Lantern

Mum just bought a lantern for Claire. Its the battery operated plastic type and costs $5.90 despites Mum's attempt to bargain it down to $5. The sales assistant even told Mum that its a bargain coz he is throwing the batteries in for FREE! Sheesh, my first tot was... Isit batteries supposed to come with it???

Back to the lantern, it is in the shape of a bee, plays TECHNO music (which gets on my nerves) while at the same time, the bee will play the drum... Try to imagine a DRUMMER BEE lantern! I seriously wondered why must they manufacture lanterns with Techno music...

Judging from the way that Ms. Piggy handles the lantern, it s more like DESTROYING the lantern! Ms. Piggy is very happy with the lantern when she first got her hands on it and she kept on "playing" with it on our MRT ride home. But 15 minutes into the MRT ride, she gets bored of it and attempted to destroy the lantern.

So PK & I are wondering whether the lantern is able to last till this Saturday in a working condition and we felt that we might be too optimistic about it...

Declutter...

I was lamenting to Mum & PK about my LV bag that I had bought in London. It has became a white elephant sitting in my wardrobe.

I bought the bag as I liked the design of the bag and my intention was to get one "IT" bag and to use it for at least 10 years. Not to mention, being able to pass it down to Claire just like my jewellery!

However, reality sinks in! As much as the bag is functional and well-designed, the bag weighs a ton when I put my basic personal belongings in it and that's the thing I hate most especially when you need to carry a toddler too! I could count the number of times I had used the bag with my 10 fingers!

So now, I had put the bag up for sale and I hoped it will find a new owner soon!

Alarm bells ringing

The sharp jabbing pain in my left shoulder blade to the numb feeling in my left arm and hand set my health alarm bells ringing! These pain came on & off and each time, it took even longer to recover.

I went to see the company doctor for consultation and ended up getting a whole load of rubbish. My colleagues & I seriously suspect how this particular doctor got the license to practise! Anyway, I went for tui na to fix this problem.

Based on the masseuse, I had hurt the area slightly below my left shoulder blade & this is the main reason for those pain I had as they re all connected. She mentioned that Stress, lack of rest & exercise are the culprits that caused such pain. The tui na massage helps to alleivate the pain alot and my left hand is able to move without having those sharp jabbing pain. She advised that I go swimming and to avoid carrying any heavy stuff or exert strength using my left hand.

To me, its difficult. I need to carry that a moving sack of 11kg++ rice (Ms. Piggy) and i m left handed.... Anyway, i will try to rest my left hand as much as possible and find time to go swimming.

Language

I was sharing a video of Claire & her cat with my friends when Ah Fry posed this question to me, "Do you speak English or Mandarin to her?"

This led me to "freak out" again as I don't intend for her to be a language victim like me when I first started Primary School.

My Mum is the sole care taker of Ms Piggy and she speaks mainly Cantonese to her, not to mention me and my family. PK speaks to her mainly in Mandarin & English and sometimes a bit of Hokkien & Cantonese. If outsiders speak to her in Mandarin or English, she will give you the intense & "I dunno what you re talking" look to them.

Just as I was worried about it, Ms Piggy assured me that she won't be a language victim. I was telling her not to play with the power sockets and she mumbled this phrase to me, "Dounch touch!" Later on that day, she was asking PK to the Barney DVD for her to watch in Mandarin.

Phew, I think my colleague is rite as she was telling me not to be worried about the language stuff. As long as we speak to her in different languages, Claire will able to pick up, learn & understand!

MRT Ride....

The Ang Family took the MRT rides everyday, shuffling between Redhill & Bedok.

For whatever reason, Ms Piggy can't sit still in the MRT (if we take buses, she will be able to sit on my lap even for an 1 hour bus ride!!!).

Ms Piggy will hold on to the poles, followed by running from one cabin to another cabin. This is the nightmare for me! Threats, whacking & bribery all dun worked on her, she just wanna get down from the seat & be a pole dancer!

Bribery: I had let her played with my MRT card, mobile phone & even camera but all these will at most lasted for 5 minutes out of the 26 minutes train ride!

Yesterday, I really can't take it anymore. I just gave her 2 whacks on her butt, put her to sit on my lap and firmly enclosed her so that she can't move. I had to endure 10 minutes of her protests and stares from other passengers. In the end, she just sat still on my lap.

