Mrs Jekyll and Mdm Hyde

I'm a Mrs Jekyll and Mdm Hyde mommy.

Mrs Jekyll often comes out:

• at bedtimes when the stage is set for relaxation. Apparently Mrs Jekyll likes to take it easy
• when the kids say or do something funny and sweet
• when the kids need comforting

Mdm Hyde often makes an appearance:

• especially during mealtimes
• when rushing to go out or simply when rushing
• when busy with chores especially those that require concentration and no interuptions for eg. writing a cheque etc
• when sleepy
• during times of stress

Oh my gosh! When writing this out, I realised that its very hard to think of the times when Mrs Jekyll appears but it was easy to think of the times Mdm Hyde came out to play! Hmm.... must do something about this! Hope the kids don't get too frightened by the horrible, ugly, scary monstor Mdm Hyde!

On another note, I won't be blogging very much over the next couple of weeks so my blog posts will be rather short (I'm usually long winded). I won't have very much time to visit blogs too (sorry guys and gals) but lack of time won't stop me from blogging because my blog is my positive place. Its a place where I gather my positive thoughts, practise positive thinking so to speak, and its a place where I remind myself to be thankful for the little things. Most of my life, especially during my teenage years, I have been a negative person, a pessimist and an intovert but not anymore. (Now, reading my blog you wouldn't think it would you because my blog is mostly positive, or so I hope it to be. I won't rant very much on my blog, I promise.) I love my blog too much to stop blogging even when I have little time. So I shall blog on. Thank you for visiting.

Goodie Bag

Being a kiasu Malaysian woman, I persuaded Mr MG to take me to Metrojaya at 10am on a Sunday morning to collect my goodie bag from the Malaysian Women's Weekly magazine. (Recently the magazine was having an anniversary celebration thingy and doing a promotion with Metrojaya so one can redeem a goodie bag by presenting a card that came with the mag.) Anyway, for an early Sunday morning, there sure was a reasonable amount of kiasu readers lining up and to my surprise half of them were men, probably boyfriends or husbands persuaded sweetly by the wife to queue up on their behalf. Some of them queued up again and again.

The goodie back was supposed to be worth RM200 but chey(!), apart from an Estee Lauder mascara and a full sized shower cream, the rest were mainly worthless vouchers (to me that is), sample sized facial washes, and 4 packet drinks. Thats supposed to be RM200 altogether in there???? Oh well, since its a freebie one shouldn't expect too much now should they. Still, they could have done better ie get better gifts from the sponsors. Afterall, in a marketing promotion like this one, everyone benefits, the magazine, the sponsors, the kiasu readers. Yah or not?

Really kiasu hor? Got freebie summore complain. Hahahaha.

Theres no such thing as a free lunch but if you look really hard, sometimes you get good bargains or freebies because its worth the while for the other party to give it out. I do like freebies but not free food because of the way Malaysians behave when they see free food!

Why?

My girlfriend who is living in the States emailed me yesterday to inform me that her father had passed away suddenly earlier this year. She said she was too grieved to tell me about it earlier and that her heart aches everytime she called home and imagined that he would be picking up the phone and she could hear his voice again.

Then this morning, I awakened to hear about the demise of our PM's wife, Datin Seri Endon. My family, and as I believe, the rest of our nation too is deeply saddened by this loss. She was our first lady but most of all, she was a wife and a mother. The image that I had of her is that of a loving and supportive wife and a strong lady. I had hoped that she would be able to win her battle with the big C but alas.... My heart goes out to the PM and his family for their loss.

Sad as I feel, I feel scared too. My mom lost her battle to the big C many years ago. My dad's sister (my aunt) has breast cancer too which is in remission so I hope it does not recur. With both maternal and paternal sides of my family having it, does that make me the ideal heriditary target? Its a frightening thought. Even with all the advances in technology, we still have not found a cure for cancer. Thats so sad.

Why do people fall ill or disabled? Why do they grow old and die? Why? Why?

Life is short and unexpected. We must remember to tell not only in words but through our actions the people that we love how important they are to us. We must not be so carried away by our daily grind and routine, get caught up with stresses of life and in the process forget to give love and receive love. Don't you agree?

