Archive for the 'About me' Category

Only 2 more days to go before the school holidays. As usual we have grand plans. No, not to go anywhere but we have lots of activities planned for the kids. As usual, mummy will be more busy than ever during the school holidays, so I will take a blog break too.

I hope that the schools won’t dish out too many homework for them. It is only a week’s holiday after all. Minus the weekends, it is only 5 days. That is too little for all the things we want to do. I hope to…

• let them explore the computer more (on mommy approved games and sites only) Hehe. No shooting, racing or other mindless games. There are many educational games that are fun and equally challenging
• brush up their languages by letting them watch more Malay and Chinese cartoons
• let them read stories in 3 languages (learning 3 languages at the same time is tough.) and discuss with them afterwards
• do arts and crafts (which the children love)
• teach them a little bit of English because it has been neglected to make way for learning Chinese and Malay
• let them play ball and skipping and bean bags (we made two to play with this holidays)
• let them practise more piano (I am glad that the kids love the piano. I do not have to nag at them to practise. It is the other way around, they beg me to let them practise but usually there is not enough time, so piano practise is low in priority, unfortunately, unless there is a piano exam around the corner)

That is a tall order indeed. Crafts, Languages, Music and PC Skills plus a little bit of sports. That is our objective this school holidays. Only 5 days to do the things that they seldom get to do during regular school days due to lack of time. What a pity.

The kids love holidays even though we seldom go anywhere. They look forward to our own home school holiday program. We usually draw up a timetable together and they look forward to following the timetable of activities. During some school holidays, if there is a test pending afterwards, then we have to do more revision and practise in workbooks. However, this holidays, with the test just over, we can do more fun things.

This year for hubby’s birthday, he was on leave. His birthday is near Chinese New Year as it always is. However this year, something was different. This year, the kids were both at school in the morning. Hurrah!

So we had 2-3 hours to ourselves to “paktor” just like the old times. We went to “jalan-jalan” and held hands like we did in our 20s and 30s but here we are now both in our 40s.

Quite often when we are with the kids, we have no time to hold hands because either one of us would be holding one or two pairs of little hands.

We don’t have anyone we can rely on to babysit for a few hours so it is unrealistic for us to go for the suggested “date nights” that one is “supposed to go on” to keep your relationship with your spouse alive instead of concentrating on family and talk about babies and children all the time.

Now that the kids are old enough to be in school we can have stolen moments again. 

I often see my neighbours having stolen moments after their 3 kids are in school. They would walk out together for breakfast holding hands.

So, to parents of very young babies and toddlers who never seem to have the time, be patient, you will find time again for each other once the kids grow up and they grow up so very fast.

The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly.  ~Peter De Vries

Today I shall be having my final piano class but it is of course not the end of playing the piano for me. I have learned enough to self learn from now on. Now that the boy has started to learn as well, I no longer have the time to learn myself as well as help two kids with their practises. Besides it is very expensive to have 3 people in the house all learning at the same time.

Piano Teacher has asked me to memorise my “Moonlight Sonata” and improve on “Save the Last Dance for Me” and “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”. She also gave me two new songs to learn last week. “Souvenir D’enfance” and “Les Fleurs Sauvages”. All for a half hour class. This is a very tall order indeed!

With that I wrap up 2 1/2 years of learning the piano. Yahoo! From now on I can just play for fun. No more practising for lessons or concerts though I shall miss playing together with my girl. We managed to “perform” at two of the piano school’s “concert” and it was a very nice experience to be playing with her.

Below is Richard Clayderman’s Les Fleurs Sauvages as played by HeartBtrue on YouTube. I wish I could play like that!

Yesterday, when I was out buying breakfast and newspapers, my usual newspaper vendor got me to try some Chinese New Year cookies. They were delicious so I ordered some. That means cookie buying is settled. Yahoo! I told the kids about it and they were very happy looking forward to eating those Chinese New Year cookies and delicacies that they remembered.

I don’t normally plan my cookie buying very well. Usually, I just grab whatever I can last minute from the supermarket. That usually leaves me undesirables. So, I am happy to be able to order some in advance this year. Hopefully, they taste as good as the samples. Usually I just get the standard fare like in the picture. Those were from last year if I am not mistaken. I would get just 4-5 varieties at the most. Otherwise, if they are not finished, guess who has to finish them? Yeah, me and my expanding waistline.

I wrote on my Parenting Times blog that I am trying to create excitement for my kids for Chinese New Year. In doing so, I find that, not only the kids but I too am feeling some building excitement. lol.

I’ve never worn size S before. However I wore M when I was in my 20s and shifted to L in my late 30s. Sob.

Then horror of horrors, post pregnancy, I ballooned to XXL! Much to my dismay it stayed that way for a long time! I had to take drastic action. I ate like a bird. I exercised. After 6 months, I returned to L or occassionally XL.

I hope never to go to XXL again. Though I’m still stuck at L and I suspect I will never fit into M again, it is much better than XXL!

As for my shoe size, it has grown from 6 to 8 and it will never come down again. No amount of dieting will make it shrink after pregnancy.

So there it is. I am L with a shoe size 8. Big hor? As they say. I am in shape. Round is a shape.

What size are you? Anybody in size XS out there? You’ll look like a dwarf beside this giant. lol.

I have a very young voice over the phone. That is not a compliment because I sound really young over the phone. Young as in like a little girl young and not young as in a sexy young lady young.

