Zaria had this cough that has been going on for a few months. Many GP and paed trips, many bottles of Augmentine later, it got well for a few weeks and then back again. Lately, when she coughs, it’s as though there’s a lot of flam in her lungs.

I took off to bring her to see an ENT or a chest physician. When I arrived at the hospital, I was told for her age, it’s not recommended to see an ENT or chest physician instead she should be seen by a paed. As her regular paed was on leave, I let another paed see her.

After hearing her lungs, the paed said, “Her lungs are crappy.”
CRAP! That was my reaction.
Apparently, it’s crepitation. The lungs may be infected (flam caused), causing this ‘crappy’ sound in her lungs.
That explains her on off fever of 38 degrees and above, her cough with the sound of flam.
When the doctor told me she either has to 1) be admitted and go on IV-antibiotic or 2) be treated at home but any worse and she should be brought in again, I felt as though my heart was sliced.

She has been prescribed with Singulair, Zithromax and other cough mixtures.

Is this really very serious? Should I trust this new paed?

So I went to see our regular GP in the night, and showed him the med the paed recommended. He listened to Zaria’s lung and said the same thing. The lungs are crappy (is this the right term?), and the med prescribed should all help her.

Am I satisfied with what the GP said? No. This morning, I brought her to see a Chest Paed recommended by Mom2Ashley.

It seemed it’s quite common these days in kids her age. Just stick to the medicine, and it should work in 5 days. The Paed claimed Zaria has quite a lot of dust in her nostrils too, so he recommended that we change our bed sheets and wash our aircon filter every week, and also get rid of the rugs in the house.

When should I be worried?
If only she became breathless or develop a high grade fever.

So at least tonight, I’ll sleep in peace.

As a mother, I wish that her disease became mine, so that at least I know for myself if it’s serious or not; and I could suffer her pain or discomfort.

Caught her falling asleep after the trip to the chest pead

As for Zara, her rash has gone away after a week; a week of skin recovering; and then it got very dry and itchy; so much so that she scratched until it scarred. I finally succumbed to steroid cream.

I pray all these crappiness will go away soon.

It’s a working day for me today. The girls were playing in the morning, when Daddy was at the wet market and Jelly was doing house work.

45mins into my conference call, I heard crying downstairs, Zaria first, followed by Zara. Then Zara came up and she sobbed while she told me, “Mummy, I pushed Zaria and she fell down, her mouth got blood.”. I thought, maybe Zaria’s lip was cut; as I was hosting the meeting, I had to get someone to replace me, before I could go check on Zaria. While I was trying to do that, Jelly came and told me, “Mum, Zaria’s teeth came off.”

Oh shit!

I quickly updated my colleague on the emergency, and checked on Zaria. One of her upper teeth has been pushed into the gums, just a tiny bit still ‘exposed’, with blood dripping down her chin. Zaria didn’t cry, but just said, “Jiejie pushed me, got so much blood you know.”.

My heart almost stopped seeing the bloody gums. And imagine my rage towards Zara. I was scolding her while comforting Zaria, and even gave her a few smacks on the buttocks. I told her police may want to investigate the case, she better had her bags packed because she might need to stay in the police station for investigation. (I’m bad, I know. Really really mean. To think back now, it doesn’t help with me aggravating the situation.)

After I found someone to be my back up, I went downstairs to get ready to bring Zaria to a nearby dentist. Zara had already taken a bag downstairs and a few pieces of her clothing. I felt sorry for her but I was still angry so I didn’t comfort her.

Daddy got back just in time to go to the dentist together.

At the dentist, I was shaking when the dentist checked on Zaria. As I was sighing a lot and kept uttering “Aiyo..” The dentist told me to have Daddy hold Zaria instead while she carried out the procedure. She said my anxiety may affect Zaria. This was what she did, first, rubbed some gel to numb Zaria’s gum, then she put local anesthetic, and then she pulled the tooth out to its original position and use a thread to tie it around the tooth and other teeth to hold its position, and hope the cells around her gum will grow and grip the tooth back. It may or may not be successful, and Zaria may have a slow growth in her 2nd set of tooth, due to the impact.

