My December Naggings

1. My blog
If you have noticed, I have made some changes to my blog recently. Giving it a new face-lift, like doing make-over like that...haha. Yeah, new look for the new year!

2. Photos
I had taken quite alot of pics this month but all's in my camera still and I didnt bring along my cable so cant do any transferring of images now. I had also some nice family shoots taken from all the birthday celebrations, all thanks to the new tripod set we got couple of weeks ago. It has proven to be very useful indeed. And guess how much I got it? Less than 25bucks! Okay okay, wont keep you waiting, I promise I will do the uploading as quickly as I can when I get back to Spore yah :)

3. Break from Work
Oh yeah, I had my litte break from work from 20th Dec onwards. Yes, it was my last working day for Year 2006 :) How nice if this moment can be eternal....well, you know what I mean. Its like when you are working, you hope you wont but when you are not, you hope you will. The grass on the other end is always greener. That's the problem with human beings. Never gets contend easily with what they have....sigh!

4. Mothering
I had my own taste of motherhood "full-time" during my little break. It is a usual practice I adopted since having Trenyce around. I will normally clear my annual leaves during year-end for PILs to return their hometown to rest. As I told my colleagues: "I clear leave for my PILs to clear leave". :p I appreciate their help to babysit my gal when we are working. I have to admit taking care of this 2year old is no easy job. As what people always say "Terrible Two", I blew my top a few times while trying to discipline her. It is really getting on my nerves but with some experience the last time PILs went to China, I am better at handling her. I just let her cried when she cried to get the things she wanted which I forbidded her to. Though there is alot of cryings and scoldings, our relationship grows. Yes, amazing, isnt it? I can feel she is more attached to me nowadays.

Two recent incidents really warmed my heart. I feel really consolated when one of the nights MIL asked Trenyce whether she wanted to sleep with her or mummy. She chose mummy! I thought she probably would chose her beloved ah ma since she had not slept with her for a while already and probably would miss her but she didnt. Its a little childish, I admit :p But wouldnt all mothers feel the same when their kids whom they spent lesser time with as compared to their full-time care-takers, preferred them or their companion? Another ocassion is when Trenyce was lying on the sofa taking her last feed before her sleep, she wouldnt let anyone to occupy the sofa. When I return from the kitchen and asked her if I could sit down, she actually agreed! Hehe :p

5. Milk Bottle Problem
I have been hoping to get rid of Trenyce's habit of drinking from milk bottle. She has been biting the teats until the hole gets so big that I need to change it about once every 2 months and she hasnt known how to drink from a cup even! Yeah, sometimes we will have this little problem when you are not the one taking of your child full-time. You cant follow your "grooming schedule" for your child. It usually will take longer for your initiatives to be implemented. I probably will not be able to do within this year (that is like 3days away to Year2007). I hope I can achieve this by 1st Qtr next year (sounds like some big company doing some financial projections eh?). From my observations, Trenyce doesnt really like to drink from bottle nowdays, in fact, she drank faster with the water bottles (those with straw). I am not sure if there's a sign...hmmm

6. Others
Well, with Year 2006 leaving soon. Time for me to set my resolutions for Year 2007. I will leave this for 31st Dec 2006 entry. That will be more interesting, right? What do you have for the new year? Anything you have been contemplating to achieve but yet achieve? Needless to say, I have quite abundant of those. Not again...

Reaching Labis finally...

Hooray!!! I am finally able to access the blogger!

Yeah, at the time I am writing this entry, I am writing from Labis, Johore. Its a small town stranded between Cheah and Segamat. Does Segamat sounds familar to you? If you have been following the news, yes this is one of the towns in Johore having very severe floods. Even my PILs who wanted to come back here on 21st Dec have problems coming back as the rail service had been terminated and the buses simply couldnt cross over due to the floods. So you can imagine how bad the situation is. They had to make their way back to Singapore and only able to come back the next day after they called up the bus company confirming that there are buses. We also almost couldnt make it here as well as some areas of Yong Peng were still having floods then. It was only passable recently. Plus Spore was also pouring heavily at the time we are setting off. We were quite hestitated at first but knowing our character, we wouldnt give up something we have already planned for, so we decided to set off anyway..

So yes, we are here finally. But it has been pouring on-off that we have to cancel our trip back to Sitiawan which is meant to celebrate hubby's maternal grandmother 80th birthday! ;'( FIL is worried that we will get stuck in the floods and couldnt get back to Singapore on time to return work so for safety reasons, we better stay put. I hope grandma wouldnt be too upset about it...

Anywayz, thanks to the flood. We cant go anywhere. Malacca was affected by the flood so we cant go there for the famous chicken rice or shopping at the Jusco. Tungkat was affected too so we cant go there for the famous beef noodles. Segamat, which was our main source of entertainment was also out...

