A date with ..

I am having a date with so many people, so many people from Disney on the 7th - opening night.
Luck (but not money luck) is on my side when I saw no queue at the Sistic counter in TM. It was so crowded on Wednesday. I needed to get the tickets over the counter, coz' when I tried online I don't get good seats. But...coz' I made up my mind (pretended that I ever threatened Athena "I'm not going to bring you to shows again.") too late all the good seats were taken up. Now we have to make do with the 3rd row from the front, ringside. Sob....sob... but I'm really looking forward to it. It'll be my second Disney On Ice show, and Athena's first. Wondering if I should bring lil' Aricia along with me - that girl so poor thing.

The guinea pig

A continuation from the previous blog

My 1st guinea pig is not that stupid afterall.....

She refused to try, must have known it's horrible. See how she shakes her head (ps. listen to her saying "nottie")

No!No!No!
(actually she just drank her milk so she rejected or maybe coz she
just poo-ed and it resembles........)

I'll pretend to feed myself so mummy won't feel hurt.

Chocolate Fudge Cake with...

........lots of Hersey's Semi-Sweet chocolate.

Was so tempted to throw in the mini M&Ms as well.

I took my camera to snap photos, if only I can snap smells.. the smell is Oohlala. I love the smell of chocolates, do I need to emphasise more?
First attempt so I think it's a good attempt. It tastes like chocolate, it taste like what a fudge is suppose to be (only KZ thought it taste funny, until I told her it's not sponge cake. She didn't know what's a fudge. Huh?)Now have to see what my family thinks of it.

Recipe (I didn't put nuts - forgot I had some almond. Duh!)

You know what's the best? Served with our Rocky Chocolate ice-cream.
Dessert is served!!

成功 or 失败? I don't know, must ask my family. So far Athena & KZ gave me the thumbs up.

This is hilarious!

Screening : Lil' girl - Recorded on 28th Feb

A video of a prodigy in the making....


I guess it won't happen, she'll just be an ordinary gal

A video of her babbling along to her Shichida Goodbye & Good Afternoon song



A bit wu-liao but I can't help but find her ay..ay...ay so cute when she sees the worm in Baby Einstein videos.

Another joke

Athena told me one day, "mummy, who finish the meal last in school have to clean the table." My first remark was "so you must have cleaned the table alot of times."
A : No! Neil clean the table. He always eat very slow, one by one
M : You eat very slow also. So tell me how many times did you clean the table. Alot of times?
A : No! Neil clean the table alot of times. M : Only Neil and Athena clean the table? (must be very slow)
M : How many times?
A : Only 3 times.
M : Huh? 3 times? That's alot. So how many times did Neil clean the table?
A : 1 time

Now as I typed and she's reading this, she's telling me it's not 1 time. It's 9 times he cleaned the table. Heng ah..... so she's not that slow afterall.
I checked from her today:
* Neil - 9 times
Athena - 3 times
Wei Zhe - 2 times
Yi Jie - 2 times
Jia Hui, Zhen Yong, Si Xian - 1 time
Malcom, Qi Jie, Oliver, Jachelle, Nashvin - 0 time

Mumblings

Books / Books review
I picked up (ahem..collected) this book Smart Baby, Clever Child - hoping to make my little Aricia a child prodigy.
The book I last borrowed : ScreamFree Parenting didn't seem that interesting to me & so I returned it. I think the best way is to send me for counselling to stop me from screaming. Notice too, that I didn't talk much about the other book : Playful Parenting. Umm... it's common sense thing so I decided to use my time to do other things. But the book I highly recommend would be the Different Children, Different Needs.

I was flipping through the cake decorating books. It's really very pretty and I doubt I can do it. First I need to pick up Athena's Playdoh and try my skills in making an animal or things from it. Meanwhile the books are for salivating purposes. Ha!

Stupid server!!
I've been complaining that my server is slow. Starhub came by last week to check on it. Checked said no problem with the speed, then he suggested it could be viral in my computer since he noticed in my loading page below always says : sg.yimg.com so he suggested that it is directing elsewhere and could be viral attack.
He mentioned ways where there can be viral attacks or getting trash mails. I said yes, I did receive some trash mails coz' once I click on the debug some virus thing popup. And strange enough, my Norton didn't help meh??
He checked on our desktop, speed is not as fast as brother's loading but at least I can get into it.

When he left, I tried again. This time it's slow again. I checked on the desktop again & clicked on Mozilla Firefox, normally I use Mozilla Firefox coz' it's faster than Internet Explorer. And so, I noticed that it also directs to sg.yimg.com - so it's not viral attack in my lappie at all!!
I went back to Internet Explorer, I can get into the page but I tried to upload something, it's jammed up again.

Damn! damn! damn! Never subscribe to Starhub!! They can't even solve my problem.

So, it means I can't go into these pages :
1) youtube (which explains why I uploaded some videos in twango)
2) my online photo albums
3) facebook
4) livejournal

NEA
NEA came by on Tuesday knocking on every doors, highlighting to me that there are 2 dengue cases in my area.
I haven't turned on our water feature for quite some time since the outbreak in Pasir Ris area, I played safe and drained the water and cleaned up the area. Over the weekend, I told KZ to fill up the water coz' I need to work the motor. She filled up on Monday evening, so Tuesday I turned on but the motor's not working - gotta ask dad to see what's wrong. Then so 'qiao' the NEA came by.
I was abit surprised that he wasn't concern over our water feature but over the "fake" plant near the water feature.Wah... we can't even plant anything at our corridor - no sun how to plant anything inside the house. (ehh... actually we did. The landscape people came to put indoor plants in our house with pebbles etc.. but somehow the plants died - no green fingers lah! So, we never planted anything after that)
Ours is all clear, of course lah! We played safe in everything since we had 2 young children @ home. When he went to next door.... "you all have so many plants? When did you change the base plate? Must change you know..." Ai yoh...I'm so scared now.
Burning the essential oil to ride of insects in the house now.