Fair and Lovely

Some people say that consuming a lot of Soya Bean drink when you are pregnant will ensure that your baby will be fair and lovely. Not sure what basis there is in that but during the 3rd trimester of my first pregnancy, I enjoyed the cool sweet taste of the drink and drank some to keep me cool. Things can get pretty hot in the 3rd trimester especially if you're very big. In the first 2 trimester when I was having bad morning sickness, all I could think off was 7-up/Sprite and boy oh boy did that make me feel guilty. Anyway, My Girl turned out fair and lovely (probably due to the amount of 7-up I consumed!)

However, My Boy turned out tanned. Mr MG never fails to "blame" me because during the 3rd trimester of my second pregnancy, I enjoyed Soya Cincau (Soya Bean drink mixed with black jelly and brown sugar) instead!

I can never understand this new craze to be fair and lovely. Why is everyone craving to make themselves look fairer with all those skin whitening products? Each time I buy a face powder or foundation, the salesgirl will never fail to tell me "Miss, this one good, it will make your face look fairer." and I tell them "No, please get me a darker shade, I want one that looks natural that blends with the colour of my skin or even one a shade darker than my skin colour coz I don't want to look pale like a ghost or like I have a white mask on! Geez!"

I think skin of whatever colour or shade is lovely as long as the person is lovely. No need to slather white paste onto your face to become "fair and lovely!"

Grocery Shopping

One of the things that I really appreciate about Mr MG is:

HE HELPS ME WITH MY GROCERY SHOPPING :)

You hear that husbands out there? Faster go help your wife today! kekekeke. And wives, if your hubby helps, don't give him a sour face for rushing you, don't shoo him away and make him feel like he's not of any help (even if he isn't), just smile and praise him for his good work to encourage more. hehehe. Though I must admit that sometimes when we are in a rush, I forget to thank hubby and forget to be appreciative. Instead I may show a sour face when he rushes me or we may argue at the checkout counter over some minor this and that. Poor hubby!

Not only does he help me with it, he helps me perfect it. How? Well, I'm those forgetful, dilly dally, no plans or impromptu type of person. So if left to it, I'll probably dilly dally at the supermarket, buy unnecessary items or forget to buy essentials. But my dear hubby helps me with the planning and the buying and I really appreciate that very much and whats more, he's usually patient when I dilly dally. Haha.

With two young children, its not advisable to dilly dally. With two young kids, our grocery list has grown a mile long, the rubbish we generate daily from our house is tremendous and our dirty laundry basket is always full but thats another story.

Now, we have the perfect system for grocery shopping, thanks to Mr MG. Its his system actually. He is the systematic one, me well.... when I was younger, my girlfriends used to call me Ms Kelam Kabut. Need I say more? We do our shopping systematically and quite fast. Mr MG will take a trolley and one of the kids and me another trolley and another kid and we go separate ways then meet at the cashier. I will buy the fresh foodstuff while Mr MG buys the tissue, diapers, milk etc. (The dear man actually keeps track of whats running low at home better than me.) Sometimes we meet halfway and exchange kids so they won't get bored.

Usually we shop at the end of our outing after we have spend some time at the bookshop and window shopping. So by then the kids are quite fretty, tired and bored. Can't be helped as we don't have time to go out just for grocery shopping alone and we can't stop at the supermarket first because of the fresh meats we buy. Before the kids, we used to shop at the wet market. We would walk there together and hubby would help me carry the vegetables. Ah..... he's such a sweetie.

To me, thats the best advantage of not having a maid. An involved husband and father to the kids and can even have family fun at the supermarket. I know Mr MG enjoys pointing out the different foods at the supermarket to our Girl and he loves to tease them by putting cold cans of drinks next to their faces and say "Cold!". Sometimes he tries to tease me too but I run away! Now, if I had a maid, I'd probably have to shop with the maid or let the maid do the shopping and miss out on all that fun.

Salsacise

In line with my new resolution to include exercise into my daily routine, I went out and bought a Salsacise tape. Hehe. Thats Salsa dancing and exercise rolled into one. Really fun! It has 6 routines ie:

1. Warming up
2. Twist and Dance
3. KickAss Combo
4. Mambo Mania
5. Fab Abs
6. Cooling Down

So, here's how I do my daily exercise:

On the stationary bike:

Huff huff puff puff. "Baby! Don't touch the pedals or mummy may accidentally hit you. Girl! Stop pulling on the wires (hooked on to show pulse rate) or daddy will scold! Both of you get away from the bicycle!" Huff huff puff puff.

