January 2011

It's been several long months since I've taken any interest in the Internet. It's mostly because my laptop has been usurped away from me by the 2 boys, the big one and the little one. And anyway I haven't really been inspired to say anything.

So since the last post,

Sean had his 4th birthday. Christmas and New year has come and gone, and now Chinese New Year is coming. There are several notable things starting from the beginning of this year.

Baby no 2 is in Production! Yay!

Firstly, number 2 babe is being grown in the oven. It's now the 11th week. So it's still early stages, and it has been an awful stage so far. Throughout the 2nd half of December until now, I feel that I've been incapacitated.

I am nauseous most of the time, and I practically spend all my free time in bed. I can't stand the smell of any chemical or perfume, so I kind of dreaded bathing in December. The smell of soap or shampoo made me sick. So now we all use (yes, both Sam and Sean also) Simple bath soap which has no perfume at all.

Two weeks ago, I was walking near some mamak stall, I had to look for drain holes every few steps to vomit into. In his desperation, Sam went to the pharmacy to look for a face mask for me, and came out with Veloxin (an anti nausea medication). It worked great! First I took one tablet every 2 days, and then it wasn't working enough, I had to take one tablet every day, and now, even when I take a tablet, I still vomit. So I am of the opinion that my body just needs to vomit. I haven't taken any today. I vomit when I need too. But at least I can eat now. It's not as bad as earlier when I had no appetite at all.

I think what's worse is the fact I have really low levels of energy. My energy reserve is probably 3 hours. After 3 hours of doing being up, I am exhausted and need a long rest. This is quite tricky because.....

Maid-less

of the second notable thing, i.e. we have no maid as of 1st january. It's not really that much of a problem not having a maid actually. It's just that, I've been so tired all the time, I don't really have much energy for housework. Our maid has gone to a couple of elderly relatives who need her more, and who is willing to pay her a lot more.

Sean and Sam have been angels. =D They're both really supportive. Sam in doing the cooking. MIL in the housework during times I am too exhausted to do anything. Sean is behaving so much better now. Not as sticky because he knows his mummy is 'sick because there's a baby in her tummy'.

Homework time

There are friends who feel that Sean's current school doesn't really prepare the kids well for chinese primary school. But I don't want to take him out and put him in a traditional chinese kindergarten because it took him a whole year just to get used to his current school. I don't really want him to have to adjust to a new environment all over again.

So during the holidays, I started a homework habit with Sean. Nothing much, just doing a few pages from workbooks. On days he didn't want to, I didn't push. I don't ask him to do anything on weekends. But when he does it, I give him a nice sticker to stick on his homework calendar. He loves counting the number of stickers he has on the calendar.

We usually do his 'homework' at 8pm. But yesterday, I just couldn't be bothered. I wanted to watch TV.... he he he.... I mean, So what if he doesn't do his 'homework' for a day? But he went upstairs, and I thought he was going to play computer games. When I came up at 9pm, he was doing his homework (with a little help from Daddy) all by himself! Wasn't that a pleasant little surprise? =D

The homework idea wasn't really to push him to study harder, it was more of creating a discipline habit. To set a little time to do some school work. I'm glad he's showing independence in this area. I don't know if this wonderful behavior will be the norm or the rare occasion. But it was a pleasant moment. =D

Visit to the KL Zoo

Akong and Ama brought us to the zoo. It was a week day, it wasn't crowded, so it was quite nice to walk about.


I like the Safari area, at least the animals look as if they have enough space to roam about. We got to see a little zebra fight.

Sean's favorite animal is the giraffe, and there was plenty of those in the safari.

Surprisingly another area that he really liked was the butterfly enclosure.

While I thought the horned toads were quite cool. =D

There was these rather steroided looking bulls with huge muscles. I wonder if that's natural.


I think we'll go back again. It's really quite nice and not too far away. =D

Bullied

On Monday, Sean did not want to go to school. He was being quite difficult so I was rather testy with him. I told him to stop talking for a while while I concentrate on driving him to school and keeping a cool head. So he did. He went really quiet. With my son, being quiet means something is wrong. I asked him if he was ok, he said, " Yes, I'm ok." ( but rather subdued)

This was after a battle of getting him to eat before school. I gave him more than an hour to eat and he still didn't finish his food. The moment I parked the car, he said he was hungry. So we quickly nipped to the supermarket nearby to get him some pastries to eat.

