Teh Susu Ais

Boom Boom

2012-02-15T16:20:00.001+08:00

Hari ini dalam sejarah.
I built a machine gun for my son :O

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Small Car Big House

2012-02-15T12:44:00.004+08:00

Just back from school, now at car service. Feel like so many things to do at this little time.

While waiting for my car to be serviced, I talked to an old couple who drive Atos, small car. Very friendly wife. Their tyre car punctured that's why they were here. The wife complained to me her husband won't change if not worn out or puncture.

They live nearby my former boss's house. Landed house with a sea view. This is their second car. First car is Proton Inspira which they newly bought. She said that's the big sedan car with cheap price they can afford. That car is same price as my car. But mine is a lot smaller. She said her inspira car is value for money. With 5 years warranty.

The morale to myself. This people knew the value of money, they appreciate it and know where to spend( I would rather call it invest). I adore this kind of people.

P.S. I just realize wide is driving same type of car as my former boss car. May be I should change as well.

Bak kata pepatah, "besar periuk besar keraknya"

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Spring Cleaning again...

2012-02-14T23:47:00.003+08:00

I am in the mood of spring cleaning again. Look for update from my used item website.

Baby goods, bag, and some furniture...

Relax now

2012-02-11T22:31:00.003+08:00

Kids are on the bed, house is cleaned, laundry is in the dryer, and what should I do now? Long day.

I feel bad that I had to get angry at Adam right before his bed time. He wanted me to find his toy and I don't know which one, and he wanted to continue playing while it has already past his bed time. He knew when I get angry, he has to stop doing what he was doing. I can be a nasty mother. His father isn't around so there is no one for him to go to when I scolded him. Most of the time he is much more behaving when one of us not with him.

Sophie on the hand loves to play Adam's toys and that make him angry too whenever she touches his toys. Sophie is still too young to play together with Adam. Even Adam doesn't play much together with his own age. Well, I guess that what make a character of one person who becomes shy or friendly.

Anyway, today whole day just 3 of us. I had finished 2 activity books with Adam. That's serious brain drain job... Adam is quite perfectionist, he was not happy when what he wrote wasn't the same on what it should be. Example letter E, he got frustrated if he made mistake. Or simple thing like I drew flower for him, he made almost the same drawing, but not quite. He is frustrated and told me it wasn't a flower. Of course as mother, I continue encouraging him to do better. I kept saying to him, it took me 35 years to master drawing that flower. He is only three, and he can try again.

Also, we went to the botanical garden and 3 of us rode on the tram, then walked and ran on the field. That's what I like about Penang. It is quite well maintain here. There are a lot of people jogged and walked to. Adam is into short distance running nowadays, after one day I taught him about "On your mark, get set, go". It wasn't difficult just tell them to touch a tree or something nearby, and then they will comeback. Sophie followed almost everything what her brother did.

Last, this is the airplane drawing that Adam made himself without my help. I am impressed. :-)

Kids Craft - Birthday card

2012-02-10T22:37:00.006+08:00

I told Adam that we are going to make birthday card for his daddy. This is not meant to share to J until 13th Feb, but the impatient boy can't resist not to share to his daddy when we face time.

I am happy to share how to make simple but fun birthday card. I made this with my 3 years old son. So he needs a lot of help. If you kids are older and independence, let them do most of the jobs.

What you need;

1. A4 manila paper

2. A4 color printer paper. You can use many color as you like I used 2 colors yellow and orange.

3. A pair of scissors

4. Glue

5. Pencil

6. Decoration (Anything like crayon, water color, sticker etc..) I used glitter glue

I made triangle banner here, so fold the color printer paper to 8 folds. As I want 8 pieces of banner. You can make balloons, people. The key is to draw from one end to another end. So it is connected. Let your child do the cutting. If it is too thick for them let them do the straight line, and you can do the corner or curve cutting.

Before you unfold, ask your child if he wants to see magic. I am sure they will say "WOW" as soon as you unfold. They will amaze with from that one drawing you can make long banner. :-)

Let them do the glueing...

Paste onto the A4 manila paper.

Now, time to decorate, you can use pattern paper, or you can use crayon to make any decorations. Depends on your creativity how fancy you want the card is.

From the same concept of folding paper, you can make stars just like what I made here, by pasting the star scattered on the A4 manila paper.

And here is the birthday card for daddy.

Festival

2012-02-10T16:20:00.002+08:00

I bought this activity book for my son. One of the page was about festival. I asked my son what festival he celebrates.

He told me he does Hari raya at Atuk's house. He celebrates Christmas at home. He celebrates CNY at school.

He pointed at Deepavali and said he celebrates with his cousin!

So he circled everything. By right he meant to color the photo...

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Ros

2012-02-10T10:04:00.003+08:00

We used to have a helper who come occasionally when J is away or when I need help to do spring cleaning. She works for the maid agency. But she is now back in Indonesia. What I like about her is she is good to children and speaks some English and not wait to be asked to do work.

After she left I called other part time helper and most of them just ok when come to work. My son will tell me if he likes the helper or not.