Salsacise - Yeah!:

Huff huff puff puff. Kick legs, swing arms about. My Girl enjoys doing the dance with me. She especially like the Fab Abs routine where we lie down on the floor and do sit ups. Baby also tries to lie down on the floor and he puts his face to the carpet and gives me a cheeky smile (a smile that says he's very proud he can do too!) ........sooooo farneeee and lovable! Then they both fight for space to see who can lie down nearer to mummy and after some pushing and shoving about, both start to cry! Sometimes baby switches the vcd off halfway thru our routine! Sometimes, he comes and clings to my leg and wants to be carried up to do the dance together! Huff huff puff puff. Kick legs, swing arms about.

Hope to keep to my routine with all the distractions and all! (No weight loss to report yet despite my discipline to keep up with my routine and being mindful of what I eat. Boo Hoo Hoo. Nevermind, I shan't be disheartened but shall perservere!)

Paperdolls

I'm waiting for My Girl to be a little older before I buy those cute little printed paperdolls to play with her. I loved playing with paperdolls when I was little. We used to make our own though. We would draw out the dolls and the clothes then cut them out painstakingly before playing with them. Big sis even made paperdolls with cleavage! Haha. She put cotton padding and glued real cloth clothes on the dolls as a base doll. Big Sis is very creative and good at art.

Nowadays, you can easily find the paperdolls at most bookshops. Some of them come with all sorts of materials and ribbons too. You can even find the paperdolls online. Here's a funsite for paperdolls lovers. The clothes are really amazing, with glitters, sheers, shawls, jackets, hats, accessories, high heels etc and celebrities to dress up and makeover. Geez. That makes me feel like I wanna be a kid again! Nevermind, can play with My Girl soon.

Pssst. For those of you at the office, don't come after me, if your boss catch you playing with those online paperdolls at work. kekekekekeke.

My 5 Childhood Memories That Relate To Food

I got tagged by Ai Lian from Tips and Tricks to Happy Parenting blog. I'm normally lazy to do memes but since I'm on a semi-diet might as well blog about food. Anyway, here's my 5 childhood memories that relate to food.

Durians the King of Fruits! I remember me and my siblings crowding around dad, each with a cold glass of water, eagerly anticipating the fruits of his labour. And mind you, opening a durian fruit is hard labour indeed. Haha! Dad would boast of his durian cracking skill. He would arm himself with lots of newspapers, a cleaver and his boots. He'd bang on the top to flatten some of the thorns first, push the cleaver at a certain line/point, then stand up and stomp on the durian. No joke! Nowadays durian are sold in plastic containers at supermarkets. Takes half the fun out of eating it. After devouring the durians (we sat on the floor to eat), we would each take a portion of the shell to fill up with water to wash our mouth and hands with. I swear it takes the smell off a lot better than soap!

Prawn Fritters, my all time favourite. I love prawn fritters from a very young age. I remember dad would take me everywhere to find the perfect prawn fritter and at last we did, at a chinese restaurant in Kuantan where dad was posted then. He would take me there frequently just so I could enjoy my prawn fritters. Ah.... a father's love is sometimes shown through food. Now I'm busy trying to convert my whole family to become prawn fritter lovers so that I can make and eat it more frequently. Hehe.

Keropok Lekor. We stayed in the East Coast of Malaysia for a while, hence the enjoyment of this type of keropok. I remember enjoying it with my siblings whenever we finished our swim at the public swimming pool. (My second sis was the one who taught me how to swim. She also taught me how to ride a bicycle, patiently pushing me up and down the back lane of our house.) Ravenous after a swim, the keropok lekor tasted marvelous dipped in a some chilli sauce.

Shrimp wanton soup. This one is related to my memory of travelling back to our hometown Penang to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Back then, our journey took almost 10 hours! We were happy to stop for a stretch of legs to enjoy the shrimp wanton soup and noodles in Bidor. Now the highways bypasses the restaurant so we don't go there anymore.