If you wonder what we have been doing here on this small town for the past 3 days....

Day 1:
Driving around the small town. Part of Labis was also caught in the flood. So we drove around and kaypoh-ing to see how bad the flood was and whether they have cleared up the debris.

Day 2:
This is the only adventure we had so far. We drove to Segamat and visit PIL's friend. Her house was flooded (heard its about 5ft tall)so now she's busy clearing the debris. We also drove around Segamat to witness the "after-flood" situation. It was like a war-torn area.

We bought a mini-pool for Trenyce sometime back at Jusco, so we had some nice time playing water with her.

Day 3:
We stayed at home the whole day. I suppose Trenyce enjoyed the most today. She had some painting time with hubby in the morning then after lunch, we played water with her again at the mini-pool. This time round more exciting as MIL bought her a water gun hehe. Then in the mid-afternoon, Trenyce seems to get a bit bored cos she cant go out and play (It was drizzling outside) so Hubby brought her to a nearby aquarium shop to entertain her.

I suppose Trenyce enjoyed the most from this trip with the "exciting programs" in line for her: doing painting, swimming/playing with water, chasing the birds and getting lotsa of RM$1.00, RM$1.70 or RM$1.90 toys kekeke :p

Busy December

December is a busy month for me. I have 4 brithdays in the family starting from my mother, hubby, MIL and hubby's maternal grandmother. We will be going Sitiwan to attend her 80th birthday end of the month. Its always a hush-hush trip whenever we go back, hope that I will be able to drop by Pangkor Island this time at least ;p

Then it is also the auspicious wedding periods, receiving red bombs one after another. I just came back from one. It was a polymate's wedding. He had 60 tables! We were thinking that he probably couldnt make it to all tables for the photo-taking but he managed to do so for all tables! :D The funny thing is, I have attended weddings at this same hotel for the 3rd time this year. I think I have almost 'visited' all their banquet halls already..hehehe Its nice to see some old frens, some of whom I probably didnt see them like after graduation? So its like 7-8years already? Quite coincidentally, we are all seated according to our marital status - one half of the table are the married ones and the half the singles :p

And finally its my favourite of all - CHRISTMAS! For this, I will be busy shopping presents for my family and some good friends. I enjoyed doing that most =) It is always a challenge for me to decide on the 'best' gift for the person I am going to give the present to. Well, I suppose this is also the time to see how much you really understand the person to know what the person really needs or likes. And if you dont, maybe its time for you to do some reflection....

Kiddy Post-Sickness Week

I am most scared of what I called the Kiddy post-sickness period. It is always difficult to take care of Trenyce after she recovered from her illiness. As per past experience, she will become incredibly grouchy and fussy. Generally, I believe all parents will be more tolerating when the kids are unwell and gave in to all their demands irregardless. Therefore, its easy for them to pick up some bad habits along the way and thats what I dread most. It will usually take a while for them to revert to old self again. So its not surprise I lose my cool with her over the weekend.

Firstly, she refused to take her usual napnap and became very grouchy whenever she couldnt do what she wants to do and cried at the slightest thing that she is unhappy about. That was an incident that were rather amusing. Not between me and her but her with hubby. Both of them were seated nicely at the daybed watching Playhouse Disney then hubby suddenly remembered that Channel U was airing Golden Horse Award and switched over to that channel. Well, this is a bad habit of hubby's, always switching betw channels when he is watching TV. I suppose he overlooked the fact that its his little princess watching with him and its not gona be easy for him to get his way loh. So the moment her favourite cartoon characters disappeared from the screen, she started crying and making noises. A somewhat similar incident happened the next day. As Trenyce watched mostly Playhouse disney, I supposed she wasnt awared of this thing called advertisement. This time both Trenyce and hubby were watching some cartoons on Channel 5 and then some advertisements came. She started crying, with some experience watching tv with hubby she had misunderstood hubby thinking that he had switched the channels again, and so was mad with him and slapped hubby's laps as she cried! haha....

2ndly, she refused to cooperate with me to take her meals. When I was feeding her noodles or rice (either for lunch/dinner), she would take a mouthful or two and puked the following feeds out causing a mess everywhere.

3rdly, she woke up crying from her nap (at times I managed to make her sleep), making a big fuss. She will ly on the floor and cry. I also realise that she now knows how to throw temper. She will ly on the floor, with her head hid betw her crossed arms. I wonder where she picked this from????

Anyways, thank goodness the week is over. Sososo stressed!!! I dun like to beat her (her hands only) and I dun like to scold her as I believe this will deteriorate our relationship. I dun want to create fear in her otherwise, she will keep herself from me in future. In fact, most of the times I tried not to and used reasoning with her as I believe she picked up beating people from us - from the misleading interpretations "I will hit you when you are naughty".

Vote for my gal, pls!