Its a dilemma for me in the sense that I dun want to overdose on Corporal punishment but most of the time, it works!

Ms Piggy wont be starved....

This morning, Mum called me & this is our conversation:

Mum: Did you give Piglet her milk this morn?
Me: No, why?
Mum: HARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mum: I tot u had GIVEN her milk this morn!! No wonder, she climbed on to the table and get food herself! She even polished off the whole raisin bun!!!

Another instance was Mum was having a telephone conversation with Bro and Ms Piggy kept on asking Mum for porridge. Mum ignored her and continued talking to Bro coz the food was not ready yet.

Ms Piggy went to the kitchen cabinet, took out the rice scoop and her little bowl, went to open the rice cooker and attempted to scoop the rice out. But she stopped and exclaimed to Mum, "Hot Hot"! Meaning the rice is too hot for her to scoop out!

Conclusion: Ms Piggy won't be starved. She knows where to get food from.

Freaky, morbid stuff

I guess it must be the illness in me that led me to have these type of freaky & morbid dreams for the past few days.

In this dream, my family and I went on a vacation & staying at a relatives' place. The bed that I was sleeping on actually has a coffin underneath it! Someone was buried underneath bed!!

It became even more freaky when the whole family decided to open the coffin and checked out who is the person and it turned out to be some relative who has passed away very long ago! It turned out that the relative (owner of the place) knew about it and did not tell us about it.

The dream was so real that I woke up feeling frightened. It just sounded straight out like a movie plot. This is just one of the dreams that I remembered, it is so freaky & morbid.

Perhaps, it meant that there is something swirling in my mind that translates in such a dream.. It might mean positive stuff? Well, i guess its just a form of self-consolation.

How to curb this habit?

Ms Piggy has this annoying habit of biting her soft toys and especially before sleeping time!

Currently, my first priority is to wean her off the midnight milk feeds. I tot it was a success but on Sat night, she resumed crying for milk again, hopefully it will go away soon!

Today in the MRT, I was so pissed off by this comment of an Auntie. Claire was sitting inside her stroller and biting her cat (as usual) and then she threw the cat on the floor in a bid to get PK & my attention. We re ignoring her so that she wont give us any pattern. Her pattern can cause alot of disruption to other passengers and we figured out that IGNORANCE is the BEST TACTIC.

This Auntie saw Claire's action of biting the cat & throwing the cat. She immediately threw out this to me, "Dun let the kid bit the cat. You must teach her!" I told PK, "Why she so KPO?" Another Auntie told her not to be KPO coz it dun concerned her. I know that Auntie's comments meant good but does she want Claire to cause disruption to her and others?

Previously, I was also self-righteous when I saw kids misbehaving on the train & stuff. But now I know why some parents adopted certain tactics. So now, I wont comment on anything unless that kid displayed extreme behaviour like bullying or stuff....

Anyway, we tried to apply lemon juice on Claire's cat to stop her from biting it but somehow, it failed. Quoting PK's words, "Lemon juice is like eating the super lemon sweet. No effect one and she gets high on it!" PK suggested bittergourd juice and I think this will be the next on my agenda.

The Wet Market Trip

I bought Ms Piggy to the pau sat yesterday & this morning and the below is what we did:

1. We went to get our meat & veggies.
2. I bought a raisin bun for Ms Piggy
3. We went to the food centre to buy breakfast.
4. We walked to the newspapers stall & bought the papers.

In fact, both of us enjoyed our wet market trips. Claire will point out the birds to me and attempt to run after them. She will help me to carry my stuff or help me pay for the things.

If she wants to see how the stallholders do their work, she will request that I carry her so that she can have a better view.

I aimed to keep this up as long as possible and when she gets older, we will be able to have our breakfast at the food centre after our marketing.

Sleepy....

I seriously suffered from a lack of sleep.

Tuesday midnite, Mum called and told me that she vomitted, BP is high and seeing stars and Dad is not at home. I immediately took a cab down to Bedok from Redhill and sent her to the 24 hours clinic to see the doctor. She had called me earlier and told me about her condition but she refused to see the doctor.

By the time i reached home, it was close to 2am and I took a day's leave to take care of Claire myself as Mum is unwell. I managed to book an appointment to see Claire's PD as Ms Piggy has been coughing for 2 weeks and sometimes she coughed till she vomitted all her food & phelgm together.

