Pneumonia Again...

It's Mei Mei's turn this time. 

Her fever started on Tuesday, we took her to the GP on Thursday, the Paed on Saturday, and all ruled out pneumonia. When Monday the situation didn't improved, we decided to let her go for Nebulizer every 4 hours. However, after the 2nd dose, we felt something was not right and decided to have her done the X-ray. Results showed her right lung was covered with phlegm at the lower portion. So she had to be admitted right away, and doctor told us the standard antibiotics course for pneumonia took at least 5 days. 

This photo was taken on Day2, she had finally adapted to the new environment. Can you see the princess wall papers in her room? At least that's one reason she agreed to stay in this room, because it was rather noisy due to the special ventilation system, and she was very afraid of that sound in the beginning.    

SJ holding the Nebulizer mask on her own. This reminds me of her Jie Jie's experience 3 years ago. 

I didn't let Jie Jie visit her in the beginning because it could spread, and she felt very sad. So she made this card for Mei Mei. How sweet of her.  

SJ started to develop some rashes on her chest, which spread to her neck, legs and arms as days went by. Initially, doctor told us it's eczema so we were told to apply a mild steroid cream (Hydrocortisone cream 1%). By Day3, there's still no improvement so maybe it could be due to a bacteria caused by pneumonia. We're still waiting for the blood test to tell us. So far, SJ had done blood test and urine test. Doctor said it's not necessary to do the TB skin test for her since he's very sure she didn't had the bacteria.

So now, both Hubby and I took turns to camp in the hospital with her. Hopefully all the test results would turn out good.

Funny Conversations

1. A 4-year-old brainstorming process:

Jie Jie: Uh-oh, Daddy has gone to sleep, now nobody can teach me how to do my homework already.
Mei Mei: Ask Mommy!
Jie Jie: Mommy doesn't know Chinese.
Mei Mei: Erm, ask Amah?
Jie Jie: Amah doesn't know Chinese either.
Mei Mei: Call your friends?
Jie Jie: Daddy will scold me one....
Mei Mei: He's slept, he won't know one.
Jie Jie: I don't know their numbers.
Mei Mei: Ask your teacher then.
Jie Jie: Cannot la, I don't know her number too.
Mei Mei: No, go and ask teacher tomorrow.
Jie Jie: Will be too late already.
Mei Mei: Let me see, which one you don't know?

Jie Jie showed Mei Mei her book. Mei Mei took a look and then asked: 1+1 = ?

Jie Jie: No la, not like this one la.. That's maths question.
Mei Mei: Then which one?
Jie Jie: You won't know also one la.. (And she started to get restless and worried).

Mei Mei went to my room and blurted out: Mommy, Jie Jie doesn't know how to do her homework.



2. Last 2 week, we were going back to Ipoh to celebrate Father's Day with my father. He had boiled some home-grown black sugar cane water for us. So I asked the girls what should they say to him.

Mei Mei: Amitofou, Amitaba. (She was taught to say this phrase as Thank You in school).
Jie Jie: No, you cannot say Amitaba to a Christian. That's not showing your respect.
Mei Mei: Then I'll say Xie Xie, since I'm a Chinese.
Jie Jie: I think the best is Thank You, that's the safest.
Mei Mei: No, I don't want to say Thank You. That's amoh.
Jie Jie: I like Amoh, I still prefer Thank You.

Father's Day 2012

Sze Yi surprised us by asking Daddy to sit down on the floor. She did a little curtsy and then said the most touching thing that I ever heard. 

爸爸，

你的大手牵着我的小手，

我就不害怕。

请你等我长大时，

我会给你最好的报答！

爸爸，

祝你父亲节快乐！

爸爸，

我爱您！

谢谢您！

She ended that with a big bear hug for Daddy (now I know why she asked Daddy to sit down on the floor so that she could reach him). 

Thanks to her class teacher for teaching her this. 

哈巴狗

一隻哈巴狗, 坐在大門口
眼睛黑油油, 想吃肉骨頭
一隻哈巴狗, 吃完肉骨頭
尾巴搖一搖, 向我點點頭

SJ said this is my song. I was very surprised at first. When I asked her why, she replied, "Because you work in 哈巴狗 mah...."

Boyfriends

I couldn't imagine that my girls would start talking about boyfriends at the age as young as four! Gosh, I thought to myself, I couldn't remember having any crush when in primary school, and my small one has not even enter primary yet. What's happening to the kids nowadays?!

