Sis was helping with the deco while I was busy in the kitchen.  Little MissTroubleMaker in action *rolling eye*

Early of the year when the kids goes back to school after their final term holidays, I set out some rules for them. I know it required lots of discipline and has to be very stern to make sure it work:

1. Back from school, no TV
2. Take a shower before dinner
3. No eating dinner in front of the TV
4. Homework by 8pm
5. light bulbs off at 10pm
6. Wash your own school shoes on Saturday

And how do I fair?  Bear in mind that I have a very obedient 9 years old girl and a mischievous 7 years old boy.

Rules no. 1 – The first thing when they (usually no.1) stepped in to the house, I gotta put on my loud speaker, “NO TV!” – Yay, it works!

Rules no. 2 – Failed. Cos the kids took such a long time (usually no.2) in the shower. Too much time was wasted.

Rules no. 3 – Sometimes yes and sometimes no. I’m too soft hearted 🙁

Rules no. 4 – Successful!

Rules no. 5 – Unfinished (usually no. 2) homework to be continue the next day at the daycare.

Rules no. 6. Up till today, they only wash twice. The rest of the time was Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!!!! That too, I am soft hearted. Double whammer! Not that Mummy hand wash their school shoes. The washing machine takes care of the job. But one thing I make them do is to apply the shoe white before putting them under the sun. Kids just simply love that chore very much.

Since some of the rules did not work out for me, I tried the other way i.e.

7pm – Reached home. Had dinner. Sometimes at the dining table, sometimes on the couch. I gave up on that, really. Watched a little cartoon on TV.

8pm – No. 1 will shower first while no. 2 still hook on TV. Then no. 2 turn to shower while no.1 continue TV.

8.30pm – Homework.

10pm – Off to bed.

Not the way I’ve planned out initially but this way, everyone is happy and I don’t get too stress up yelling at kids to do this and do that.

8 years ago, I have problem with my first baby where she will chew or bite on the crib rail when she was teething. If we left her unattended in the crib, she will have paint crust all over her mouth. Good thing is my second and third baby doesn’t have this chewing habit. One year ago, I pass the crib to my Sister and lo and behold, her baby has the chewing habit too.

I was relating to her my past experience where we will quickly carry baby out from the crib the moment we heard her woke up. The crib has then been painted for the 2nd time when second baby came along. My Sister then managed to locate a crib teething protector from the crib bedding shop. I find the crib teething protector is very innovative. Nowadays, we are so fortunate to have brilliant people to come up with such a brilliant invention!

Malaysia has summer all year round.  Hmmm… do I have to tell you that? lol.  Well, I do get question by my 8y/o as why Malaysia has no snow… why we live in Earth and not Planet Mars…. why the sea water is salty… why it rains…  That one I know!  “God up in Heaven is crying when he sees how naughty you are.”  You know, sometime we need to take God as alibi especially when you can tell your 8y/o is lying.  I used to say this, “You better tell the truth cos God up in heaven will know” or “You better not steal cos God up in heaven can see even though Mummy can’t see.”  I’m so sorry God.

Gee…. why am I saying all this. *slap self*  Anyway, I did a little of digital scrapbooking here.  Photographs was taken during one of our weekend outing to the park.  Kids are making themselves comfortable on my yoga mat and at the same time, playing games on my iPhone. Hmm… I’m itch for some picnic again.  Who want to join me?  Wesak Day?  Weekend?  TTDI?  Morib?  Anything la!

My nephew, Jonathan marked his first month of arrival. This day also marks the end of confinement period for the mother as she now is allowed to bath (asif!) and wonder out of the house freely. The feeling is something like getting out of jail after 10 years in prison. Really!

Being an Aunty to Baby Jonathan, I got up early in the morning (asif!) wandering in my garden and neighbourhood picking 7 type of flowers. You will know what is it for later.

The Baby was signed up for a medicure session…

… a pedicure pampering….

… and a new hairdo…

…. and of course the beauty centre which is run by none other than MsJessieling get an angpow. Hopefully she will be as fatt as the figure inside there 😉 . The finger nails, toe nails and hair was wrapped individually with a red paper or angpow packet.

Well, the folklore said that the womb is a dirty thing so after being in the womb for the past nine months, the baby is to remove some of the bad luck by shaving or trimming of his hair. But, but, why want to keep bad luck in red paper? *tsk, tsk*

The Baby was then adjourned to the spa for his flower bath.

Placing of mortar pounder will make him as brave as Tarzan and coins is for properity. Well, how about the flower? Errr…. is it so that when Baby Jonathan grew up, he will have a beautiful wife? *tsk, tsk*

Now, he is a clean Baby adorned in his new clothes. We gave the jewelleries a pass since I’m not into the jewellery folklore. All it, a one month old Baby is treated like a King or the Malay saying, “Raja Sehari”.

Moving on to the kitchen, these are the things to be given as gift to relatives & friends announcing the arrival of the new born. The red eggs looked rather spectacular.

The eggs symbolised a new life and red is rather a auspicious colour for chinese.

Ang Koo Kuih or Red Tortoise Cake means longevity and prosperity.

I was told, the tortoise shape (right in the pic) to be given when you had a baby girl. And when you had a baby boy, you have to gave both shapes. In olden days, the round ang ku (left in the pic) is shape into a cylinder.

