Sharing

I was at KFC with Tian, MIL, SIL and her 7 yo and 4 yo sons. I promised them a treat at KFC to stop them from whining all the time when we were trying to shop.

I ordered a large french fries among other foods and divided them among the 3 kids. Then I saw Tian leaving most of her fries on her plate, I asked her if she was full and to share some with her cousins. She said OK. I took most of her fries and put them on the 4 yo's plate, expecting them to share out. The 7 yo began to grab from the plate and 4 yo refused to share with him. The fighting began!

To our surprise, Tian took all the leftover fries from her plate and gave them to her cousins. I just love her attitute. Either she is really caring or she has enough confidence that we will provide her enough when she needs anything.

Earlier when we were shopping, the 4 yo was whining and Tian simply took a brochure from our trolley to 'entertain' him. She was imitating what we did when our 1 yo Tao was crying. The way she did was cute. She took the brochure for her 4 yo cousin and said, 'Neh! Give you to see. See, this is pretty etc.' Imagine a 3 yo consoling a 4 yo. I am so proud of her.

She says.....

Just now, Tao was flipping through a photo album and I heard "Oh, No!" several times.

I thought I had heard wrongly or it was just a random babbling. I approached her and realised that she said "Oh, No!" because some photos had dropped out from the sleeves and she was unable to put them back.

Seaching for Extinct Hardware

As mentioned in my previous post, I have to submit PCB (Potongan Cukai Berjadual or Monthly Tax Deductions) to LHDN (Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri) for employees. I have to key in information of employees into provided software and output into a diskette (We have stopped using diskette eons ago!!) and bring to the bank for payment.

Last month, I submitted the cheque and completed form by post to LHDN in KL as advised by the staff that we had to do manual submission for the first time. Early this month, I began to hunting for below 'dinosaur' at shops selling computer hardware.

The owner of the shop thought I was a teacher as she mentioned only schools were still using diskette drive

I did not managed to buy diskettes from the computer shop as the owner mentioned that their supplier does not supply them anymore. Luckily I managed to get a good friend of mine to get me two diskettes. Thanks, you know who you are :)

My only 2 diskettes for PCB submission purpose

Tian's First Drawing

Tian is 3 years and 4 months old. I have never seen her taking any initiative to write or draw although she has been to her pre-school for one semester.

As I was working on my lap top just now, she was beside me mumbling away and I did not pay attention on what she was doing. Then she showed me this and told me a story.

This is a happy girl like me. I have hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arms and legs.

This is a sad girl. She is crying because she does not have mum and dad. She stays in an orphanage. She is unhappy and that's why she does not have any hair.

I was quite surprised. This is a very simple drawing but I have never seen her draw anything except scribbling on her colouring books and I have long given up hope on her artistic ability. I now really understand that I need to let her learn at her own pace and not to force anything on her.

Short Trip to Desaru Beach

Yesterday, we woke up early and had a lazy morning at home. Hubby and I completed our house chores early and made a last minute decision to go to Desaru Beach which was about 2 hours drive from home.

I quickly packed necessary stuff: spare clothes, towels, food, milk for the kids etc and off we went. We stopped by McDonald's to pack our lunch and ate on our way to save time. Tian slept in the car ( I just love her easy going attitude) but Tao was wide awake all the way although it was supposed to be their napping time.

It was Tao's first trip to the beach. It was a pity it started drizzling within minutes we reached there.

The sky was dark as we reached there and the girls barely touched the sands when it started drizzling. Tian was so reluctant to go to the shelter that I took pity on her and I asked hubby to scoop some sands for the girls to play with.

Tian was contented to play in the shelter.

It was drizzling non-stop until 6:00pm and we decided to leave because it was getting cold. To conclude, our time spent on the journey to and fro the beach was more than the time we spent on the beach. Oh well!

We saw rainbow after the rain.

Hubby consoled me by saying that this trip was just a trial run. We would just plan better next time and choose more suitable season to go to the beach around March or April.

No easy way to earn money

I have been investing in mutual funds on regular basis. Not a lot but I have a few funds that I will top up (a couple of hundreds ringgit just for savings sake) whenever I see the prices dropping in order to capture lower buying price.

The problem is whenever I top up the funds, the fund prices will start to drop so I will ignore them for a while. When I begin to study the prices again, I have missed the good prices to consider selling those funds that I should be able to make some money. Hmmph!!

I guess I can only earn money through hard work. No easy money for me.

Self Trained Potty User

Since last week, Tao has been bringing us her potty when she wants to pee or poo. Sometimes she will miss and only bring her potty to us after she has peed onto her cloth nappy.

She will look for her potty and becomes very anxious if we have forgotten to put it at the same spot where she remembers. Then she will show us her potty and says 'shi shi' (wet) to indicate either she wants to pee or she has wet her nappy.

She is also learning to talk in single syllable words like 'moon' to indicate everything in the sky from stars, moon and lights. 'Nana' for her indicates everything from fruits and vegetables. 'Poo' means fart or poo. And of course she is able to call us papa, mama, ah ma, but not ah kong yet (much to her grandpa's exasperation). She is able to call hubby's brother 'er buo', much to his delight as she actually seldom sees him.