Ju Hu Char. (Not sure what this dish is called. Its sengkuang, carrots, shitake mushrooms, dried cuttlefish and meat, thinly shredded and stirfried). Must be eaten with a fresh bed of lettuce. This is another Chinese New Year related memory. Its one of our must have dishes. It brings back memories of warmth, laughter, excitement and that special feeling of festivity in the air.

Speaking of which its almost time for Deepavali and Hari Raya. Aren't we all lucky to get to feel the air of festivity for so many festivals all year round? I do feel lucky indeed.

This meme came from the following blogs (I noticed that they're mainly food bloggers blogging about places to eat/find good food. Haha. I'm not much of a food blogger so hopefully, I haven't killed the meme! ( I probably have by not passing the baton on to 5 others as required but who cares!)

Oswego Tea
Masak-masak
Funky Cookies
Thinking Aloud
Tips and Tricks to Happy Parenting
Mumsgather

I think I know of some people who love food and wouldn't mind writing about food on their blog but then not sure if they like being tagged so anyone who reads this and feels like taking up the meme, well..... just consider yourself tagged! And remember to let me know when you post your meme up so I can come and kay poh.

Mealtime Frustrations

My Girl is a picky eater, no doubt about it. She's extremely reluctant to try new foods and her diet is rather limited though improving slooooowly. My Boy on the other hand used to be a joy to feed. He would wallop all of the porridge I gave him in a jiffy, mouth after mouth after mouth and finish his meal very quickly.

Now that he is growing up......(haiyah!)..... and have a more discerning tastebud.....(*shakes head*)....he has become a lot more selective about his food. Unlike My Girl, he likes to try new foods but he can be rather choosy too. When he first tried rice, he loved it probably due to the newness of the texture. He chewed each morsel carefully and wanted more. Not anymore though.

Now, when I feed him anything that he finds "offensive" including rice, he goes "ptuuuii!". So at every mealtime, its ptuuuii on his clothes, ptuuuii on his highchair and ptuuuiii on the floor. (*Sighs*). After the first one or two ptuuuii, if I continue to offer him the same food during the meal, he would shake his head vigorously and smile. (*aaarrggggh - pulls hair*)

So, at every meal, as I try to feed myself, My Picky Girl and My Choosy Boy all at the same time, I want to throw up my hands in despair and declare (and sometimes I do) "If you two don't want to eat, forget it. Don't want done! I have no more food for you. Afterwards you hungry... I don't know!"

I'm actually beggining to emphatise with that maid who abused the kid by not feeding or merely feeding kids in the house instant noodles (which was news sometime back in the papers) but my kids wouldn't even eat instant noodles!

Ahh.... just another joy of motherhood right?

Not so merry-go-round

I hate being sick!
But there's one more thing I hate more than being sick.
I hate being sick and passing on that sickness to another person in the house!
But there's one more think I hate more than being sick and passing it on.
I hate being sick and passing on that sickness to another person in the house who passes it on to another person in the house!
But theres one more think I hate more than being sick and passing it on and on.
I hate being sick and passing on that sickness to another person in the house who passes it on to another person in the house who passes it on to another person in the house!
But theres one thing I hate most of all.
I hate being sick and passing on that sickness to another person in the house who passes it on to another person in the house who passes it on to another person in the house who passes it back to me!
Geez!!!!!

Now, I've just started this not so merry-go-round going ie. I'm the weakest link. I have a bad cold and sore throat and just passed it on to my girl. Hope it stops there or it'll be a really tiring not so merry-go-round.

One thing that any mother and wife hates most of all is for any member of her family to be sick because its hard looking after sick manja people but its even harder doing that when you yourself are sick!

What is this thing called blogging and how to start a blog?

I'm trying to explain to my second sis about blogging infect my second sis with the blogging virus. "How ah?"

I think I better rope in all the blogging gang to help me with the explanation. So, to all you good folks out there who happens to be reading this post. Can you help me out please? Its better for her to hear from the different horses blogger's mouth words themselves. That will surely give her a good idea of what blogging is all about and how to go about starting one.

Please help me answer these 3 questions in my comments board. (If you can think of more than this 3 questions to help out with the explanation, feel free to let loose.) Thank you for helping me be lazy. Saves me a lot of explaining. I'll just email her this entire post. Hehe.

1. Why I blog?
2. How I started blogging?
3. What I love most about blogging

Ok, I'll start the ball rolling....