Zara and I were peeping from the outside; When I saw the big syringe taken out to inject the local anesthetic on Zaria’s gum, I almost cried. Zara was still sobbing, feeling afraid and sorry.

Zaria was a tough cookie. She didn’t cry and was very cooperative. The dentist was quite good too, she gave Zaria a pair of sunglasses, spoke calmly to her, and when she had to inject the anesthetic, or pull the tooth out, she used her other hand to cover Zaria’s eyes, so she can’t really see what was being done to her.

After everything was done, Zara said, “Luckily the dentist fixed the tooth, I don’t have to go to the police station now.” o.O”

I just hope the tooth is really fixed, and Zara will learn from the lesson of not being too rough to Zaria.

5th April 2009
Back from Bangalore and after a nap (only caught like 2hrs of sleep on the plane), went to Malacca to visit my besty and her 8 month old daughter, Maya, who are back from New York for a holiday.

Look at Maya, I’m so envious of those big eyes!

I so like her skin tone. That’s the thing about mix marriages, you produce beautiful babies.

It’s no kidding trying to take photos of 3 kids together.

Hmmph.. I give up.

Normally, I would stay a night there, but this round, due to heavy work commitments, I had to leave the same day after dinner. Will try to catch them again before they leave for New York.

12th April 2009
Zara requested for some cheese puffs and sausage rolls, so I bought some ready made pastry and made some for the girls.

Girls were guarding the oven waiting for their Puffies (That’s what Zara calls them, and Zaria followed).

Girls having fresh from the oven Puffies for dinner, and they were very happy.

For the adults, I tried my hands on mushroom soup. I was quite happy with the result. Daddy said it tasted like the ones you get from the restaurant minus the MSG.

And main course for us adult was tuna pie and salad (Jelly did the weaving of the pastry and she’s quite good at that).

18th & 19th April 2009
2 trips to Ikea, and many hours of work later, we managed to put up 4 of the girls’ poster size photos up on the wall. Another 4 more to go. *phew*

Zaria was very happy this morning, kept saying, “Look at that. My photo(s).” “How many mei-mei’s photos there?”

Just came back from a 2 weeks work trip in Japan.

Zara greeted me with lips like these :

Apparently, she peeled some dead skins from her lips but got so carried away, some flesh got peeled off as well, they were bleeding quite badly, and now started to heal, but still look quite bad.
Me : “What happened to you?? Why did you peel the skins off your lips?”
Zara : “Because you were not here for so long, so I became silly!” o.O”

As for Zaria, she showered me with kisses, and kept stroking me (my hand, cheeks).
She kept asking, “You come back already mummy?”
And then kept saying, “I like you, you know, mummy?” “I love you, you know, mummy?”

During these 2 weeks I was away, Daddy was away 1 week in Japan too, we had to send the girls and Jelly to my bro’s place during that 1 week when both of us were not home.
Today, when we said we’ll drop by my bro’s place today to pass them chocholate & green tea, Zaria got worried.
She asked “We’re going Ah Kim’s (Chinese : Auntie) house?”
I said yes.
She asked “Why we go Ah Kim’s house? My house is ok wut?” (Probably thinking we’re sending her over to stay again.)
Then asked again, “Are you coming with me?”
Only after reassuring her that we’re just dropping things off, she’s not going to ‘sleep’ there, then, she stopped her questioning.

As for Jelly, she was quick to bring out the laundry hamper (ours is actually a basket) when she saw me opening my suitcase; she knew there’ll be a fair bit of washing to do.

This year, from buying biscuits, decorating the house to planning and shopping for the re-union dinner was all done by me because Daddy was away 1 week after the other, and when he was around during the weekend, he spent time kay-poh-ying (Chinese : busy body) at his sister’s new place instead. Grrr…

I was also a bit unhappy that the Chinese teacher in Zara’s school taught her to say, “恭喜发财,红包拿来” (Gong Xi Fa Cai, Give me the Ang Pow), instead of a proper greeting. Although it was meant to be ‘funny’, but the girls took it as a proper greeting. Grrr…

Just ranting a bit to get it out of my system.

