Family

Kids !!

It just struck me how many other stuff kids experienced away from our sides that we are not aware about.

Ashley found a comb and proceed to brush my hair through with it. As she was combing, she commands, “Say, Owieee…Momma ! Say Ow !”

She has her own hair washed at daycare by the school’s kakak and blown dry by the teachers everyday before naptime. I guess the brushing must have hurt.

However, I didn’t think that my kid would have “expected” brushing to hurt and accepted it as a daily routine of life.

I was also thinking about how quirky kids can get.

Just the other day, Kimberly was chatting to Ashley on our drive out to Renaissance Hotel for long buffet lunch. Ashley was hanging on to Kimberly’s Enopi blocks cos we left right after picking up Kimberly from her Enopi, and Ashley wouldn’t let go. She said she wanted to bring it to school (ie. kindergarten)

Kimberly then proceed to explain to her in her best chieh chieh tone that it isn’t done to bring toys to school.

“You get punished if you bring toys to school” Kimberly said.

Ashley looked at her chieh chieh without comprehension.

“You know what is punishment?” Kimberly asked her baby sister, leaning across from her car seat to Ashley’s car seat as close as she could.

Ashley shook her head.

“Punishment is where you go stand in a corner and be quiet” She announced in a know-it-all way.

“Ohhhh…” Her baby sister exclaimed with widening eyes and bopped her head up and down, showing understanding.

She then proceed to return Kimberly’s Enopi blocks to Kimberly’s receiving outstretched palms and smug grin.

Haha ! Aren’t kids just so refreshing? You get glimpses of these every now and then and it makes all things worthwhile.

And haven’t so much have changed since our time, subtle or otherwise?

These pictures were taken at One Utama sometime last month.

As I was clicking on the shutters, both Kimberly and Ashley yelled in unison,

“Ben 10 !!!”

These here were taken at The Gardens.

At the bird cages, upon taking pictures, I said,”Say cheese !”

Kimberly yelled, “Birdie !!!”

At Ikano, I told Ashley, “Say Cheese !”

Ashley yelled, “Christmas!!! ”

What happened to our old fashioned, “Cheese !!!” ??? Things have sure evolved from our times, hasn’t it? Ha ! Ha !

Just in case I haven’t got a chance later, to all readers who celebrate Christmas, may you have a wonderful wonderful Christmas !!!! Happy Holidays !!

Ashley’s School Concert

Today is Ashley’s concert day. She has been showing me her moves at home.

She has been telling me, “momma, I plakthish like this, like that”, showing me her moves. The closed fist rolling towards the chest in clockwise and anti clockwise motion, spreading her 3 fingers upward and almost pinching her cheek with her forfinger and thumb, lying down on the ground …. and I had guessed that she would be a kitten.

Ashley has always been one who likes to dance. I thought she could dance really prettily too, swaying her hips and clicking her feet gently to each other to the left, to the right. All the hands moves.   She would dance in fast rhythm whenever she hear fast music, unlike Kimberly, who like to sway to slow music.

Anyhow, true enough, today when we reached her school, her teacher handed me a brown leopard print tee and pants. We were told to send the kids to school by 3.30pm cos the concert starts at 4.30pm.

You would have thought that with all her showing off to us at home, she be eager to groove away.

Not so ! haha…

The little one was overwhelmed at her school being flooded with so many strangers aunties and strangers uncles (parents of the kids) that she clung to me. When I tried to get her to wear her costume, she abandon me and clung to her father, getting her father to get away by straining away from me.

I knew that Ashley is a timid one, but then she has also been an obedient one. And one who would eat when her teacher told her to, even if she doesn’t feel like eating.  So I wasn’t prepared that she would balk at performing.

Anyhow, seeing her distress state, we decide that we would just watch the show instead. So we went right to the back of the hall and settled down to watch.

After a few video clips, Ashley was settled enough to want to go back to her class , where all the kids were waiting their turn.  So we walked back to her class. And she let one of her teachers take her from me.

Her teacher got her dressed in her costume.

I thought I checked her out, and what do I see. Crying again. Haha.

So I sat on a chair besides the stage with her to watch instead , and see if by the time it came for her turn, she would be ready.

2 other kids, Dale and Aidan, about 6 months older than Ashley, were crying too, but they had settled down and sitting with their classmates already.