K, time to finish blogging now. Mine's all updated, gotta update the childrens' tonight.

Aricia

Reading the alphabets
Athena could tell me the letters at 18 months, even reading it in the mirror image.

Aricia is now 17 months + and I'm hoping that she'll be able to do what her che-che did at the age. Umm... maybe not the mirror image but the full alphabets.

This is her progression (funny) so far :

Point to She says
A A
B ber (phonics sound)
C C
D dog
E E
F ff (phonics sound)
G ge
H Her (phonics sound)
I sometimes she says I, sometimes she says "hah"
J *pli pla*- dunno what
K L
L M
M mmmmm
N *pli pla*
O P
P sometimes says P, sometimes she says A
Q *opens her eyes and look at me*
R Sssss (phonics sound for S)
S *pli pla*
T - V *keeps quiet*
W dunno what she says but it is 2-syllable
X - Z *keeps quiet*

So funny!

Mummy... I can't see
I can't remember if I had blogged this in before. This girl has found a new thing to play, she'd close her eyes and walk. We tell her to open her eyes, she's continue closing her eyes and squinting it tight;open her mouth. She walked into our sofa once, shocked but continued walking. Just the other day, she tried again. This time with her hands stretched out infront of her, trying to touch the things. Then she laughs and continue again.

Walk
She learnt to walk backwards

Bracelet & Anklet
I decided to let her wear both her bracelet & anklet and I'm pleased that she didn't pull it off like what che-che did. Infact, she was so careful that she refused to move her left hand even when she was struggling to stand up from sitting position.
She's doing better now with it and still no attempts in pulling it off.




She speaks
All the imitating from che-che :
1) She learnt from her sister who's always whining for my attention "I want mummy.."
Aricia's version is either "I want (pause) mee" or "I (pause) mummy" Probably too young to join all 4 words together in a sentence for her.
2) Che-che always complained "naughty!" when we refuse her request for something. Aricia seems to know how to associate the word. When she asked for something from me, I'd usually ask her for a kiss. The other day, after planting dunno how many kisses I still asked for more. She got frustrated, sat down kicked her legs and said "nottie...."

"Pay pay ah...." pain pain ah. Hilarious to hear her say that, coz' she does really indicate to us when she's in pain like for eg. the other day the che-che closed the door on her and lil' Aricia feet was caught.
I'm so blessed..
I feel so blessed that both my children are water barrel. Athena drinks about 1 litre of water a day, Aricia drinks about close to 900ml a day + her milk which works out to more than 1 litres of water.
And both kids refuse flavoured drinks.

That nottie girl

yup! I've said it upteen times.

Last night decided to let her sleep with me coz' for the past few nights I was trying hard to finish my stuffs. Now I've completed what I'm suppose to do now (and continue the rests at another time. Got another project to do now.) and no printing in the night so I wanted that nice cuddle with my little girl.

Wah.......she seemed to be fast asleep, but after some time she got up and started playing the room - at 11+ in the night. Put her on me to sleep, she faked until I put her down, she sat up and started laughing. This continued with all her jumping and climbing the bed + pillows + blanket she pulled to try to stack up.
1+, still refused to sleep. I smacked her buttocks. It's the first time she knew I mean business and started crying (if not, usually she'll make that pouty face and forget about it)

Day Out

Finally I get a chance to be out alone mid-week, I haven't had the time to gym on Monday + Tuesday (trying to finish some things at home) so Wednesday will have to start. So what better way to start my gym for the week is to have Moo Han for company.

After gym, we had lunch together (I had quite a sinful lunch - Fish & Chips, which the workout was of no use). We really have so much to talk about, nice to have her around. Well... next time we'll probably have more chance to meet up when her son is in Tao Nan and Athena is in IJ (schools are just opposite from one another). Looking forward to our aging years ahead!Since we're near the east coast, this is what I expected we'd do.
After lunch it was errands time. Bank + do the Speed Reading + library. Ken can't do it so now I have to find other ways to do it. Aiyah! Wasted my trip down to that curvy laned Guillemard area. Library - yea! I get to pick up the books I've reserved. Umm... actually for quite some time I haven't really stepped inside the library to look for my books, but rather I'd reserve the books, pay the reservation fees of $1.55 and pick up the books. Saves the time for me. I reserved the cake decorating books , I was to pick up one but I decided to check and the rests of the books were on the shelf too, so I asked to collect all immediately; rather than going back another day.

Time execution was so perfect, the moment I reached back mom's place it was time to pick Athena up.

Night time, I had Aricia to sleep with me since che-che is not around to fight the attention + squeezing into my bed. And... to be continued.

The pidgies

It's Day 4 since the pidgies' eggies left my sight. Since then, the mummy + daddy + another bird (mistress? toy boy?) kepe coming back. Initially it was all 3, now it's just 2. And they'd sleep in the aircon ledge above my unit. I can see them from my kitchen window.
Earlier on, they frightened the shit out of me, 2 of their heads were facing directly into my kitchen.

Ok, back to the past few days. They stopped patrolling my aircon ledge and walked behind the aircon compressor to find the eggs since Sunday. And I had thought they had stopped grieving..but oh my I'm wrong, they are very persistent.
Once I found myself talking to one of them "You're looking for your eggs? Don't worry we try to hatch the eggs for you? Or...can I catch you? I let you sit on your eggs yourself?"
Shucks! What the ??? I must be INSANE TALKING TO A BIRD, which either neighbours (upstairs & downstairs) would think I'm talking to myself since the bird is hidden in their view. And don't forget I hate pigeons!!