Bought her to the PD and she was crying big time when Dr Chan attempted to examine her. Somehow, she remembers that Dr. Chan is the one who gave her the jabs! :P

By the time, we finished seeing the PD & stuff. Its close to 6pm, met Mum & PK for dinner at Sushi Tei in City Hall. Went to Mum's place to stay for the nite. At 2am, Ms Claire woke up to demand for milk, as part of our efforts to wean her off midnight milk feeds, I gave her water instead.

As usual, Ms Piggy tore the house down with her cries & wails. This continued for at least 30 minutes. During this 30 minutes, both Mum and Dad came into the room to scold her while I almost got hit by her flying milk bottle. Mum also instructed me to sleep in Sis' room and Claire cried harder when i left the room.

I only went to sleep with her when her cries subsided with gentle sobbing. I patted her and explained to her that why she can't have her milk and stuff. She finally sobbed herself to sleep.

钟无艳 2009

Mum called me this afternoon and told me that Ms Piggy has became 钟无艳.

Apparently, Claire climbed on top of her toy box (Mum placed it on her side table) and lost her balance. She fell and in the process, her cheek knocked against the sofa arms (thus the bruise). The moment I heard about it, I asked Mum whether Claire cried. As crying is usually an indicator that they re alright 90% of the times.

Mum said Claire is ok as she was behaving normally after the fall and that she cried even harder when Mum said she is not pretty anymore! I set my heart at peace when i heard that. Anyway, I cant help but laughed at seeing her bruise when i fetched her home just now.

Below is a picture of her taken just now, she was pissed off when we attempted to rub the hard boiled egg on her bruise!

Role Reversal

Its really role reversal.

My Father has morphed into a child now and with his old set ways. Its really difficult to talk to him without losing my sanity. I m still trying to communicate with him better.

Yesterday, my Mum complained to me about his ways. He called me back later to explain tonnes of things about his actions and I have no patience for his explanation as he LOVES to talk by beating around the bushes plus not to mention that I told him that I m busy attending to Ms Piggy.

Furthermore, he has this annoying habit of using his mobile phone to call despites him being at home and our many attempts to tell him not to do that. He being a retiree, instead of cutting back on his expenses, spent more and this became a source of problem for my parents and which in turn will be my problem.

In a sense, my Mum, my siblings and I had given up on our Dad. As much as I don't want to treat him in such a way but he just won't listen to us and now he told us that he wants to resign from his job. I m foreseeing more problems, we did tell him to quit his job if its taking a toll on his health due to the weird working hours. But he will be going back to his old job which is another headache for us.

I do love my Father despites all the stuff he has done to create so much heartaches and pain to the family. Now, I just hope that he will listen to us by not going back to his old job and if possible old ways.

Ms Piggy's horrible temper...

Ms Piggy is developing a horrible temper and i called it my retribution.

Mum told me that she has been throwing tantrums and fits if things dun go her way and if we dun give in to her demands. She bit Mum and threw herself on the floor when Mum refused to let her watch her kids' program yesterday. Did Mum whack her? No, Mum told me that Claire was fierce and nothing she can do to whack her.

I had tried various ways to curb this temper of hers. She threw fits in front of me, I just ignored her at home and if its getting out of the hand, I will whack her. In public, I will ignore her or just let her cry. Usually, it works as she realised that I wont give in to her demands.

Now I just have to watch my behaviour & temper towards people especially PK. PK usually will irritate me to no end that I will throw my temper at him. In a way, Claire is learning from me that these are acceptable behaviour (thus my retribution).

God, please blessed me with more patience and I truly hoped that this is just a phrase only.

Something funny...

My co is really screwed up... Last 2 weeks, they announced pay cut + hiring freeze...

But but, they hired an ex-colleague (DG dept) back n during his 1 month absence from the co and rumours has it that his one month absence from the co is considered as UNPAID LEAVE! It just reflects how smart the mgt is!

Anyway, I was quite surprised as SS' statement this morn when S told her about his homecoming. SS said, "他回来做什么？神经病!" Well, SS pledged her loyalty to the co fully no matter what funny policies that the co came up with....

With the recent pay cut, i can see that the loyalty is slowly gone and she is like slowly taichi any extra work for the dept!