Blogging Holiday.

This blog owner has gone on a blogging break. No, she's not gone on a holiday. No she's not moving to her own domain. No, she's not feeling depressed. No, she's not sick. (Hehehe. Don't you just love a mystery?) Ok lah, enough suspense. She just wants to manja someone she loves. Ok. Time out.

Will be back in September. Selamat Hari Merdeka!

Pssst. Though I won't be blogging, I will still be around and will be blogging in my head cos I do that all the time.

My Boy, My Joy.

The other day I wrote a post on My Girl, My Delight. So to be fair, must write about my boy too. Just because he hasn't started to speak yet doesn't mean he is any less delightful and I love them both just as much. (Wouldn't it be fun to have lots of children? You'd have lots of people to love and more people to love you back.)

My boy loves to laugh. His favourite game is for us to look away from him then suddenly turn our head around to look him straight in the face. That will guarantee a gale of laughter. His whole body would shake with laughter, his eyes turning into slits as he laughs as though its the funniest thing in the whole wide world. Another favourite game is catching. He loves to chase his sister as she runs about the house and both of them would break into fits of laughter. I love to hear them laugh but at the same time my heart would skip several beats afraid that they might hurt each other as they run around or play rough housing ie pressing their heads against each other and giggling. Mr MG and I used to say that when the kids grow up, they'd be able to play with each other so we'd have more time for each other but so far their little games still require lots of supervision or I'd have palpitations or it may end up in a fight with both crying loudly. It doesn't take much effort to amuse my boy. A simple game, a tickle here or there. He simply loves to laugh. He loves interaction and he loves company. Just need to sit beside him or near him and he'll be so contented, otherwise he would be very unhappy.

My boy loves to point. As soon as he wakes up, he points to the door! When the front door is open, he points outside. At the mall, he points everywhere! He loves to point and say "Awak! Awak!" (whatever that means). Other "words" he says are "mamak! mamak!" (maybe he wants to eat mamak teh tarik and nasi lemak) and "cha cha cha cha". Theres so much to see and do. I don't know why babies love to point so. For delightful pictures of a baby pointing, go here.

My boy loves to eat. He is so different from his sister. He just discovered the joy of eating finger foods. I didn't have to "introduce" them to him. He discovered them on his own. At my niece's 12th birthday party on Sunday, he was so funny. He stuffed one nugget into his mouth, had one on his left hand, another on his right while his eyes continue to dart on the plate full of food. He soon offered the nuggest to my sis when he saw watermelons. He took one watermelon on his left hand, another on his right and ate them by alternating each hand. Later he offered the watermelon to his grandpa. Haha. I must offer him more finger foods at home.

My boy loves to imitate. Give him a comb, and he brings it to his head. Give him a handphone and he holds it next to his ear. He tries to put his sister's shoes on his foot. A cup or spoon goes into his mouth. Thats the way they learn, by looking and imitating us.

My boy loves music. Whenever he hears any music, he will move his body along with the rhythm naturally.

Its really fun to have young children at home. There is much love, laughter and noise at home. Guaranteed!

Sweet Talker

Someone held my face in their hands and said "You are so sweet. I am so happy to see you. I love you!" No, it wasn't Mr MG. He's not a sweet talker. It's my girl. She's growing up right before my eyes. Learning new words everyday and practising them in every way she can think of. And she's definitely a sweet talker!

I still remember when she was just a few days old, the paeditrician said babies are just like a blank piece of paper. Its up to us to fill up that paper. How true and what a big responsibility. I must try to remember to answer her question "Whys" and theres lots of "Whys". I must remember to read more to her, point things out to her and watch her shows together with her so we could discuss them together because she loves to learn so much.

Another example of her sweet talk. "Mummy, its ok, its ok. Smile. Don't be sad. I come and sayang you. I come and hug hug you. After you "Mmm mmmm" you will feel more comtable (comfortable). " then she tried to come into the toilet to hug me when I had a tummy ache!

Do You Read Comments?