The rep from Pigeon Conservation is not sitting on the eggs (as what hubby said) but she's trying to hatch the eggs with a light. Don't play play hor... my sister actually went to a pet shop to buy a light specfically for hatching eggs. Can't remember how many days to see whether it'll hatch, though we noticed veins in the 2 eggs = fertile. If not, will have to bury the eggs...

*update on 28th morning - the upstairs neighbour is cleaning their aircon ledge. I asked the man, they laid an egg there *

My cake - something's not right

Decided that I should do the Premix Chiffon Cake and I should say it was a failure. I don't understand how it can go wrong since it's a premix.
The instructions asks for a baking time of 45-50mins at 170 deg celcius, but I baked at 30 mins to play safe. >> The taste is there but the cake is not fluffy as it should be (it's harder than that), the outer layer is not soft and crumbs dropping all over kind. Does it mean that I should follow the time to really get that fluffy feel? But ... it's already harder than it should be, baking it longer will make it hard like a rock what?!

Second batch (yah lah! not enough cake pans), I reduced the time again to 20 mins. The same leh.....

What is wrong? I don't understand. Is it because of the pans? Coz' the inside texture is something like my cake kueh bolu
The outside looks exactly the same too!

What's wrong? Notice how all chiffon cakes in shops looks like? With a hole in the middle? Does it mean it needs "breathing space" while baking and mine didn't have space so it became hard?
Perhaps I should try with the pan and see how.
Perhaps....I should do what hubby said "go and buy from cake shops."

This is definitely A HOLE IN MY HEART!!

Sven is 1!

It's the first time I'm seeing Sven and he is already 1!

It was a party with catered food and of course.... desserts lined up prepared by Ros's mom. To name a few there were quiche, tarts, eclairs and eclairs - I must stress on this coz' it's chocolate. I was told the Chocolate Truffle cake is also prepared by her super mom. Coz' I get to eat chocolates. Yay!yay!yay! I'm going to stuff my face with chocolates, notice I never talked much about the catered food huh?

The party was in the way, Athena (like the mummy) was eyeing on the eclairs and so she tried to have her lunch, but she was so tired - past her nap time. So drowsy that.... she fell while sitting twice!! Can't believe it.

The birthday boy

Ros and me

Yums! The CAKE!!! Must ask Ros mom if she wants a disciple

Singing the birthday song / Cutting cake

Athena enjoying the cake. I had a second helping.. and I have to work hard in gym tomorrow.
Athena playing with Joey

At the party, found out one of Ros's cousin (cousin right??) is a CS- Chief Steward with SQ so we chatted. Chatted with Ros very little coz' she was fluttering about the guests, even when I stayed back a little didn't permit me to have time to chat alot more with her - at this time Athena although was playing with Joey was so tired.

And... the journey back from Woodlands to Punggol was not even long enough for her to rest well in the car.

The chor lor-rina

Athena is so crazy over the 12 Dancing Princess, that she's watched that 3 or is it 4 times. Currently that's playing in the car.

Incident yesterday :
After watching a little segment of the show (coz' short journey to dinner place) and being so in love with the graceful steps.... she was sitting on my lap in the front seat, so she had to get down first before I can right? She stood at the back door waiting for me to come out. In the meantime, she started dancing in the carpark.
Hubby worried "Athena, don't go behind."
Me : "she's dancing" (obviously he didn't hear me)
Hubby : "Athena, hurry up. Why are you so slow? Walk faster!"
Me : "She's doing ballet - dancing."
And she continued gliding on safe place to the lift area.

Later on, on way home :
Athena : "daddy, I love ballet sooooo much. I want to learn ballet"
Me : "oh..no, you're not going to learn ballet with you stopping halfway after some time.."
Hubby : "and complaining 'pain pain'...."
Athena : "but ... I want to learn..."
Hubby : "Okay, if you can tiptoe for 5 hours later, I'll let you learn."
Me : "5 hrs? Then I will have to send her to hospital tomorrow for broken toes."

Check this out

I bought something for Athena and asked her to choose which one she wanted to use first.

Well.............I had to wait a long time for her to make up her mind.

Why??

"Mini money mini mo
Catch the spider on the wall
If you win, let me go
A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z"
(as she moves her fingers between three items)

I feel the 3rd and last sentence don't blend in nicely, she must have missed one sentence. But this was enough to make me roll on the floor. Very lor soh!

Mumblings *edited*

Purchases
Hubby really bought it, I thought he didn't mean it.

Last evening he showed it to me, after his colleague helped him convert something which is being blocked by US. Very impressive gadget but it can't be mine to use as my children likes to play with my phone and it'll end up spoilt. I worry when he uses it too, coz' he is very careless - can leave things behind. Sigh...
The children are happy with their presents, (apparently daddy bought them what Athena wanted for her birthday theme) Athena's so proud of her new plasters - the 4 boxes behind the Spongebob row - all x2 and combined into one box She loves this so much that...................
suddenly she tells me her hand is painful.

I'm happy with my B & BW stuffs and VS fragrance.
Sale! Sale! Sale! I wanna go..... he had to further spite me "do you know the hotel I stayed is just next to a big mall??" Argh! I don't care I wanna go. If not, I'll have to order some items which he didn't buy online already.

Little Miss Pidgie
That night after the first and last time I wrote about our visitors, I was set to go to hell. Coz' I was thinking about the poos and inconvenience.
Then when I told hubby, immediately he said " remove it". I kind of expected him to say that. But he made no indication that he's going to do it and he kept opening the window to see the pidgie sitting on it, not even shoo-ing it away. So perhaps... maybe he did have a soft side in him. Anyway he won't be around in the next few weeks so he might just forget it was ever there.

