Oh boy, Miabambina and Ms Fairface tagged me on the subject I’m most passionate about.. food. I love to eat, I love good food, and this is one thing I’m willing to spend. I have so many things I like, I don’t know where to start…

So I’ll stick to the title : Food Around The World, literally, what more with my recent trip to Singapore, I made two delicious ‘international’ discoveries.

In Singapore, I was shopping for something to eat for breakfast on my last night, and I saw this pot of yogurt for sale in Market Square, Tangling Mall. I was more interested in the terracotta pot which was holding the yogurt, so I bought it, even though it was S$8 per pot (1 serving). I chose the one with honey, the way I like my yogurt.

The following morning, when I scoped the first spoon into the mouth, mama mia, what a heavenly sensation!! I had never tasted yogurt this delicious before. It was very creamy and smooth, and the honey taste was very distinctive (in Chinese you’ll say it’s very ‘hiong’ or ‘siang’). I normally gobbled up my breakfast because of hunger, but this time, I slowly tasted every spoon of it; letting the euphoric taste linger. Too bad, my ice box was full, or I would have bought a few pots for later enjoyment back home. This is the La Fermiere yogurt from France. If you haven’t tasted it and is a great fan of yogurt, you have to try this!! I heard, it’s one of the best yogurt in the world (from doing a google search).

Too bad, it’s not available in Malaysia, or I would have gladly paid RM20 a pot for the occasional indulgence.

The other gastronomic discovery is the zhongs from Hong Kong. A nice Hong Kong colleague of mine brought two from Maxim for me when we met in Singapore. We had one over the weekend and boy it was delicious!!

The rice was first wrapped with two pieces of bamboo leaves, then tightly bundled up with lotus leaves. The zhong has both the fragrance of the leaves. It was big enough for two big eaters like myself and Daddy, filled with pieces of roast duck (which I’m a big fan), lentils (I think that’s what it was), a nice salted egg yolk, a piece of lard (which we discarded), and a whole scallop. Oh boy.. what a treat it was.

The zhong and the momento of the orgasmic experience

Now I’m a convert for Hong Kong zhong and french yogurt! Can’t wait for the weekend to arrive so we can share the next zhong; and I’m looking forward to my next trip to Singapore for more La Fermiere orgasmic experience. Sorry yeah, these 2 items are not from my home town and I’m not sticking to the original tag.

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Here’s the trail of the tag 

Mybabybay loves Asam Laksa from Penang, Malaysia
JustMyThoughts loves Penang Char Koay Teow
My Lil Venture loves Laksa Sarawak
Monterssorimum loves Teluk Intan Chee Cheong Fun
Chinnee loves Melaka Wan Tan Mee
PeimunLeah loves Hakka Lei Cha
Hui Sia
Jonamum
Karen loves Pan Mee
Something about Lai loves Crispy duck skin from China
Simple American loves Cheese Enchiladas
Nicole Tan loves Char Tau Kueh
Velverse loves Otak-otak
Kenny Ng loves Jawa Mee
Fatty Poh loves Nasi Dagang Kelantan
wmw loves Kuih Tutu
Lyrical Lemongrass loves Asam Boi
Pinkelle loves Mee Siput and Keropok Lekor
Ms Fair Face loves BBQ Sambal Stingray
Mia Bambina loves Chicken & Beef Pie
Zara’s Mama discovered Hong Kong Zhong and La Fermiere Yogurt

I would like to tag :
Malaika’s Mummy
Mom of Cairo
Vien
Ah Ben
And Baby Shern

Almost towards the end of it, some one I don’t know nominated my site for Hottest Mommy Blogger award. Haha. Me? Hottest Mommy Blogger? Cocka will have many reasons to state why I’m not hot. I just don’t resemble any of his HOT piaomeis. 🙁

But I’m HOT for my girls, I have a HOT temper, and I live in a HOT country! That might make me HOT.

Anyway, as a customary, I’ll just ‘advertise’ this here.

