Getting Ready

We are travelling back to JB early tomorrow morning. As usual, Sharlene's nanny is coming along with us. Good for me, as she will be there to entertain and handle my hyperactive toddler. Moreover, she knows my parents and my aunty. Tonight, I will have to take down 3 travelling bags from the cupboard and start packing my stuff. I hate packing the most. Although its a short trip, I still need to pack a lot of things especially with a toddler coming along with me - my personal stuff, Sharlene's clothing, milk powder, milk bottles, food, snacks, toys, books, potty and many, many more. 2 bags for Sharlene and 1 bag for daddy mummy. Luckily, hubby will always help me by packing his own belongings and transferring it to the car. This time, hubby is driving my old Honda Accord back because his 4WD is still in the workshop. Yesterday, I drove my 'old junk' to the mechanic for a thorough check and to change the car engine oil. I even asked the mechanic whether my 'old junk' is fit for long distance drive or not. And he replied, 'yes, of course can'. Let's hope we won't have any problem with this 'old junk' tomorrow.

Besides packing, I also need to buy something back for them.....not nice-lah go back empty-handed. Looks like, I have to drop by the supermarket later. Wow! loads of things to get ready tonight.

Sharlene Is Practicing Her Writing

Sharlene has been practicing her writing last Saturday and Sunday. I gave her a few letter tracing worksheets to write. She loves to write the letter 'C' and can write it very well even without the need to trace on the dotted lines. However, she needs to practice her writing skill more often as her pencil grip is still not strong and some of her letters are still crooked.



After completing her letter 'C', she continued with her colouring on the same piece of worksheet I gave her.



She was doing some counting exercise here. I told her to count the objects and thereafter to write the number of the objects at the side. She got it all right! And she was over the moon when I praised her effort. Kids just love to be praised!

Hot Stone Massage

My SIL who is very fond of massage has signed up for 2 massage sessions during a roadshow conducted by a spa center recently. As I have never tried a body massage before and also out of curiousity, I followed my SIL to the spa center 2 Saturdays ago. We spent more than 3 hours in the spa center and here's the whole process of the massage session I experienced:-

1. First of all, we had a full body scrub using a mixture of sea salt and essential oil. This is an exfoliating treatment and it suppose to exfoliates the skin and leaves it feeling velvety soft.

2. After we had our whole body scrubbed, my SIL was wrapped with a hot blanket for about 15 - 20 mins. Whereas I was told to sit inside a cubicle with an infrared heater for about 15 mins. Both methods have the same effect. I felt terribly hot inside the cubicle as the infrared heater really raised my body temperature and made me sweat profusely.

3. Then, we took a shower to wash off the sea salt. After the shower, I can feel my skin is so soft and smooth. This scrub certainly helps to exfoliate and moisturise my skin.

4. Next, it was the hot stone massage. This is a massage that uses smooth, heated stones. They are black in colour and have different shapes and sizes.

I enjoyed hot stone massage the most, it was so soothing and relaxing form of massage. The heat of the stones helps muscles release more quickly. And it definitely helps to melt away tension and stress! Its always worth giving yourself a nice treat like this once in a while.

Cheeky Girl

Sharlene likes to play with the scarf which I used to cover my computer upstairs. Last week after I came home from office, I went to my room for a shower. When I came out from my room, I saw her playing with the scarf again and this time she was trying to wrap the scarf over her head. How silly! As she can't do it herself, she asked daddy for help. Of course, daddy will give in to her request and look at her cheeky smile after daddy tied the scarf for her. She looks like a malay girl with a 'tudung'.


And she said she looks like 'emak'. She learned the word 'emak' from her Bahasa Malaysia book. The book shows a picture of a malay lady wearing a 'tudung' and that the word 'emak' begins with the letter 'e'. She continued to say "e untuk emak". That's how kids learn while playing.


So, instead of scolding Sharlene for playing with the dusty scarf, mummy said 'Sharlene, you are so clever'.