Although I very much would like to join my side of the family for the big re-union dinner they were having (all my 3 siblings and their family were dining at my sister’s place), I had to fulfil my obligations as a DIL. This is the 2nd year we have re-union dinner at our place instead of MIL’s, and we have steamboat again. Next year maybe we should change the menu because all the girls had was just fish balls, nothing else. They didn’t even bother to try the RM90/Kg Sou-Mei (苏眉) fish (btw, it wasn’t worth the money as it’s really not that delicious) nor the big prawns.

Girls were very excited to play with the sparklers after dinner. Zaria not knowing the danger, kept trying to point the sparkler at herself so she could ‘see’ the sparks better, luckily we could stop her in time. *phew*

When I asked Zara at night, “During Chinese New Year, what will people give you?”
Her reply was, “Mandarins! A lot of mandarins.” She actually forgot she will be getting ang pows since she still has no concept of money, and she loves mandarins.

On Chinese New Year’s day, as usual we visited my MIL first before going over to my brother’s place where the whole family met. This year, the girls cousin wore the same clothes. I bought 2 sets of similar cheong sam from my Beijing work trip last May for the girls and their cousins. Zara’s and Sam’s are the same, Zaria’s and Tasha’s are the same. I didn’t get any for Ally as they didn’t have her size.

The girls were so happy to see their cousins wearing the same dress as them.

Love this shot

Everybody looks so happy to be ‘twins’

After a simple lunch, we carried out our yearly tea ceremony to get the big ang pow from my dad.

Zaria serving tea to Ah Gong, my dad.

And then we visited my 90 year old grandfather in Kajang. No photo of my strong grandfather, since we forgot to take the camera down.

At night I got Zara to help me open up her ang pows. Firstly, of course was to open ours, and she took out 2 RM50 notes. The next ang pow she opened, there was one RM50 note and she said, “This one only one dollar.” o.O

When I asked Zara again at night, “So do you know now what people give you during Chinese New Year?”
She of course replied, “Ang Pow!”
Zaria chipped in, “Biscuits!” (the part she likes about Chinese New Year).

Happy New Year and 恭喜发财 Every One!
Hope you have lots of Ang Pows, Mandarins and Biscuits!

After 1.5 months of blog break, I got what I needed to do done, well, almost.
During this time, no watching DVDs, no book or blog reading, trying to be very focussed.

What did I do this 1.5 months?

Worked really really hard and long hours of course, just before the long break.
Completed the 8 photobooks just in time!!
Celebrated Zara’s birhtday with some planning.
Celebrated Zaria’s birthday almost last minute.
Found a new school for Zara and Zaria.
Went on a week’s holiday.
Did whatever minimum housework that I needed to do.

My 4 weeks leave is almost over.
The girls will be starting in a new school next Mon. Jelly will be back next week, and I’ll be back to work on Thurs!

Here are peeks of what went on in the household.

Zara’s birthday, celebrated with the family and neighbours in the house. I baked her ‘birthday cakes’ this time.

Zara with her ‘fairy’ cakes.

Zaria and Tasha blowing off candles over and over again on a couple of the cupcakes.

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Christmas was celebrated at my bro’s house. With my nephew’s band performing.

My niece, Ally, being the Santarina.

My niece, Sam, did some magic tricks to con awe the below 5.

Of all presents, Zara loves the musical jewelry box from King’s Wife. Seen here the girls gazing at it.

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Zaria’s birthday was planned very last minute. Without a maid, we just had KFC and Dominos Pizzas, and cupcakes from Cupcake Chic. You think she’ll be thrilled to get to blow her candles?
Wrong! She cried when the birthday song was sung. Not sure if it was because someone turned off the lights, or accordingly to her, “I don’t want Ah Ku to sing.” (Ah Ku, i.e. my brother, some one Zaria fears).
And Zara sulked big time, claiming it’s not her birthday, so she didn’t want to participate. Grrrrr..

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And here is a sneak peek of our week long holiday. Can you tell where we went? (Those who were told of the trip should not review the answer). The post will come later.

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Happy New Year All!

We went over to King’s Wife‘s place on Saturday so that the kids could play with fire lantern together with their cousins.