This is difficult, hmmm, I myself sometimes question why I got married to Daddy. He’s not a bad guy really, but sometimes we can be so out of sync, I just wonder.. And I guess when you have been together with a person so long, you sometimes forgot what made you come together in the first place. When I got tagged by Whoisbaby and Mott, I have to think real hard.

So what made me tie the knot with him 9 years ago? After much thinking, here are the ten reasons :

1. I was smitten when I first laid eyes on him, it was my first day at work, and my then manager introduced me to him. That friendly smile and firm handshake swap me off my feet. Remember Jerry Maquire? After a lenghty romantic plea by Jerry Maquire, Dorothy Boyd said, “You had me at ‘hello.'”.. it was something like that for me as well.
2. He’s a 6-footer. Makes me look petite standing next to him (good enough reason?). It also gives me a secure feeling.
3. He’s an anglophile, and I’m a bit of an anglophile too. We like almost the same English Pop and movies.
4. He’s good with DIY-ing. He built me an adaptor for my disc man the first month we were together and I was damn impressed (that was then.. it takes more to impress me now).
5. He eats bread every single day for breakfast (even when we’re on vacation and staying in hotels which served good buffet breakfast). I’d heard some where that a person who can eat the same breakfast every day, must be able to stay with the same woman for the rest of his life. 🙂
6. He gives me freedom, allows me to work on my studies or my career – He’s the one who encouraged me to further my studies overseas, when all my other selfish and possesive ex boy friends forced asked me to stay back (and I was stupid enough to listen to them).
7. He’s a practical person. He won’t surprise me with flowers or any of such ‘romantic’ gifts. But he’ll get me bags, shoes, jewelry that I’d picked out myself (no surprises). When I was studying overseas, instead of love letters and cards, he showed me his love by sending me my supplies of Chinese herbs, Chinese mushrooms, Milo etc (boring eh? but I’m in control of what I get. :)).
8. He takes care of himself, eats and drinks well, doesn’t smoke (I’d had my share of smoker ex boy friends). Only indulgence is the occasional beer or wine. He helps me to take care of myself too, watch what I eat, etc.
9. He gives me room to have my own friends, do my own things, go on my own trips.
10. He agreed to live in my dad’s house with my dad (a widower who would live alone in a big house if I moved out) after we got married, even though his parents were not very happy. It was 6 years later that we moved to our own house (my dad now lives with my sis).

Now… I remember why I got married to him. 🙂 Thanks to Mott and Whoisbaby.

Any of you want to be reminded of why you married your spouse? This is a tag to do!
King’s Wife?
Cocka?
Ah Pek?
5xmom?
…Choosing the ones who’d been married for a long long time…

The kids were still sleeping at 9:45am! Not being awaken. I asked Tuyam, “Kalau mereka tidur sampai 12pm, you biar kan saja lar?” (Malay : If they slept till 12pm, you’ll leave them sleeping?)

My boss commented, “Full time mum and you have a part time job eh?” when I had my 1 on 1 with him. Apparently he read this post  “=.=

Zara was so happy to see me home yesterday, she wanted to sit on my lap while I had dinner, and kept stroking my face. I was away from her for 10hours (the last I was away this long, it was when I went for my biz trip in Jul ’06).

Zaria refused to drink milk from the bottle and cried every time the bottle was placed in her mouth. She took less than 4oz while I was at work. She preferred to go hungry, and waited for me. She drank hungrily when I offered her the breast when I got home. =.=”

Work?? Pile high! 3000mails and every thing is urgent!! Well.. almost.
There’s also this new program, which I have little knowledge of and I have to pick it up and run!

How time flies, my 3 months maternity leave came and went, WHOOOOSH…. just like that.

So how did I spend my time at home these 3 months? What have I achieved?

I moved to wordpress, did some blogging, watched a few DVDs, read a couple of books. I looked after the girls (bathed them daily & fed them),  brought them out couple of times in a week, played with them at home, brought them to the park every evening etc.