Hi earthies, pls vote for my gal at Mumcentre if you see this post. Pleasssssssssssssseee. Thank you very much! :D

I was surfing the internet on one of my sleepless nights and chanced upon this website – Mumcentre They have this photo competition which you could win a $20 gift voucher AND possibly a family trip to Hong Kong Disneyland! Wow, this is attempting man! It is always my dream to bring Trencye there one day. Just hope Lady Lucky would favor me this time round hehe :p

Satay Yes? Satay No?

We made a blunder.

FIL saw some ulcers at the back of Trenyce’s tongue while cleaning her yesterday and quickly brought her to a doctor. The doctor confirmed that she has tonsillitis. Quoted from Babycentre: It means that the bumpy tissue on either side of his throat at the back of his tongue is infected; a virus or bacteria can be responsible.

Seems like Satay is the culprit afterall. Sigh!

Satay, Fever and Teething

Poor little girl is suffering from teething! The molar has finally invaded her once calm and peacful gum-land!

She started by having a mild fever on sunday afternoon....quite an odd timing cos usually when she is having fever right, it will come around the evening time about 6 plus onwards. Thats why I couldnt quite believe hubby when he told me about it. He was the one who discovered her forehead was feverish.

Well, we didnt expect that her fever was due to teething at first as she has had a "heaty base" as what MIL always say due to DNA from FIL's side, so we hought she could be heaty again. Satay then was the most obvious culprit as that was the only heaty food she had consumed recently, in fact it was just about 2 days ago at my mother's place. I dont quite agree with hubby that satay was the culprit loh becos its quite unlikely that the little satay could be so mighty and result in heatiness wihtin 2 days? I really doubt so. But then there was no other evidence to prove that she had consumed other heaty food. Well, never mind...I know the satay is innocent....

The fever persisted for 3 days. During these 3 days, I was on standby mode. I would wake up about 3 times in the middle of the night to monitor her fever so as to sponge her if necessary. (I really worried whenever she has a fever and couldnt sleep well.) The nights passed by peacfully, no fever spotted. Thank goodness! (but quite unusual loh.)

PIL monitored her condition during the daytme but no fever came until late evening about the time when hubby and myself returned from work (the usual 6plus timing). We gave her the panadol drop before she sleep and gave her short sleeve tees to wear so that she will be more "cooling". It was only until the 3rd day, which was yesterday, then FIL announced that he suspected Trenyce was teething. We pondered for a while and realised that he could be right! The few pointers:

- She keeps on pointing a specific area of her gum and complains to us "pain pain"
- She refuses to take any "hard" food including her favourite drumstick
- She doesnt want to join us at the dinning table during dinnertime and seems to lose interest in eating
- She doesnt even want to finish her milk by herself (using milk bottle) and we have to spoon feed her
- She is more fussy and grouchy
- She cries at the slightest things that irritate her
- She loves the cool jelly I made for her
- She doesnt complain pain pain anymore when we apply the cool teething gel
- She has really BAD bad breathe (this I cant really confirm its due to teething, I am going to brew more herbal tea for her. Hopefully it helps. cross my fingers!)

See, I told you the satay is innocent :)

Post-dated Post 2: 29th Nov 2006

Monetising my blog?

Recently, I have been to several mothering blogs talking about monetized their blogs. In fact, some of them had started doing that and earning US$ already. To be honest, I am really tempted to do that for my blog too. I have been thinking of ways to earn some small bucks so that when I eventually exit the working society in a couple of years time to be a full time SAHM, I still have some income. Just to earn some pocket money for myself lah. However, I am contemplating whether to monetized my blog as

Reason#1: I am not a frequent blogger. I probably blog thrice a week the most. Part of the excuse is becos my job requires me to face the computer for the entire day so I don’t really switch on my pc at home unless… I have insomnia that night.

Reason#2: I only blog when I have something interesting happening in my life which I like to share about (I suppose most bloggers started for the same reason but I am still at this infant stage loh) otherwise I could be missing for a couple of weeks. Did you watch “I do I do” by Jack Neo, if you do right – they were talking about “feeeeling” for love, whereas I am talking about “feeeeling” for blogging. Sometimes, you just need to have that feeling to be able to sit down and pen down your thoughts and that’s me.

Reason#3: For health reasons. My blogging time is usually past midnight as that’s when my girl and hubby are asleep. I tried to spend as much time with them when I came back from work and only have my personal time after they have slept. The problem is the moment I am hooked to the pc, I could be at the pc for hours and ended sleeping less than 5 hours when I have to work the next day. This is bad as I will be a walking zombie for the rest of the day and needs to rely on coffee to perk me up.

