My dad gave us a treat to Krabi, Thailand over the weekend. He paid for flight and accomodation, we paid for all other expenses. It was a family holiday, 15 of us.

Zara has been looking forward to the trip. The night before we left, she chickened out though.
Zara : Mummy, I don’t want Sam jie-jie, Norman kor-kor, Ah Kim and Yi Yi they all to go to Krabi with us.
Me : But why? It’ll be so much fun to go with them. I thought you like them.
Zara : I like them, but I don’t want them to go to Krabi with us. Because, the hotel only have 2 beds, where is Fifi and I going to sleep?
Haha, she thought we’re all going to squeeze into 1 room.

We stayed in Pakasai Resort at Ao Nang Beach, and we took 5 rooms. There’s no beach though in the hotel, the beach is across the road, but then, it’s not a fantastic stretch of beach, so we didn’t even bother walking over.

Check out the troops, without the parents.

Upon arrival, it was just rest and relax. Napped, shopped, swam and of course ate. Food is really good and reasonably priced.

Shopping at Ao Nang is like shopping in Patong Beach 15years ago, a bit more laid back. I didn’t get much, just 3 pairs of fake Billabong shorts and a pair of slippers because the strap on my Croc Cleo snapped!

We travelled in motorbike powered taxi around Ao Nang.

We wanted to do island hopping on the 2nd day. 1,200 Baht to charter a long tail boat for the whole day and we can choose to stop over at 4 islands. We took 2 boats and we didn’t go beyond the 1st island, Koh Poda. We were expecting a dry ride and probably champagne served on board, but throughout the 30mins journey, sea water kept splashing at us. We were all drenched when we arrived Koh Poda, where you get beautiful white sand, and clear blue sea.

Children having fun at the beach.

Sam bringing Zara out for a swim. Had to give her a neck float too, double protection.

After that, it was another 30mins wet ride back to Ao Nang. Brrrrrrrr!

The kids spent lots of time at the pool, getting burnt!

On the 3rd day, we chartered a van to bring us to Krabi town.

There’s a small night market in Krabi, where you can get all kinds of street food and fruits.

And then the driver brought us to a very nice local restaurant (but I forgot the name! Haih), with big garden, a stream, and even a windmill and an unused ferris wheels. When we arrived, we actually screamed in delight! Like some dungus (Malay : fools)!

Children hanging around at the big spacious garden.

(this shot is a bit blur, but I like the warmth of it)

I love these 2 shots of my dad fussing over Zara. Wiping her sweat, and fanning her because she’s always drenched in sweat.

And guess who is the tiredess of all? Zaria of course!

Zara too was so keen in playing that she shortened her nap and sleep time in Krabi; when we got back, she slept till 11am the following morning! Her latest ever!

Before I was a mother, I’d never known I was able to love and be loved unconditionally, twice all the same.
I’d never known I could hug a sweaty and smelly person, and still feel so much love.
I’d never known I could wipe poop, or pick someone else’ nose so willingly.

Before I was a mother, I’d never known the girls’ achievements meant more to me than my own,
That a hug from a little person could feel so warm, on a tired and stressful day.
That a wet and smelly kiss can be such great pick me ups.

Before I was a mother, I’d never known being a mother is so much work,
That I’ll have less time for myself and my time belongs to the kids’,
And still, I’d do it all over again, if I was given a choice.

♥Happy Mother’s Day to All Mothers and Mothers-to-be!♥

Every morning when both girls wake up, they will look towards each others’ beds to check the present of the other.
If Zara found Zaria not in bed, she would ask, “Where’s Zaria?”
If Zaria found Zara not in bed, she would call, “Che-che! Che-che!” or “Zah-wah! Zah-wah!”

When Zaria roamed too far away from me in the park, and Zara saw it, she will come over and tell me, “Mummy, you follow meimei, after bad people catch her.”