She does not speak as well as Tian when Tian was her age but she understands what we are telling her very well. She is able to carry out our instruction for her like, 'We are going out, bring your shoes here to put on.' Or my MIL would tell me, 'I am going out to get the clothes. Don't let her stand near the door so that she can't go out' and she will quickly walk to the door and wait for her grandma to go out.

She is getting very curious and wants to have whatever that we are eating. I am not that strict with her diet anymore as she is already 16 months although i still cook 'bland' dishes for her (without salt and MSG) and using only liquid amino and vegetable seasoning bought from organics shop. However, I am glad she is still in love with her oats porridge with either fruits or raisins that I prepare for her every morning. At least, she starts the day with healthier choice of food.

She says.....

My MIL was comparing Tao's bowel movement which is a normal once or twice a day with Tian's abnormal ones which is once every two days or even three days.

MIL: Tao Tao is so good. 'Ng ng' at least once a day. You are very 'cha'. (Inferior or not up to that good in Mandarin)

Tian: Yes, I am 'cha' (fork). Mei Mei is 'tang shi' (spoon). Ah Mah is 'tie' (plate). Mama is also 'tie'.

And we all rolled with laughter.

My First Gardening Attempt

Hubby and his partner bought a lot of Podocarpus Macrophyllus, called Luo Han Song or Buddhist Pine locally and planted them randomly around their plantation. It is regarded as feng shui plant in Chinese community recently and its market value increases as it matures.

There were hundreds of leftover plants that they left under a shade due to the reason that there were no space to plant. Hubby has not organised his worker to move the plants to bigger bags for them to grow properly. What a waste!

Last week, I saw huge flower pots for sale at Giant and bought 4 of them. I asked hubby to bring home a few plants as I planned to plant some. One of my florist customer told me that I could display some plants at her shop and she could help to sell off to interested buyers. However, I did not plan to sell them yet as such small plants would not be able to fetch much value.

Yesterday, I transferred the plants from their tiny bags to pots with my MIL's help and advice. That was the first time I attempted gardening and it was not because of interest but as a form of 'investment'. Haha.

Huge pots with ample space for growth without having to transfer to bigger pots in 1 to 2 years

Confinement Preparations

For my first confinement, I did not prepare anything for myself and just let my MIL and my mum buy all the necessities like Chinese herbs, wine etc and I let them plan with my confinement lady regarding my meals. Those dishes were really nice and I could polish off every last grain of rice and last drop of soup.

During my second pregnancy, I became very interested in Chinese herbs and I studied each type of confinement meals to know the benefits of each type of foods like turmeric chicken, kacang-ma chicken, pig trotter in vinegar etc. I bought many types of Chinese herbs and labelled them properly so that my confinement lady would know which types should be consumed during first half of confinement and some to be consumed after 14 days.

Some of Chinese herbs bought for my second confinement like Chong Chau-Cordyceps, Dang Shen-Codonopsis Roots, Kao Li Shen-Korean Ginseng, Pao Shen-American Ginseng, Ren Shen-Ginseng, Yi Mu Chau-Herbal Leonuri or Kacang Ma for Sarawakians, Chuan Xiong-Rhizoma Chuan Xiong, Du Zhong-Eucommia Bark, Dang Kui-Chinese Angelica Root, He Shou Wu-Polygonum, Yu Zhu-Polygonatum, Kei Chee-Wolfberries, Bei Qi-Astragalus Root.

Additional stuff: Dried Longans, Red Dates, Black Dates, Wu Jin Wan, So Ho Wan, Sesame Oil, Sweet Vinegar, Rice Wine, Ginger Wine, Yellow Wine, Red Yeast Wine (Foochow Style), Martell, Dome, Black Beans. (Due to breastfeeding, I would ensure my confinement lady steamed the wines long enough to ensure no alcohol left in my dishes, soups and double boiled chicken essence)

Ingredients for afternoon tea-time: Red beans, glutinous rice, tangerine peel, brown sugar, black sesame (to be ground).

Rice were all replaced and alternate between millet rice, brown rice and multi-grain rice to ensure more nutrition and less starch (ie. fattening).

For bath, I bought pre-packed herbs from Chinese Shop and requested my confinement lady to add lemongrass, ginger and eucalyptus oil. Kiasu, I admit. I also bought 2 types of pre-packed herbs for baby, first type to be used during the first few days to prevent jaundice and second type to be used after that to prevent heatiness in baby.

When I referred to my list of things to buy (yes, I am a hoarder), it seemed like I had bought a lot but I finished most of the herbs because I had confinement food for 40 days and more. I love confinement food and that was why I could happily polish off whatever my confinement lady cooked and she said she seldom saw new mum who would always finish her meals. No wonder my colleagues were shocked to know what I have consumed during my confinement period. I will post more pictures of my meals in coming posts.