J and I talked about somebody regular when I get busy with school and he is busy with travel. We think we found her. One day, this lady named Ros came and cleaned the house. I don't have to tell her what to do. You know you get a good part time helper when you can hear your toilet floor is being scrubbed, your ceiling fan is being wiped. I didn't ask her to do that.

One morning when she came, my son immediately told me she likes this kakak. The price is not cheap, comparing to live in helper. I paid RM12/hour. I now called her twice. Tuesday and Friday for four hours. Therefore, my house is consistently cleaned. I will do the detail work like organizing here and there, laundry, ironing, and daily mopping in the kitchen and dining area.

The good things about having part time helper you are not committed to provide food and clothes. Most of expats in Penang gets Indian Amah or Phinoy because they can converse English very well. Some of Phinoys are having degree, just that they don't have job in their country. But more expensive compare to Indonesian, whom all of them worked in my house speak Bahasa very well.

Bantal Busuk

2012-02-09T21:25:00.002+08:00

I put Sophie to bed, then Adam. He told me he misses his daddy and wants to hug his daddy. So I gave him his daddy's pillow... :D He seems settled with that.

Cooked teddy bear

2012-02-09T15:36:00.001+08:00

I found this teddy bear fish cake in the market after I saw them in Sakae sushi. My children like it.

I managed to cremate them as well yesterday. A few of them, and was able to save them to swim into spinach soup.

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I love DIY

2012-02-09T10:40:00.003+08:00

J is out for biz trip until Sunday. So which mean I don't have a lunch buddy. (read: I don't have to cook for lunch). So this is my second post. I want to share this website which I thought is useful. Ikea Hackers. It gives you so much Idea what to do with some of furniture. I thought doll house is a good idea for my daughter. I may try to make it by myself. Let's see :)

what die means?

2012-02-09T10:19:00.002+08:00

My children's school is opposite chinese cemetery. So my son always asks me what are "those" thing? All this while I told him, those are special place for people who are having very long sleep. They can't wake up anymore.

But, yesterday morning when we had breakfast, he asked us "What die means?" I think he understands now about die when seeing some dead ants that we poisoned, dead "cicak" caught by our cat, or dead fly that we zapped with electric tennis racket. I guess there is no right or wrong answer about it. Baby center seems has everything. Here you go when your child starts to ask you about death.

Ananda Bahwan

2012-02-08T23:01:00.003+08:00

If you are in Penang don't forget to drop by at Ananda Bahwan. My favourite branch is in Tg. Bungah.

You can get cheap northern Indian food.

My son loves the rotichanai. I like chicken butter masala, dry chili sotong, banana leaf rice, biryani and in the morning there are always nasi lemak :-)

If you come with little one you can order rice with chicken clear soup.

Yum Yum!

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30 minutes clutter-free

2012-02-08T22:15:00.006+08:00

This is for busy people. I used 30 minutes clutter-free method when cleaning up my house. You don't have to do spring cleaning. Find 30 minutes to do daily to tidy up or organizing.

1. Start with simple thing, tidy up TV rack that full of CD/DVD. Or tangled wires under your tv rack.

2. Organizing shoe-racks, this may take just 5 minutes. I learn this from Japanese to always put your shoes together when you go inside your house.

3. Being ruthless of what you have. I told my husband this method when he wanted to tidy up his office. I learnt this from Oprah. Create 4 boxes. 1. To Keep. 2. To Donate(find charity home)3. To Sale(use online selling, garage sales) 4. To throw (you can use plastic garbage).

You don't have to do everything in one day. Set up a time when you want to get things done. At least, if you don't do everything, you did a little. Something is better than nothing.

4. Label! - I used

this for most of my stuff. Spend some money for nice label printing. Dymo costed less than RM100 for its machine. The label costs like RM10-30 depending of the type, like paper, cloth, plastic etc. They are useful, like labeling your kids clothes when they go to daycare.

This is another way of doing it, if you buy flour from box or plastic. Cut the box and paste in on the jar or tup. Or even cookies box. At the same time don't forget to include expiry date :)

5. And the list goes on...

Like pepatah melayu, sedikit sedikit lama-lama jadi bukit. :-) By the end of the month, your house will be clutter-free. What ever is it always be positive once, you house is clutter-free you will be very happy:)

Pre-schooler in a competitive environment

2012-02-08T10:32:00.008+08:00

When we were 4, we didn't know anything much, except eating, playing and sleeping :-)

But kids nowadays are different. By 4 they need to know how to read and write and in Malaysia a few kids can read and write 3 languages, English, Malay and Mandarin by the age of four. Kids live in the very competitive environment nowadays.

To my son no! The least reading and writing we ask him to do he will be happy. What matter to him at 3 years and 4 months old is playing. What matter to us, as long as he is happy, we are happy. I am looking forward to send him to school everyday so that he can learn what I can't provide at home. Also, I am looking forward to pick him at 1 because I know that is the time I got to play with him and teach him more about life.

Without the boys

2012-02-04T20:44:00.001+08:00

We had fun! And I was being lazy so we ate outside most of the time.

Last night dinner at Precinct10.

Breakfast at home.

Walked at strait quay.

