Big sister, little brother

Mia will be turning 20 months tomorrow.

She loves hanging out with Alan a lot more these days. She helps to get fresh diapers for me to change him. She even puts away the wet wipes container into the cabinet once I finished using it.

If Alan is crying in his cot, she would rock the cot and try to sooth him.

They sometimes "talk" to each other in baby talk. Maybe she's telling him to move and make space for her here.

They can watch TV together, without disturbing each other. Well, as long as I'm watching them they don't dare bother each other.

I do hope that they will continue to take care of each other as they grow. I'm sure there will be fights. But that's all part of growing up isn't it?

And I'm pretty sure that they'll be moments when they'll torment each other - more of Mia bullying the brother for now because let's face it, Alan can't move much yet. Let's hope for more care and love between the two of them than tormenting moments.


OK, bonus picture time:
I bought Alan a sweater today. He'll need this when we go away for our family vacation. It's meant to be for a 1 year old but it fits him well. He's such a big boy. His smile.... a friend told me he smiles like Elvis Presley. LOL!

Past, Present, Future

“Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.” — William Wordsworth

First, lets look at the past.

Shock, gasp, horror! What was I thinking when I put on my ensemble?! The hair, the masculine jacket, mandarin collar, pink socks, pink shoes.


This is what happens when you let your mummy cut your hair. We all had hairstyles inspired by The Beatles for a long time.

I used to go out late into the night a lot. Clubbing, karaoke-ing, food-tasting, wine tasting events.

I'm not shy when addressing a crowd. I can totally lose myself in the moment. So much so, I also tend to forget how I must have looked. Check out how W I D E apart my legs are in this picture. Not a pretty sight!

And yes, I used to be thin.

Earlier tonight, I met up with some friends and looked through these pictures. We had a blast reminiscing the past. Why did I bring out these old pictures with me? Well, they were props for our photo-shoot. More on the photo shoot in another post. By the way, these last 2 pics were taken from Facebook! The Organising Chairperson took these photos.

Yes, indeed there's a lot that we can learn from the past to profit our present. There's a lot that we can learn from our present to live a better future. Be it in our sense of dressing, the way we carry ourselves, our speech, how we handle situations, our mannerism or even in our thoughts.

Looking back at those pictures tonight made us all laugh.

Of course, there were also moments of tension, anger, frustrations, pain and the like associated to the memories. This occurs more when things are not going our way. I've learnt to just let them go. I now choose my battle. Life is short. You live but once. Let our past make us better, not bitter.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Our storeroom was really cluttered. Much of the mess was because of the stacks of old newspapers.

We don't subscribe to any newspapers because I find it quite wasteful really. Sometimes we're away on holidays and I ask the delivery boy not to send papers during those times. Yet, we get charged the same amount for the full month. So by no longer subscribing, this way we get to reduce our waste ie spending unnecessary cash.

My in-laws subscribe to the Daily Express and are normally finished reading the papers come evening time. So, each evening my husband takes the newspaper from his parents home as he drops off their mail. There you go: reuse!

But as time goes by, we accumulate a lot of newspapers in this house. I didn't want to just throw them out. Rather, I felt charitable and drove to our church to drop off the newspapers at their recycling bin. However, when I got there, the church gate was shut!

Then I drove to Asia Paper Recycle in Kg Kibabaig near Donggongon.

I was surprised to see that someone sent their pre-wedding photo album to the recycling plant. Undoubtedly we normally don't look at the pre-wedding photo album much after the wedding but those things are expensive to make!

Which is why during our wedding, my husband and I did not take any packages with the bridal shop. Instead, we invested in a professional photographer to take our pictures on the wedding day itself. We didn't even hire wedding gowns or suits. We had our own gown/suits tailor made. It was what we wanted, was much cheaper and we get to keep them.

Anyway, the workers at the recycling plant were really busy but one staff did come to my aid really fast and started to unload the stacks and stacks of newspapers from the back of my SUV.

After a while, another staff came back to me with .... MONEY!

34kg of old newspapers and I get RM3.40. Huh?! That doesn't even cover the cost of my petrol. Nonetheless, I felt pretty good because at least I help in a little way to reduce unnecessary landfill and save our planet.

Bonus time:

Arriving home, I see Alan busy practicing his flip. Hardworking boy.

For his reward, I let him watch Mia's Elmo DVD and play with her Elmo doll. He's a hugger alright, he just rolled to his side and hugged Elmo as he watched Elmo on TV.

Alan is 4 months old!

Yes, my little baldy turned 4 months last Saturday (16th July 2011).

Alan now weighs 7.8kg and measures 63cm. I tried to measure him on Friday but I couldn't get his chubby legs straight. This morning while he was sleeping, I managed to relax his legs and measure him better.