Before dinner, it was jamming time. Guitar is getting so popular all the older kids know how to play it.

Love this shot of Sam

This nephew of mine has joined a band. This can probably be his cover shot if he produced an album.

After a take away dinner, we all went to light the lanterns and strolled to the park to enjoy the night. It was a hot night but the sky was clear. The kids upon seeing all the candles litted by the other kids, left their lanterns totally and joined it. Blowing candles after singing Happy Birthday, lighting more candles, etc.

Zara and Zaria had their first taste of ‘playing’ with fire, and even though occasionally the wax dripped on their fingers and they yelped in pain, they went on.

Tasha blowing off the candle, of course after the Happy Birthday singing

King’s Wife’s nephew, Wei Hao, lighting candles.

Zara playing with sparkles

Zara blowing off candles, also after birthday song was sung

Girls love lighting the candles, I didn’t stop them as it’s good for developing their dexterity

More birthday song singing for Zaria to blow off the candle.

Sam lighting candle

When it was time to leave the park, Zara protested. Mummy I want to do some more grave yard thingy.” …. It took me a few seconds to realise that she was relating lighting candles with graveyard because that’s what we do when we pay our respect in my mother’s grave.

(Daddy took all the photos while I spent time gossipping with my sisters/sister in laws.)

When we bring Zaria out for meals, she normally will try to stand up on the high chair to reach for things on the table. We’ll deter her by telling her, Uncle or Auntie in the restaurant will scold her if she did that.

At home if Zara and/or Zaria wanted to get me to do something or spend time with them when I’m working, I’ll tell them that my boss will scold me.

In one of these occasions, I said, “Mummy cannot play with you. Mummy is working. What will mummy’s boss do if mummy don’t work?”
Zaria replied, “Scold scold mummy.”
“How mummy’s boss scold mummy?”
Zaria said loudly, “Hey you! Sit poh-plee (properly)”
(the exact words we used when we told her how the uncle or auntie in the restaurant will scold her)

Yesterday, we were doing sounds that animals/things made.
Me : “What sound does the rooster make?”
Zaria : “Ko-ko ko-kOHHHH”
Me : “What sound does the snake make?”
Zaria : “Sssssssssssss”
Me : “What sound does the lizard make?”
Zaria : “tsk tsk tsk tsk” *clucking her tongue*
Me : “What sound does the door bell make?”
Zaria : “Ding Dong!”
Me : “What sound does mummy’s boss make?”
Zaria : *loudly* “Hey YOU!”

😛

Last weekend was a long weekend, my sisters, their kids, my dad and our family decided to make a trip to Pulau Ketam.

To take the boat over, we went to the jetty which is at South Port, Port Klang. A ~30 minutes boat ride cost us RM7 for adults, and RM4 for school going kids.

It has been ages since I last went to Pulau Ketam. It’s still very charming; every thing is built on eleveted ground, with small narrow cement streets (only bicycles allowed) and colourful houses in different shades of turquoise.

For the kids, Pulau Ketam has not much to offer, but for us adults, it was the food : sea food, lala (Malay : clam) omelete, cendol (one of the best I’d tested), and fried prawn dough (some kind of cucur udang).

Ok, my sis told me to mention this. We had lunch at the first restaurant that faces the jetty (can’t remember the name), recommended by a local we met on the boat. Food was so so, the waiter was rude. Only the gong bou har gou (Cantonese: spicy crayfish), and steam red snapper are worth mentioning. RM190 for a set meal for 8 adults + 4 kids. My sis said, “Make sure you write this in your blog, the waiter is damn rude, food is not good, don’t ever eat here.”

I’m not sure about the other smaller restaurants further down the busy main street, but you can probably give this big one a miss.

After our early lunch (we were warned wait time in restaurants can be more than an hour on public holidays when people start flooding in), we went exploring. The kids have their cousins to play with, that kept them happy. We didn’t go far though, because my dad was in a hurry to go (always the case), and a storm was also brewing.

We left at 3pm, after snacking in a coffee shop. The boats between island and mainland operate like busses, there was a long queue when we reached at the jetty. When a boat arrived, every body was like trying to squeeze themselves forward to get into the boat so as not to miss it. Such is the way of Malaysians, sigh.