Reason#4: I am not a fantastic writer. I preferred to use singlish as my writing style. That way, I feel more “natural” as I poured my feelings and thoughts on my blog. Well, I only get a B3 for English for my ‘O’ levels :p

But then again, Reason#1 and #2 could be resolved by monetized my blog. It would ‘force’ me to blog more often and gave me ideas on what to write. As for #4, well, practice makes perfect as I will be ‘forced’ to write more frequent. The only headache is #3, surely get scolded by hubby for always staying late….hmmm…am considering to get a new handphone cos the current one is not working well (used for 4yrs already leh), if I get a smart phone or pda phone, that would solve my problem right? :p

Papa (aka hubby), may I have one for my Christmas present, pls? hehe:p

Post-dated Post 1: 29th Nov 2006

2005 Wedding Anniversary

Was chatting with hubby in the car this morning while on the way to the nearest MRT stn near my place. We were on the topic of our anniversary night dashing around to send my friend to catch her train. Then I recalled we had another exciting celebration last year too when my brother met an accident with sister’s 6months old Toyota Altis. Thank goodness he was alright but I cant say much for the car.

I vividly remembered I was on leave on that fateful day, again not purposely on leave to celebrate my anniversary but to bring Trenyce to KK hospital for her routine medical appointment. While I was about to enter the CTE, my phone rang. As I didn’t have my earpiece with me, I didn’t answer the call but just scanned the phone quickly to see whose calling. I saw my brother’s number appearing on the screen, which was quite a rare sight (he don’t normally call me on weekdays). Wondering what it could be (as my mother and sister are away on holiday at that time, I am the only sibling he could contact if anything happens), I asked my FIL to answer the call for me. What came out from the conversation was alarming - he had an accident somewhere near his office! Not wanting to worry my mother and sister, we decided to solve the problem ourselves. I went to fetch hubby from his office (he wasn’t on leave) before going down to see how extensive the damage was. There I saw the brand new Altis, quite badly in shape. It cant even move at all. According to bro, there were smoke coming out from the front. Odear. We followed the tow truck to the workshop to do all the necessary paperwork and left the place.

The toughest part of all was to break the news to my sister. We (me and bro) were hesitating on how to go about it. Initially, we wanted to wait for them to return from their trip as we were afraid that we will spoil their holidays but hubby said if we waited so long then inform them, they were surely get very mad. Afterall, sister is the car owner and she has every right to know what’s happening to her car. Of course, we understand hubby’s intention. In the end, we decided to call my auntie, who was with them for the holiday for her advice, to check on the situation. You know lah, bringing kids along for holiday may sometimes result in some small squabbles. We just want to make sure everything is in order before we release the news. of course, auntie advised us to tell them, so....Well, the rest as it says are history....

My little girl getting girlie

I was looking at some photos taken not too long ago, on one of the weekends to Suntec City for our bi-weekly marketing. We love the Carrefour there as there are plenty of items housed under one place so you dont have to run from place to place to get the items you need. I brought along the camera, hoping to snap some nice pics of Trenyce.

Looking at the pics, I started to realise my gal getting more and more girlie as she grows. Thats a good sign heh:) I was so much like a tomboy when I was young as told by my mum so I always wanted my girl to be girlie by introducing stuff toys to her etc. It was rare that she allowed me to put the hair clips for her. Normally, the hair clip will not last more than 10 mins becos the moment we praised her pretty, she will become very self conscious and pulled the clips away. Its the same if I were to put on a hair band for her, so I seldom get a chance to really doll her up.

She is quite a serious shopper, aint she? :p

Fresh, big pumpkin for you, mdm? Allow me to choose for you. Guaranteed freshness....

Lucky Charm

Have you ever heard of the 4 Leaves lucky clover pendant? Do you know that this was a proven lucky charm? I have first heard about it from some magazines and as a non-believer in this kind of lucky charm thingy, I didnt really believe much in its "effectiveness". So I didnt pay much attention on it until 2 mths ago, a colle in the office told us that she has struck 4D a couple of times after she bought the 4Leaves kaychain. Another friend of mine, whom I met up recently also told me the same thing that her sister had bought one for her mother and her mother ahd struck 4D a few times after that. Well, quite unbelievable, right?

I bought 1 for my hubby sometime in end-Sept06. Hubby didnt seem to progress well in the company as promotion opportunity was given to someone who had worked in the organisation many years earlier than him. You see, he and the other person were put on the promotion list together but only one of them would get it due to some reasons. At that time, he seems to be rather depressed so when I heard about the 4leaves thingy from my colle, I didnt heistate much to get one for him hoping that it will help to bring him some luck. Hey, if the husband did well in his career, me, the wife would get to benefit too right? hehe :p

Within a month after my hubby got the 4leaves keychain, his boss told him that they were relooking into his promotion and chances of him getting it was quite firm. But then not until he got the letter, would he get a peace of mind so he waited anxiously for the letter to arrive. Day after day, the letter finally arrived yesterday! Finally, I see him smiling :)

Subconsciously, I couldnt help but believe that this 4leaves thingy really brings luck to whoever is holding it!

