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….

One of my forum members posted a couple of cute chopsticks sold in her online store. It is the Edison Trainer Chopstick from Korea. I was in a dilemma whether to get for my children or not. I was tempted to get. On the hand, I didn’t use those and I grew up learning to use chopsticks.

I ended up getting 2 pairs because they can use it when they are eating noodles. Noodles somehow taste nicer when it is taken with chopsticks, don’t you agree? They had fun with it. Imagine the first few meals, they fed themselves. I hope they keep that going.

With those chopsticks, they can pick up noodles, fish balls and other food except rice. They were pretty good at it too. Now they can join me and my hubby in eating noodles on their own.
It cost RM19 per pair for this design. There are other designs with cheaper price.

The rainy season just started in Penang. It started raining at 2am yesterday and was still raining in the afternoon. Oh by the way, every time we have heavy rain in Penang, there will be flood water everywhere on the road. My children like to see the flood water splashing when car drive through it. They called it “milo” water.

Anyway, I didn’t expect this, raining in my bedroom. Yesterday I was snoozing and suddenly felt water dripping on my feet. I thought I was dreaming or the water was from my air cond. I got up and switched on the dimmer light. I found a small hole up my ceiling. I quickly went to the bathroom to get a pail to hold the water.

My hubby was in deep sleep and so are my children. It is funny because occasionally the water will dripped on the fan blade and practically sprinkled everyone. Imagine none of them felt anything. Look how slumber they can be. If I didn’t wake up, my room will be flooded. :wall:

My ceiling is plastered and the top layer is wood. I don’t understand how the hole got there. Anyway, I will need to call the roof repair man to fix my roof too. My house has not reached 10 years yet, it started to have this small problem. Sigh.

I was asked by many bloggers on how to make a tutu without sewing. I decided to take pictures to show you how simple it can be, since I have to make 20 of them. I will be repeating this process many times. Remember to donate to my paypal if you like it, donate icon on the right. :giggles:

First you need to get the netting material for Kamdar. Kamdar is much cheaper than craft shops. Next you need to measure your child. You need to measure her waist and her waist to knee. Emily waist is 47cm and waist to knee is 35cm.

You need to place the netting material onto a table for cutting.

You need to double the “waist to knee” measurement that will be 70 cm for my case. You measure 70 cm and cut.

Next you need to roll it like what I have in the picture. Remember to roll it the right way to get 70cm strips. You need to measure 6 inches width to cut.

Now for the waist, you cut 3 x waist measurement in length ribbon, for me is 47×3 = 141cm. Tie a knot at the waist length marker so you know where to start and where to end. Tie the ribbon to a pillow or a chair before doing the following.

Here is how you tie it and it should take 20 minutes while watching TV. If you are doing a fairy tutu, you can mix the color. One white strip, one colored strip, one white strip, one colored strip…..etc

Hey here is the angel wing. I finally found a nice cloth to do the wing. Like it?

My church will do a mini Christmas production year end. I volunteered to take charge of the props. I have to make back drop with help, shepherd costume, sheep, angel costume and wise men. Yeah it is the manger scene where Jesus was born. I just found out that the Bible didn’t mentioned that angel have wings. Anyway I still have to do the wings for the children sake.

First up, I had to get the material. It is not easy because in Penang, there aren’t many craft shops. This production is with no budget at all. Therefore everything I get has to be low cost. I am glad Penang has Kamdar that sells variety of cloth.

For angel costume, I need to make a tutu. First I google for patterns and I found quite helpful instructions with beautiful tutu. The angel tutu will be all white but this one I made for Emily is a fairy tutu. It is not part of the Christmas production. Just for fun for Emily. Believe me it is very easy to make. Let me know if you want to make one, it cost less RM10 to do this and no sewing skills required.

Here is the picture…

Next up is the wings, hey any of you know where I can get cheap white stockings or pantyhose?

My FIL can be very funny at times and I must record this incident down. One morning he came to our home to help us to fetch the children to school. Sometimes it takes a while for Emily to fully wake up in the morning. I will turn on the TV for her to watch cartoon while she takes her milk. However the TV volume was very low.

My FIL picked up our cordless phone on top of the TV and ask Emily to increase the volume. :giggles:

Too bad Emily was half awake to notice that. She would have laugh at yeah yeah if she saw the cordless phone.

Yeah Yeah does the darnest thing. :clap: At least he cheered my morning up with his little humor.

It must happen on Friday, I am not sure why. Of all days, my children get sick on Friday most of the time, must be something about Friday. Friday is not a good day to be sick because none of my family pediatrician is available. There is no evening clinic and my children’s pediatric is off on Friday.

4pm: Friday afternoon, Emily threw up her lunch and vomited a few times. It must be a tummy virus. She even threw up while I took her to the hospital. Fortunately I brought a plastic bag with me. The doctor on duty confirmed that it is a tummy virus. He asked us to let her go on liquid diet, no oily and fried food. One interesting thing he said was, it will help her if she passes motion. That will get rid of whatever toxin in her.

I asked for a bottle of Probiotic to get some good bacteria for her tummy. I asked him about V or Y drinks, can I give her and get overdose of good bacteria. He said there is no harm because whatever overdose, the body will get rid. On top of that, those drinks may not have live bacteria in it too. Interesting isn’t it? Total cost me of the doc visit was RM138.00 and most of it was the medicine cost. Thanks goodness I can claim that back.

When we reached home, I gave her some medicine but she vomited everything out. Nothing can get in to her little tummy. I just gave her diluted Ribena, at least there is glucose for energy in a zippy cup. She zip whenever she wants to drink. She watched some cartoon and I sent her off to bed with no milk.

10pm: Later in the night, she had high fever and I gave her panadol. She threw up after panadol. Fortunately she threw up at the door of the toilet. I suppose she didn’t get to the toilet in time to throw up. Anyway, I cannot give her panadol again because I don’t know how much went in. I sponge her a bit and daddy put “cool fever” on her forehead.

After 2am: She slept and I monitored her throughout the night. Funny me, I was dreaming that she got up and wanted to vomit. I woke up and gave her the bucket, I placed bucket beside me in case she wants to throw up. I opened my eyes and she was sleeping soundly. However her body is still warm, I had to sponge her again. She drank water occasionally. I had the zippy cup next to her.

10 am: Saturday morning, she was feeling better. Fever is gone. I gave her 4oz of milk and she could drink. I asked her to sit on her potty to watch cartoon. She did and passed motion. Good for her. I gave her porridge with some tasty seed weed on it. She like it and ate some. She also had that for dinner. No vomiting. I didn’t give her any medicine but only 1 capsule of Probiotic. Doc said it is good to give 1 capsule every day. The rest of the medicine will be history.