So as we were walking to school, he said again
" I don't want to go to school. My friends are stupid."
I was surprised because that's not how he usually behaves. So I asked
" Why do you call you friends that? That's not nice."
"My friends are stupid"
I asked, " Did someone call you stupid?"

I was guessing, but I know that he hasn't been picking up mandarin at school. After 8 months at school, he still speaks mostly English at school. So maybe some of his friends who are more fluent may call him names, and then he said,
" Yes. My friend call me stupid."

He didn't want to enter his classroom. I talked to his teachers about it. They said they don't allow name callings in class, but they'll be more alert and talk to the kids about it. When he came home, we found out further who this 'friend' was.

It was a girl. She seems quite nice enough, and even passed me Sean's water bottle once when he forgot it. Sean says, " Yen Ling calls me silly and stupid."

I can quite imagine the situation because Sean is a joker and likes being silly. But he is very sensitive and must be feeling very hurt. My cheerful son who is always a joker has been rather subdued these last few days, and does not want to go to school. He hasn't been himself

I feel very sad for him. :(

I think it's hard for a boy to be bullied by girls. I always tell him to treat girls nice. But little girls can be hurtful in their words, and he has no defense against this. I do hope mummies with little girls would remind them that they should be nice to little boys too.

P.S.
This lasted only a few days though. After that things went back to normal.

Sean @ 47 months - Almost 4

He's not looking forward to being 4. I told him that once he's 4 years old, he has to leave the playgroup at the library. It's the rule and there is nothing that I can do about it. So he's been saying that he wants to always be 3 years old!

He's becoming more independent, but yet still a baby, for example

When he bathes, he closes the shower door and tells me that he wants to bathe by himself. But other times, especially when he's sleepy, he wails and asks me why does he need to bathe at all?


He can switch on the laptop, and play computer games all by himself, but still needs to be fed during meal times, otherwise he just won't eat.

He's still not interested in eating. The only food he'll eat without complain is Unagi. But on the bright side, he's starting to eat more and putting a bit more meat to his bones. But sometimes I feel as if I'm always telling him, " Sean, eat your food!" But in the evening, my MIL, would feed him, which makes things easier for me.

He tells me not to hug him when he goes to sleep, but he'll hug and kiss me instead. He still digs my belly button to sleep, otherwise he can't sleep. And I'm expected to close my eyes too. I'm not allowed to read or talk. * roll eyes* I have to sleep too ( or pretend to sleep at least =P )

He can mentally add numbers up to 10 when he wants to (it's a rare occasion though), but likes making up nonsense words which sometimes get really irritating because nobody understands what he's talking about, not even himself. *shake head*

He's got plenty of confidence, even though it's sometimes misplaced LOL.

His school had an idol contest to either sing, dance, do martial art moves or recite poetry. It's really just to get the kids experience performing on stage. So Sean went up, sang really loudly (and a bit out of tune =P) the first 2 lines, and then he promptly forgot his next line. The teacher on stage siddled next to him to whisper the next lines. He continued singing (loudly) with no apparent distress. Both Sam and I were shaking so much from laughing that the video that Sam was taking with his handphone was shaky. He was really loud and out of tune. It was just really funny. =D

Updates for the last 2months

A lot has happened over the past 2 months so this is a long and condensed blog entry. I've been busy, but it's also because I've been too lazy to blog. =P

At the beginning of June, Sean's uncles John, David, and aunt Mary came back to celebrate Akong's birthday, and the whole Wee family and my sis-in-law's in laws ( Uncle Paul and Aunty Dorcas) went for a driving trip to Terrengannu, Kelantan and Ipoh. It was really fun. The first time we went together as a family on a long driving trip. Sean really liked playing with uncle David and uncle John. It was really good for him to have them around to play with. No photos because I forgot my camera and have forgotten to ask for photos from John. (Will upload the photos once I get them)

At first, I wasn't quite sure how he'll behave on the long car journey, but he behaved really well. We both sat at the back of the van and played together. He filled in his maze books, did some drawings and colorings during the drive.

This was also the first time we brought Sean to the beach. We were there only overnight, so there wasn't that much time, but we tried to make full use of it. We played in the waves and built a sand castle surrounded by a moat.

In Kelantan, we stayed at Ah Co house which has a fruit orchard behind. I tried to follow my FIL when he showed everyone around, but I wasn't wearing the correct footwear. Slippers are just no good for walking through tall grasses crawling with big red ants and bugs! But we got to see durian, rambutan, pomelo, lime, jambu trees. There was a lady finger plant next to the house. Actually there were plenty of plants and trees, I just didn't know what they all were! =P

On our way home, we stayed overnight at Ipoh. I like Ipoh. It's really quaint. Many of the older shophouses are still in good condition. It feels like a throwback in time.