Sister asked me in the late morning (Fri) and I told her I am more keen in going to hell. Her response was "good! This is called karma... you like to drink bird's nest, see next time you dare to drink or not."
Afternoon, she mentioned that her customer/friend in Saudi Arabia told her that I should keep it as it signifies 'peace' - I wonder what exactly he means?... that my house is too noisy and it should be peaceful?? I thought it was dove which signifies peace, until my sister told this dumb girl "doves and pigeons are the same what?" In my mind, I thought "Oh is it? No wonder they look a little alike"
As I checked :

What is the difference between Pigeons and Doves?
All doves and pigeons descended from the Rock Dove. Through mans selected breeding over many years has the homing pigeon come to be known. Scientifically doves and pigeons are the same (Columbia liva).

Click here

And so, I thought.... maybe I should just shut one eye. But I'm equally worried about the nuisance it will cause.
This morning was The Day - hubby opened the window and said "you're still here?" Of course lah! Nobody tried to move it, it will still be there. And he wanted to throw the eggs away. Sister did say if we wanted to remove it, she wants to try to catch the mummy & daddy and try to make sure the lil' pidgie grows. But at that time, hubby was too impatient/insensitive, no time to call her. His intention was to throw it away while I thought I'll bring it down - perhaps it'll not survive but better than 死 路 一条. How to get the mummy down with me?? It's a terrible mess with poos on the floor. Eeks! KZ helped me remove and I thought she paused awhile. Saying her prayers? The eggs were warm, we let Athena touched the eggs. At first she touched then she got scared when she felt it was warm, the next thing that came out from her mouth "got chocolate inside??" with her eyes wide open made us laugh.Don't tell me she thought it's those chocolate easter eggs??
KZ followed me and I saw what raw materials the pidgies used to make a nest. Wires, some plastic thing, ends of joss sticks (the bulk of the items probably came from the construction site across) Called sister to inform her the moment I got back home. During that time lapse, the pidgies came back alot of times looking for the babies. Quite a poor sight! After a long long time later, sister called & told KZ she wants to take the eggs. By then it started raining and I took the opportunity to wash the ledge and guess what?? I started sneezing non-stop for the next half and hour or more. It's not those kind of flu-ey or "I think somebody is saying bad things about me" sneeze but it was those sneeze I get when it's really dirty/dusty.
The representative from the Pigeon Conservation (sister) came with her assistant + a dog cage, explained that if she wanted to catch the mummy/daddy and another 3rd party - mistress? I'll let her catch it but I'll be out with hubby for dinner coz' as it is he was so impatient, KZ will stay at home. Ai yah...hope my sister understands the position I am in.
Now, the 3 birds are in the aircon ledge above our unit. I hope it flies away soon coz' it might dirty our clothes. As it is, when we went downstairs, we noticed the floor with lots of poos - imagine how many of our unit #461 neighbours are cursing and swearing. Oh! I saw some other pigeons in another block. Probably it's the baby boom time?? Yah! With Valentine Day's just passed and the pigeons probably made love like mad, so now time to reproduce.

The eggs are in sister's hands and will see whether it'll hatch. Kudos to her for having the patience. I don't have the patience, not even with my children.

Funny gal

(taken on Wed - 20th)
Dunno what she was mumbling

Aricia

BB Einstein
We haven't let her watched her BB Einstein videos for about a month or more now, coz' we were rotating all her other videos.

Since two days ago, she indicated what she wanted to watch by pointing to the disc box and said "da da". When one finishes, she'll continue with her "da da" and then continue the next video. Don't ask me why she said "da da" probably the boy with glasses looked like my brother (whom she calls da da)??

And so, we started with the Baby Van Gogh since I am showing her Vincent Van Gogh's paintings as one of the flashcard topics.

Open / Close
I dunno what that girl is up to now, she has all those funny antics coming up all the time. She learnt to close her eyes, squint her eyes closed tighter and then turn her head from left to right vv, squinting even tighter and smiling - so we know she's playing. She continued a few times in a day.
Today, she decided she can try something different. And so she did it when she was walking. Told her to open her eyes but she continued playing, opened her eyes, closed her eyes and walked. *boom* she walked into the sofa. Thank goodness she didn't fall backwards, but it was funny to see her walking into the sofa. That didn't deter her, infact it challenged her further and she continued trying... until I had to distract her with a toy.

Words
Naughty girl, I wonder if she's teething or what.. she's been trying to bite. And sometimes she bite our shoulder when we're carrying her. And so, she bit KZ on the shoulder, KZ took revenge and flip her face down and "bite" her leg. That girl scream "pay pay ah...." (pain pain ah)
Sometimes at home, she'll complain (by running to me and say "pay pay" to me that she was bitten but she'll show me the wrong place.
Early in the day too, she was so happy holding two ice-cream and she said "i crem". It surprised all of us, sometimes you gotta really pay attention coz' she mumbles the word and then refuse to say it again until whatever her mood tells her to do.
And, I thought I heard her calling "Ah yi yat" - Aunty Zet, when we got back home this evening.

My house, the lodging

I was woken up from my afternoon nap by KZ informing me that there are a few visitors to my house.

My aircon ledge

I've shoo-ed them away countless times but they keep coming back.
We haven't opened the window to the aircon ledge since KZ did the spring cleaning for me. So, I was surprised that despite my shoo-ing and I thought the pigeon flew away to the next door's aircon ledge?? Maybe it did came back. And I saw the pigeon sitting there.
Pigeon sensed human around, trudged away. Next thing I saw...............

eggs! And it really did surprise me. Can you see the nest it made? Just a few twigs and strings?