Zara entertains Zaria with her songs, funny jigs or action, making Zaria giggle and laugh.
Zara watches TV over Zaria while watching TV, when the adults are busy, shouting, “Mummy, Zara climbing upstairs!” or “Mummy, Zaria got stuck in the potty chair.” etc whenever Zaria does some dangerous stunts or gets into trouble.

I saw Zara pushing Zaria in the toy shopping cart the other day, one happy to be pushed, the other happy to be pushing.

I saw Zaria combing through Zara’s hair with her fingers very gently when Zara was asleep.

Once, Zara woke up from her nap from a nightmare and she was wailing. Zaria went to the tissue box, tore out a tissue, and started dabbing Zara’s face.

Although they sometimes fight (snatching things from one another), Zara and Zaria are getting along wonderfully and it’s definitely making both Daddy and I happy.

After 8years of working with us, Tuyam finally decided to go home for good, to get married and start a family.

She may not be the most efficient or productive maid, but we’re used to each other. She cooks well, we trusted her, and Zara was in her care since day 1 (this was when Tuyam picked up most of her English). I vent my frustration to her about Daddy, In-laws and sometimes work (whether or not she understood or able to fully comprehend me, she listened).

Yesterday, we drove her to the airport and bid her farewell. Only my Filipino maid, Jelly, was in tears, Tuyam has been her companion since she started working with us in March 2007.

All of us have been preparing Zara for Tuyam’s departure, but I think she didn’t know that this time her kakak wasn’t coming back anymore (unlike previous years where Tuyam went home for holidays and came back). Zara has been saying things like, “I’m going to lock all the doors, so kakak cannot go home.” or “Kakak go back Indonesia, buy me mangos and princess bajus (Malay : clothes) when you come back ok?”

Last night before sleeping, Zara told me, “Mummy I want kakak.” When I told her kakak has already gone, she replied, “I’m going to take a rope and catch the aeroplane. Then I’m going swing the aeroplane so everybody will get dizzy and the plane cannot fly any more. I’ll bring kakak home!” She then came back to reality and said, “We’ll go Indonesia for holiday and visit kakak when kakak get married. Or kakak will come for holidays, right?” That’s what Daddy had agreed, we’ll visit Tuyam sometime this year in Indonesia, or she can always stay with us when she comes to Malaysia for holiday.

Even Zaria is missing Tuyam, this morning she woke up and started calling out, “Kakak.. kakak…”

Bye bye Tuyam, you may not be the best maid but you’d been our companion and we will all miss you.

This year went by really quickly. I guess having 2 young kids mean time is more precious and it vanishes before you knew it.

In 2007
Little Zaria got jaundice.
Zara caught a mild chicken pox.
Zara trying to get used to having Zaria around.
Zara toilet trained.
Indulged in Zara’s horse riding hobby.
We braved Frasers Hill and Genting Highland with the 2 girls.
Enjoyed Zaria’s first : First sit, first crawl, first solids, first stand, first laugh, first word, etc etc.
Finished my 3 months maternity and brought work home, started working almost full time at home.
Have Jelly joined us as an additional helper at home.
I declined a high profile and high stress role and instead chose to be a kooly.

In 2007
Baked a lot.
Girls getting to use to each other, and sometimes even enjoy each other’s company.
Braved Langkawi without the maids.
Went up North to say our thanks.
Daddy and mummy went for a holiday without the girls first time in 3 years.
I joined the blog for money gang.
Zara’s 3rd Birthday.
I got my medical results and am so happy all looks well except I have to watch my cholesterol.
Zaria’s 1st Birthday.

In 2007
3 of my good friends who’d been married for more than 5years, and tried for a baby for as long as I did, concieved.
One just gave birth to a girl.
One is expecting twins, a girl and a boy.
And I hope my best friend will very soon go pass the 1st trimester with no problems.

♥Happy New Year to Everybody!♥
♥Hope 2008 bring you Joy, Happiness, Health and Peace.♥

Christmas is about ….

