.

Finally I have finished my exams and it is raining outside. The papers were difficult, as the answers were so close to each other. It was an objective paper. I am keeping my finger crossed and hope to receive good news 4 weeks down the road.

Since I am stuck in the hotel, by the way, I am in Singapore, right now. I called my children.

Emily: Hello Mummy.
Mummy: Hello.
Emily: Buy me teddy bear.
Mummy: Already bought.
Emily: I few, I few.
Mummy: Ask kor kor to come.
Emily: Kor Kor, where are you? Go, mummy called!
Tim: Buy me teddy bear.
Mummy: ok

*Tim ran away*. So much, for talking to them. I think they will grow up like me, do not like to talk on the phone.

I saw a few incidents with children in Singapore.

Incident #1:

Boy: Mummy, you must buy me this, or this or this.
Mom: *ignore his son*
Boy: Buy me this.
Mom: *ignore him*
Boy: *grumbling* *whining* *very frustrated*
I didn’t hear his exact words but he was very frustrated and scolding the mother. The mother was calm and spoke softly but not answering the boy’s demand. She said “Lets’ go.” The boy was still complaining.

Incident #2

Boy (about 3 year old) crying at the MRT station, I was not sure what. I was observing the boy and the mother’s reaction. There were also 2 other relatives. Mother was ignoring the boy’s cry. He kept crying and holding the mother’s leg. Mother folding her arms and ignoring him. Everyone was staring at the boy by now and he was so cute to be ignored. I felt like going there and saying sweet things to make him happy. It went on for almost 4-5 mins. Then I realized I was on the wrong platform, I didn’t observe further but I had to leave.

Finally Emily didn’t cry for consecutive 2 days in the morning when I send her to school. Yesterday hubby and I encourage her, if she doesn’t cry, we will get her a small present. Today we will give her roti canai. It makes us think whether this a motivation or a bribe?

I read some where that we should not bribe our children. Do we consider rewarding for doing well a bribe or a motivator? I watched a TV program whereby the teacher was rewarding the under achiever students with a gift, even though they score 35 /100. The teacher was motivating them to do well. However the principal think otherwise, saying it is not good to attract student to do well, with reward. If no reward, they will slack. Next scene, they show a corporate meeting where the manager told everyone, if they successfully complete the project, they will receive 5 months bonus. Ha! What an irony? :duh:

What do I think? Bribing a child is wrong but rewarding for good behavior is alright. Example if the child is crying, telling the child not to cry if you give him a candy is bribing. Next time, he will cry double as loud because he knows he will get a candy for stopping. However if the child shows good behavior like keeping his toys, rewarding him for doing so is alright.

Reward doesn’t have to be material, praise, a kiss, a clap or taking them to special places like park or playground will be rewarding. However, never over do it because it is no good if the child is always waiting for a reward if he shows good behavior. What do you think?

Emily: Papa, I few.
Emily: Mummy I few.
Emily: Kor Kor I few.
Mummy, Papa, Kor Kor: :think: :eh: :sc:

Mummy: Ahhh….I love you too, Emily. 😀

I was reading blogs on my computer in the study room. Emily took my calculator. I told her “You cannot take the calculator outside of the room to play, later papa scold”. She froze and took smaller step to try to leave the room with the calculator. “Mummy, take cane”. She still taking smaller steps and she dare not look at me with a deep thought expression. I took the cane and she gave the crying expression. I carried her back to the room. She cried for a short 30 secs. Later she said, “Cannot take out, later papa scold. Bye Bye Cya” :naughty: She left the room after placing the calculator back on the table. Mummy 1 Emily 0.

I told you before that whenever Emily wants to throw tantrum, she would go for the floor, even in public. She will not allowed anyone to touch her. If you give anything to her, she will push it or kick it away. There is nothing you can do but let her stay there for a while. I have no idea where she picks it from. She started this while she was about 8 months.

Kodak moments…

My aquarium broke in the middle of the night. In the morning, I woke up, I saw my hubby sweeping the broken glass. The cupboard that supported the aquarium gave up and the whole aquarium smashed onto my floor. Fortunately it happened while we are sleeping. Imagine if the children were there, they could have been hurt. :pray:

Poor hubby who is on MC had to clean up the place. We could save 3 fish out of 5. I was frustrated, my babysitter who was suppose to take care of Emily today, MIA. 😡

Enjoy the mess….

Last week was the worst week I ever had. It all started with a phone ring. It was my SIL, she told me Emily’s school principal called my MIL, saying Emily had a febrile seizure. We rushed to the hospital as the principal brought her in. When we reached there she was back to normal but feeling nausea. I carried her so that she will not feel frightened. She vomited a little on me. Her temperature was stabilized as she was given the suppository. She may inherit my fit as I had so many episode when I was young.

