Make Good Use Of Potty Time

Even though Sharlene is turning 4 years old soon, she still sits on the potty to do her poo poo business everyday. She has 2 potties, 1 for downstairs and 1 in my room. She refuses to sit on the toilet seat despite me telling her to go to the bathroom every time she has the urge. However, from time to time she’s willing to sit on the toilet seat to wee wee only.

Sharlene was potty trained at a very young age. Since then I used to show her books and read to her when she was on the potty for her poopie business. This is also a good way to keep her longer in the potty. Although she is very playful, hyperactive and doesn’t quite like to go to school but she loves books. She can only sit still and be quiet for a moment when she’s looking at books. She cannot even sit quietly throughout any TV shows. She has acquired the habit of reading and writing whilst sitting on the potty. When she is too engross in her books, she will sit there for more than half an hour and I’ve to tell her to stop reading and get up before she complains of painful bum for sitting too long in the potty.

During weekends I spend a lot of my time with her and that includes potty time. I will make good use of that time to read to her, let her do some writing and math exercises.


Two days ago, I gave her a sticker activity book which she did the exercise (while sitting on her potty) by choosing the relevant stickers and sticking it on the correct space provided in the book. I guided her by pointing the words to her after she'd placed the stickers on it.


She had so much fun playing with the colourful stickers and looking at the attractive pictures. She even asked me for more sticker books.

So Frustrating!

After coming home from dinner just now, I prepared Sharlene for bedtime, brushed her teeth, washed her bum, put her on the pyjamas and read her a story book. After she has gone to bed, I flipped through the newspapers. And although I was very tired after reading the papers, I sat in front of the computer trying to write a post in my blog but I was so frustrated by the slow connection of streamyx. I really do not know what was causing the slow connection to most websites the whole of today. This morning the computer got 'hang' a few times when I tried to open some kids' websites for Sharlene and her piao cheh. I switched off and on again the computer several times. Really frustrating! And I hope it will not happen again tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers cross here.

Okay, got to jump to bed now as I need to wake up early tomorrow morning to exercise.

Sharlene Loves Noodles

Sharlene loves to eat noodles and most of the time she can finish the bowl of noodles that is given to her. She and her 2 cousins like noodles very much especially instant noodles which are not nutritious at all. They will finish up everything including the soup that is full of salt and ajinomoto...and that's most horrible! If Sharlene wants to eat instant noodles, I'll tell her nanny to either give her the noodles without the soup or cook it with homemade chicken/vegetables soup. I noticed most families have stock of instant noodles in their home. And my house is no exception as we always have stock of different types of instant noodles.


Last Sunday, we went to Tesco, Kota Damansara for shopping. After shopping and the kids had fun at the indoor playground, we'd lunch at one of the restaurants in Tesco. Guess what Sharlene had for lunch on that day? Its noodles again. I ordered a plate of cantonese fried meehoon and a glass of hot barley. The serving for the noodles was quite big. So, instead of ordering something else for Sharlene, I shared the big plate of noodles with her.

Steamed Savoury Glutinous Rice

As mentioned in my earlier post, I intend to make 'Loh Mai Kai' (steamed savoury glutinous rice)...... and I finally did it during the weekend. I took out my recipes file, searched for a recipe on 'Loh Mai Kai' and found one that was quite simple to do. There are a few version of 'LMK' recipes in my collection. I like to follow recipes that are easy and straightforward. Too lazy to read those lenghty and complicated ones. I modified the ingredients and used - 2 deboned chicken thighs, chinese mushrooms and chinese sausages (lap cheong). I wanted to put 'char siew' too but it wasn't available in the wet market. I followed the method thoroughly, arranged the ingredients neatly in the bowl and filled it up with the glutinous rice. As we intend to have the 'LMK' for breakfast on Sunday morning, I kept it in the fridge after steaming.

The above pic was taken during breakfast on Sunday morning. We had homemade yummy 'LMK' with sweet dessert cooked by Sharlene's nanny.


This's the bowl of 'tong-sui' I had for breakfast. The main ingredients are pear, honey dates, dried longan and white fungus.

Are You Smarter Than A 4 Years Old?

I received this e-mail from a girlfriend 2 days ago. Okay, let's see if you can qualify by answering the following:-

A pre-school test for you.......

Which way is the bus below travelling? To the left or to the right?


Can't make up your mind? Look carefully at the picture again.




Still don't know?

Primary school children were shown this picture and asked the same question. 90% of them gave this answer:

"The bus is travelling to the right".

When asked, "Why do you think the bus is travelling to the right?"

They answered:

"Because you can't see the door to get on the bus."




How do you feel now???

Bet I know


So, did you pass the above test? Or feel like knocking your head on the wall, just like me.