Savoury Rice Bowl Kuih

I am so fed up of eating the same old food packed from the coffee shop nearby my house. We will either have 'nasi lemak', 'chu cheong fun', wantan noodles, or pau for breakfast every weekends. So for a change, I decided to make savoury rice bowl kuih or better known as "Put Chai Ko" in cantonese for Sunday breakfast. After I put Sharlene to bed last night, I started to make the "Put Chai Ko" at around 10pm. It was very easy as I just need to mix the flour and then steam the pudding until set.

Here's the recipe which I have modified:

Ingredients:-
400g rice flour
65g wheat starch (tang mein fun)
salt
pepper
1.8 litres hot water

For the topping:-
Dried prawns, soaked and chopped
Preserved radish (choy poh), finely chopped
Chinese sausage (lap cheong), coarsely chopped and pre-fried
Garlic, minced
Red chilli
spring onion, chopped

Method
1) Combine rice flour, wheat starch, salt & pepper in a bowl. Pour in the hot water and mix well.
2) Cook the mixture over the stove until slightly thick.
3) Spoon the batter into small bowls and steam until set.
4) For the topping, fry the minced garlic and dried prawns until fragrant. Add in choy poh and continue to fry for a while. Add pre-fried lap cheong and toss well to combine.

Before serving the kuih for breakfast this morning, I steamed it hot again and then transferred it to individual plate and garnished with red chilli and spring onion. And it taste even better with sambal too. Hmmmmm! yummy.

Pictures of Beautiful Flowers

These are some of the plants found at my mum's garden. My mum likes flowers a lot and loves buying them too. I was surprised to see all these beautiful and colourful flowers at her garden when I visited her last December. Really love looking at it and here are the few shots I took for my safe-keeping.

Isn't this lovely?...

I think this is orchids....

...and another type of orchids here

very attractive purple flower....not sure what flower is this but it looks like daisies to me.

I wonder what flowers she will have in her garden this time. Sure to find out more when I go back next week.

Mid-Year Assessment

Every night before Sharlene goes to bed, I will check her school bag to look at what she has learned in the day. I will also check her pencil case to make sure her stationery are all intact, no missing items. Sometimes she forgets to bring home 1 item, another day she will bring home 1 extra item. I think most kids have this tendency of lossing their belongings every now and then. Both my nephew and niece have lost numerous items during their kindi days as well. As a preventive measure, I have stocked up dozens of pencils and erasers.

Besides school books every student will have a message book. If there are notices for the parents, the class teacher will stick the notice onto the message book, which is an exercise book. Parents are required to sign at the space provided after they have seen it. As I was browsing through Sharlene's books just now, I saw a notice pasted on Sharlene's message book. Its an A4 sized paper and when I looked at it once again, I saw the heading 'Mid-Year Assessment Contents'. Its a timetable for the kindergarten mid-year test, starting from 5 May until 8 May. What's more, the notice contains list of topics/questions for each subjects.

To me, the topics/questions given for each subjects are a bit too tough for a 4-year old. Looks like I have to start coaching Sharlene tomorrow for the forthcoming test.

Spending Quality Time With Daddy

Sharlene was looking at her Disney's Storybook with full concentration as daddy read the stories to her. Daddy usually comes home rather late and spend very little time with Sharlene. The only time daddy and Sharlene have fun and enjoy each other company is before bedtime. Almost every night they will play hide and seek where daddy will hide and Sharlene will find in our bedroom. This really irritates me sometimes and especially when Sharlene jumps on my bed and hides under the comforter. Daddy will do almost anything just to make his little girl happy.


Sometimes, Sharlene likes to look at pictures and tell stories using her own version. And I caught her here telling stories to her daddy.

'Balik Kampung'

My brother who is working in Melbourne has came back to JB last Sunday. He is there for a short holidays and will be back to Melbourne again very soon. I have not seen him for almost a year now. Since he is back in JB, I'm taking this opportunity to make a trip there to visit my parents, my relatives and hopefully to meet up with my friends too. Hubby and I have discussed about this and decided to 'balik kampung' on May 1st, reason being May 1st is a public holiday. We plan to spend our weekend at my mum's house and travel back to KL on Sunday. Sharlene will be very happy as she doesn't have to wake up early to go to school on Friday. As for me, I am anxiously waiting here for the day to come to meet all my loved ones.