My good friend Serene, says that I sound like Daisy Duck. Quack! Quack!

Once, I called up my credit card company with an enquiry and the gentleman on the other end asked me “Are you calling on your own behalf?” When I said yes, he told me “I have to check because you sound very young. I have to make sure that it is not a child making a prank call.” A child!!!

The other day I was lamenting in FB about being called “Silai”, then I was happy for a moment because the gas delivery man had called me “Amoy”. As it turned out, he only called me “Amoy” because I was speaking to him over the phone and not face to face. Hmm…… not happy about that.

Tell me my friends, how do you sound like over the phone? Do you bark, growl, whine or quack like Daisy Duck or Minnie Mouse like me? Do you have a low sexy purr, a large growl of a voice or a tiny weeny soft one like me when you speak over the phone? Do you think your telephone voice matches your real one or  your looks and personality?

Last weekend we made an impromptu visit to Zoo Negara. Dad was with us. Usually when we ask him whether he wants to go out or stay in, he would say “Don’t know”, “You Decide” or “Anything”. This time he said “I want to go out. I’m bored.” So we took him to the Zoo.

Naturally the kids were thrilled. Kong Kong going to the Zoo with them. That is surely a treat. Since it was the first weekend after school going kids went back to school, I had expected it to be quiet. I was wrong. The carpark was full.

I think Kong Kong has not been to the Zoo in years! Luckily there was the tram to ride in. For RM4 per ride, we could ride in the cool breeze so it would not be so hard on Kong Kong to do a walkabout. I enjoyed the tram ride because it was very cooling. We were crazy enough to go in the hot afternoon sun at about 12.00pm. We all enjoyed some hand held cone ice-cream too at RM6 each! Kakak was amazed and excited because she had not seen so many wild animals before accept in books and TV.

We made it a very short visit so that Kong Kong would not get too tired. I think the kids “tak puas”. (was not very satisfied). They pouted a little bit but cheered up when daddy said he will take them again the next time mummy goes out with her sisters. So far this is their 3rd visit to the Zoo. The first two times was when mummy went out with her sisters. Daddy took them on their own. Kakak was not with us yet at the time. He is very brave indeed to handle two young kids on at outing to the zoo all by himself. Kudos to daddy!

Chinese New Year is coming so its out with the old and in with the new. Time to get new clothes, new shoes, new hairdo. Hmmm…. what hairdo?

To me there are only 4 basic styles. It’s either long and straight, short and straight, long and curly or short and curly with some variations in between like bob, boy cut, layered look etc. So which hairstyle? *Taps fingers*

It would seem that as you grow older and older, your hairstyles become more and more limited. It is limited to short or medium length and straight rather than curly or you would either look like an old lau hiau Ah Soh or an Ah Soh who is trying to look young.

Hmm…. how ar? Since I am always a young person locked inside a middle aged body, what hairstyle should I keep? Should I break tradition? Since I always tend to veer towards the long… hmm…. maybe long with curls…. maybe just color it will do… maybe very very straight (you know like in those glossy shampoo ads) …. maybe… oh I give up. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it always ends up in a mess, tied up in a messy half pony tail half bun. So it does not make any difference. Hehe.

What do you all think? Do you think middle aged women look better with certain hairstyles only?

My spouse does not speak to me nicely. At least, that is what my daughter says. Hahaha. Yesterday, the kids wanted to pick some books to buy from a brochure. I told them that I will have to ask daddy for them first.

“No, let us ask.” the girl said. If we ask, daddy will tell us nicely. “No, you have too many books already…..” etc (she said in a gentle, patient voice) but if you ask…. daddy will grrrrr grrrrr growl growl. (makes imitation of how someone would sound like if replying in an irrate manner.)

She then went on to give her own assumption as to why daddy speaks like that to mummy. “Maybe it is because you have been speaking to him for too many years. We speak to him for only a few years.” Hahaha.

I just had to tell him what the girl said and we both had a good laugh about it.

So, what do you think? Does familiarity breed contempt? Have you forgotten how to speak to your spouse nicely? For the record, actually the spouse does speak to me nicely. He is also very polite and often thanks me, even if I am just bringing him a cup of water. Do you thank your spouse for little things? However, he does sometimes grunt and grumble a little when he is under stress or has a lot of things on his mind. Who doesn’t?

I reminded the kids that they can ask him but they must pick the right time to speak to him. They must ask him when he is free and not when he is in the middle of something. Similarly, when speaking to our spouse, I think we must pick the right time to speak, especially if it is to discuss some important issue. Otherwise, we will end up being growled at and we will be snarling back. lol.

We got a new toy recently. A GPS. With this toy, as you can imagine, we’ve been doing a lot of driving to faraway places recently. Haha. Just to test it out.

It asked us to turn right at a no right turn. It wanted to make us make a U-turn when we know roughly that the way to go is forward. It refused to take us to our destination. It kept on wanting us to turn back!

It took us to Jalan Hulu Kelang in Shah Alam when we really wanted to go to Ulu Kelang in Ampang. It wanted to take us to some other place called Taipan in Klang when we really wanted to go to Taipan in USJ Subang Jaya.

It led us round and round and round on a wild goose chase. Still, its really interesting and we like it. The verdict is… it helps some but you should still have a general idea of the place you want to go. You should also make sure that the map is taking you to right place as there are many similar street names.