Say Goodbye To Diapers

Ever since Sharlene refuses to wear her diapers at night, I have started to train her - by waking her up in the middle of the night to pee in her potty. She is too sleepy and lazy to walk to the toilet. After trying for a few nights, I managed to catch the right timing to wake her up. Sometimes hubby will remind me if I am too engross with the TV, reading newspapers or sitting in front of the computer. The right timing is between 11pm to 11.30 pm if she goes to bed before 9.30 pm. Besides that, I will also restrict her water intake before bedtime. She will empty her bladder another time if she wakes up again later and she will then jump straight on my bed and sleep in between hubby and I. After that, she will stay dry until the next morning. However, incidents of wetting the bed could happen sometimes if she’s in deep sleep and that’s the time when she’s unable to control her bladder.

She has been without her diapers for more than a month now and I have since put away all the balance diapers and pull-up pants. And I’m thinking what should I do with the remnants of it?? Keep it, give away...? Anyway, so glad that hubby doesn’t need to spend on diapers anymore. Another BIG saving here.

Delicious Porridge

We had porridge for lunch a few Saturdays ago. This bowl of porridge here looks very plain and dull but I tell you it tastes very delicious and smooth. The main ingredient for the porridge is salted chicken and nothing else, maybe some salt only.

On our way back from Penang 3 weeks ago, we stopped over at Bercham, Ipoh for lunch and there we saw a shop selling salted chicken. If I am not mistaken, Ipoh is rather well-known for its salted baked chicken. At first my SIL bought only 2 boxes (1 box consist of 1 whole 'kampung' chicken) and its very cheap, only RM16 per box. Here in K.L is selling at above RM20. We tasted the chicken on the spot....so terrible eating with our fingers. It was finger licking good as the chicken was SOoooo tasty, tender and juicy. Not too salty and it has a nice aroma of 'dong quai' (chinese angelica), a type of chinese herbs which they put about 4-5 slices of it into the chicken cavity. My food enthusiast SIL bought another 6 boxes before we left the place. You must be wondering what are we going to do with so many boxes of chicken. Well, we distributed a few to neighbours and friends and the balance kept in the freezer for own consumption, of course.


We still have 1 box left in the freezer and here's the picture of the plastic bag with the name of the shop and its address. I didn' take pictures of the chicken as it was wrapped up in paper and the box is full of ice bits. What do you think I should do with this last chicken I have in my freezer?? I thought of steaming it for dinner this week.....err still considering or maybe, another round of porridge this weekend!

Fridge Magnets

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Anybody likes to collect fridge magnets? Well, my hubby does and he has quite a number of collection over the years. Our refrigerator (the freezer part) is now full of his fridge magnets collection from different places and countries. He bought some cute and funny magnets when we visited my brother in Perth, Australia last year. And some were bought in New Zealand a few years ago. Some are bought locally. During our recent trip to Penang, he also bought some really nice and colourful magnets. Whenever we're on holidays, hubby will sure look for souvenir shops.....what else? hunting for fridge magnets and sometimes he spends too much time looking at the fridge magnets and choosing them. Sometimes, cannot 'tahan' him. Nevertheless, collecting fridge magnets is an inexpensive hobby and the magnets can be used to decorate the fridge and to hold paper notes. Perhaps, I can put up Sharlene's magnetic ABCs too!

Steamboat Dinner

Instead of going out for dinner on Father's Day during the weekend, we had steamboat at the comfort of our own house on Saturday night. I find steamboat is the easiest to prepare and very healthy too, just have to get the food and dump everything into a big pot of soup. Very simple and no hassle but the maid will have lots of washing to do after that. SIL and I went to the market early in the morning to buy foodstuff for the steamboat and later we went again to Carrefour to get some more ingredients.

Here are some of the seafood we got from Carrefour supermarket - the price is reasonable and most importantly, the seafood is fresh too. Sharlene and I love those quail eggs but I bought a few of it (only 15 eggs) as they are very high in cholesterol.


We added a side table to put other steamboat ingredients. The table was full of 4-5 types of vegetables, soft beancurd, egg tofu, enoki and button mushrooms, assorted fishballs, frozen shrimp wanton, brown sotong, noodles and etc. We had so much food until we left out one of the vegetables at the end of the dinner. Despite the abundance of food we prepared, we managed to finish quite a lot of it.

The BIG pot of soup here - before all the ingredients were thrown in. We put in 1 whole chicken, 'wong nga pak' (chinese cabbage), turnip and soybeans to boil the soup for a couple of hours. The soup taste real good and even better after everything were added in! It was such a satisfying dinner.

Father's Day Cards By Sharlene

This Father's Day card was presented by Sharlene to daddy early this morning. With my assistance, Sharlene completed this card yesterday evening before daddy reaches home. I kept the card and only gave it to her this morning when she wakes up. She wished daddy Happy Father's Day and handed this lovely card to him. Daddy was overjoyed to receive the best gift ever from his darling girl.