When we came back to KL, as usual all of us fell sick for almost 2 weeks. I don't know why, but holidays give us the flu!

In late June, we flew over to Jakarta to spend time with my family.

I spent the whole week trying to get my IC done. It's a decentralized system and I had to get a letter of recommendation from the RT (Rukun Tetangga) first. It just so happen the RT changed in my neighbourhood and I got the wrong address. So I went to the wrong house and knocking on the door 4 times, before I got the right address, but then he sent me to the RW. And then it was to the RW (Rukun Warga), who told me to get a police report first. After the police report was done, I had to go home and get my birth certificate and Kartu Keluarga.



After which, I went to the Lurah, whose official said that my IC was expired, which meant the letter had to be sent to the Walikota! I had to asked the person really nicely to go to the Walikota office really soon, because it was already Wednesday. On Friday, when I went to the Lurah's office, the system was down. The guy said if I didn't believe him, I could go in and try to get into the system myself, which I did! I spent 20 minutes trying to get into the system on his computer. The system was really down, and so I had no choice but to come back in the afternoon again. Luckily the system was up by then and I could take my IC photo. But I had to go again later in the evening for pick up the IC.




During the week, I went on 15 visits to various officials before I could the darn thing done! It was a good thing I didn't plan to do anything else that trip. I knew it was going to be tedious, I just didn't realize how difficult it was going to be. But I was surprised that I didn't get angry at all. I thought the police and the government officials were really friendly.

My dad, who wasn't around, managed to get a flight back in time to meet us so we could celebrate his birthday with him. So besides the ordeal in getting my IC, the whole week was really relaxed. It was really for spending time with family. We also met up with friends, Eny and her cute daughters, Yulius and Paula. It's always great to spend time with family and meet up with old friends. =D

And what's best, we didn't get sick after we got back!

Sean loved his koko Fen fen and koko Frederick. I didn't have to entertain him this trip at all. He was quite happy to hang out with them. He followed them around all the time, they were quite happy to let him join them in whatever they were doing until inevitably the big boys complained that he disturbed them too much with his antics =P.

Fendi, Sean and Frederick.

Papa's birthday dinner

Sean and Lau Ma

Sean and Rena

The week after we came back, it was Kristen's 4th birthday. So we all trooped to Kristen's house to celebrate with her. But since the playgroup does not allow children above 4 years old anymore, the kids are not able to meet up anymore since they all go to different schools now or at different sessions. So this is becoming a rare occassion for the kids to play together.

Sean and Kristen

Nikita, Kristen and Sean

Aria, Kai, Sean and Isaac

The maid is back

The maid is back!

When the maid left, I was kind of glad to get the house to ourselves. By the end of the 2 months, I think we were getting the hand of it. I wasn't so hung up about getting everything done within the day.

But it's nice to have her back. I no longer have to iron clothes for the 5 of us anymore. Laundry can be really mountainous in this household and all that ironing was really drying up my hands and giving me sore hands.

I also get more time with Sean now, which is what we both missed the most when I was so busy doing this and that. There was one week, when I was so busy working as well as doing the housework, that he told me that he didn't need any help anymore. That kind of broke my heart a bit because I know it was because I was always so busy.

By the time he woke up, I was not next to him because I was busy doing something about the house. Then I would rush him through breakfast, lunch and send him to school. By the time he comes home, I wasn't not home and was only back at 9 or 9.30 pm ( during that really busy week), and then I had to have a quick dinner and shower. By the time I'm done, I had to get him to bed.

I felt him change that week. He was more grown up, and maybe a bit sad that mummy was too busy to play with him.

So I'm really glad to have the maid back. Sean and I can spend more time together doing things we like now.

More water please

Today, Sean was eating dried sotong. He enjoyed it so much that he kept eating more and more. Since I was doing my work, I didn't really keep track on how much he ate.

He kept asking more more water. Now, Sean doesn't like drinking water. So I was very surprised when he asked for water. Only after the third cup of water and when he said, "Water, water, quick, my tongue is hurting!", that I realised that the dried sotong must be quite spicy!

He he he he.... This little boy of mine is developing a taste of spicy food. We are not much of a spicy fan, but we let him try anyway.

Now I know how to get him to drink more water! =P

Oooops!!

Now he has a sore throat! Okay.... no more spicy dried sotong for a while for him. =P