When we got back to the main land, my sister asked, “So, whose bright idea was it?” o.O

The guilty man claimed we’ll go back again another day, when there’s no rain and no rush to go home so he could take more photos.

Here are the photos taken.

For Sale – Dried sea food claimed to be produced by home industry.

Zara all messy eating her pre-lunch snack.

Daddy is very proud of this shot he took.

Shops in different shade of turquoise.

At the back of the main street, looks like every one owns a boat.

Zaria enjoying the breeze and checking out the boats from a bridge.

Turquoise rules.

A window to a Senior Club.

A dying trade, a barber ‘grooming’ his customer.

Tasha sheltering from rain with an umbrella hat.

Zara having a good laugh (aha, she’s also in turquoise).

Zaria about to doze off.

Love this shot of my sister and Tasha.

A little drama first…

Yesterday, I told Jelly I will cook yam rice for dinner and got her to prepare the ingredient, frying the yam, boiling the meat and slicing the mushroom.

When it was 6:15pm, I asked her to get the rice rinsed and I’ll do the cooking. She replied, “I’d already cooked the rice, mum”
WHAT????
“I said I’m cooking yam rice right? Why did you cook the rice first?”
“I thought you want, mum.”
“I was just upstairs, you could have asked me right?”
“I thought must cook rice, mum.”
“You don’t even have to call me on the phone, you just need to ask me, that also you can’t do?”
“I thought..”
*cutting her off*“What about the chicken stock?”
“I used to cook the rice, mum.”
WHAT THE ….??? Hate it when they don’t bother asking!!
….. Anyway, Yam rice I’m going to have. So whatever rice she cooked, I got her to store away, we can do a fry rice later.
GRRRR…

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I’d been cooking yam rice without following a recipe, yesterday I decided to follow this Yam Rice recipe from Delicious Asian Food.

I found what I’d been doing wrongly all this while cooking yam rice the way I did.
1) I fried the uncooked yam cubes with the rice – making the yam very mushy when served
2) I threw away the water that was used to soak the dried shrimp – wasted
3) I didn’t pre-cook the meat, sometimes causing the rice to have the ‘smelly chicken’ smell.

Here is the recipe (I replaced pork with chicken and used an estimated measurement to make cooking easier):

Ingredients
1 small yam dice (cut into small cubes and pre-fried till light brown)
1 piece of kampung chicken breast (the recipe used belly pork, since we don’t eat pork, I use chicken instead).
6 pieces Chinese dried mushroom (pre-soaked until soften. Retain the water used for soaking)
1 handful of dried shrimps (pre-soaked in water for about 5 minutes. Remove dried shrimps and retain the water used for soaking)
Water for boiling
2 cups of rice (rinsed)
4 tablespoons palm oil

Seasoning
1 tablespoons light soya sauce
1 tablespoon dark soya sauce
1/4 teaspoon of white pepper powder
1 teaspoon salt

Method
Bring a pot of water to boil and add chicken. Remove scum from water. When chicken is cooked removed from water and allow to cool. Slice the chicken into small pieces.

Heat up 2 tablespoons of shallot oil (we always have this ready at home). Add mushrooms and stir fry for 2 minutes then add dried prawns. Continue stir-frying for a while until fragrant.

Add chicken and rice and continue stirring and then add the seasoning. Once the rice is evenly coated with seasoning, add the chicken stock (whatever we have left after Jelly used it to cook the first batch of rice) and water previously used to soak mushrooms and dried prawns. Transfer this to rice cooker.

If need to, add more water to cover rice mixture (this call for your normal rice cooking intelligence to know how much water is enough). Switch on the rice cooker. Once rice starts to boil, add pre-fried yam and cover. Allow it to cook till done.

And this was what we had for dinner yesterday.

The yams are in cubes not mashed up, the rice has the fragrant of dried shrimp (must be from the water that’s used to soak the dried prawns). I had another plate of left over just now for breakfast, and the dried shrimp fragrant was very profound. Yummy!

Go try out this recipe or any other recipes from Delicious Asian Food. And while doing so, stand a chance to win USD100. Click below for details.