Actually, I didn't helped her much...I just cut the big heart shape and she did the glueing and pasting the piece of 'heart' shape onto the front page of the card herself. Then, I spelt the words for her and she slowly and carefully wrote it down with a black magic ink pen. I was so afraid she will simply scribbles and mess up the card. But I think she did quite well except for the small letter 'a' which looks like number '9'.


Here's the inside of the card which I told her to write 'Sharlene loves daddy'. She confidently wrote her own name and the rest of the words were spelt by me. I have taught her to spell and write her own name sometime ago. She is quite a fast learner and it only takes her a few days to master spelling and writing her own name. I hope she can write neater and in a straight line the next time. She definitely needs to practise her writing more often.


And this purple looking card was done by her in the pre-school. Daddy must be elated and proud to receive these 2 lovely Father's Day cards from his dearest daughter.

Lunch At Hilton Kuala Lumpur

This afternoon my bosses brought the office staff including myself to Hilton Hotel for lunch. We had dim sum and seafood noodles at the chinese restaurant called 'Chynna'. I was hoping and looking forward to go to other restaurants in the hotel but they brought us to the chinese restaurant again.

Both Hilton and Le Meridien Hotels are within walking distance from my office but my bosses prefer to go to Hilton instead. I noticed they fancy dim sum a lot as they like to order dim sum whenever we're out for office lunch. Haizzz..so boring lah. I'm not really a dim sum fan but I love to eat 'loh mai kai' (steamed glutinous rice). I will not miss out this dish when I go for dim sum. I have been planning to try my hands on making 'loh mai kai' and even got my mum to buy 1 dozen of 'loh mai kai' bowls for me. And that seems so looooong ago. Looks like I really need to search for recipes to do it. Hopefully, I get to taste my own home-made 'loh mai kai' very soon.

A Fish Bone Stucked In The Throat

No, its not me. This unfortunate incident happened to one of my office colleagues. She accidently swallowed a 'ikan kembong' fish bone. She had tried different ways to remove the trapped bone herself, including swallowing lumps of rice and bread, drinking apple cider vinegar, digging her throat with finger. But none of those methods could wash down the bone. She finally went to see a doctor after experiencing some pain and discomfort. As the doc couldn't see the bone and has no appropriate tools to remove the bone, he advised my colleagues to go to an E.N.T. The doc also said that the bone will dissolves by itself.

Well, the bone has been in her throat for almost 2 weeks now and I really hope it can dissolves by itself eventually. In the meantime, hope she will not develop throat infection or any other related problems because of the stubborn little bone.

Having a bone in the throat can really cause pain and discomfort and sometimes may lead to infection. We have fish dishes at home very often and Sharlene likes to eat fish especially fried fish. I should really ask her nanny to be extra careful and remove the bones before giving her the fish. So, everyone please eat your fish slowly and watch out for the bones.

Hair Cut Day

Last Sunday, Sharlene had a hair cut just before the school re-opens on Monday. I used to cut her hair or just trim her fringe when she was younger but now I will just bring her to the hair saloon, pay RM7 to get it done. If I cut for her, it will be horrible. So, its better to get a professional to do it.

I love looking at little girls with long hair, they look so pretty and sweet with their beautiful hair bands and fanciful hair clips. Sharlene has very black, thick and straight hair. I'm sure she will look pretty if she has long hair too but our weather here is just too hot. She sweats a lot especially in hot and humid places and she'll get rashes all over her body and neck. What's more, she doesn't like to have her hair tied up or clipped with nice hair clips. She has some nice and cute hair clips but whenever I put it on for her, she will quickly pull it down. *kek sei ngor*. I noticed that whenever she bends forward to read or write, both sides of her hair will drop in front, touching and covering her face. Sometimes, a few strands of her hair even went into her eyes. Hence, she needs to trim her hair every time it gets long.


She's in the saloon waiting for her turn.


Getting ready and before she closes her eyes.


Getting bored and can't wait to get down.


Okay, almost done! How do you like my new hair style??

Not In A Mood

I'm not in a mood to do anything today simply because of some squabbles between myself and hubby which I've yet to get over with. I'm not going to elaborate further here, just hope my 'not so good feeling' will be over very soon and I can be my usual self again.

Yesterday was the last day of school holidays and Sharlene is going back to kindy this morning after 2 weeks of fun and sufficient sleep. Not sure what has transpired this morning between the 3 of them (Sharlene, hubby and nanny)?? Will she be lazy to wake up at the designated time and create any problems for them?? Keep my fingers cross here....and will get some feedback from home later.

Just attended some clients a while ago and everything went on quite okay. Glad I didn't let my emotion affect my work and hope I can continue to carry out my duties until the end of today.

