Precious Baby...

Just now, while doing the coloring, suddenly Eeanne just stopped and ask:

Eeanne: Mommy, who is your daughter?
Mommy: Chim Eeanne lor...

Eeanne (with her two tiny hands waving in the air): then who is your precious baby?
Mommy(smiling): Chim Eeanne lor...
Eeanne: oh....(smiling too and continue her coloring)

Who else if it is not YOU....:-)

Attachment...

This morning when Eeanne first opened her eyes from her sweet dream, she asked:
Eeanne: mommy...you are off working today ar?
Mommy: yeah..today is Sunday, not working.
Eeanne: mommy..you stop working la!
Mommy: why? Then what shall I do?
Eeanne: to play with me at home.
Mommy: but I can't spend whole day just playing with you at home!
Eeanne: never mind, you can do whatever you like, just be at home with me...

Suddenly mommy felt so touched on Eeanne's strong needs on mommy. But how long will her this needs last?
Now mommy feels the warm of growing together with Eeanne but there will be one day Eeanne to have her own world which mommy can enter only if Eeanne let mommy. Aiyo suddenly mommy heart ached.

There was a time in mommy's life that I thought mommy had everything: youth, freedom on doing whatever I like, career that I enjoyed, adventurous travel and yet to fulfilled dreams of exotic places to visit, circles of friends, books of leisure reading and etc. Then with your arrival then only did mommy understand the absolute meaning of the word FULFILLMENT!

Today with Eeanne's this morning request, mommy doesn't know if Mommy has everything, but I have you! And that is more than enough.

Haha.. Attachment...attachment... Mommy is really grateful to have you.

Eeanne's First Horse Riding

This blog is a delayed post from last month Sept Raya trip to Penang.

"Where to stay?"

Daddy & mommy were so indecisive on which hotel to stay in Penang. During our past Penang trips, we always choose Gurney Hotel. 9 yrs ago, mommy & daddy stayed here after our registration and 2 yrs ago we brought Eeanne here for vacation, in between mommy daddy had made several trips here too....so Gurney Hotel has give us some sweet memorable moments. Thus we decided on this same hotel for this trip, but this round budget is the main factor for our choice, other hotels such as G hotel, Shangri-la, HardRock Hotel, Park Royal etc are incredible overpriced during this festive seasons.

Somehow Eeanne has inherit the daddy's addiction habit of loving to hotel stay! Everytime we traveled and stayed in hotel, Eeanne will keep jumping on the bed and acting very "tahn" (enjoy). See her "tahn" posture here....

Scenic view from hotel room (morning & night view)

Comment: After this stay, we really find that Gurney Hotel has been poor maintained and the room is DUSTY!! We may need to consider a different hotel stay for our future Penang trip.

Gurney hawker stalls - a definite must visit place every time we came to Penang. But this round we were too tired to try all the favourite food, we even "ta pao" some of the food to bring back to hotel as Eeanne was too tired after the play on the beach.

Fun time at Batu Feringgi Beach (at Park Royal Hotel)

Eeanne's first horse riding experience, galloping along the shore.

It is so costly of RM30 for just less than 10 min ride, later on mommy finds out Tasik Titiwangsa horse riding only cost RM10 :-/

"Ah...another big one" (wave)

Eeanne is enjoy building her sand castles

Inside the hotel lift

On our way back, we stopped by USM (University Sains Malayisa), where mommy graduated. It brings back so much sweet memories...youth is precious! Now mommy brought Eeanne there and instill the importance of eduction to her...("kiasu')

At the main entrance of USM.

On the way in, you may see the the white rock stadhuys at the mini roundabout with a sphere at the center. The sphere is 3 quarters with rough surface and 1 quarter with smooth surface (left bottom pic). But on the way out, it is another way round of 3 quarters smooth surface and 1 quarter with rough surface (right bottom pic)

So..what does it mean?