The principal told us she was normal, body temperature was all right. I did check her temperature before I left the house. Usually in the morning, she can wake up with a temperature. It was 36.9?C. It happened, she fell and started vomiting, the jerk begun. Quickly, the principal send her to the nearby hospital. It is 5 minutes drive or less. The emergency team gave her suppository and gave her oxygen. The nurses told us, her fever reached 39?C and was blue. The sudden rise in temperature gave her the seizure. All her teachers freak out because it was the first time they ever witness a febrile seizure.

She had to stay in the hospital for further supervision. Her fever was up and down. I had to stay with her. It went on for 5 days. Now she has recovered. I have fallen sick myself.

In the hospital, the nurses can be very ridiculous. They come in after midnight, I don’t mind them check the temperature and pulse. They will wake me up to ask me how much milk had my gal taken. Please, I need my rest too. Come back in the morning and ask me again. 😡 Later they will come at 6am, with the medicine and ask to feed the child. They are so robotic. After, staying there for 2 nights, I had it, I kept asking the doctor for discharged. I took wad leave after the 3rd day, took my gal back to have a better rest and shower. In the end, due to lack of sleep or probably the germs in the hospital, make me sick with fever, headache and flu.

After much said, I like what Dr Greene said in his article about febrile seizure that “In fact, some evidence suggests that children who have had febrile seizures end up brighter than their peers, on average!” :clap: Now I have to supervise her and Tim closely when it comes to fever. Any mild fever, they have to take fever medication.

By the way, doctor said, haze is the cause of poor health in children. Many children admitted with high fever. I saw one child whose temperature reached 40?C. 😯 Avoid taking your child out if you can, if it is hazy.

We went on a 3N Singapore-Phuket-Langkawi cruise (won from a contest) and spent 3N in Singapore. It was a great experience and bumpy vacation too. I am back, now I need a week’s MC to recover.

Logistic

My family flew down to JB on dirt-cheap AA flights on Sat night. The schedule was changed a week before departure to 1 hour earlier. Thank goodness for that, otherwise we will have to check into JB hotel nearing midnight.

We arrived JB about 9pm, checked in to Pan Putri, a nice spacious hotel. Next morning we took a cab directly across Singapore. There are certain licensed cabs that can enter Singapore. It cost us RM50 per cab. With family, it is better to take a cab, as we do not need to exit for custom clearance. Everything is done in the cab. The cab can only go direct to Queen St in Singapore and from there you can take the Singapore cab to anywhere. We went to Harbour Front to embark our ship Super Virgo.

A limousine cab is very costly from airport to Singapore. There are also bus rides from Senai Airport to Singapore. However with bus ride, you need to queue for custom clearance. If you want to save some money, it is better to take the airport taxi to any nearby hotel and from there, ask the hoteliers to call a cab to go to Singapore.

Similarly on our way back, we took a cab to Singapore Queen St -> Senai Airport (SGD55).

By the way, in this trip we went on cab, ship, MRT train, Sentosa cable car and buses.

Timothy

Tim started bad. He was fine when we arrived in JB. Next morning he had motion sickness as we were travelling to Singapore. He felt like vomiting and lost his appetite on the ship. He refused to take lunch. If he continue to refuse food, with tummy acid filling up, he will become worst. Mummy had an idea to coax him into eating.

Guess what make him alive? We went to the ice-cream bar and got him some banana split. How can anyone refuse a banana split? 😀 After that, he was back to normal. :clap:

By the way, Tim got 3 free Sentosa souvenir buses from special mystery draws. One for himself, one for Emily and one for his cousin brother.

Emily

Emily was worst. She has flu a week before we travelled and I thought she would be fine. Hey she finished a course of flu antibiotic, should be strong right? Nope, she had a bad urine infection. Totally lost her appetite, no breakfast, lunch and dinner. Occasionally after much persuasion she will take her milk. I have to feed her when she wants to eat. Worst is that, we cannot take any restaurant food into our cabin. We did sneak some muffins in. 😆

At Phuket, I did get her a bunch of banana, which she took. When we reached Langkawi, we took her to a nearby clinic. There wasn’t any paediatrician around in Langkawi and the ship doctor is hopeless, as he didn’t have any children medication. After visiting the Langkawi doctor, she seems a bit fine. She was sticky to me and always wants me to carry her, not the daddy. 🙁

When we reached Singapore, we took her in to the famous KK Children hospital, as she was not getting any better. After the examination, she told me that it was not serious and changed her antibiotic. It cost me SGD 65 for medication and consultation. The pharmacies that gave us the medication got confused with the doctor prescriptions. I was frustrated as it was late and the children haven’t had any dinner yet. After the doctor verified, we left without checking further. Later in the night as I was about to give Emily her medication, her new antibiotic was double (8.2ml) her normal dosage (4ml). 😯 If you were me, what will you do?

I didn’t give Emily her new antibiotic as her appetite came back after we saw the doctor. It was like magical. I continued her old antibiotic and she recovered. Thank God for that.