I wanted to bring down the eggs downstairs coz' I do not want the pigeons to breed here and make a mess of my aircon ledge + noise + dunno for how long.
I told KZ that I'll stand guard just incase the pigeon came by attacking her like a vulture, while she helps me pick it up with a plastic bag and I'll bring it down. That is until I decided to call my SPCA - my sister if the pigeon will survive if I brought it down. "Of course it will die.. might as well just throw it down the chute." Being a charitable person, she asked me to keep it until the hatchlings are hatched, it will learn to fly and then fly away. But goodness knows how long. Imagine what would my neighbours think ( that I'm breeding pigeons in my place) and dirtying their clothes - as it is it (I believe it's the same pigeon) there were poos on 2 of our laundry.
Anyway, as I looked up I notice another 'bodyguard' was on the kitchen ledge above my unit looking directly down at me. It made some noise to the other pigeon and.... pigeon flew back and looked at me??

Shucks! Not again!! First was the little pretty SNY bird that landed in our window ledge sometime last year. I know it's good luck for a bird to want to come to my place, my sister said "the bird feels the warmth and love in our place to want to lay eggs here" - I say it's a whole load of rubbish. With a screaming mother, what love? With a ballistic mother, what warmth? It's coz' we gave it a nice border to make a nest - the hose. I didn't notice the hose had dropped from our bucket to the floor - or maybe KZ would have seen it but never picked it up. Or maybe it was shoo-ed from the upstairs neighbour (KZ said she heard it and went to see the man using a bamboo pole to shoo it away) to our place.
Sister suggested my place can be a National Geographic place where I can teach the children about caring + dunno what nots to work on their EQ. And it'll be great for the children to see first hand. What? My children open the window everyday to see the progression.
I'm still considering if I should do my humane bit for the society as what sister puts it. What? I hate pigeons!! I hate it when I was in Trafalgar and at Dam Square their bloody whole flock of pigeons just flew past my head. Eeeks! So won't I be contradicting myself by letting it stay here? And what if it comes back again to breed?

But why I want to save the life of that hatchling is coz' it's .... I can't explain. For sure I won't save the lives of a cockroach, lizard or rat. That's why I want to bring it down, but it won't survive. I hate pigeons! And you know what? I just finished a set of flashcards on Pigeons. !!!! Next topic should be on diamonds, then diamonds will drop from the sky into my house.

I am curious, if I should let it stay on, about pigeons. Reading up on it.... why am I doing this when I hate pigeons!
Interesting reads :
Pigeon Egg
It's interesting.... we have 2 eggs here. No wonder sister ask me "is it fertile?" "Of course it's fertile lah! You think like chickens can lay eggs on it's own huh?" Now I know, it can by bogus egg.
Another read - ignore the part about homing, I'm not going to keep it here at all, just read for the facts. 19 days?!?! I don't even know when the eggs were laid and can I tahan the noise or not?

Pictures from someone's Flickr.

Facts - the other inhumane part of me tells me so

Just checked - Pigeon sitting on it.

I'm still considering, I wonder what hubby will say when he comes back to find out I've been having illegal immigrants in my house.
If I did let it stay on, will I be an angel when I die?
If I didn't, will I be sent down to hell?

If..... if....... what will you do?

Sinseh

A review with the sinseh today.

Apparently my lil' Aricia has put on a little kgs, not much (still small) but it's good progression. Sinseh said that she can see (last review was 2 weeks ago) she's grown a lil' chubby on her cheeks and she's growing horizontally (All I can see is her fat bulging tummy). Then she commented "so now, she will grow vertically".

Huh? I thought it sounds funny, I thought when a person grow everything will grow at the same time. She did mention now that she has extra flabs then will grow up, if not nothing to stretch her upwards. Haha! I burst out laughing at that assumption. But I put it akin to Aricia being a rubber-band. Wow! That's even worse!

Any logic??

Playground

I didn't bring Athena to the playground when she was little coz' to me playground is dirty and "you'll get your clothes dirty" - at that time I never thought I could always change her clothes after play. Oh well...............things were alright until she was a little older and I had to push her to the playground. By then I thought it was okay for her to go, but she was like a little dog being let out on the first day, so she was scared.

This time round, I decided to let Aricia free. Dirty, dirty still can wash. She likes it when I bring her che-che from school, she'll point to the playground. And I'll let them play for 15 mins, Athena will gladly love to carry her down the slide. And lil' Aricia will scream "weeeeeeee". Haha! Now she takes my short legs as a slide.

So this morning, I decided to let her go to our playground. She's quite okay with it, not scared like the che-che. But maybe coz' Aricia is a siao-char-boh that's why.

SIA Stewardess Slapped + My nonstop (direct flight) talking

What the ??

What is wrong with passengers? CC are humans. What gave them the right to slap someone? And just because they think they are rich? If they're that rich and proud, then go and fly their own private jet. Most rich people have attitude problem.
I think the victim's parents would have thought " I don't even slap my daughter, why would an outsider slap my daughter?" - yah if I were her mother, I'll make sure I slap that woman doubly hard and be a bitch also. Bitch Vs Mega Bitch (who's mega bitch? me lor! Since I will fight back with words)

Why is it that passengers find fault with our national airline + CC and then behave themselves in other airlines? Why? Coz' other airlines' CC are more "dua jia" as compared to the skinny Balmain-clad stewardess huh? Coz' SIA is also known for Sorry I Apologise that they are abused more. Of course who gets the brunt of everything? Not the ground staff, not the cockpit crew but the people who made it "A Great Way To Fly" ( A Gangster Way To Fight) as campaigned by Batey Ads.