Here is the one I got for my hubby. He keeps it together with his precious carkeys. He claims that it is the most important thing he will never leave home without it :p


For those who are interested to "wang fu", there is a few places in SG selling it:
1. Juliet Roberts
2. Pacing Luck

Good Luck! Cheers!

A friend's Visit + Exciting Wedding Anniversary

Thursday was my 3rd year wedding anniversay. I had an unusual celebration that day. No, it wasnt the conventional candle-light dinner. It was hmm....an exciting adventure!

Anyway, I took half a day leave from work, most would think its for celebration for my anniversary hehe...but it wasnt as a fren from Msia came to town, so I decided to take leave to bring her around. Hers was a short 2 day 1 night stay so I hope to grab the little time we had to catch up. She was working in Singapore for about 5years before she decided to marry her then Pahang boyfren, now hubby of her BB boy, Zhongxuan (Hope I got the name spelled right! :p). I havnt really seen her after she left Singapore 2 years ago. The last time I saw her was 2005CNY when she was about 4months preggy.

I brought her and Trenyce to the newly opened shopping mall, Vivocity. We shopped barely for 2hrs and had to leave for home at 5pm as my MIL had prepared dinner. We intended to send her to Tanjong Pagar Railway Station after the dinner. As I was afraid that we would hit the peak hour traffice jam, I suggest to take a cab home instead of MRT. Well, being new to the shopping mall, we had to search for the taxi stand and ended up at Harbourfront Taxi stand instead and oh my, it was such a queue! I decided to call for cab and the cab finally arrived 10minutes later (quite punctual). However, we were still caught in very heavy traffic due to some car accident and the taxi was practically crawling from CTE to our place. Back in the cab, I was so worried and kept praying that we would be able to rush home in time to dash to the Railway Stn. We finally reached home at 6pm, that was like almost an hour journey for a usual 20-minute ride home! We had a quick dinner and hubby and myself quickly rushed her to the station. Well, this time we were really caught in the normal peak hour traffic. My heart was beating so fast, soso worried that we would miss the train. Hubby was really calm. He assured me that we would be able to catch the train as the train would not be so punctual as it normally would delay a while and would not leave on time. But still, I was feeling very uneasy. I would nag at every traffic light, mumbling why the traffic light was so slow, praying that it would turn green soon. Guess what, we reach the Railway Stn exactly at 6.55pm, 5 minutes late and I was praying hard that the train would still be there as I ran as fast as I could to the gate. Well, the worst fear came true. The station master was closing the gate when we arrived and told us that the train had departed! OMG!

There was no other train stopping at Mentakab that night and the earliest train would be tmr morn 6am. Hubby then decided to sent her to JB to catch the train and if we really couldnt (becos SG-JB checkpoints would be very jammed at this hr), we still could send her to Larkin Bus Terminal to catch a bus back. So we quickly rushed back home to collect our passports and JB here we come! As we expected, the checkpoints were terribly jammed and by the time we crossed over to JB, it was already 8.30pm. The train had already gone far and so we were left with choice 2 - Larkin. We managed to get a 11pm ticket for her to Mentakab. Honestly, I was quite worried to leave her alone to take the bus but I supposed most msians are quite used to this kind of travelling. I told hubby I wouldnt dare to travel by myself and it was mainly becos I couldnt speak their national language, Bahasa Melayu.

We accompanied her till she boarded the bus around 10.40pm. By the time we reached SG, it was almost 12 midnight. What a way to "celebrate" my wedding anniversary haha!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

One of our favourite activity over the weekend is to drive up to Upper Pierce Reservoir to watch the little monkeys (Trenyce's favourite!) and also to enjoy a nice nature walk around the place. We have brought Trenyce there to cycle and fishing as well and she enjoyed it tremendously.

Ermm, we do not really fish like the way the professional does lah, all we use was a simple fish net and a DIY "fish-tank". See picture on left, this photo was taken somewhere in May06 when we first took Trenyce to fish. See how excited she was! Well, being young and inexperienced, she didnt catch anything lor. It ended up with the mummy busy catching fishes for her and I managed to get 2 tiny little fishes for her (haha!).