A Caring Attitude

Yesterday morning before going off to work, I took out a knife to cut my fruits and at the same time I was also busy talking to my sil in the kitchen. As I was washing the knife and talking, I accidentally cut my left thumb and felt a sharp pain instantly. This wasn't the first time I cut my fingers and since this time was just a slight cut, I continued with my chores and later went off to work.

I was having fun with Sharlene and hubby at the living room after we had our dinner last night. I was so tired after a long day in the office but she doesn't seems to get enough of it. So, in order to distract her I shown her my cut thumb and said:-

Me : "Sharlene, look at mummy's thumb. Mummy got cut here and its very painful." (just pretending.....hehe!)
Sharlene : "oh, mummy! you must put plaster here" (her finger pointing at my thumb)
Me : "Its okay dear, no need plaster"
Sharlene : "No, no... must put plaster" (her face looked so worried and upset)
Then hubby interrupted our conversation and brought Sharlene to the kitchen to get a plaster for me. *slap forehead*

Shortly, Sharlene came to me with a plaster...
Sharlene : "Come mummy, I put plaster for you"

Me : "O.k" and I shown her my thumb.

Hubby helped Sharlene to take out the adhesive on the plaster and she placed the plaster neatly on my wounded thumb. I felt so touched by the modest thoughtfulness of my little girl.

I noticed on several occasions Sharlene has shown her caring and loving attitudes towards the people around her. For instance, she will comfort her cousin sister when she is crying, run to get her a tissue and wipe her tears, hug and kiss her.

At last, Sharlene got rid of her .....

....large, hard and painful stool with the help of enema and great effort on her part just now. She put up so much struggle when my sil, her nanny, hubby and I grabbed her to her potty after the insertion of enema. She was extremely terrified to push her poop out. All of us were there to encourage and support her and it was such a relief for her after she successfully pushed out her poop...she immediately gave herself a big clap and we too put our hands together and cheered!! Then, she looked at me with a sweet smiling face and I gave her a BIG hug with my tears rolling down my cheeks. What an eventful Sunday!!

Following this scary and upsetting episode, I should try to prevent this from happening again. Since birth, Sharlene has no constipation problem at all. I guess this was because she takes in a lot of fluid and was on breast milk for 1 year. I stopped breastfeeding her after she turns 1 year old on an attempt to conceive...but sad to say, I'm still trying now.

Early this year just before CNY she had her first constipation problem where she refused to eat and drink due to her hard and painful stool and it caused her to have an anal fissure. Last October, I changed her formula milk from NAN2 to Enfagrow A+ and I introduced Enfakid to her last week. I intend to change her formula milk as I heard that Enfagrow milk powder is quite heaty. Also I can't think of any other reasons that cause this besides her milk powder because she takes her fruits everyday and drinks more than enough water. So, I hope by changing her milk powder can help to prevent this chronic problem from recurring.

Oh dear, She Is Constipated Again...

Sharlene is not having her bowel movement since Friday and today will be the 3rd day if she continues to have this problem. Hubby and I have been very busy today coaxing her to sit on her potty. But she just refused to listen no matter how we persuade her. Hubby even threatened her with the cane as he really ran out of ideas to have her sit on her potty. This is really frustrating and causing lots of stress on us and Sharlene as well. My poor girl, how I wish she doesn't have to endure all these.

Once she becomes constipated for 2 days, her stool will be extremely hard and difficult to pass out. Even though she has the urge of passing motion, she will begin to hold in her bowel movements to avoid pain in her anus. She is really frighten of this painful feeling and that's why she refused to sit on her potty.

If she is still having stomach discomfort and pain, I may need to use an enema to force out the backed-up stool. I hate to do this because Sharlene had a very bad experience last time after I inserted the enema on her.

A Reading Corner for Sharlene

Sharlene reading at her favourite corner.

Hubby created this reading corner for Sharlene early this year. He bought this bookshelf from Ikea at a discounted price and fixed it himself. We put most of her books at the bottom 2 levels and a bean bag next to it and whenever Sharlene feels like reading, she will pick up the book she wants and sit on the bean bag to read. She goes to her reading corner almost everyday without being told. I love looking at her reading her books.