I must admit that during my time, we never heard any stories of crew getting slapped. Molest - yes, lots if times. Punched - yes especially the GS. And how about those humsup men who try their luck to see clevage? It is also considered outraging of modesty what?! It happened to me lots of times. There was once I was on a Japan sector where a group of Japanese in their 50s were heading back home. They were trying their luck to see my ..ahem.. during the drink cart service. All I did was to give them that 'hey I know what you're doing' look, one hand on the hip, not that fierce looking and told them "I complain to your wives" and smiled a little. They laughed it off, some of them hitting one another head and then they never did that again. It was a win-win situation where I handled in a different manner, I wasn't rude to them. Anyone molest me? Never. I should thank my lucky stars that nobody wanted to touch me, if not i take the SS Tray and whack their heads.

And so, this news of a stewardess being slapped and went all the way in suing needs alot of salutation from us. She's the heroine who fought back. (I know that when there were case of CC being abused or punched by pax, they will be asked "are you sure you want to sue?" coz' it means taking them out from their rostered duties and it also means alot of emotional stress. Not many would sue, trying to forget the incident)


Fighting Place : In JCL onboard SQ 12 (SIN-NRT)
The Fight : Stewardess & tai-tai (wife of Venture Corp chairman)

This entry is my from my point of view and is not a discrimination platform. I shall put forth all my thoughts from both point of view. The 来龙去脉 is only known between them, I can only guess the scenerio.

1) My first assumption was that the tai-tai is an ugly old woman who is jealous of the young girls, and probably thinking her husband is going to tackle the young girls. But then I read it from somewhere that she was an ex-crew too (dunno how true) so I thought she must be relatively good-looking. And when I saw her picture , she's good-looking what. So why get jealous? And it's not like everytime she travels with her husband right? So does it mean that everytime he flies, she goes wild with her imagination that her husband is cheating on her.
So what if her husband talks to the CC? I've talked to so many passengers, some of them I know are married. I have a few PPS friends who are married and I don't have any of their wives coming after me. And how about hubby who travels so often?

2) CC are expected to do PR with pax and I don't know where they are when they talked (cabin, outside toilet, galley) of if stewardess did incur the wrath of the tai-tai for her to spit out flame. Whatever it is, in such a short time how is the stewardess going to 'seduce' the pax? SIN-NRT is a 2 meal service sector, not much time to talk you know. And also I've travelled and realise not many CC are doing PR now (not that I was dying to have someone talking to me coz' I'll be busy taking care of the kids). Unless.... Mr Wong likes to talk alot, the stewardess was just being polite in talking to him coz' sometimes it can be difficult to find pax who are extremely friendly.
So where is Mr Wong standing now? Did he clarify whether he was the one who started the talk or not? Or perhaps tell the world that his wife was in the wrong, so just pay the $$$. (but then sometimes $$$ doesn't solve everything coz' tai-tai will continue to have this arrogant attitude problem. The person who will go through the trauma will be the stewardess)

In other words, grow up tai-tai!

Baking

I wanna... I wanna... I wanna bake nice cakes, decorate them and feed my family - to 养 他们 白白 胖 胖... but first gotta work on the taste; then the decoration; then the sporting family who have been tied to the chair (so they can't run away) and stuff it into their mouth.

My ardent fan of my cake kueh bolu Athena asked me when I'm going to "make Dora again" - when we have that big bottle of kueh bolu for CNY. ??!! She has to finish that bottle first before I can make any for her.
My next fan of "anything-chocolates I like" asked me when I'm going to bake the Chocolate Lava. Ai yoh... she thinks I'm really that free. I gotta work on that premix pandan cake first.

I want to learn to decorate, and I tried to get inspiration from the books I saw at the library today. But alas! I forgot the kids library cards and Athena seeing me in the library says she wants to borrow books - which I'm only left with 1 book for the quota.

The books

As I was looking for the images in the web to put in here, I saw many more interesting books. Oh boy! I am being overly ambitious, I haven't even tried how to use the piping tips properly for a normal buttercream cake..and it's not like I have that many people who would want to try out my cake - I can't be eating everything myself coz' I'll be fat. Hubby is not a fan for cakes and chocolates. For all you know, before I can embark on doing a nice cake just like what's shown in the books I may sworn off cakes forever, finding it a hassle to cut here and there. It's more of 'playing playdoh?' and frankly I don't have good skills.

Duh! If only I can make cakes this nice that taste equally nice as well... I'd open a shop and be a lady-boss.
DREAM ON, LILY!! I shall continue dreaming and working towards that dream in my la-la- land

I have signed up for Anna's class, I want to learn how to do Fondant cupcakes and not my "any-o-how (my lazy style) of putting cream and throw quins on cupcakes" style anymore. With the Fondant, I can try to decorate the cookies too! Of course to bluff children , I still continue using the "bluff my way through" method. Haha!

What's next?
Maybe another course with Anna. A course in BITC? Phoon Huat? BIY?
Perhaps more gangho and go for a Wilton course?
Maybe >> just forget the whole thing and buy a cake from Patissier??

成语

This is what she learnt in Berries today.

兴高采烈
小心翼翼


I chanced upon this website Chinese Tools, it's really useful for a me who has "half bucket of water" knowledge of mandarin.

All my nonsense talks

Girls = Princess

When we came back home last Sunday from Victoria's BD party, he saw the goodie bags and said "not another Princess??" Until I reminded him that the birthday girl is a girl. Well, just the day before he was saying to Aricia "you like Princess also? Ai yoh! You and che-che....." then he walked away from the DVD section.
That makes me wonder why she didn't choose Princess as her theme this year. I kept asking "are you sure you wanted XXX, and not Princess?" "Yes mummy!"