He still can't hold his head steadily. He's wobbly like jelly. Hmmmm.

However, he managed to do his flip this morning! All by himself. Once was not enough, he did it thrice. By then, I think he wore himself out and was crying for help to lay him on his back.

I felt so sorry for my tired (albeit hardworking) little boy so I picked him up. Less than 3 minutes later, he fell asleep. Putingnya pun dihisap miring-miring. Kesian.

Need a BIG break

What a week. Mia has missed a week from school because she's sick again. It started with eye infection @ crusty eye discharge, "sleepers", taik mata! Then it was her coughing, flu, runny nose, high fever, and chest infection. Since Monday we've been sleeping without the air con on. Read: SUFFERIN' SAUNA SITUATION!

To make matters worse, she refuse to take her medicine. I hid it in yoghurt which worked for a couple of days and then nope, she caught on and refused yoghurt. I hid it in juice, and again, reject. After that, we resorted to using brute force to shove the medicine into her mouth using the syringe and she spits out about 70% of the medicine. Ishk.

She's not 100% well in that she's still coughing a bit and has a little bit of runny nose as well.

But she's well enough for a "footy fight" with her brother today

Still, it worries me if it is wise to take the risk and bring her along to the Sutera Harbour's 7K Run tomorrow. Oh well, we'll see how we go.

Naturally, I left Mia at home most days this week while I go about to run errands. Including yesterday when I took Alan out to get his passport photo done.


Yes, baby Alan has his very own passport done today:

It doesn't take long to get passports done. For infants, we just need:

• a photocopy of the baby's birth certificate,
  
• a copy of the parent/guardian making the application for the baby,
  
• 2 passport size photo
• completed form
  
• RM150 payment for a 5-year passport (RM300 for adults OK)
  

Once I submitted his application and made the payment, I was told that the passport would be ready in 1 hour. Guess what, I took my chance and checked with the counter 20 minutes after making my payment and his passport was already ready! I was so glad we waited there.

Mia had her passport done when she was around about 5 months to prepare for our trip to Singapore.

And now, Alan has his own and we are a step closer to be all set for our next trip (wink wink!)... a BIG break!

Good time to catch up

I went out earlier to a friend's house for a pot-luck dinner, I made egg salad.

It was fun catching up with old friends and we talked about all sorts of stuff ranging from the hot news of the time.... the "yellow fever" in Malaysia, to babies, travels, old times and so on.

Evidently, I still have the baby bump left behind by my terrible 2s.

Really fresh orange juice made using a brand new juicer which just arrived from China tonight!

Our JCI Intan's 2011 President Zyee trying to cut the cake

Yummy, I love the choc cake so much that I took the biggest piece and then felt ever so guilty

These shoes are like 40 years old! I love them.... I hope I can save 1 pair of shoes for Mia and Alan each for them to treasure.

The School Uniform

Tuesday 5 July 2011:

Our girl doesn't wear uniform to school because she's not exactly attending school or pre-school. She's only turning 2 this year and is in the nursery group.

So I was surprised (but a wee delighted) to pick her up from school and saw her wearing the pre-school's uniform. Has she been upgraded?!

Hardly. The nursery's carer (@ teacher) explained to me that our girl pooped, stuck her hands inside her diaper, played with her poop and wiped it all over her top! OMG!

I forgot to put in extra change of clothes in her bag earlier that morning, hence they loaned her pre-school t-shirt.

Fashionistas

I've always been excited to see what's the new trend coming up on the fashion scene and who the trendsetters are. Its no surprise that most of the time they are celebrities.

Some dress to impress, while others use the "shock" element in a desperate attempt to be memorable.

For example:

The Kardashians embrace their curves and look really good. I'm impressed.

There's Lady Gaga who never fail to shock. I wouldn't say that she's a trendsetter because I don't see people dressing up in bras and granny panties. However,

are we raising a Baby Gaga in this house?! Yes, Mia's back with her diaper as outerwear phase again. What's worse is she also likes to expose her abdomen (as if she has a six-pack). She won't let any of us button her pyjamas top so we have to wait till she falls asleep to button her up.

Sleeping partner/s

Both my kids need a bit of help to sleep at night. It may be gentle taps on their bum, a tight hug or a bit of rocking.

Sometimes, they can just fall asleep on their own very easily.

Then there are times when they prefer to have the company of their "friends".

In the case of Mia, it'll be Piglet, big Pinky Teddy and (very rarely) Big-eyed Pink Froggy.

For Alan, it has to be Teddy Eddy. He likes to have Teddy Eddy near his face, on his cheeks or the teddy's arms covering his eyes.

The other night however they each went to sleep with a new sleeping partner:

An orange for Mia

And a monkey on top of the head for Alan.