I started reading to Sharlene and showing picture books to her when she was a few months old. I still remember that she likes to bite her books very often and loves looking at pictures and flipping the pages. Now, she likes counting her numbers and reciting ABCs and is able to recognise A to Z (both capital and small letters). Sometimes she will ask me to read to her and both of us will sit on the bean bag together. I am really glad that she loves books and hope that her love for books will continue forever.

Hubby, you have certainly done a good job by creating a reading corner especially for Sharlene!

My little Food Monster

Sharlene can't stop smiling when she gets to eat her favourite fruit. She loves bananas and sometimes she can take 2 or more in a day. I will buy bananas every Saturday when I do my weekly marketing and I have to keep the bunch of bananas on top of the fridge to prevent her from taking it. If I put it on the table, she will definitely take and finish the whole bunch if not half of it in a day! I tell you, she is crazy over bananas!


Bananas have loads of nutritional benefits and eating bananas for breakfast can help kids to have better brain power. Research has shown that this fruit can assist learning by keeping kids more alert. Further, this tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium, iron and fibre....so, try eating a banana today!

I am sure most kids love to eat eggs. How could anyone hate an egg? Sharlene and her 2 cousins find eggs so irresistible. Sharlene takes her hard boiled eggs and sometimes half-boiled without soya sauce every alternate days for breakfast. She gets to bring an egg to school every now and then. Look at the way she enjoys her egg at the pic shown above. She finished her egg and licked the cup clean.

Eggs are an excellent source of protein. Although protein is more concentrated around the yolk, there is in fact more protein in the albumen. Eggs are easy to prepare in a few different ways and most of all they are delicious! I love eggs too.

Income Tax submission

yeah.....I finally filed my income tax via e-filing last night. I was a first timer using e-filing as I used to file my tax offline every year and always do it very near the deadline. So, I want to give it a try this year. Its really so easy, just log-in with your 16-digit pin number found in the BE 2007 form, enter some personal particulars and you will get your digital cert. From there, just fill in the necessary details in the form and at the end you will get to see the amount of tax payable....wow!! so advance. I must say its very convenient and fast too....completed it in less than 1/2 hr.

So, for those people who has yet to file their tax, online filing is a better choice.

Bad Habit

Lately Sharlene has this habit of picking her nose and she will do it very often in a day despite me telling her not to do it. Whenever she picks her nose, I will tell her to stop doing it or else she will have a big ugly nose. She will not listen and say, "got 'pei-si' inside my nose" and continue her business again. Sometimes, she will dig until her nose bleeds and then complain pain. That's how stubborn she is and will not listen to my advice most of the time. I really can't think of any method to stop her from repeating it other than telling her over and over again.

Last Sunday, Sharlene was sitting next to her cousin sister, she was looking at her playing the PS2. She was sitting there quietly and out of a sudden I saw her doing her 'digging nose' business again. What I cannot imagine is that she put her nose poop on her cousin sister's hair. OMG....it was so disgusting!! She continued her disgusting habit despite my niece screaming and me threatening her. Instead she gave me a cheeky smile. I was really furious at that time. I wonder why she always like to behave badly and act mischievously. I hope this bad habit of Sharlene will cease soon.

A Sleepy Day.....

That is exactly how I feel now. I felt so tired, sluggish, listless and even got a slight headache from the time I woke up this morning. I am feeling sleepy now and can't concentrate well on my work...so unproductive today. sigh! and am waiting for the clock to hit 5.30pm.

I know the reasons for all these lousy feelings are because of not getting enough sleep again. Sometimes I hope I can have more time...to attend to the stuff I like, to play with my darling, to chat with hubby, to read, and also to sleep. I always tell myself to sleep early as I have to wake up at 6am every working days but can never do it. Only on rare occasions like not feeling well, I will go to bed early. Hubby always says that I do things very slowly and take my own sweet time to do it. I admit that I can be very fussy and particular at times, and that's why I am slow in doing my errands.