She's been tip-toeing
She tells me she likes The 12 Dancing Princesses and she wants to learn ballet. Oh no! Very bad of me to give her a negative NO straight away. I didn't want her to start something and then give up halfway. Someone told me, can take it as a good exercise for her. I say it's going to be a waste of $$ coz' someday she'll complain that it's painful blah blah.

Only 15 minutes
Brought the kids to the pool on Friday and it was freaking cold. Aricia was enjoying herself and strangely she didn't mind Ignatius's swimcap, which he kept taking off. (Infact, she insisted on wearing that cap in the house.) She sat on the step & beat the water and kept laughing, while I tried to keep her warm by splashing the cold water over her shoulder - so I don't know if I was trying to keep her warm or made her colder. Then we walked into the baby pool and tried to dip her fully - water is really cold. I can feel the chills going into my nerves too. She splashed water but was shivering, I brought her out and she cried, brought her back in, she splashed and shivered, my body can't keep her warm at all. So in the end, it was only a dip for 15 minutes and KZ brought her to the toilet to wipe her dry. In the end, che-che also decided she wanted to come out.
So what were we doing for the next half hour? Bathing the kids, feeding the kids - all those took a longer time than the dip. Tell you, it's not worth getting ourselves wet that day.

Haircut
Brought Athena for a haircut coz' she has been dropping alot of hair lately. As usual, she'll not want to cut her hair citing that she can't tie her hair anymore; she cannot be a Princess etc....

Know why the different expression??

She's about to cut off her tresses

A haircut which will eventually grow long; a treat to Sakae Sushi instead of Mcs; an offer of chocolate cake - OF COURSE SHE'S SMILING NOW

Scrapbooking
Was flipping through my Scrapbooking magazine and I really wonder how long it takes a person to do up one piece of work. I love the pretty embellishments, ribbons etc.. but I don't have the patience.

So it also sums up where I put my scrapbooking stuffs : my only less than 10 pieces of papers; some fancy A4 papers from Popular; embellishments;ribbons; tool kits

Pouvoir vous parle le français?
Aricia found some inspiration to speak in français recently. And when I tried to flash Vincent Van Gogh's works to Aricia today, I found my tongue got all twisted :

L'Artesienne
La Mousme

She was more interested in looking at my mouth than the cards and giggled.

Cute

It's really amazing to hear words coming out from lil' Aricia and it does surprise me. Surprise me that she paid attention to what we said and understands when to use the word.
Today, she surprised me by suddenly shouting "finish. Mummy finish" when she finished her dinner. She was mimicking che-che for shouting to me "mummy I finish my dinner"

She never calls me mummy, normally calls me ma ma (and still calls daddy "Ah PAaaaaa" - shouting.)

Can say "pay pay" - pain pain

She is now "singing " to another German song, she stopped "singing" her favourite songs.
Now, interested in French as well. She'll "sing" along to 1-2 French song. And when I played Sawako in French, she'd smile. And I did realise that after listening to it, she decided to call me "mamie"-french slang for Grandma. Argh! Or maybe she thought mamie was mummy

To a 17 month-old baby

Happy 17th month-old Aricia

Naughty lil' Aricia

Forgot to post the videos in :
Naughty girl throwing her tantrum on the sofa

Calling family members' names

The time difference joke

If only children knows what is Time Difference.

Hubby called back home and I told Athena "quick come to the phone. Papa has to work later, he just woke up" and it was 7+pm here. Obviously she is confused.

Never mind, children don't know anything and they will have to learn that one day.

But............ this joke (as I related to KZ) was on mom.
During my flying days, I'd call back home. And mom dunno is it she ran out of topics to tell me, must say "it's XXX time here now." My reply "of course lah! I planned to call you now in the afternoon what!"
Sometimes she'll ask "what day is it today in US?" "Wednesday afternoon." "Huh? Now is Thursday morning." "Of course lah! I call you, I must know what time right?"
And this continued throughout my whole flying career!!

That's not it, we were in Greenwich. I asked her to stand between the GMT line and joked "so now, you can say you travel from east to west with one step"
"how come the weather the same huh"

You're having stitches from all the laughing huh? And to conclude the whole story - that's my MOM

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all

(I'm so lonely...................)

* Quick updates*

I haven't been able to post my blogs coz' I'm bee-zy (don't you get tired hearing me saying this all the time??)

Monday
Went to T3 for the first time and I must say I'm so fated to meet Mr C at the airport. Barely half an hour my hubby went into departure area and not even in Silver Kris Lounge, I cheated on him.

Mr C - CHOCOLATES!!! All Semi-sweet (my favourite)
The Pooh Smarties dispenser for the children. There's 10% discount for UOB CC holders. Well, that some good news for me. Hee!

The girl - one bag in her left hand
and another in her right hand

I decided to let Athena stay in mom's place tonight so that I can try to do as much as I can. I managed to print so many sets of cards. Very sian.... Aricia is getting sick and tired of the same songs already but I can't find the time to do the songs flashcards. Not that I'm being pretentious and act busy with the children when he's around. But since he's not around, and I can do without the children's interruption - I can try to finish my work. Wow! Talking about putting in OT without being paid and worst still risk falling sick.

Tuesday
I slept at 4am and woke up at 10+, feeling sluggish. I wanted to continue my work but I was so busy with Aricia that it was only at 3+ I was free. Abit too late, I'm only left with an hour and I can't accomplish much.
Athena came back home and then..... but thank goodness she said she's tired so I sent her to bed. She slept at 9+. So happy.. if only she can sleep early without her constant whining!! As for her assessment books and Phonics, I can do it on Thursday. I'll bring her home early from school and drill her.