Answer to above:

1. I hope that someday when my children become parents themselves, they can read my blog as a source of reference or simply for amusement sake. I'd probably be too old and grey and forgotten the details or perhaps not even here anymore to advice them.
2. I didn't start by reading blogs first. I didn't know of anyone who had a blog and was not introduced to blogs by anyone. All I knew about blogging was "a blog is an online journal" and since I had my breastfeeding difficulties experience which I wanted to jot down somewhere, I started a blog because it was much easier to create than a website. I also thought it could be a space where I could copy and paste some of the nicer email forwards that I wanted to file up/keep. However, ever since twinsmom and 5Xmom showed me through their blogs what blogging is all about, the rest is history and I haven't copied and pasted any stuff because I have too much to say myself! (I eventually moved my breastfeeding story to my website after I learned how to create one.)
3. Blogging allows me to do something I love..... write! I hadn't realised myself what a passion I have in writing as I'm discovering now when I blog on. And fuihyoh.... got feedback for my thoughts summore..... lagi shiok!

   Ok folks. Over to you...

   P.S. Got prize or not for responding? No lah... but got strategies for how to win yourself a prize. Hehe. So to all contest lovers from my previous post, I recommend you to hop over to Lydia Teh's right after this to learn those winning tips yourself. (Thank you Lydia for the post.)

Living Doll

My Boy: "Duh. Duh. Duh."

My Girl: "Whats duh duh duh?"

My Boy: "Tek. Tek."

My Girl: "Whats tek tek?"

My Boy is like a living doll for my girl. She likes to bullly play with him. She would take him by the hand around the house, pretend to feed him, force comb his hair, play hide and seek, catching and wrestling with him. My Boy loves to play wrestling, catching and hide and seek with his sister. It never fails to draw excited and loud laughter from him. (and palpitations from me.) They also have conversations together, like the above.

Its really fun to see them interact. Although sometimes my voice does get a little hoarse from telling My Girl to stop pushing My Boy. My Boy is a strong little boy but he hasn't discovered how to push back yet. Is she in for a nasty surprise when he does!

I won! I won!

Hehe. No lah. I didn't win the lottery.

I merely won a RM50.00 shopping voucher from Metrojaya from some contest. Cheh!

When we went to collect the voucher, Mr MG's eyes grew big big when he saw other ppl collecting bigger prizes and commented "How come your prize so small one?"

"Now just you wait hor, dahling, I'll win a house or a car some day!" Kekekeke.

BTW, I've won a wedding gown voucher which I never used because I won it after my wedding. I've won a pearl neckless sitting somewhere in my dresser and I've won a RM1k ugly watch hiding somewhere in my drawer. Anyone knows of any pawnshop which will accept watches? Hehehe.

Whats your most memorable win? I know twinsmom won a trip to somewhere. (Care to share that story with us?) Come and share your winning stories with me and make my mouth water a bit lah..... Then I will be off to enter more contests. Maybe lydiateh can share some winning tips from her book? Hehehe.

Nice clothes are for thin people only (*pouts*)

Went shopping during the weekend and could only look at all those pretty clothes made for thin people. Bleargh! Tried some but they're oh so boring! I hate it! I hate shopping when I'm overweight. Clothes for fat people are sooooo boring. I'm tired of wearing jeans and shirts all the time but nothing else looks nice.

I just have to lose weight so that I can wear body hugging outfits again.

So I'm gonna have a new resolution to lose weight today. Its not the New Year but who says resolutions are for New Year only? Anyway I don't make New Year resolutions.

I'm 25 pounds overweight. I'm stuck. I'm not losing the weight. I've never been fat for most of my life but after the kids, my weight got stuck up there. Its probably due to my age and too sedentary lifestyle. So as of today, I'm going to:

• exercise at least 20 mins daily (except Sat)
• eat more vegetables and less meat and rice/noodles
• drink more water and home made natural fruit juices and avoid soft drinks
• stop eating my kids' leftovers
• stop sharing buns, cakes, chocolates and ice-cream with the kids

Ok. Thats for a start. As of today. I'm between 133- 135 pounds. There! Now its public. Can't back off from my resolution now. Thats the purpose. I need some motivation.

Please people, motivate me, share tips with me, or join me. I shall be reporting my progress from time to time.