Before we enter into university, generally we are unequipped intellectually, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. During the years in university, we sharpen not only our knowledge, but our mini social skill in handling life issues in analytical way. By the time we graduated, our life are 3 quarters ready to face the outside social reality life, left the 1 quarter for us to gain from our working life in the outside unprotected society. Mmm...what a meaningful symbolic stone!

Going back to USM campus always trigger many youth memories that mommy really feels so grateful on the life path that mommy went through so far.

Top left & right: The hill view that used to be so panoramic but now is blocked by the 2 tower of condo...:-/

It used to be the place for most students to release their stress looking at the Penang bridge from far on this hill top.

Bottom left & right: 2nd library in USM

Outside USM library

The park around USM compound

Top left: Dewan Kuliah

Bottom left: Desa Harapan-the hostel mommy stayed during the first year in U.

Top right: Dewan Budaya

Bottom right: DTSP (Dewan Tuanku Syed Putra)-the assembly hall where the graduation ceremony take place

This is new....in front of the new library....wah...it looks romantic leh...

It was indeed a very fruitful trip with happy ending that overtake the unhappy events in the beginning of our trip.

What happened?

Before we started the trip from KL, mommy's car was ran out of battery and spent RM185 to change the whole battery and caused about 2 hours journey delay. Then after around 3 hours drive, mommy's car air-cond suddenly out of function!! We had to drive in to Ipoh, found a workshop to get it repaired, this cost us another RM1128!! We had to spend our time in Ipoh Parade's Popular bookshop while waiting for the car to be fixed, and finally we reached Penang at 8.30pm!! (from morning11a.m.!!). What a journey!! we thought....

We really had a bad foot start and thought of turning back initially which finally we still insisted to drive to Penang all just for Eeanne.

But....we never regret on the choice to proceed as we really had a good enjoyable time in Penang with Eeanne, all those adventurous experiences have leave so much memories for Eeanne, daddy and mommy, and we have almost forget about the unhappy incidents in beginning of the journey during the way back to KL..:-)

Expectation

Daddy: Eeanne, what do you think if daddy to change a new car?

Eeanne: Good!

Daddy: Eeanne.. Eeanne.., so do you want daddy to change a bigger car or small car like this one?

Eeanne(excited): A bigger car!! Just like "ku cheong's" car!

Mommy and daddy exchanged sight with a big open mouth...:--?

During the last visit, "ku cheong" drove Toyota Alphard and gave Eeanne a ride.... and what we don't realise is....with that one ride, Eeanne has fall in love with BIG car and that expectation has imprinted in her mind....oh dear...

Fenugreek Chocolate Drink

Mommy has been always looking for healthy nutritional drinks for Eeanne, it is not easy to find some beverage that really able to meet Eeanne's choosy buds. Mommy had tried few which personally mommy feels they are quite tasty with rich nutrition but Eeanne just doesn't like it.

Mommy had thought of chocolate some time ago but most of the chocolate drink in the market are too sweet.

Finally mommy thought of giving a try to this brand Dr's Choice Fenugreek Chocolate drink....and Eeanne likes it!! Actually mommy loves it too...:-)

Some facts on this products:

- it taste smooth, not really thick and not as sweet as normal chocolate drink

- most importantly it is sugar-free, the sweetener used is sucralose (from cane sugar). One thing good about sucralose is, its chlorinated molecular structure is not able to be recognized by our bodies and will not be absorbed, the whole substance will be just excreted out without any metabolites left in our bodies. Futhermore sucralose is zero-calories. It is safe even for diabetic

- about the fenugreek benefits, of course there is no proven clinical benefits, but its traditional used is widely recognized for alleviating common illness such as lowering sugar and cholesterol level, digestion problem, ezcema, female reproductive problem and many many more...

Of course there is no scientific proven benefits of fenugreek in children, but in this product, fenugreek is not the main ingredient, is more as an adjunct benefits to chocolate drink for its fibre contents and other insignificant effects as above.