On our recent visit to the reservoir (just last week), the timing was pretty bad as Trenyce fell asleep when we were just about to turn in to the road leading to the reservoir. I was like "O-oh". Usually it was quite difficult to wake her up so I was like trying my luck to wake her up when the car parked near the location where we could see the monkeys. Mission failed the first time, she vividly opened her eyes and closed them again, hanging her head in the air ( I thought she was awake and let her sit up, so can imagine how her sleepy head hanging in the air). Hubby then drove up to this location where there were several more monkeys than the previous location and I tried to wake her up again, telling her there were many monkeys outside the window.Just when I was about to declare the failure of mission 2 and was going to tell hubby to turn out as Trenyce was too simply too sleepy to even ioen her eyes. Then all of a sudden, she became very alert and shouted excitedly, pointing at the windows "See, so many monkeys, so cute! monkeys so cute!" Her reaction changed so fast that I was totally amused by it :)

Updates of Trenyce's Progress

Checklists:

1. Potty training: Accomplished!
Period of Training: 5 weeksIt took a while more than my original target (was to complete within 2 weeks) to potty train her as in-between the training, she fell sick and then the weather was turning cold so it was not a good period to train her. Hence, the training went on-and-off for the first 3 weeks and finally, she completed her training roughly about 2 weeks after her 2nd birthday. (Horray! Finally some $aving$ on my diaper co$t$!) However, she still cant identify the difference between urinating and passing motion. She will say "umh umh" for both.

2. Sleeping without Pacifier: Accomplished!
Period of Training: 5 days
I was on leave during the week-long holi due to Deevapali and Hari Raya to take care of Trenyce as PILs were away for their China holi. I took this opportunity to help Trenyce gets rid of her Pacifier habit. There is pros and cons of getting rid this habit of hers. You would probably be wondering why. Well, let me xplain. When she has the pacifier in her mouth, she will just go to sleep quietly, no sound, just munching her pacifier and falls asleep on her own. But when she doesnt have any in her mouth, she talks alot before she falls asleep and I am "forced" (in a way, otherwise she wont sleep lah) to sleep together with her and I meant together on her bed! The most comical part is she sings in her sleep. We usually play a cd for her when she naps in the afternoon, MIL spotted her singing "Jingle Bell" in her sleep when the cd is at the "Jingle Bell" song :p

3. Eating on her own: On-going
Period of Training: On-going
The moment Trenyce was able to sit on her own, we allowed her to join us on the dinning table. We will give her a bowl and a spoon with some food (rice or noodles, vege, egg or whichever is avavilable) usually small chewable chunks so that she wont get choked accidentally. Normally, more than 70% of the food will be "shared" with her high chair and the floor. Recently, I noticed that she is able to eat on her own without dropping more than 50% of her food on the floor. She is also able to eat drumstick by herself. (Just a note: This is merely causal eating not the "formal" eating. We still feed her for lunch and dinner.)

4. Health: On-going
Period of Training: None
As of today, Trenyce has fallen sick 3 times for this year.
Fever: 2 times
Cough: 4 times
Flu: 3 times

Fanily Gathering at Labis

3rd - 5th Nov 06
We havnt seen little Matt since the full month celebration in July06 and we will not be seeing him for Christmas either as the family will be going back to Perth next month so we will only be seeing them, hmm...in Feb 2007, during CNY. Oohh...this will be a long seven months.....so everyone decided to meetup at Labis over the weekend, just to catchup and well, for the children to...ermm fight over toys. Well, not for little Matt as yet :p

Here is an update of little Matt. He is turning 5 months old this 13th :D

We had some fun with our camera, trying to "auto-take" some family pictures with the family's new addition. Hubby is the busiest as he has to run to-and-fro to control the camera whereas rest of us just wait for him to signal when we should smilezz haha....

Its really difficult trying to get all the children's attention especially when there really isnt a cameraman around to tell them to "look in front", "smile" etc..hahaha You could see that the expressions and positions of the adults have remained more or less about the same but for the kids (including the baby!) have changed for all the shots! Gee,it was but the fun that counts, right? :)

Finally, me and the 3 kids!hehe...

Oct 2006 KaiKai Trips II - Malacca

Malacca (22nd - 24th Oct 2006)

We took the opportunity to go over Malacca so-called famous resort, A'Famosa over the Deevapali & Hari Raya long weekend. My overall impression with the holiday resort:

1. Fun
=> was quite interesting and exciting, especially the animal sarfari. We enjoyed the visit to its chicken farms most as we got to play with the little chicks!
=> The carnival at the Cow Boy Town was not so bad, fireworks were beautiful. But we missed the Indians performance as Trenyce was scared of the darkness at its performance area.
=> The 4D movie was okay but Trenyce got scared when the seat was rocking to-and-fro with the water spilled at her, so I had to bring her out of the theatre to stop her crying.
=> Waterworld
We were a little bit disappointed with the Waterworld though. Seems like part of it is undergoing some construction so its a little messy with the sands around and the flooring of the pool is quite slippery. I fell down the moment my foot stepped into the water *scare scare*.

Some of the pics taken at Animal Safari

Get Your Own! View Slideshow

2. Food
=> Expensive and short of variety. Just imagine I cant even find a packet of full-cream milk or vitagen for my gal. As for taste *ahem*, dont wanna comment much! Was told by friends & colles that I could find similar standards at Genting. OMG! Spoilt my plan to go Genting for holiday liao. Think I will have to bring a carload of food if I were to go Genting.