To me comments are very much part of a post and I usually read the post followed by all the comments by the blog readers as well as the reply by the blogger. Comments expands on the original post and sometimes you get additional insight on the blogger's thoughts on the subject. So I would read a post from start to finish and read the comments as well before I comment. If I'm too busy to read the whole post and do speed reading by just skimming through, then I don't comment.

I like comments because they are:

1. sometimes full of humour
2. sometimes a serious discussion
3. sometimes a heated argument.

They're all interesting to read.

I don't like comments which are:

1. spam (don't be too happy if you receive a comment which says "Good Post.... blah blah blah...." It is usually followed by some link inviting you to their website. And you'd probably find the same comment on just about every other blog you read.)
2. comments by people who have obviously not read the whole post. Sometimes its glaringly obvious but they don't even realise it as their main aim perhaps is to comment for the sake of commenting and invite people over to read their blog in return. They would probably leave the same comment on each and every blog they visit. (Sigh! What some people would do to get some traffic.)

I don't mind comments which are:

1. short and sweet, even just a smiley will do. I'm happy to acknowledge that you've taken the time to read my ramblings. I like to know whose reading my blog so don't be a silent reader. Give me a smiley!
2. long and insightful. I'm happy for those too. I would never say "Hey... if you have such a long comment go write your own post and trackback to mine" No, I won't. I love comments, long or short. So, long comments are welcome on my blog too.

So, to all my blog readers and commentors, thank you for visiting my blog and thank you for all your comments. Have a nice day!

Pssst... 3 posts from me this morning. Must be the haze. (*Yah! Blame everything on the haze*)

My Girl, My Delight.

My Girl: Mummy, what am I doing?
MG: What?
My Girl: I'm looking at you, mummy..
MG: *--------------*

Painted my nails and showed them to my girl.

My Girl: Mummy, your nails so beautiful, like aunty like that!
MG: Wah, you noticed aunty painted her nails ah? Which aunty?
(Woohoo! Now I know who to go to to fish for compliments. Hehehe.)
My Girl: Mummy, tomorrow we buy my favourite blue? (Oh No. Now she wants to paint her nails in her favourite colour blue!)

The Concept of Time

My Girl still does not fully comprehend the concept of time.

She often uses "yesterday" and "just now" to refer to a past event. The past event could be something that happened just yesterday or even last week.

However she appears to understand the future though ie she can differentiate between "afterwards" and "tomorrow" For example when I tell her "Its late. We'll play with this tomorrow." She'd say "No. No. I want to play afterwards."

Her kong kong (grandpa) says she's too smart. Hmmm... not sure if thats good or bad.

Do your dishes levitate to your sink?

I grew up in an environment where my brothers and father ie. the men and boys, sat back, relaxed, watched some TV or read the papers after a meal, while we, the girls cleaned up and did the dishes.

I guess, Mr MG grew up in the same environment because he does not do dishes. Nope! Not at all. Neither does he offer to help. The only time he did dishes was when he was my Confinement man. We didn't hire any confinement lady/nanny for our babies, we don't have any maids or relatives who could drop by long enough to help. So there was just the two of us doing everything on our own when the babies arrived. It was not easy but we have good memories of our learning experience.(But thats another story).

Does it bother me that he doesn't do the dishes? Nope! Not at all. Its just my job. Just like many other things are his job solely while some are shared eg. taking out the trash.

Mr MG does not offer to help me do the dishes but he does bring his dishes to the sink. Thats because, between the two of us, he's Mr Neat and he can't stand seeing things not in their place. Dirty dishes belong in the sink, so he helps me bring them there.

Today, just out of curiousity, I have a question to ask.
Question for the ladies: "Do your dishes levitate to the sink?"
Question for the guys: "Do you do the dishes?"

?????????????

My Girl: "Mummy what are all these words doing on your paper?" (*points to the newspaper I'm reading.)

MG: "Errrr...."

My Girl: "No, mummy. I ask you, mummy! Whats all these alphabets doing on your paper??!!" (*annoyed now because mummy has no answer for her)

MG: *???????????*

My Girl: "Mummy, the moon is moon shape today."