So why mommy choose this beverage for Eeanne:

- the fullness effect from fenugreek fibre which mommy will give only at night before sleep to sustain the longer sleep hour and less milk feeding interval (until now Eeanne still has her milk fed around 5-6am and this really affect mommy & daddy's sleep quality..:-P)

- it is sugar-free and doesn't taste too sweet even with the suralose

- its mucilage effect when reaching the stomach, will form a protecting lining and reduce the acid reflux, thus reduces the regurgitation in children especially at night time.

The packaging is 20g/sachet and each box has only 8 sachets

Retail price = RM 12.90/bx (which think is still reasonable with its benefits offered)

My Peter & Jane

There was one time that mommy has given up on teaching Eeanne reading the Peter & Jane, that was during Eeanne 2y.o..Think mommy has been very "kiasu" during that time and was quite disappointed on Eeanne's response whenever mommy shown the P&J book, Eeanne will just looked around distracted, showing totally no interest or sometimes will even say "mommy.....I'm tired"..:-/

Kids are really good in hearing, initially mommy thought Eeanne really can recognize those words in the book, but when mommy wrote down each word to show Eeanne, she has no idea at all, then only mommy realized that Eeanne was actually learnt by hearing not recognizing.

Thus mommy changed the way on teaching Eeanne, instead of being so serious in reading, we make it a more casual reading in the car during the morning ride to mama's house.

Surprisingly, by using this method, Eeanne suddenly shows the interest of reading the P&J, and by only 2-3 days, she has mastered well on P&J 1a & 1b. Yeh!

Thus, mommy slowly upgrade Eeanne to 2a and it is really amazing to look at the speed of Eeanne catching up the new words, once the momentum started, the learning power keep generating at an incredible beat.

So last month early Aug, Eeanne has graduated her 2a!!! To ensure this round Eeanne is really learn by words, mommy kept writing all the words on paper and tested Eeanne (sound pressuring....hehe) and Eeanne passed all the test...bravo!

Hey...my first reading book of Peter & Jane.

Now within a month, Eeanne progresses to 2b, 3a, 3b and now is in the 4a stage!!..mmm, mommy is really proud of you, darling....

Somehow Eeanne's patience has reach a limit, once finished the 3a, her speed has slow down and started to show her usual laziness attitude. Perhaps the 4a truly has too many new words to catch up and reduce her interest.

Maybe mommy need to let Eeanne to have a break before boosting up her interest again...:-)

Raya in Melaka

As usual, whenever there is a long weekend holiday, mommy will try to grab the chance to go back M'cca. Sometimes as we aged, the time spent with family member is getting scarce especially when we set up our own family. Occasionally mommy will think of young old days with just kong kong, bobo, mommy and chiu chiu, 4 of us went out just for window shopping and supper during our school time. Now it is really hard to arrange the same off day with chiu chiu(settle down in JB), the time for 4 of us to get togetherness is really almost impossible. Of course to look at the bright side, instead of 4 now the family members expand, yet to have 3 families get together is also an big planning issue.

So this round, it is just us spending time with bobo kong kong as chiu chiu had made his home trip just recently last month.

M'cca has really change a lot on each our home trip. Food will be mommy's main focus activity every time we go down...satay celup, po piah, fried oyster, wan tan mee, curry mee etc....yummy yummy. But this trip, we only got time to enjoy the wan tan mee, really don't understand where we spent the rest of the time, the time just slip through our fingers without really achieving a tangible purpose, of course the intangible quality time spent objective was met.

Mommy hopes that we can make M'cca trip as often as possible, to lead by example rather than just verbal moral teaching, one day mommy will hope for Eeanne's frequent visit to daddy mommy from her own working/family life.

Eeanne....take note of this personal value of filial piety, while children are thinking on how much financial support they may provide for their parents, parents are thinking on when their children are free to go home for a warm meal.

At new Melaka Jusco

A mock up display of traditional store inside the Jusco mall

A KL-style shabu shabu...good recommendation!