Books read and movies watched

Achievements :
~ Toilet trained Zara. She tells us when she wants to poo and pee, and with our help, do it on the toilet bowl. We only let her wear her diaper when we go out (just in case we can’t find a toilet) and in the night for ‘accidents’ (but she wakes me up when she needs to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and never wet her diaper the last 2 months)
~ Almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight, 2Kg more to go
~ Successfully breast fed Zaria exclusively (except the time she was in hospital for jaundice she had to be supplemented since I didn’t have milk stored)
~ Stock up on breast milk : 100oz (close to 3 litres) of frozen milk, almost enough for Zaria’s 5 days feed, just in case I have to go for any business trips.
~ Hired and trained a new maid

Play time – KLCC Water Park

Play time – Kidzsports

Play time – Park

Watched Her Grow

On Monday, it’ll be BACK TO WORK. Bummer!

Michelle and Shoppingmum wanted to know this, so they tagged me.

I absolutely love travelling. Before the kids arrived, Daddy and I made sure we went on vacation once a year. We like outdoors and nature and love to go to places which offer this. When I went on business trips, I tried to find time to visit National Parks nearby. Been to Maldives; Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia; Turkey; many national parks in Northern California; Great Wall of China; French Alps and Riveria; Scotland; around Athens and Eastern Europe and would like to see more! Since the kids arrived, we only went to places and countries nearby. I hope when they are older, we could either bring them along or leave them behind to visit these places : (in sequence of desire) Grand Canyon, Meteora, Santorini, Mykonos, Ayers Rocks, Niagara Falls,  Mongolian Grassland, Bhutan, Sahara Desert. Wonder when it’ll be but one thing for sure, I need to start saving now.

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**Start Copy**

Proposition : Where do you want to go Next, OUTSIDE OF YOUR COUNTRY, for tourism, work , study, whatever.

Requirements: Find some info about the place, itinerary etc, pics if possible so you get MORE Traffic coming in, and maybe some people can find somewhere to go to. Excludes your NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR, ie Singapore,Malaysia,Brunei, a country that borders yours.You must register for MyBloglog so we can blogwalk ah…..get it?

Quantity : FIVE PEOPLE.

Tag Mode : Chain Link. 15 of them.
You leave 15 people and their DEEP LINK of their Blog Name and TAGGED POST and hit out for five more. So it will look like

Azrin going Down Under
MaRLinda in Disneyland Paris
Athira Baby and her Balamory Antics
Msau to Japan
Shoppingmum to Europe
Angeleyes off to Bora-Bora
Giddy Tiger snorkelling in The Maldives
Jess to Europe
Michelle go around the world

**Add in the blog you got the tag from and tagged post.** (In this case, for example, you should add “Zara’s Mama wants to experiance nature around the world“) 

Extra Rules: you cannot Tag another person who has performed the Tagging Rights to Travel. Check yr commentators.
You MUST PASS this tag within 7 days of receiving it , or lose a day’s worth of Blog Revenue or $10 to charity. Can?Makes it interesting anyway. So no Lazy Tags running about, and yeah, eventually, there will be less than a 1:3 chance you can’t tag that someone. And pay those people in the list a visit, you never know if you can pinch / recycle some ideas for your next entry!

**End Copy**

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And I tag :
King’s Wife (Bags shopping?)
Sasha (Persia/Iran? So you can buy more of your sharp sharp shoes?)
Sesame (I know you’d seen lots of places, with Gavin now, where do you want to go?)
Mom2Ashley (diving paradise?)
Chooi Peng (quick, last trip before you deliver)

Kitty Cat wanted to know more about me and tagged me this.