MG: *???????????*

My Girl: "The moon is not circle shape today, its moon shape today, mummy!"

MG: *smiles*

New Avatar

As of today, I've changed my Avatar to reflect baby's new walking status. I've also changed my description from "mother to a baby and toddler" to "mother to a boy and girl". Since baby has started walking and is 15 1/2 months old, I can hardly call him a baby now. (Time really flies!) He's a toddler now and what does that make toddler? At 3 years plus, she can hardly be considered a toddler now, a pre-schooler is probably a more correct description.

So, from now on, I shall just simply refer to them as "my girl" and "my boy" and Mr MG is of course "my man".

Just a short post today becos, I'm filled with negative emotions today namely:

• Fear
• Frustration
• Stress
• Anger
• Unhappiness

... in that order. (*Big Sigh*) Don't even have the mood to blog and thats not like me. Normally, writing is therapeutic for me. But today.... I've even lost that desire. I'm playing with Avatars to cheer myself up but its not helping very much. (I created the Avatar from Otaku Avatar Maker). Think I'll go and feed and play with my two lovelies now so that I can turn my negative feelings into:

• Love
• Laughter
• Sunshine
• Happiness
• Peace

Mooncake

If you have gone shopping over the weekend, you will notice that they have started promoting the sale of mooncakes in the shopping malls for the Mid Autumn Festival which is about a month away.

It appears to me that everyone wants a piece of the mooncake business. It must be very lucrative indeed. I can just imagine how high the margins must be with each piece of mooncake going for about RM9. (*calculate calculate*) Hmmm.... cut the mooncake into 4 pieces and each quarter will cost more than RM2. Take about 6 bites from each quarter and each bite costs about 50 cents.

It is no wonder then that not only the bakeries and restaurants are promoting them but even coffee places, ice-cream palours and pizza shops are doing so as well. So then we have green tea mooncakes, ice-cream mooncakes, chocolate mooncake, coffee mooncake, durian mooncake, Italian mooncake (*rolls eyes*), etc etc. The mooncakes are presented in a myriad of colours too, from green to purple to orange and white and with different crusts, hard, soft, you name it you got it. What next? is entirely up to the food retailers imagination.

To me, none of them are real mooncakes. They're just pastries moulded into mooncake shape and called a mooncake. I only want my traditional lotus paste or red bean paste mooncake with or without salty duck egg yolks. I'm very old fashioned and that includes mooncakes. I'M NOT FALLING FOR IT! (this year...). Last year I bought some of these fake mooncake for my sister's mooncake party just so we could all take 50 cents bites on each one to compare tastes. (*sighs*) No wonder the food retailers are still at it!

The picture shown above is toddler's battery operated lantern from last year. I think battery operated is great and much safer for little ones but if only they would do away with the music. Its incredibly noisy and annoying! What I do is put some masking tape over the speaker to mask the noise.

"Don't Worry."

Yesterday toddler added the words "Don't Worry" into her vocabulary.

After dinner........

MG: Be careful. Look where you're going or you may fall down.
Toddler: Don't worry of me, mummy. I just walking all over the place.
MG: (Smiles) Ok. I won't worry about you then.

Later in the evening......

Baby: Waaaaaahhhh!
MG: Whats happening? You pushed baby again ah?
Toddler: Don't worry about me, mummy, I just sayang baby only.
MG: --------

At bedtime.........

Toddler: Why mummy hide yesterday? Why I cry? Why baby cry?
MG: Yesterday mummy was very tired so mummy went into the room to rest for a while and you were very noisy.
Toddler: (thinks for a while) Don't worry. Mummy will be out soon.
MG: (Big Smile) Yes! Yes, thats right! Mummy will be out soon.

Still not asleep........

MG: Why are you pinching mummy's cheeks?
Toddler: Don't worry. I just press your face only.
Toddler: Hehehe. Everything also "Don't worry." (giggle giggle giggle)
MG: Hahahaha. (That was exactly what was on my mind at the time.)