What a terrible Monday!! Hope I will have a better day tomorrow or else I will never get my work done.

Sharlene's 3rd Birthday

October 21st last year was the day Sharlene turned 3. From a small little helpless baby @ 2.95kg at birth, she is now an active, talkative and healthy toddler.

After my mother-in-law passed away last September, we were not supposed to have any celebration for 1 year. Therefore, Sharlene only had a very simple but memorable 3rd birthday last October.

We and the gang [sister-in-law (hubby's elder sister) and her 2 kids] went to IUtama on that day and indulged on the chocolate and ice-cream fondue at Haagen-Dazs Cafe. I have been wanted to try the chocolate fondue for so long. And omg.....it was sooooooo good! The fondue was served with mini scoops of Haagen-Dazs ice-cream, slices of fresh and sweet banana, green apples, strawberries (Sharlene loved the fruits the most). Besides that, there were also chocolate chip cookies, brownies and waffle biscuits. The kids just can't stop dipping all these in the warm melted chocolate and coating it with the roasted chopped nuts.

Later, hubby bought a heart shape Strawberry Chocolate Cake from Secret Recipe home and we had another round of feasting.

Darling Sharlene was eyeing for the strawberries buried under the cake again....and I was glad that she had so much fun on her birthday.

Green Tea Ice-Cream

This picture was taken when we were waiting for our food at a restaurant together with hubby, my mum and dad. Sharlene always request for ice-cream whenever we are in a shopping complex. This green tea ice-cream was bought by her 'Ah Yi' (my sister). My sister was there too with her boyfriend. When my sis gave her the ice-cream, she was amazed by the colour, then she tasted it but don't really like the taste of it. Hence, daddy and mummy have to finish the rest of the ice-cream for her. I think she still prefers McDonald vanilla ice-cream.

Bread For Lunch

I have been taking bread for lunch for 3 consecutive days this week. On Monday I had bread with butter, Tuesday bread and cheese and today bread with peanut butter. I think I got 'jangkit' by my bosses who have cheese toast for lunch everyday. Actually, it is more healthy to just take a light meal in the afternoon rather than rice or noodles. Besides that, you will have a slimmer waistline too. I realized that if I take a heavy lunch, I will feel very lazy and sleepy after that and also can't concentrate fully at my work. So, for those of you who wants to jaga badan, try to take bread for lunch!! Tomorrow, bread for lunch again!

I Want to go Swimming Mummy!

Sharlene used to bath in this bathtub since she was a baby. It was a hand-down from her cousin sister who is 7 years old now. I have since kept it in the store as she no longer needs to use it. A few weeks ago, Sharlene asked me to bring her for swimming when she saw her cousin brother going to the clubhouse for swimming lessons. She said, "I want to go swimming mummy". Hubby and I will bring her there occasionally but that evening's weather looks rather cloudy, therefore we decided not to bring her. As she is very persistent in getting things she wants, it struck my mind to take out the bathtub from the store and tell her she can swim in it and it will be very fun. She immediately changed into her swimming suit (with my help, of course) and asked me to fill up the bathtub with water. And there she goes....swimming happily in her exclusive private swimming pool.

She got excited over a kitten

A few weeks ago I took Sharlene out for a walk outside the house. As we were walking I saw a small little kitten walking towards our gate. Sharlene who is very fond of small animals quickly ran towards the kitten direction and tried to catch it. I told her not to touch the kitten but she would not listen. Instead, she caught hold of the kitten and wanted to bring the kitten home. I told her that she is not to bring the kitten in the house. She held the kitten in her arms tightly and walked to the car porch despite me telling her to let go of the kitten. After carrying and talking to the kitten at the car porch, she finally decided to put her down. The poor kitten must be really terrified. After that, I quickly brought her into the washroom, washed her hands and feet and changed her clothing.

Not feeling too good

I am having blocked nose since yesterday evening and sneezed very badly today. I think I am going to fall sick soon as I can feel my body heatiness and even have slight runny nose now. I notice that once I do not have enough beauty sleep, I will fall sick easily. Achooo.... There I sneezed again.