Wednesday
Slept late and woke up early again, really tired and went gym. Bad idea coz' I wasn't in the mood so I guess I didn't work out well today.
But I was looking forward to the rest of the day alone. Had my chicken pie in CoffeeClub (very small portion now) and went into Facebook. Can you believe it? The speed I get in my mobile phone is faster than what I get at home. Starhub called and still there's nothing they can do about it. Speed is slow in both my desktop and lappie.
Then I shopped for things, things that are not for me.
I had KIVed Aricia's photo collage for a very long loooooong time so I popped by Creative Hands in Taka to look for the Pooh's stickers. (today's ren-ri and I kept hearing the lion dance tong- chiang tong-chiang) No luck even when I went to another place in PS. I haven't stepped into MWL for a long time so I'm really impressed and marvel at every little piece. It's a good thing I didn't start scrapbooking photos coz' for sure I'll go bankrupt.
I also bought a laminator -meant to do some things for Aricia's 'study'. Expensive? I'm glad GBC came up with this cheaper alternative, normally those I saw costs around $150+++ and this at $95 from Popular was a bargain.
I'm very broke today - I bought all the things for Aricia + frame for Athena's puzzle. Infact I just realised my shopping consists of things mainly to do up their room. Umm!

Some interesting things I saw today:
1) For those who scrapbook you would have heard something called the Distress tool. I found this Antiquing Tool which cost only $12.50 - very cheap as compared to the Distress Tool. Well, the best thing is it doesn't sound that complicated to use. Wish me luck!

2) It' so messy when you see so many papers in the shop, I was so tempted to buy the whole pack of paper and get out of that place (it was so crowded) I like those sweet pink and this was really tempting.
In the end, I put it back in the shelf. I don't scrapbook, I mainly buy those papers and embellishments for card-making and I hardly have the time to make cards now. (seems like I'm set to start doing Aricia's photo collage huh? Fact is, I haven't develop the photos yet. You say I crazy or not??)


Other rubbish talk :
Helper
- I just realised my helper is even more fortunate than me, she sleeps more than me. And I'm not talking about sleeping in the night, when she puts Aricia to nap in the daytime (this is how she does - you think she'd pat her back etc..no! She plays with her than she pretends to sleep so Aricia will have no choice but to sleep.) more often she falls asleep. I'm sure you'll say "well, you deserve it since you want to geh-kiang do so many things for the children."

- I know everyone has their temper and I noticed once KZ showed a black face when Aricia was spitting the food out from her mouth. And.... supposedly I'm not there... will she give her a smack? I never leave the child alone with her for a long time, but I also worry what will happen to Aricia when I'm gyming. So does it mean, I have to give up gyming? Or perhaps I should say give up my life/freedom and see Aricia every seconds.

- As my mom puts in "I was from those suaku place (Muar) so I know how KZ thinks. She thinks in an old-fashioned way." I was not pleased when I saw her wearing mom's home clothes on CNY 1st day. I know it's none of my business since it's not my clothes but I see....it's very pai-kuan I'm not pleased with KZ. Why does she have to borrow mom's clothes to wear? And so I told mom not to lend her personal things in future. Yes, my mom treats her well and we've told her "you're like a family" but still you don't borrow things from people. Then mom said she asked to borrow clothes another time before that also. Huh? And that time the reason was she didn't want to spoil her clothes with the bleach, so she asked mom for a "not so good" clothes to wear. Where to find a 'not so good' clothes? And mom though didn't feel pleased but still lent her.
Another warning my mom said "she might expect you to put up her family member if they come." Oh please my house is not a charity house!

Hair raising concerns
I don't know why but Athena has been dropping alot of hair recently. It's more than usual and what are the underlying causes - I don't know.
Could be lack of vitamins since she's picking on her food (don't eat this; don't eat that). Lack in Vitamin A - I think ??
Goash! If she keeps dropping we'll have to bring her to Beijing 101

So slow
Athena keeps eating so slow, I guess I haven't been strict enough with the military treatment "eat for 15 mins and then I'll confiscate the unfinished food. Then I let you go hungry" coz I'll have a screaming kid at home = anger in hearing her scream = scold her.
I know all kids take their own sweet time in eating. But I need to make sure she eats fast coz' next year she has to struggle with her short recess time. I pity her buddy, the buddy will sure feel 'suay' to have a girl who eats so slow as her charge. And maybe, buddy also go hungry coz' of her. Ha!

I-Phone

Wonder if hubby will buy the I-Phone. Looks really nice and is there such a use for such technic-savvy item? >> When I don't even have the time to sleep enough.

Playdate
Looks like the playdate can't materialise so soon.

School not doing anything??
I don't know is it I have high expectations from the school? Athena came home and tell me "Teacher Mumta let us play play play. I never learn this in school." Is she teaching or not? Is she going according to the syllables and now I'm beginning to doubt the school.
I'm doing more things and to think mom feel that I'm crazy to let my child do assesment books @ home after a long day in school. I think I can home-school her siah. Found this interesting read

Things KIV-ed for too long already and needs to be done
1) Have to dub the rests of the videotapes over to DVD. Still have 10 more tapes ??
2) Need to sort out the 'To develop' photos. And get the long awaited photos developed since Aricia was born till now. Goash! I'll be broke!
3) Our family travel album has to be done
4) Ros- to do Aricia's collage. Then bring it out to print. Will need another free day to do so
5) Need to do the Speed-Reading thing in a shop in City Plaza. Need a day, maybe I'll plan to do it next week.
6) Homefront : a) mom says she wants to teach me to bake pineapple tarts (she makes very nice PTarts) and perhaps I should ask her to teach me Kueh Bangkit as well. And her Glutinous Rice cake, Nonya dumplings. Wow! Too adventurous I guess, I may end up buying off the shelf. b) not printing flashcards. I need to stop them once I finish a few more songs. And then I shall try to do up my blog templates and do some simple photo collage of the children to put in mobile phone