[A is for age]: 30+.. ahem.. age is a woman’s secret.
[B is for booze of choice]: Ameretto & Choya Umeshu. Actually, these 3 years, I’d either been pregnant or breast feeding, I don’t really drink any more (except for herbal wine during confinement.. blech).
[C is for career]: Full time mum, and my part time job is doing Business Processes and in the midst of being groomed to be a Program Manager (Zzzzzzz)
[D is for your most dreaded]: Having a migraine, really hate the pain, and what it can do to you.
[E is for essential item you use everyday]: My alarm clock, to tell me it’s time to wake up, it’s time to tuck in the kids, and it’s time for Zaria’s feed
[F is for favorite song at the moment]: None really, we only listen to nursery rhymes at home and in the car. When Zara is being generous, I’ll listen to the MyFM and 99% of the time, I don’t know the song titles they are playing.
[G is for favorite games]: Pictionary is nice, but I’d not played for more than 10years I believe.
[H is for Hometown]: Kuala Lumpur
[I is for indulgence]: Food.. I think we spent most on dining out, Daddy and I.
[J is for favorite flavor of juice:]: Mango
[K is for kids]: 2 lovely girls, love them to bits.
[L is for last hug from husband]: Gee, must have been after Zaria was born in the delivery room, he hugged and said, “good job, mummy”, something like that
[M is for years of marriage]: 9 years this year (can’t believe we could survive this long)
[N is for name of your crush]: Brad Pitt (he looks oh-so-nice in Babel, even when he’s supposed to be more ‘elderly’)
[O is for overnight hospital stays]: 4 nights for fever caused by UTI, I thoght I almost died-ded
[P is for phobias]: cockroach, grasshoppers, blech!
[Q is for quote]: Carpe Diem (Seize The Day).. (err like I do)
[R is for biggest regret]: Not going to the right Doctor from the very beginning to treat my fertility problem, or my kids would be 6 & 4 the least.
[S is for status, married or single]: Married
[T is for time you wake up]: 8.30-9am (if any of the kids woke up for milk before that, I’ll just give her her feed and go back to sleep)
[U is for underwear]: 100% Cotton
[V is for vegetable you love]: Petai
[W is for worst habit]: Eating breakfast without brushing my teeth (only brush them when I have my morning shower after breakfast)
[X is for x-rays you’ve had]: Once a year if I’d made it for the yearly health screening
[Y is for yummy food you make]: Pasta, Pies, Sugee Cake (but nowadays, I hardly spend much time in the kitchen)
[Z is for zodiac sign]: Virgo

I like to know more about lots of people, so if you feel like sharing, just do this tag.

Since Zara was born, my knuckles became bigger and I could not put on my wedding band any longer. Of course my knuckles did not miraculously shrunk after Zaria’s birth, no matter how much I wish for. I can’t resize my ring since the jeweller we bought the ring from can’t do it as the ring was imported from New Zealand. I asked Daddy to get me a new ring for this reason, and he agreed, giving me a RM400 budget. Hence, the hunt began.

Gold prices have gone up 100% since we got married 9years ago. His RM400 budget probably could get me a ring as thick as a wire band, so I just ignored his set budget. Our original ring was a platinum + 750 gold band. What used to cost us RM750, now it’s going for around RM2000. I was contemplating whether to go for one which is the same design as ours, or go for one which is totally different. It was a long hunt and I’d been dragging Zara along visiting jewelry shops.

Last Saturday, we finally made the purchase, I got myself a puny small eternity ring instead.

On Sunday morning, upon seeing the ring on my finger, Zara commented, “Mummy buy (bought) mummy’s ring already.”
I responded, “Yeah. Zara leh? Zara got ring or not?
Zara replied, “No. I have no ring. When I big girl already, I get married. Then I get pregnant. Then when doctor take baby out already, I buy ring.”

Let’s hope she stick to the get-married-then-get-pregnant part, the ring can come earlier I don’t mind.

Birth
Our 2nd daugther was born on 28th Dec evening.

I opted for elective induction and admitted in the morning to be induced. Dr inserted a pill into the cervix to start things off and later put me on drips. I only got a little contraction, I could still read, listen to music, talk to Daddy gaily.

When the drip dosage was increased to 100%, my cervix was barely 2 cm opened, even though the contraction pain started to become unberable. I wanted to go without pain relief for as long as I can but after 1 1/2hr, I started using the (entonox) gas. Then the midwife suggested that I go with pain killer since I got very tense every time the contraction started which would affect the cervix dilation. After talking to Daddy, I opted for Pethidine, just like I did with Zara’s birth.