♥Friendship♥

It’s about…

♥Giving Help♥

It’s about…

♥Family♥

It’s about…

♥Togetherness♥

It’s about…

♥Love♥

♥Merry Christmas Everybody♥

~ From My Two Girls, Zara and Zaria, ZMM and Daddy

I’m not an expert in this field, but I tried to sign to my girls as soon as they were able to give me eye contact. Since babies’ fine muscles for hands will develop sooner than their muscle required for speech, baby signing will equip them with some means to communicate to us even when they are too young to speak the words.

I don’t believe the maids or myself can master too many signs, so I’d only picked a few signs which I think is important, such as, Milk; More; Eat; Drink; Sing; Pain; Scared; full (patting the stomach); and I love You; and I taught the maids the signs.

To help the girls associate the sign to the word, we do the sign when we speak the word.  Example : “Do you want milk?” When the word milk is spoken, we clenched our fist to sign milk. In the end, the girls may pick up the actual sign, or they may invent their own which is suitable for their little hands. The most important is, we are able to communicate with signs.

I pick up baby signing through these sites : 
Singing with Babies, just to get started
American Sign Language (ASL) Browser, which lists words alphabetically, and provide you with videos of each sign.

An archive pix of Zara signing “MORE”

When the child knows you can understand her when she tries to communicate with you, she will try to communicate more. That’s my experience. So watch out for your child’s own baby signing, or babling which may mean something.

Just to share two incidents where baby signing helped save the day for us:
1st :
It was Zara’s 1st birthday, and at 3am that night, she woke up wailing. We tried pacifying her thinking it was just one of those nights. However, she kept signing “pain” while crying. We immediately brought her to the nearest A&E. She actually had very bad stomach flu, with bad stomach ache, purging and vomiting. We wouldn’t have known and rushed her to the hospital if she didn’t tell us she was hurting.

2nd :
The 2nd day Zara attended her class, she was still scared to be left in class. I told her we’d be waiting outside. On a few occasions, I peeped in through the opening of the door to her arts and craft class and signed “I love you” when she looked up warily. She nodded, and smiled, then went back to work. When she needed the re-assurance, she just looked up and I repeated the sign to her. It was like a secret code, calming her and making her feel good.

When Zara saw these for the first time ……

She pulled on my hand excitedly, “Look! Look! Mummy! So many big fizzy drinks!” (she really thought they were canned drinks)

And then the other day, Zaria saw this for the first time buzzing about in our house.

She pointed to the zooming fly and shouted, “Bird-Bird! Bird-Bird!”

Ha! Ha!

See, I don’t miss TV (which is never turned on on weekdays except for the girls’ program) because I get free entertainment from my girls. 😛

Continue from here.

This is the last bit of the trip. Bear with me as I don’t go on trips like these often, and I plan to record the trip in detail for my future reading/referrencing as my memory these days really suck!

♥Nov 9th (Fri)♥
Our last day in Shanghai and I was planning to do all the shopping needed on this day.

Our first stop was to change some money as we were running short of cash. Do you know that there’s no money changer in China (unless it’s black market) and besides hotels, the only place you can change foreign currency is from Bank of China and not any other banks? Also, not many shops and restaurants in Shanghai actually accept foreign credit cards; quite inconvenient for the tourists like us.

After getting some cash, we went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (上海科技馆) in Pudong. Not to visit the Museum but actually to go to this shopping place opposite the Museum. This plazy houses lots of little shops selling counterfeit shoes, bags (Le Sport Sac mainly) and clothings, but it was quite dissapointing actually as the designs and items were the same in most of the shops. (What a contrast huh? 1 side it’s the Science and Technology Museum; directly opposite, it’s this place filled shops selling counterfeit goods!)

I bought a dress for Zaria and a pair of shoes for Zara (later I found out the quality isn’t really that good). That was all I got. Not a very fruitful shopping trip.