She even had the gall to tell the boy to marry her when they are bigger next time! LOL! And then, the boy no longer studying in the same school now. She asked me, "Mommy, how am I going to marry HP next time, because he's not coming to school anymore?" I told her, "Maybe next time you'll meet him again?" But then I quickly added, "Lets find another guy, ok?" And she did! So fast!

The elder one is not that bold, at least she kept her feelings to herself. She shared it with me, of course, but she didn't go and tell the boy, thank goodness. Gosh, gosh, gosh, I still haven't recover from such shock yet. Someone please tell me, is this normal, or only my kids are experiencing this?

A Feisty Fowl Four Celebration!

What's better than this to start off the day?

Birthday messages from Jie Jie

The birthday cake, special request from the birthday girl. She wanted a blue one, but didn't want a 'boy' angry bird. So Mommy requested for the ribbon to make it like a 'girl' angry bird :) It turned out rather nice, don't you think so?

See how happy the birthday girl looked? 

 Singing of birthday songs in 3 different versions 

 1,2,3, blow! Can you see the angry bird's tail? 

 Cutting of birthday cake with Jie Jie

 Class photo, with the birthday girl flanked by her two best friends

 Family photo with her classmates

After that, it's the moment everyone was waiting for! Nearly every kid had more than one helping of cake, until the teacher had to stop them in case they were too full for lunch later. The cake came in two flavours, the angry bird being longan lychee flavour while the base was chocolate cake. For the first time in many years, I was rather satisfied with the cake in appearance and taste (even though it was slightly smeared). Yes, we ordered the cake from the same shop every year :)

 Distribution of party packs after everyone cleaned up

 They're angry bird puzzles!

Attending her birthday party helped me get to know more about her classmates. According to her teacher, some of her friends dropped out because one of the uncle who used to transport them to school moved away to another state. One mommy even had to take the bus to fetch her child everyday. There's a girl from an orphanage nearby who could not talk since birth, because she was tied and left there by her mother. What a pitiful story, our hearts went out to her immediately. Lucky thing she was a bright student and she had a brother in the same school too. And luckily they were provided transportation and education. Such real-life situations made me felt grateful that there were still such good people around to take care of the more unfortunate.  

It's half day for her today, because Daddy and Mommy planned to spend some time with her.

Wearing her birthday present from Aunty HP, which came in her favourite color! 

She loved it very much!

When asked what did she want for lunch, she chose wanton noodles. So we took her to a nice Sarawak noodles restaurant which offered mee kolok, and looked rather similar to wanton noodles :)

Yummy, yummy!

 And then it's off to her favourite place, Youth Park! Looks like they just installed a new see-saw!

Happily galloping away!

And finally, opening her presents! One from Auntie SL, the other from her classmate. 

She loved them to bits!

Happy birthday Sze Juin. Hopefully you'll slowly get rid of your angry bird temper and grow up to be a happy girl :)

Cards Making Month

May is here again, and I've been really really busy! See what we've been up to....

Mommy wondered how I got the time to do this, 

since I did it in school (not during Art lesson), on the last day of my exam! 

Card for Mommy - continuing from above which was the cover page,
here's the inside and back page

Bookmark made by Juin Juin in school

Cards made by Juin Juin and me for our teachers

Card for Mei Mei

Hmmm... Mommy forgot to take a picture of the birthday card I made for Cousin Samantha. If you noticed, most of my cards are not properly coloured. That's because, I just love to draw, but I hate to colour :) 

Our first homemade playdough

Last weekend, I suddenly felt like making use of my cream of tartar which had been sitting on the shelf unopened, for years! It was given to me by a friend because she knew I wanted to make some playdough, but I only got to use it recently.. Oops! Luckily there's no expiration date ;P

Actually I've been keeping a few recipes on homemade playdough when I came across them, but unfortunately, I didn't get to try them. It happened that I recently I came across GT's proven recipe, so I just follow that as it's the freshest in my mind. 

I mixed the ingredients in this sequence (though I'm sure the sequence doesn't matter). 

1 cup water

1/4 cup salt

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 cup flour

1 Tbs. vegetable oil

Food colouring (I piped down thru a straw, 4 times to make an estimates of 4 drops)

Steps: 

Mix them well in a pot and cook over medium heat on the stove, stirring constantly, until it forms into a ball. As soon as it joins into one big glob, take it off the heat and put on a plate to let it cool down. After about 5-10 minutes, knead it a few times until it is nice and soft.