As for Ashley, each time, her chieh chieh find it fit to remove herself from her friend, Diana, whose kid brother ,Dale, is also in Ashley’s class, she would walk over and yell at Ashley over the noises, pointing towards the stage, with 2 hands on her hips, befitting of a chieh chieh,

“It’s your turn, Ashley, sit there with your friends !!”

Ashley would then burst into tears again. haha. And each time one of her teachers came by and kindly say,”Ashley, you ready to dance or not?” she also burst into tears as well. haha!

Anyhow, come her turn, I nonchalantly maneuver her to standing position from my laps, then pushed her to the back of the lining up kitties.

She hesitates but I nudge her along with the line. She walked up obediently to the stage…but stood there with quivering mouth, with eyes about to swell up with tears and holding back her sobs. haha. Okay, okay, so I went forth and took her back. The poor thing.

So this is the little kitty who didnt perform. haha.

Not her first show anyhow.

Fortunately, come the last part of the show, where everyone in school sang a song, she deem it comfortable enough and condescend to walk up the stage together with other kids without nudges and sang a song, It’s a small world.

So we managed to catch some memories of her concert (with her participating) on the video cam after all. And I quickly snap lots of pics. Whatever I could anyhow. haha.

I didn’t catch a lot of the show on camera cos she was at my lap and I had left my camera at my seat.

Managed to catch these only.

At the end of the show, the school provides some light snacks for the parents. 

This is Ashley posing with her classmate, Aidan, at the end of the show.

Two parents had quarrelled when they couldn’t catch video clips of their kids.  And one parent seems to “deliberately” bump another parent while walking past because the fella keep blocking her view despite her reminders. 

These little fights seems to happen quite frequently nowadays. sigh. I see them at Barney shows at One Utama, at Barbie shows at Times Square etc.  Mostly at kids shows where eager parents tried to catch moments of their kids on camera or video and were obstructed.

Anyhow, had to leave early cos the kids’ Koh Poh were admitted to the hospital. FIl and MIL is down and had spend some time with her at the hosp. The kids’ Koh Poh is FIL’s elder sister and lives next door to FIL. We are quite close to her. She is a real lady who had it tough in life and managed to bring up FIL and other siblings when their parents passed away. She then married into a comfortable lifestyle and continued to raise her siblings till they were of earning capacity age. I admire her for her strenght and her resourcefulness and I do hope that she will be alright.

So that’s the day of Ashley’s concert. Her very first concert !

Ashley’s First Movie

We took Ashley to her first movie show today.

Only because Kimberly wants to go and wanted both me and her dad to come along. There isn’t anyone to leave Ashley with, so we were hoping she wouldn’t cry. 

Kimberly wanted to watch the High School Musical 3 movie.  She had been waiting for it to come to the big screens.

Ashley is familiar with the characters because of her sister. Whenever she heard the songs in Kidsports or at the mall, she hums or sing along.

We tried to get a ticket from One Utama the night before, but it was all sold out. Kimberly was so dissapointed.

This was taken at One Utama outside the cinema. Pardon her trousled hair. haha.

The next day, we tried the Cineleisure beside the Curve, the cinema nearest to us. We managed to get tickets.  There were a big crowd for the movie. Mostly one adult with lots of kids. haha.

Ashley proved herself to be a really brave girl at the movie today.

Although, when the loud sound effects came on, she scrambled over to her dad because she was scared. Heck ! I thought I was her security item???

But she totally scooted over the next seat stepping over Kimberly’s lap to her dad’s arms. Suits me fine, anyhow. Then she proceed to lock her palms over her ears.

Only when the High School Musical show came on did she release her palms and dipped her hand into the popcorns.

She was enthralled by the big screen and watches in rapt attention throughout. I was relieved.

Kimberly, of course, move her body and her head in her seat in rhyme with the dances and grooves along.

She loves the movie, you can tell !

She is so taken by the smooth dance moves and the neatly falling into place actions. Ha ha.

When the kissing scene came on, her daddy as usual closes his hand over Kimberly’s eyes and told her she cannot watch.

Encouraged by Ashley’s good behaviour, I think we just may do movies more from now on.

Ashley and her daddy

Ashley had her daddy on a leash. Literally !!!

She is leading him along by his tie.

When her daddy got home today, she made her dad get down on all four.