We then got out of the mall and walked about outdoor, where we could get a glimpse of the modern Pudong.

The modern Pudong : Dragon at the Science and Technology Museum, we caught sight of an airship cruising above; Modern buildings in Pudong; Century Ave (世纪大道); Old folks dancing outside of a mall, for some, they danced with their imaginary partners

It was then back to Nanjing and Fuzhou Road (福州路) for more shopping.

Brightly litted Nanjing Road; Last pic is a photo of our Motel which I took at 5:30am before we left for the airport

The thing I like about China in terms of shopping is the books, DVDs and CDs there are really cheap. Fuzhou Road (福州路) has lots of multi-level book shops. I was spending a lot of time there glancing at books and CDs. Daddy who doesn’t read Chinese, kept himself occupied by going through CDs so he didn’t mind the wait. I bought quite a lot for myself.

While glancing at books, I probably left my own guide book on the shelf and later could not locate it any more. Luckily, this happened on our last day of the trip, and I no longer need to reference it. Still, I was a bit upset because I like to keep my guide books as a remembrance/record of a trip. 🙁

Luckily too, we’d identified the restaurant to have our last dinner before the guide book went missing. We headed to an old restaurant Lao Zheng Xing (老正兴) on Fuzhou Road for our last meal in Shanghai.

Our last meal in Shanghai consisted of : Fried fermented or smelly tofu (臭豆腐); Toufu with crab roe; Fried local vege; Fish and turnip soup

♥Nov 10th (Sat)♥
We headed back to KL in the early morning flight.

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Because I speak and read Chinese and Daddy doesn’t (he actually speaks passable Chinese but he didn’t want to do any talking), I had to do all the ordering, enquiries, directions asking, navigatitions, ticket purchasing, forms filling etc etc. Tired, you know.

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How are the people in Shanghai?
Besides my colleauges, I think most people are quite rude or maybe they are too busy to be nice.
When we asked for directions, it was never nicely told. They would be pointing impatiently and said, “那边!” “”There!”
When we were blocking someone’s way, instead of saying “Excuse me”, they shouted at us, “EH! EH!”, like it’s your fault for inconveniencing them.
In those lower end restaurants, waitresses were impatient you took time to order or checked out the menu.
You find spit every where. People smoke in restaurants!
Men who are alone get approached by pimps offering them female companion in the busiest street. Daddy was offered that service from a very decently dressed man when I was not by his side for 1min!

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Do you wonder how Zara and Zaria cope?
Zaria was fine, as she’s used to us leaving her at home while we go to the market or bring Zara for her lessons.

Zara on the other hand was another story. The first 2 days, she eagerly waited for my return. When the door bell rang, she rushed to the door and happily announced, “My mummy come back already!”. When we called home, she came to the phone and said “Mummy, you bought me any surprise or not?” or “I miss you mummy. Are you coming home?” and then she’ll be sobbing.

Then on the 3rd day onwards, she used a different technique to fight her feelings. She kept telling Tuyam she didn’t like me any more. She said things like, “Ask mummy don’t come back any more!” “I don’t like mummy.” “If mummy come back, I will put her in naughty corner!”. She refused to come to the phone when we called home. However my maid said occasionally, she would cry sadly for no reason.

Both girls were very happy to see us when we got home.

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What happened to breastfeeding?
I expressed 3 times a day when I was in Shanghai. Morning and night was easy, because I did it in our room. The afternoon session can be a bit of a challenge. I did it in the toilets at the Museums (which is cleaner); did it in a quite corner of a restaurant with jackets drapped over me; did it in smelly toilets in restaurants. The worse was in the Shanghai Airport nursing room. It was labelled a nursing room, but it was also a place where cleaners store their carts with all the detergent and mops. In the 30mins I was there, many cleaners attempted to get into the room, even male cleaners! I had to be really fierce and shouted at them, and then they stopped stepping in and waited outside instead. 😛

I should have brought my nursing cape, which would make expressing easier. 🙁

What did I do with the milk? After this experience, I didn’t want to store and bring them home. I drank them all. Yes! Every bit of them. I expressed, I drank. No wastage! Daddy said I actually had better complexion and I glowed after a few days. Haha. Belief it or not?