Our 1st night's Dinner (what do you think of the size of the portion?) Btw, that is Trenyce's little finger.
Lunch before we catch our coach back to S'pore.

3. Accomodation
=> Generally clean and well kept. I will advise you not to use the rooms at the ground level. Initially, we were given that ground level room but were later change to 3rd floor upon request for change of room. All I could say it was quite a sight when I entered the room!

4 Transport
=> We didnt drive as we thought of giving hubby a good break, so saves him the tedious driving and oh my, he regretted very much bcos we could have reached home much faster :p Within the resort itself, they have transport provided as well. They called it the "Banana Shuttle Service". Quite exciting when sitting in it, but do remember to grab the handles bars as tight as you can cos you might be "blown" away by the strong wind :p

Oct 2006 KaiKai Trips I - Jurong Bird Park

Jurong Bird Park - 15th Oct 2006

We had wanted to bring Trenyce to Jurong Bird Park for quite some time already. However, whenever we plan to go, we will chance upon either the bird flu or the hazy haze...so finally when all's over, we set the date to JBP. We almost couldnt make it on the day cos its hazy haze again! The PSI (In Spore, this helps us to monitor how 'safe' our air is) reads between 60-90...hmm..

Hubby, not wanting to disappoint Trenyce and mummy (that's me! :p) gave the green light at around 1pm and so happily we went to JBP! hehehe....

This is the entrance.
This is the stage. I personally prefer the animal performance at JBP than the Zoo. I find the performance more interesting and fun, and most importantly the performance is much longer than the 15mins at Zoo :p

The performance...

See, Trenyce is so engrossed with the birds' performance!

The most fascinating part of this visit is this Bird Viewing Gallery where we got to feed the birds at close proximity.

Grandfather's creations

I have drafted this post somewhere earlier this month (check the entry date, its 5th Oct heh) but only managed to complete it today (2 Nov 06)! SO embarrassing actually, always updated past events in my blog heh...but its better late than never right? :D For us, Oct 2006 has been an exciting month. I will share more of the "happenings" in my subsequent updates!

I have always wanted to share some of FIL's creations for Trenyce and finally taken photos of some of his creations. The purpose of this post is simply to let Trenyce knows (years after she is older) that she is very fortunate to have a creative grandfather. *Drum rollz* okay, here are the items.....

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Very Cute right? This is how Trenyce started to recognise apple, orange, star, fish etc... It helps to reinforce whatever she has learnt as child at this age has shorter memory, they need reinforcement every now and then to help them remember. This is recycled from a metal stand which FIL found at the void deck. The panda poster is actually a 2006 calendar.

This is a closer shot. I have just changed the flashcards about 3 weeks ago. She is learning shapes now but she can only recognise the star and whenever I point to the circle, she will tell me its a ball :p Square and triangle seem to be difficult for her to remember, probably bcos she cant quite associate these shapes with things she sees everyday.

This is Trenyce's exercise books. PIL always goes to Labis RM$1.70 shop to buy exercise books for her to practice her pasting, colouring and drawing "skills", one of her favourite activities. Sometimes, FIL will just simply cut some pictures (like here, its a little girl) for her to paste on the exercise book. Ocassionally when there are pasar malam downstairs, he will buy some stickers for her (I think its 20cts per piece, quite a variety got Barney, Memaid, Hello Kitty, Nemo etc) to make her pasting activity more fun!

See, this is the Hello Kitty stickers and some of her scribbing! Trenyce will tell me "sticker, my favourite!"


Little girl also has a pencil case of her own. Quite a colletion yah. The colour pencils are gifts from Auntie May Kim. Look closely and you will notice the mini paper duck in her pencil case. This is also done by FIL. By getting her to draw around the duck and "eventually" a duck picture on her exercise book helps in "strengthening" her motor skills. Good idea eh? Here is a closer picture of the mini paper duck. Its only the size of my thumb. Trenyce will say "my favourite duck inside pencil case" :)

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The end

"Time not enough"

Phew! Finally finished my errands yesterday for the mid-autumn festival, dashing from place to place to buy mooncakes, pomelo, "piglet" biscuits....etc This is the life of a working mother, maximising the use of her "free time" (yeah cos doing these errands mean I will have to forgo my lunch :p) to complete her mission. This also applies to other missions e.g banking, marketing or simply shopping for something that I need etc