The minute Pethidine was injected, I started relaxing and the cervix started to dilate. We were disturbed by baby’s heart beat though. Every time when a contraction started, her heart beat went down, after the contraction, the heart beat recovered. Dr was called and he told us that it may be due to 1) baby was compressed in the birth canal or 2) baby’s umblical cord was around her neck. The latter could be life threatening. He told us we could either opt for emergency c-sect for safest bet, but looking from the way things are progressing, he told us to hang a little bit longer. We were worried, but trusted his judgement.

Soon after that, I could feel the urge to push (that’s why I didn’t want to go for epidural since it will numb all such sensation). Midwife checked me and found that baby’s head was already crowning. Every thing started to happen, within minutes, Dr was back in the labour room, gave me an episiotomy, and the delivery began. This round, no help needed, baby just got pushed out with one push.

The minute I heard her cry, all pain was forgotten, although I still felt a bit high and dizzy from Pethidine, the rush of joy was overwhelming.

The little girl was 2.91Kg (Zara was 3.39Kg), and her height was 51.5cm (Zara was 50.5cm).

The room we spent 12hrs in awaiting for the birth of our 2nd daugther

Baby
I worried too much. When I was pregnant, I was constantly worried that I will not love baby as much as I do with Zara. I just found new capicity to love her. How can you not love your own flesh and blood?

Baby is good, she’s more patient than Zara and even when she’s hungry, she’ll cry a little and wait for me to feed her (Zara used to cry and turn black every time we were a bit too ‘slow’).

She sleeps a lot still, but when she’s awake, she likes to look around, checking us out. She was admitted back to the hospital for jaundice for 2 nights and now she’s back home coping well.

We still call her baby or mei-mei (Chinese : Small sister) since we haven’t decided on the name yet. 🙁

Zara
Zara is doing very well as a jie-jie (Chinese: Big sister). We gave her a set of nice markers as a present from baby and also bought her a baloon when she came visiting, telling her she’s now jie-jie to baby and mummy’s assistant. She’s very proud of her new titles.

The first few days, she cried when baby cried for milk. She didn’t want the Confinement Lady (CL) to handle mei-mei when mei-mei cried but insisted that “Mummy, sayang (Malay : pat) mei-mei. Don’t want aunty (CL) sayang.” She constantly wants to hug and stroke her mei-mei but unfortunately, she contracted chicken pox (probably from visiting mei-mei in the peadiatric ward) after mei-mei was discharged and we told her not to be too close to mei-mei for the time being.

Confinement Lady
What’s wrong with these people? They think so highly of themselves that they don’t wash dishes, do house work or help out with the older kids even when they are just siting around doing nothing.

I’m barely able to stand her, and Daddy is very tempted to get rid of her. She’s more like a cook instead of a CL. Since I’m 100% breastfeeding, and I like to be a bit hands on (like cleaning baby’s poo or topping and tailing baby) she doesn’t have much to do.

Baby sleeps with me in the night, and when I naps. I wake up to feed her while the CL sleeps away. She cooks for me 3 meals a day, washes baby’s clothes, bathes baby and that’s about all she does. She doesn’t help with Zara at all, nor anything else in the house. She sleeps when I sleeps (and sometimes before), and when Zara watches her VCDs/DVDs, she watches with Zara(but not to care for Zara, even small little things like giving Zara snacks or taking a drink for Zara from the fridge, CL will shout for Tuyam to do it).

The only good thing that came out of this is she knows what I should and should not eat and make sure whatever I take help with milk production. With Zara (without a CL), my milk came on day 5. With baby, my milk came on day 4 and supply is pretty good.

Me
I’m doing fine but a bit tired. 2 kids vs 1 is very different.

When baby is feeding and Zara needs attention, I have to be tactful, or still give Zara the attention by talking to her or doing things with her with my free hand. I still try to spend as much time as I can with Zara so that she doesn’t feel I’m neglecting her.

When baby is alert, I try to talk to her and carry her around to show her the house or look at new things.

I only get to rest when both of them are sleeping. Luckily, I can breastfeed while lying down, so in the night when baby wakes up for her feed, I just latch her on and continue to sleep while she feeds.

I’m not sure what is wrong with blogger but have been trying to post more photos but not able to after the hospital shot.. *sigh* May not be able to update or read blogs as frequently for now until things are more settled.