Yes, we went to Penang! Most people got it right. 🙂 Why so soon after the previous? We had to do it before the girls’ birthdays, and I didn’t want to wait till school holiday starts.

We make a trip to Penang yearly before Zara’s birthday. In 2003, I was really worried about history repeating itself when I was pregnant with Zara; my dad suggested that we asked for St Anne’s blessing and protection, and since 2003, we’d been going to St Anne to give thanks yearly.

First stop was of course St Anne. It’s really a nice and tranquil church. Zara had so much fun splashing water from the water tap (St Anne’s water) and fountain, and running around.

We had the bestest dinner in Bukit Tambun. Daddy wasn’t convinced when I showed him Michelle’s post. After much persuation (another Penang colleague also highly recommended this place), he drove us there after our visit to St Anne. For RM70+, we had baked crabs (just seasoned with salt, but so delicious, fragrant or ‘hiong’), fried ‘red lion’ fish, poached ‘spikey clams’, honey baby octupus and a vege. Seriously, that was the best crabs we’d eaten in our lives!

We brought along Tuyam this round. Booked a big family room (1 super King + 2 single beds) in Bayview Beach Resort. A hotel with worn out furniture, and stained toilet! I didn’t dare to have Zaria crawled on the carpet; and when I bathed her, I let her sit on my lap instead of the tub. Blech! We chose this hotel for the price, the pool, and the big L shaped room; another reason was for the beach where Zara could do horse riding. Zara even remembered the name of the horse she rode on last year(Ima), and asked to ride on the same horse.

My girls just love horses!

Everyday, we spent 1st part of the day in the hotel, have long breakfast, let the girls do a bit of horse riding and swimming; and then it was off finding a good place for lunch (we arrrived town at 2pm daily, good food was all sold out!! Hmmph!), and exploring Penang.

Zara befriended an older Australian girl in the hotel, and spent quite a while chatting to the girl. I wonder if they understood each other. Zaria happy to be eating fruits from the breakfast buffet and playing with things on the table

We went to Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion on the 2nd day, but too bad we missed the 2nd tour by 1 hour, so we couldn’t visit the mansion but could only see from the outside. Then it was off to Penang Botanic Gardens.

Zaria dozing at Cheong Fatt Tze; Girls love the monkeys, the stream, the trees and the stroll in the Botanic Gardens

On the 3rd day, we were off to Penang Hill. It was raining cats and dogs once we boarded the tram. Dang! They allowed too many passangers in, so it was very crammed, and most people had to stand. 2 nice local young men gave up their seats to the girls. Half an hour later, we were up the hill, but since it was pouring, we couldn’t walk about and just waited for the next tram down. What a waste of time.

We met 3 Arab men who were really male chauvinists. They pushed passed us to get into the tram first, sat on the seat, and even though I was carrying Zaria who was sleeping in my arms, they didn’t offer me their seat. What more, 1 of them suddenly grabbed Zara, and placed her seated next to him with his arms around her. Zara was in shock, and Daddy quickly picked Zara up and carried her in his arms for almost the whole 30mins journey down.

A glimpse of us in Penang Hill; the girls waiting for the next tram down.

Dining in Penag was really good. We were in Pang Hainanese Seafood Restaurant, along Tanjung Bunga, on the 2nd night. The food was cheaper and better quality than KL restaurants. 3rd night, with DR‘s map, we managed to find the relocated Nonya Breeze and had a good dinner there. This place never dissapointed us, 3 years in a row in Penang, they served us the best nonya food which is value for money. But the best is still the crabs in Bukit Tambun! *drool*