Sometimes toddler can be real amusing.

Weblog or Website?

Its all her fault! She made me do it! She got me all fired up to put my poem on a webpage. So with my great copy and paste skill, here it is. (*drumroll*) Tadaaaa....! My poem!

Written words on plain paper (Oops! I meant blog) not enough ooooppmh! It must be on a webpage with lovely graphics and music. Ahh.... like that only got oooopppmh as it teases and tantalises the senses, ie the words for the mind/soul, soothing music for the ears and pleasing graphics for the eyes. Yes! Yes!

So now that I've put it on a webpage, I'm not sure what to do next. Hmmm... my website is about breastfeeding so it won't fit in there. At the moment its a poor, lonely, standalone page. So, for the time being, (until I write and do up more poem pages and decide what to do with them) I'll just link it here to my blog. Yes, thats what I'll do, I think. Afterall, my blog is my little cyber filing cabinet, my very own place in cyberspace. So I can do whatever I like with it or link to whatever I want with limits of course.

Hope you all enjoyed the page as much as I did writing my poem and doing up the page. Its of course written on inspiration and done for none other than my Mr Mg.

Note: A Blog is good for lots of stuff but it can't replace a website in this case. Me thinks a weblog is very much different from a website. If I had something to sell I would probably have both a website and a weblog. The website can serve as my store or display counter while the weblog or blog is my customer service centre to receive customer feedback since its very much more interactive. Hehehe. MG berangan-angan (daydreaming) again.

Oh No! Not the Haze!

The forest fires are back..... hopefully not to stay for a few months like back in 1997/8. My sinus problem got very much worse then. Yesterday, I could smell the burning smell even with my windows shut. I thought I had left the gas burner on. Same thing today but then now I know its due to the haze. Visibility is not too bad but the smell is bad. I hope it goes away soon, otherwise no outdoor activities like going to the park or swimming for the kids.

I can still remember the mask buying days. I bought some back then but never got to wearing them. Just resorted to staying indoors most of the time but still my nose was badly affected. Geezzz! Hopefully the haze clears up soon.

Can anyone tell me whats it like at their place? I hope its just the Klang Valley and don't spread to our beautiful Penang, and Melaka etc etc.

A Whole New World

I've got a new exercise kid kit to help me keep fit. Its called ..... BABY!

Baby has decided all of a sudden (almost overnight) that its much more fun to walk than crawl. Its even more fun to climb! He scrambles up chairs and other furniture in a jiffy and sits there balanced precariously at the edge of a chair or footstool while mummy rushes to his side (heart skipping a few beats) to make sure he does not fall off. (Hence... the exercise.)

He loves seeing the world from this new perspective. Its like a whole new world has been opened up to him. Everything looks different now.

Over the weekend, we let him walk everywhere outdoors. At the mall, at the park, at grandpas house and he is absolutely enjoying himself. The little explorer walked and looked around, and walked and looked around with wonder and amazement.

He walked all over the mall and was so tired after that he didn't wait to get home to have his nap, he fell alseep on daddy's shoulders. (*smiles*)

The best part is toddler gets to enjoy these developments too. "Mummy! Baby has 8 teeth now." she says excitedly as we count them together. "Mummy, baby is bigger and bigger now and can walk already. I take baby kai-kai (for a walk)." she says as she guides pulls him by the hands and walks all over the house.

Baby is wearing Size 3 shoes now. Soon he will fit into toddlers hand me downs size 4 squeaky shoes and annoy all the neighbours. Haha. Toddler on the other hand just got shoes that lights up at the soles when she strides about. When we were having our bedtime chit chat she told me "Mummy, I want to buy shoes for daddy, baby and mummy also. Daddy and baby's shoes old already. I want to buy shoes with lights." Hahaha. Can you imagine a whole family of clowns wearing shoes that lights up? I am sure toddler will just love it. I am not sure our neighbours will though. Shoes that squeaks, lights up and what next? Heelys? Never! I hate heelys!