I am definitely going to pop in a flu pill before I sleep tonight. I am also going to make some preserved lime ('kek chai') drink for tomorrow morning. Hopefully, I will get better tomorrow as I have lots of work to do in the office. I also wish to get well soon so that I can kiss my sweetie girl. She didn't get a goodnight kiss from me tonight as I was afraid to pass on the virus to her.

I am very frighten if Sharlene gets ill because she will refuse to take her medicine despite us coaxing her to take it and she will wail her lungs out everytime. Hubby and I will put on some silly acts just to coax her to drink her medicine. I had tried to put in the medicine in her milk but that doesn't work as well and she will end up not drinking the milk at all. And I have to discard the whole bottle of milk. What a waste!

Yummy, yummy strawberry!

Wow! look at the red and juicy strawberry she's eating. She loves strawberry and eventhough it has a sour taste, she will still enjoy it and will ask for more and more! This girl of mine is absolutely crazy over strawberries.

Sharlene and her numbers

Sharlene can now count from 1 through 30 quite well and is able to recognise the numbers 1 to 10 perfectly. She learned her numbers by looking at books and I used to teach her by flashing home-made number cards to her. Another way of teaching her numbers is by playing hide and seek. First of all, I will hide some home-made numbers cards in the room (at places that are easy for her to locate) and ask her to search for the cards. After she found it, she must say out the number on the card to me. She enjoyed this game very much. She gets really proud when she found the cards and got the numbers correctly. I am proud of her too!

As for writing the numbers, I will dot the numbers and then she will trace it. At the moment, she can only write number 1, 4 and 7 independently, that is without the dotted lines. The rests of the numbers are out of shape. Lets hope she can practise more often on her writing to improve her skill.

sweetie sharlene

now my sweetie looking at her daddy and wondering.............

She loves dogs

Here is Sharlene searching for dogs sleeping under the car at my mum's house. My mum's house has 3 dogs and whenever we go back there, Sharlene will definitely wants us to bring her to see the dogs. I usually will not let her touch or go near the dogs. Most of the time she is not afraid of them and even request to sayang them. *pengsan*

Office lunch at Hilton Hotel

Yesterday my bosses, colleagues and I went for office lunch at the chinese restaurant of Hilton Hotel called 'Chynna'. We ordered the dim sum set lunch comprising of (1) steamed fishball, 'har kow' and 'siew mai', (2) bird's nest soup (i wonder how much ajinomoto they put as it was really delicious), (3) 3 types of fried dishes, (4) scallop congee and (5) mango pudding with ice-cream for desserts. Very nice! But I must say that it was a bit too pricey at RM88++ per person just for dim sum.

We enjoyed our food very much and hopefully our bosses will bring us there more often in future.

Sharlene started pre-school

Sharlene started pre-school this year. She goes to a kindergarten nearby our house. I still remember how she reacted on her first day of school. Hubby and I brought her there. She refused to get down from the car and after we persuaded her, she relunctantly went inside the school. Then she started to cry and cling on to us like a koala bear. I told hubby that we just have to leave her with the teachers because our presence there will only make her wail even more. Finally, we left her with the teachers and went to pick her later. When the teacher opened the classroom door, she saw us standing outside the gate. She was smiling and running to us happily.


She is slowly adapting to the school life now. She is a very shy and timid girl since young and seldom mix with other kids. However, her class teacher said that she is totally different in the classroom. She is willing to participate and very helpful too. I think she just needs more time to get use to the school life.

My First Post

Welcome to my blog.

After successfully created my own blog, I'm finally writing my very first post here. This blog is about my life as a mummy to my 3 years old daughter, Sharlene Chang. She was born on 21st October 2004 and since then I have started my never-ending journey as a mother. It is easy to cradle a baby but it requires lots of love, dedication, patience and support to raise and educate a child from birth until adulthood. I’m thankful to have a loving and understanding husband whom I can fully rely on, especially in the bringing up of our daughter. This blog is mainly about my little girl, a place where she can read and know more about her childhood.

Further, this is also a place where I can jot down my dreams, my joy, my sadness and my worries as a wife and mother.