The typical Foochow family must have Red Wine Mee Suah.

Fyi, this is not cooked by me. I prefered my broth to be rich in red wine and not so dialuted. However, Hokkien family would not miss on the Yellow Festive Rice or Nasi Kunyit which I cooked for the later evening banquet.

That evening, Jonathan was certainly pictured like an “Angel”, very well behaved and only dissapeared twice to his personal bar for feeds.

Looks like everybody get into the “pass-the-baby” game.

This is my blog, ok. So I get to beautify my own picture with The-King-Of-The-Day *ngek.

… with maternal Grandpa

D

… with maternal Grandma

D

… with paternal Grandma

D

… with Da Yi (Eldest Aunty)

D

… with Shan Yi (3rd Aunty)

D

… with maternal Grand Uncle (Angpow. Yay!)

D

… with Church friends

D

(Look at his eyes. Looks like mother hor. Look at his hair so thick. Aiyah, such a beautiful genes. The Mother must produce more babies) Those are the things I heard that night. Crappy!

Here he is, end of the day after drifting in and out. Dozing peacefully none than wiser, being the King-Of-The-Day!

God did not promise that life would be easy,
and not filled with some sorrow and pain.
God did not promise that our children would be perfect,
and our lives and jobs always fulfilling.
GOD Never Promised Us An Easy Journey In Life,
Only Safe Arrival – Be strong, Jonathan.

Credit: Scrapgoo

My sister’s newborn has arrived last week. We get all excited wanting to carry the little infant in our arm and cleaning up the little bum-bum or changing his nappies bought some nostalgia moment back again. But you know how the little ones can wailed like a coo-coo train; Loud and longggggggggggg. *sigh…

p/s: You don’t have to remind me to go for the 4th one *sticking out tongue*

“Last weekend, I spotted lots of booties and mittens on my neighbour’s laundry line. Ah… looks like she is going to deliver anytime now” – this is how I’ve planned to write on my first paragraph but I hate to be fake!

Ah, well…. my neighbour is my sister and I am helping her to wash all the booties and mittens. So nostalgia, aitelyu! I took my time slowly sorting out all the baby clothings admiring those tiny fabric with cute little teddy bear prints on it.

While I was sorting out the clothes, Baby Princess was holding out the mittens and said to me, “Baby wan”. She is refering the “Baby” to herself. I said, “No, Wu Yi’s (5th Aunt) baby wan”. And she help herself by putting her hands in the mitten. She is so smart. She know the mittens is for hand!

Once I’ve done with the washing, I get the big girl (Eldest Princess) to work. She too was taken aback by the cutie booties and mittens. She was ooing and cooing all the way. Of course she is proud to be part of it. Yea, doing something for Wu Yi’s (5th Aunt) baby.

Looks like Mummy can now work on her evil plan since the big girl is tall enough to reach the laundry line. Insert *evil smile* *rolling eye*, Sheesh………………

Once we found out the baby’s gender, immediately Hubby told me he’s going to name her Jia Xin. In Chinese, ‘Xin’ means a role model or someone who is loved by all. If you were to translate both the name to English, it means…. INCREASE SALARY! Next, come to her name to be spelled out. Her middle name took after one of my niece, Kharlene. And I adore my classmate (who is also my best friend back then) named ‘Syn’. To make it a bit special, I combine them and it became Kharsyn.

When my Gynae told us it’s a boy, you can see us beaming in pride, smiling from ear to ear. Again, I leave the decision to Hubby as I’m not good with Mandarin kind of things. He wanted his boy to be a macho man and not the sissy type so he makes sure the name must be like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don’t quite like how it sounded in Mandarin – Jia Zhen. “Zhen” is a POLITICIAN or government (zhen fu). And there I fancifully thought of ‘Carl’ as in Carlsberg (*hic) and again I adore the name Eugene. That is how I get Carlgene.

I went thru lots of stress during my 3rd pregnancy. A very uneventful pregnancy. Let’s not touch on that. And I want her to be a ‘kwai ler’ (HAPPY) child. At that time, the name Charlotte (pronounced as Shar-lert) was frequently mentioned in the papers and internet. That is how I get Kharlette (pronounced as Car-lert). At home, we called her ler-ler as in happy-happy. She is indeed a babbly happy child.

The busybody Eastcoastlife tagged me on this. My turn now to be busybody. I shall tag…

1. Sue Yi’s papa
2. Karen & Cayden’s mama
3. My nephew

I have no idea who to tag as most of you has been tagged! Glad to say, the tag ends here.

To complete the answer to my quiz here – this is ME! I know I looks like a boy 🙁 but when 58% of you guess that is was my Hubby, that makes me wanna cry! Want to know what is the meaning of my name? My last name is “Zhang”. It’s a boy name 😐 . I can’t blame my parents as they are longing for a baby boy and hence, decided to gave me a boy’s name in hope their next child will be a boy just to dissapoint them again and again. During my childhood days, I have some chinese educated friends sarcastically telling me my name is meant for boys. Now I can tell them my name is on par with Zhang Ziyi. *ngek, ngek, ngek

So, does any of my children resemble me when I was a baby, jek?

The first correct answer was given by Lilian. Yes, you are right! Well done, Sweetie 😉 . Thanks for playing the guessing game folks. xoxo

Can you tell who is who?

Answer will be given tomorrow 🙂