Super Virgo Cruise

The cruise was a great experience on a very beautiful ship. However most of the fun activities were around adult centric like gambling, disco, pubs and topless shows. First day, we had to get familiar with the places. It has from 4th – 13th floor. It is HUGE.

There were 3 restaurants where we can dine for free, Mediterranean International Buffet, Pavilion Room (Chinese) and Bella Vista (Western). The rest, we have to pay. There are Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Indian and Asian Bistro restaurant. There is plenty of food but most of the food is not appetizing to children. We went to the restaurants at odd hours to avoid the rush.

The ship was packed with people from all races, a huge percentage were Indians. There were many older folks and I bet they are on board because of gambling. I overheard some conversation on how their betting went in the casino. There were also BINGO running on certain hours and the jackpot was SGD24,000. I forgot to tell you that I don’t gamble, although I like to sit through a bingo game and watch people win.

There are tours which you can take when the ship embark in Phuket and Langkawi. Most of the tours are costly and in SGD. In Phuket, there is a shopping tour that cost 18SGD per pax. You can also book your own cab with a bargain to those places but make sure you are back before the ship leave.

There were free movies on board in the Picture House such as Chronicles of Narnia, Memoirs of Geisha, King Kong, Four Brothers and Fun With Dick & Jane. At the Lido, there were special gymnasts & dancers show called the Kingdom of Kung Fu and Tropicalia. They mixed dancing (samba, mambo & tango) with kung fu gymnast. Excellent. My children enjoyed it. Tim made a funny remark on their dressing, he said “Papa, power rangers”.

I brought the children to play at the children pool called the Neptune Wet & Wild. Funny the pool was with warm water. There is also a spa pool for adult. If I am not having my PMS (sigh), I probably will jump right in.

Fine Dine

Everyone is invited to a Gala Dinner on Tuesday night with a choice of 2-4 restaurants. We chose to do a fine dine in Bella Vista Western Restaurant with 3 course meal. Everyone Some will be dressed with formal attire. You probably think I am crazy to bring 2 children to do a fine dine. It turned out to be a great experience, except they didn’t use the right spoons or fork.

They were so well behave that the couple that sat behind us came over and complimented them. :clap: At least we didn’t disrupt their evening. They were from Australia.

More about our trip (Sentosa Island, Clarke Quay & DuckTour) in the next post….stay tune & enjoy. :dance:

Map of the Cruise Super Virgo Ship:

More cruise picture here.

Emily sulking on the kitchen floor, as usual. By the way, my dry kitchen floor is very clean. I have another wet kitchen which I do all the oily cooking.

Mummy: Emily, please do not sleep on the floor.
Tim: Yeah, ants come and bite you.
Emily: *ignore us*
Tim: Cockroach come and kiss… kiss… (*his brain working, thinking kiss is a good thing*) kor kor. 😆
Mummy: Why kiss kor kor and not Emily.
Tim: Kiss kor kor and bite Emily. Emily sleeps on the floor. :giggles:

Emily: *ran to mummy* Kor Kor crying. No ice-cream for kor kor.
Mummy: Why no ice-cream for kor kor?
Emily: Kor Kor crying. Only give Emily ice-cream.
Mummy: You still cough cough, cannot eat ice-cream.
Emily: *shake head* No more cough cough already.
Mummy: Go sayang Kor Kor first.
Emily: Kor Kor no cry ah.

The other day Emily was having fever, so I took her and Tim to the clinic. Ever seen children eager to go clinic? Both of them were very excited to go to the clinic. It has lots of toys in the waiting area. Plus, the doctor gives them surprises.

Emily & Tim took out their shoes.
Entered into the Clinic.
Emily stood on the scale to weigh herself. (12.2kg)
Emily grabbed a nice toy police car to play.
Doctor called Emily.
Mummy took her in and she sat on the chair closest to the doctor.
Doctor checked her heartbeat and temperature. (37.9)
Emily said “I want vitamin C *pointing at the big bottle*”

Doctor continued to examine her, as he didn’t hear her because he was talking at the same time. Tim ran into the room, asking for the same.

At this point, Emily doesn’t like it because the doctor wanted to poke her mouth to check the throat. Mummy had to hold her down. She screamed and doctor was able to view her throat. (Red)

Doctor took a few vitamins C for both Tim and Emily. Both ran out to play.

By the way, consultation with the doctor here is RM20 per child and the rest is medication. Usually the antibiotic is the most expensive medicine, the rest is like RM10-20. This clinic is good as they put name and date of the medicine on the label. That way, I know what the medicine is and when it will expire. All the medicine is kept in the fridge. It saves some money, as I do not have to keep buying fever, cough and runny nose medicine.

I will be MIA for a whole week, so don’t miss me yeah. :dance: I will tell you all about it after I returned.