Then she walked in front of him, beckoning him, she said, “Here, doggy ! Come on ! Come on,boy !”

Daddy obediently followed her lead, crawling on all four.

“Good boy, doggy!” She said, patting Daddy’s curly hair, so much like her own.

DH was amused to no end and played along.

Sneaking a glance at me, DH tilted his head towards the little one to tell me to see what Ashley is doing, shaking his head in disbelief and trying hard not to laugh.

He obediently followed her from the guest room to the bedroom. From the bedroom to Kimberly’s room, just to earn her little pats and approving glances.

“Good doggy !!” She said, patting the top of his head every now and then.

When daddy is tired and tried to finish off the game by standing up to stretch, she wouldn’t let him. She insists, “Sit, doggy !! Sit !!”

And daddy obediently flopped down on all four again.

I don’t think I have the energy for that kind of play anymore. Age is fast catching up!! Actually, age has caught up. Ha ha !

Moments like this reminds me not to nag my husband too much. At times, we forgot what our DH has done for us and tend to weight too much on what he has not or could not do for us.

Every now and then, I tend to side-track from the important things in life, and ponder too much on the trivial.

Light moments like this lifted us up and erase all the trivial arguments instantly.

Anyhow, thankfully, god created daddies for little girls !!

And luckily, god made little babies and little children so adorable that their daddies are willing to forget every tired bones in their limbs to oblige their little darlings.

Of colourpencils and little girls ….

I don’t know if any of you do this?

If I am the only one around, I must be more old-school than I thought.

When we were young, and the colours in our Luna colourpencils ran out (Luna was the ONLY brand around those days, or rather, the only affordable brand), my mom would just nicks my elder brother’s old colour pencils and fill mine up with it.

So I got stuck with , like, 2 green in the same shade, no orange, no yellow, no red, 2 blacks, 2 blue, no purple, 2 brown, no white etc, while my more privileged elder brother get a new set.

It’s no secret that my mom favors boys over girls. In my era, anyhow. But we didn’t hold our 4 brothers against it, because we love our sibling unconditionally.

Anyhow, those days, our colour pencils only come in 12 shades. Kids from better to do family could afford those with 24 shades, but these kids are like far and in between. Probably only one kid in the whole class could afford it. And we are talking about the seventies, okay? Not the eighties. And EARLY seventies at that !!

Anyhow, we all would be hanging around the “rich kid” checking out her colours while she basked in our admiration. Haha.

I had vowed never to be like my mom, favouring one kid over the other . In my mom’s case, she favors boys over girls. We have 4 boys and 4 girls in the family.

And as a kid of age 10, I had, tainted with embarrassment (okay, it was only a slight embarassment, I exagerated) over those mismatch colourpencils, in childish reverence, feverously vowed that I would never deny my kids colourpencils if they wanted a new one. Ha ha.

Also never to dress my girls in boys’ garb, when the boys outgrew their clothes. I have like 12 pairs of jeans and no skirts. And my tee were all boys’ colours. Till I was 14 anyhow, when my mom then started buying me skirts and clothes in fashion.

I mean, I admire my mom for her silent strength, her wisdom and her perseverance in the absence of my dad, but that is besides those marks left from childhood. Ha-ha.

Unfortunately, I find myself now in my mother’s shoes.

Kimberly have around 6 boxes of half filled pencil colours lying around the house. And more stray ones lying around the paint boxes adorning the bottom of her paint easel.
I really didn’t want those colour pencils to go to waste.

Now, I have this discarded used set from a box of 24 shades

And I have this discarded used set from a box of 40 shades.

I took out some colours from the box of 40 shades and slot in the vacant burrows in the box of 24 shades, filling up the gaps.

Then I quietly snuck it back into Kimberly’s schoolbag.

She is none the wiser for it, although she knew I change the box.

Has this ever happened to you before? Falling back into your mom when you are determined not to?

Kimberly’s Ballet Concert

Meet my little pink Kitty !!

Kimberly’s ballet class has been practising Cats’ Mission for their ballet concert’s performance since the last 2 months.

They had the concert last Saturday. It was held at the Bukit Jalil Convention Centre at Bukit Kiara.

It was a mad rush that day. We had to send Kimberly to the convention centre by 8.30 in the morning for her rehearsal. Then after that, we went for a quick lunch, and headed home to bath the kids and get Kimberly dressed again for the concert. We had to send her back by 3.30 pm because the concert starts at 4.