Since becoming a mother, I have treasured my lunchtime more than ever. Not that my lunchtime has increased from an hour to 2 hours. (Instead it has reduced from an hour to 45 mins!) But it means I need to accomplish more things with the same (or less) amount of time I have. Yes, time is precious for me because I hope to rush home immediatley after work to spend time with my girl. It can be a very simple chore like taking her for a walk at the void deck, changing her pajamas, running around in the house or saying a prayer with her before she sleeps etc. If I have to run my errands after work, I would have missed out some of the activities or worst still, I may not get a chance to talk to her as she could have fallen asleep by the time I reach home. That means I would have spent one less day in my lifetime with her. So sad huh? As a mother, you would feel that taking charge of the kids after work is necessary and feel guilty whenever you are not able to spend time with them. In my own definition, I feel that is how a responsible mother should behave. (No offence to other working mothers) Is that only myself feeling this way or that is generally the way working mothers feel? Actually I am considered lucky in the sense that my work does not demand me to work late everyday and most of the times, I am able to get off from work on time. However, even with that, I have only 2 miserable hours to spend with my girl everyday (reaches home around 7pm and she sleeps around 9pm).

Sometimes I really wonder how other busy working mothers coped with that little time with their kids and how I will be able to cope if I have another kid? I always feel that 24hrs is not enough for me cos I simply have too many things to do or want to do. I am already feeling that I dont have much time doing my routine tasks, not to mention doing my personal stuff. My wedding photos which I wanted to scan and put on the website is still left unscan. The malay language book borrowed from my SIL is still left on the shelf (I wanted to take up a third language when Trenyce was 1, now she's 2 already!) Oh, let me count when is the last time I have a simple meal with my galfriends...hmm

Trenyce's Actual Day Birthday Celebration

21st Sep 2006

On the actual day of Trenyce’s birthday, we bought a miniature cake for her (for symbolic reasons). She was laughing and giggling away when daddy was lighting up the candles, and attempting to “destroy” daddy’s efforts by blowing the candles. Here’s a short video on Trenyce :D

Mood: Merry Milestone: 2 years old

Zoo Outing

17th Sep 2006

Like last year, we brought Trenyce to Singapore Zoological Gardens, as part of her birthday celebration. She has been bugging us to bring her to the zoo since the day we told her. This is her 2nd time to the Zoo, the last trip was about a year ago also to celebrate her birthday. Seems like this will become a tradition for my little gal’s birthday celebration. Hmm…not a bad idea eh?

This year, we can see that Trenyce enjoys herself more as she is able to identify the animals that she saw everyday on Barney’s video. She gets extremely excited when she is able to associate these animals with what she could recall from the video. As a mother, you feel contented watching her every expression!

I think the best thing of all is we finally managed to catch 2 of the 3 major animal shows in the zoo that we missed out last year! The 'Animal Friends Show" and "Wonders of the Wild Show". I suppose we came too late last year (around 2pm) and this year we came around 11am. Trenyce was quite scared initially as she has never watched a live animal show (not to mention those small & adorable ones that we saw at the pet shops) and clinged onto us very tightly until we explained to her what the animals are doing then she kind of relax and released a little bit.

This is the seal performance, one of the key performance at the Wonders of the Wild Show.



After the Animal Friends Show, we hang around the Animal Land at Children's World to visit the small animals. Look, she really enjoyed feeding the goats!



Right at the entrance/exit area, they have this battery-operated animal (this you need to slot a coin in for it to move) which is something different from the usual ones you seen elsewhere as those are usually the cars or motorcycles etc. The best thing is I can also sit together with her to ‘operate’ (otherwise, will knock onto other animals) this battery-operated tiger! Hahaha..imagine me a giant kid on the animal :p



We finally called it off a day around 3.30pm. Not just Trenyce, all of us were also exhausted from all the walking :’) Well, till next year then! Ciao Zoo!

Trenyce's Two Year Old Birthday Party - Birthday Gifts

Gifts Opening Ceremony


These are all the gifts Trenyce had received.
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Looks like Trenyce is having some headaches here...hmm...
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The shoes are from daddy. BB Bob & the Barney bottle are from Mummy.
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These are from Gonggong & Ah Ma.
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This dress is from grandmother.
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Mood: Excited Milestone: 2 years old

Trenyce's 2 Year Old Birthday Party (Part II)

Continue....

Birthday Cake Ceremony

Trenyce with "jiujiu" & "yiyi". She looks eager to 'attack' her cake.

Daddy preparing to light up the cake.

Mummy rearranging the candles.

The cake is finally ready!

Trenyce blowing the candles.

Cutting the birthday cake.


Trenyce & her guests.
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The guests...

Trenyce entertaining her little guest, Ernest.

trenyce striking a Barney conversation with Catherine jiejie

BB Shayanne with Daddy & Mummy.

Trenyce & Samantha.

Dominic performing balancing stunts.

Trenyce, Cordilia & Dominc enjoying mini buffet outside the house.

Trenyce enjoying her mini cornetto.

Kai Zhe also enjoying his mini cornetto.

The three warriors, Ryan, Rayner & Dominic. Mood: Happy Milestone: 2 years old