Frightening Moment

It was so scary when I thought I've lost Sharlene in the supermarket today. This afternoon, hubby and I brought Sharlene together with her nanny to The Store which is just nearby our house to get her a new water tumbler for school. Upon reaching there we went into the supermarket to purchase some groceries. I left 3 of them shortly to look for peanut butter and honey. As I was looking through the brands of honey and comparing the prices on the shelf, hubby came over and we were discussing as to which brand of honey to get. I asked him where is Sharlene and he said she's with her nanny. While talking with hubby, I saw Sharlene's nanny walking alone towards our direction. I was shocked to see her alone and immediately asked her where is Sharlene? She said she's with her daddy. Hubby standing beside me answered "no, she's following you". Obviously, there must be some miscommunication between the 2 of them. At that moment, 3 of us were panicky and feared for the worst. We looked around the place hurriedly and before we went our separate ways to search for her we found her squatting at one of the lanes. We were glad that we found her so fast and nothing dreadful has happened to her. Conversely, she didn't show any signs of anxiety or fear. I think she must be busy browsing the goodies in the supermarket and didn't realized that we're not by her side.

Later, hubby confessed to me that it was actually his fault because he left Sharlene with her nanny without informing her. How can he be so absent minded and careless. This has never happened before and I hope he will be more careful and alert the next time so that the same mistake will not repeat again.

Sharlene @ 5 months

The above picture was taken when Sharlene had her first outing @ about 5 months old. I can't remember whether it was at The Curve or Ikano but was sure I put her on the sofa at one of the furniture shops there. I always love looking at her baby photographs especially this one....she was laughing and looked so cute and chubby here.


As she was just leaning against the sofa and couldn't sit on her own yet, my sil stood next to her just in case she falls over.


Ooops! she really lost her balance here and fell backwards. Poor girl!

Sipping A Cup Of Flower Tea

Is flower tea or 'far char' (known in cantonese) good for health? Should we drink it to improve our health? Some say good but I have not tried it myself even though the flower tea has been around for quite some time.

Last Saturday, my sil and I went to the market for our usual weekly marketing. As I was busy looking around, hunting and buying the usual stuff in the market, I didn't noticed that my sil had stopped at a stall and talked to the vendor selling flower teas. I don't remember seeing this stall before, maybe it was his first time in the market. Anyway, my sil bought a few types of flower teas from him at RM10 per pack. Some of the teas are reddish dried flowers and some look like tiny dried flower buds. I even saw a piece of paper listing the health benefits and effectiveness of each type of flower teas. I'm quite skeptical about the advantages and usefulness of drinking flower teas. I think a person has to consume the tea everyday for a period of time before he or she can realize the benefits and goodness of it. Besides the health benefits, the tea tastes rather mild and soothing and it releases a pleasant flora aroma.

The method of preparation is also very simple, just pour hot water and soak the tea leaves for a few minutes before drinking. The tea can be mixed with some lemon slices or honey. Sugar can be added as well but the vendor recommended stevia leaf as a natural sugar substitute, particularly for diabetics. Some say that the leaf can lower blood sugar levels. Hopefully, flower tea can in fact help those with health problems. Maybe, I should start drinking the tea more often now.

I Want To Win, I Don't Want To Lose!

Sharlene has a very strong character and she cannot accept to be a loser most of the time when she plays with her 'piau-cheh' (cousin sister). She wants to be the winner and refuses to be the loser and she will rant and rave if piau-cheh is the winner and she's the loser. That's how difficult and unreasonable she can be!

Last week after I came home from work one evening, the 2 gals requested me to bring them out for a walk. I agreed to bring them out as they were cooped up in the house for the whole day and looked really eager to get out from there. As it was almost 7pm, I told them to just play nearby the house for a short while. Both of them happily went outside to play with me standing close by to watch over them. After 10 -15 minutes of playing, I told them to get in as the sky was getting dark. Shortly after that, they walked in slowly and out of a sudden my niece said to Sharlene, "Let see who can ran in faster" and she rushed back to the house first leaving Sharlene and myself behind. When both of us stepped into the house, my niece said "Yay, yay, I win and you lose". As I expected, Sharlene was frustrated and angry because she wasn't the winner who got into the house first. She cried and wailed non stop and told her piau-cheh "I win, you lose". This episode went on for about 15 minutes. She finally stopped crying and screaming after I told her "Sharlene cannot be the winner all the time. Sometimes, you will lose and it's alright to lose as you can always win again the next time". I was upset and angry to see my girl behaving so unruly. Actually at that moment, I wasn't sure if she understands what I was trying to tell her. But she did stopped crying and even said to me "piao-cheh win and Sharlene lose". She seemed to forget about the entire incident and continued playing with her piao-cheh again.