The end result? Taa--da! 

MIL's  figurine creation :)

My girls love it! Even MIL claimed it remained soft after exposed for a long time, unlike those commercial type playdough.  

And I didn't need to worry if they cleaned their hands thoroughly after playing. After all, it's edible!

Lesson learnt: 

The first batch that I made, I forgot to add in the vegetable oil, so I got them all sticky and couldn't really form into a ball, as it stuck to my cooking pot and also my hands. Imagine my amazement after I added the vegetable oil to the mixture, it's like being transformed instantly. To be safe, I boiled it again after that, as I'm not sure what would be the side-effects of using uncooked oil. They still turned out all-right, luckily. 

4 or 5?

It's my lunar birthday today. Amah said I'm 5! Wow, what a big jump. Jie Jie was so confused and kept asking Amah, "If Juin Juin is 5 today according to the Chinese calendar, then when her English birthday comes, she'll be going back to 4? How can that be?" Confusing!

I have my own question though. If I'm 5 today, that means I no longer go to Nursery Blue? I should go to K1 or 5-year old class instead?

Mommy had a tough time explaining that Chinese Calendar counts things differently. It's always 1 year older. But in school, we always follow the English one. It also happened that this year, the Chinese one comes earlier than the English one. Sigh, why do they want to make things so complicated?

Terrible or Terrific Three?

I used to mention that SJ was very easy to handle, and I could bring her anywhere with me. In church, she hardly disturbed me. During friends' get-together, she's an angel and behaved very well. In a shopping trip, she helped me pick the stuffs that I needed and didn't make a fuss at all. She even gave comments on which dress was nice on me ;P What I loved her the most was she didn't ask me to buy 'this and that' for her,  unlike her Jie Jie. She's not greedy at all, and would decline anything that we offered to buy her just because she's got one already. When she was asked to choose anything, she'll pick the smaller ones and gave the bigger ones to Jie Jie. Or, she'll leave the pink ones for Jie Jie, because she knew that's Jie Jie's favourite colour. Isn't she sweet?

Well, everything changed not too long ago, or when she reached the Terrible Three stage. She had terrible temper tantrums. She made loud noises in church. She wanted me to carry her all the time. She demanded for things when I took her for a shopping spree. Her mood swings were dramatic. She could be smiling at one time, and switched to an angry bird the next. None of us knew how to handle her. She got very attached to me, until when Daddy picked her from school, she refused to follow him back! She wanted me to come immediately! Gosh, such a difficult child.

Still, she can be an angel when she's in the right mood. She's our 'coffee controller'. Nobody can drink coffee when she's around. She used my conscience to make me put back the coffee when I did grocery shopping with her. That's because long long time ago, Daddy told her and Jie Jie that coffee is a No-No. So she used back our words on us. She remembered every single word we said, and will remind us when we least expected it. She would question us on our actions if it contradicted with our words. So, we had to be very very careful when she's around... Can you believe it that we're actually afraid of her!

Terrible or terrific, I hope it's just a stage that she's going thru. I can't believe time flies so fast. In another day, she'll be four soon, according to the lunar calendar. I silently prayed that Four would be a fantastic time for us all.

Sibling Influence

I surprised Mommy with this not long after I heard Jie Jie recited this....



Of course, there were some incorrect pronunciations, but what would you expect from a 3++ year old? Even Mommy claimed she's not as good!

Welcoming Easter 2012

Just as last year, this year we also attended the Easter Vigil Mass. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Easter Vigil is the most important service of public worship and Mass of the liturgical year. Historically, it is during this service that people are baptized and that adult catechumens are received into full communion with the Church. 

At first, it was all dark. Can you see those flickers of candles? The girls got restless and scared, but excited at the same time. SJ kept asking me when Jesus is going to rise up.

When the lights started to light up, SJ told me she can't see Jesus woke up. How am I going to explain to her?

Random pictures taken by Hubby...

Top: The girls were busy with their candles

Bottom: Mommy and SJ (SY dozed off on Daddy's lap!)

The Mass lasted up to 3 hours I think. We left after 2.5 hours (after I received the Communion), as the girls (and also Hubby) got restless. We went to Mc D to celebrate (just like last year).  

On Easter Sunday, the girls wanted to go for Easter egg hunt, but unfortunately, there's none at Straits Quay. We didn't go searching at other places though, and lazy Mommy didn't feel like organizing one ;D

This year, I got myself and the girls new dresses. It's after all the most important occasion of the year, but not many observed it. The girls posing in their new dresses. Ah yes, Jie Jie got a new hairstyle too!