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Stencil-It for kids

2012-02-03T23:57:00.001+08:00

I made something cool today! Check it out from my craft blog.

Memory

2012-02-03T23:00:00.001+08:00

Before we got children, this cupboard was quite minimalistic, with candle only. Now we have everything here. Including my son artwork, which he thinks should stay together with our family photo.

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Boys outing

2012-02-03T14:24:00.003+08:00

J is going to KL to pick up his Indian visa. This time he brought Adam along. This is my third time for being away. First when I was in hospital when Sophie was born, second when he had his nose surgery, and I was at home looking after Sophie so J went with Adam.

I miss them, but of course it is nice I got free afternoon :-) And tonight just girls' night.

Just finished FaceTime with my boys.

What British mean?

2012-02-02T22:37:00.007+08:00

My husband forwarded this to me.

After a while living with him, I agree with this. Depa ni polite... tak direct! Tapi expression muka boleh tahu...hehehe

What shape?

2012-02-01T20:14:00.001+08:00

We have given away a lot of infant toys to friends and relatives, just because our daughter isn't interested with them and she prefer to play with her brother's.

I anticipate to see how is my daughter character. At this age we wouldn't know yet.
This is the time when Adam is upstairs with his daddy, so she got to play by herself without being disturb.

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Is Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable?

2012-02-01T18:34:00.003+08:00

We played "grocery at market" today. I was a market lady. I made this small letter label because I thought in reality we are dealing with small letter more than capital letter. Adam still not recognize some of small letters.

But, when I start to put those toys into their category I found that it wasn't easy. Will you teach 3 years old that tomato is vegetable or fruit? And how about pineapple? What make a fruit is a fruit. The definition of fruit is any seeded plant. So, tomato, cucumber and pumpkin should be fruit. OK, how about pineapple, it doesn't have any seed... Hehehehe challenging isn't it?

Education Forever

2012-01-31T10:34:00.003+08:00

How many of us actually do the same thing what we studied at school? Me...when I worked :)

But, I see many folks totally change their career path, job hopping or do something else like business.

One of my friend asked me to do business instead of continue studies. Well I have a reason what I am doing now ... Simply I want quality time with my family at the same time keep myself in working momentum. Money won't last forever but education or knowledge dibawa sampai ke mati.

I have been teaching my son about cooking, gardening and cleaning. These are the skills that we don't get at school unless you go for special school. Although, there is ERT(Ekonomi Rumah Tangga) but how many of boys take cooking class? I read about this guy...

He is a good role model in our country. He inspired me... Not that I want my children follow his track but, the knowledge that he learnt at home from his mom become useful to him :-)

Our cheap dinner today

2012-01-29T22:18:00.003+08:00

I didn't cook today, so we tapau-ed following...

3 portion of white rices

2 portion of cabbage

3 daging hitam

2 eggs

1 salted egg (only eat this)

2 bags of papadom

1 bag of kuah(Free)

Total - RM14.70

One orange juice dinosaur! - RM7...

Plus 2 portion of left over KFC chicken budget meal...

4 of us kenyang :-)

Kid's sleep

2012-01-28T22:52:00.004+08:00

Adam has started to sleep in his own room since 1st. Jan 2011. He is still sleeping in his own room until today. After read him book(s), we had to camp in together in his room for sometimes up to 2 hours to make sure that he fall asleep. That's so time consuming. So, after our trip to Japan, we decided to make him sleep by himself.

So on the day1, after reading J patted him for 5 minutes and told him that he needed to work, to find money, in his office. He cried at first, but we came to his room and tell him that we needed to work. It worked until today! The only thing we don't have to tell him that we need to work anymore.

Sophie's case, since she was born. I will put her to bed while she is still weary, not fully asleep, kiss good night and put her in cot. She will wake up 12 hours later.

If nothing screwed their schedule in a day, the kids usually in bed by 8. Which mean, their dinner, bath, little of play and reading start as early as 5:30pm. Yep, our dinner now is 5:30pm.

I am happy the way we do now. J and I watch so many movies that we wanted to watch... for so long.

I just recently watched Transformer...hehehe

Pretend Play

2012-01-27T15:53:00.001+08:00

Adam is 3 years 3 months now. He can drive me crazy sometimes nagging to do any things with him. Anything!!!

Ok, now that he has sister we decided to get them kitchen. We found one wooden kitchen at reasonable price from Ikea. Most of the wooden kitchen toy can cost up to RM1k. Actually Christmas present from their granny and their uncle :-)

I think pretend play is important, just to create their imagination. When we were young we used to play masak-masak, so this is the same thing.

It doesn't have to be expensive toys. I recycled our cereal, cookies box and used for their toy shop.

Now that Adam is slowly picking up reading, I labeled simple word on the box and on the tools. I thought it is a good way for him learn reading. I am amazed how he can recognize word just by looking at it.

Money. This is something that Adam and I did together, we printed out money from Internet. Then, we cut and glued. Now, he started to recognize 'notes'. It was fun when we play shop. Still not understand the concept of money, but eventually I think he will.

Just one thing, don't forget to tell them this is not real money. Although he kept asking me why he can't use the money outside.

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