Have a blessed Easter!

The much needed haircut

I've been looking forward so much to this day, more than her, because I wanted to end the hair tying task as soon as possible. However, the little girl was not happy. 

Took awhile to convince her to go, and only succeeded after the hairdresser offered her a sweet. 

Kids will always be kids....

 Still refused to smile. Made me feel so guilty for making her cut her hair

 So much hair has been cut off! This was the first time SY grew her hair so long

  A smile finally...

Catechism

SY started Catechism this year. Attendance was strictly monitored, and the children were only permitted to be absent for a maximum of 6 times per year. Luckily school replacements didn't count. However, these were more applicable to those who wanted to receive the sacraments later.

It's a good exposure to the faith besides strengthening their good values. It's a 1.5 hour session per week, and the activities included singing, Para Liturgy on the Stations of the Cross, feet washing between them and their partners on the week prior to Palm Sunday, etc. That's what I gathered from my girl. They were loaned a library book each for their references, which outlined the syllabus of the lessons.

One good thing that I noticed was that classes in average was only ~3 times per week. At some month, only twice due to school holidays or in conjunction to any feast days.  So, it's more easy-going for us :)

Here are some pictures I took during their Para Liturgy session.

   Top: Veronica and the Daughters of Jerusalem

Bottom: Sze Yi's role as Veronica who wipes the face of Jesus

Interesting fact about Logo Design

When I took SJ shopping with me, she'll point out to things that we've bought last time, or places that we've been before. I was amazed at her ability to recognise a place, or the route that I was using. Not only that, when there are a few brands to select from, she'll automatically chose the same brand that we've been using and placed it in my shopping cart.

This led me to wonder, what particular image or sign that triggered her memory? Could it be the logo of the particular brand?

When she saw the 'M' sign, she would automatically ask for fries :)

When she saw the Disney logo, she got excited all over. 

          Yes, that's how we ended up with this....

Did you see the Mickey Mouse logo at the screen on the right? 

As for Jie Jie, the only sign she watched out for when we're dining outside was none-other than the 100-plus logo.


No doubt, the people behind the logo creation process had certainly put much thought into how to attract the public's attention, not just adults, but also kids. They just knew what colours or characters to put just to attract a particular audience. Hmmm... since SY loves to draw, I wonder if I should start exposing her to Logo Design Works too. Too bad most art lessons do not include this in their syllabus. Well, not until when they are in secondary school, I think.

On a separate note, I've been thinking of revamping this website with a nicer outlook, but kept putting it off. Maybe it's time to start engaging the logo creation team soon....

It's the Day!

 I'm number 3!

In-line with my team members, we're going in soon! Wish us luck!

Picnic by the beach

Last weekend, Daddy promised to bring me for a picnic because I was feeling down over something. So we invited cousin Sarah and her family too.

We finally found a suitable beach

And what a blast of fun we had! See for yourself....

We arrived first, so we started digging right away

Our picnic spot - kudos to Amah for preparing most of the stuffs

Mei Mei enjoyed playing with the sand... 

(Mommy noticed  that she loved to play with the sand from the parent-toddler programme that she attended before she was 3. According to the facilitator, sandplay therapy is a very good emotion release tool, especially for children to express the "inexpressible")

If you noticed, at first we're squatting, now we're sitting right on top of the sand!

I was happily building my castles...

Ta-da! The finished product :)

At first it was one....

And then it became two! Oops, wrong sequence! :)

Amah was having fun too, she's trying to draw something as well...

Ok, now for some exercise and water play!

Just then, Sarah and her family arrived, so we had more fun!

The adults enjoyed the food while the kids spent more time playing...
Do notice the bigger kids and smaller kids automatically clicked to their own age category

I found this

and copied it! (Erm, can you guess who's Johe?)

We're waiting for the waves to roll in... Mei Mei with her bucket ready while I'm trying to throw a stone into the waves

Plop! Can you see where my stone hit?

The water babies... looks like Sarah and Mei Mei loves the water!

Sarah and Mei Mei having some water therapy? No thanks, don't count me in!

o O - the storm's coming!

In no time, it suddenly rained and we quickly packed our stuffs. We hardly had time to really clean ourselves and changed into comfy clothes, we just made do with a quick one and ran to our cars for shelter in a jiffy. 

It was such a nice family get-together, and we sure plan to have this again one day!