These are the kids waiting for their turn

The kitties all prettied up and preened and ready to go..

Playful kitties on the ground

Other captions from her dance.

Captions from other performances

I didn’t get to snap many pictures because I had to follow our little wanderer, Ashley, around.

These are the kids waiting for the finale.

Oh, and meet my little pink leopard cub too !

In between performances, Ashley wandered out to the area where the dancers were waiting for the finale. She met her schoolmate, Hailey.

Hailey is from the 5 year old’s class and Ashley is in the 2 to 3 year old’s class.

But they have no problem with the age gap.

The finale !

The whole family was so tired out that we all stayed in and had a quiet night watching tv at home.

High School Musical concert

Kimberly is a big fan of High School Musical. She has been asking her daddy to bring her to the High School Musical on Ice but her daddy thought it would be boring for her since the characters are not the “Troy” and “Gabriella” that she loves so much, but just good skaters playing their character.

A few weeks ago, however, we happened to walk past the showroom at the centre court at One Utama new wing, heading towards the carpark. It was like 5 minutes before the ticketing counter close and they were announcing a 20% off. As usual, Kimberly lingered around the booths checking out the posters, notebooks and stuff.

At the spur of the moment, her daddy decides to get some tickets for the show, so there we are this Saturday, at the High School Musical concert.

Kimberly has been looking forward to it whole week. By now she understood that those are just skaters playing the characters, and she wasn’t so disappointed that the poster didn’t feature her favourite actor and actress.

It was a full house. This time we couldn’t get a parking at the parking bay. We had to park at the next building and take a loooonnnng walk to the stadium. It has a better reception than the Disney on Ice that we went to a few months back.

Now, is that a full house or is that a full house?

These are some captions of the show.

These are the kids outside the stadium after the show.

Yea, in case you haven’t noticed, Ashley is in her favourite tee again. I like this tee, but definitely not everyday! However, Ashley now would only contend to wear this and one other tee. The other one being a purple tee with a picture of a cat on it. Can you imagine how I had to wash these two tee every alternate day so that she won’t ask for it and not have it? Her dad is saying that perhaps we should pay another visit to the store that sell the purple tee and pick out another two for just in case.

I know toddlers nowadays have minds of their own, as was with Kimberly, who was around two when she start to show preference over what she wants to wear, but I was hoping that they won’t be so adamant about it.

Anyhow, we have two tired out and happy kids after the show.

Have a great weekend, all !

Cupcakes for my little ones !!!

I love visiting Yozoranitesky’s blog. Sometime last week, Yozora put up some pictures of the cupcakes that she decorated for charity sale.

Kimberly had gazed in rapt attention at the pretty pastels butterflies and flowers decorating those cupcakes. Then she asked her sister, “Baby, which one would you like? I choose this one” and Ashley would participate and say, “Ah want pink one” and Kimberly would go, “No, Ashley , you like yellow, remember? !” ha ha.

Every so often since then, she would ask to see the butterflies and the flowers, and I would oblige. I wish I could buy them for her.

So, I drop a comment off at Yozora’s blog and ask if I could buy these off her. The gracious lady said that she would bake them for my little ones only if I would accept it for free !!

She is such a wonderful person, to offer to bake for 2 little girls she has never seen before or know about. I was so touched by her offer. Yozora also says not to let the girls know till Sunday cos “waiting can be such agony”. Isn’t that such wonderful foresight and consideration?

So come Sunday, I finally told Kimberly that we are going to pick up those butterflies and flowers that she like so much.

She dressed herself up in a jiffy, and got Ashley to dress too. She is such a big help these days, I can’t help but realize that my little girl is growing up every day !!

I mean, she is slowly going away from pinky pink to favoring rock star black now ! This is a picture taken last week. She is now shopping for her own clothes and nothing I say could persuade her to a more demure colour, although my girlfriend, an ex-model turned lawyer keep telling me not to be such a prude.

Who would have imagine that my blog name were in courtesy of her, and I started this blog because of her, she loves allthings purple !! and in all shades of pink !!

Anyhow, we drove over to Yozora’s place. When pretty fair skinned Yozora came out of the building to pass the kids the boxes of cupcakes, you should have seen the grin on Kimberly’s face ! Well, she still loves pink and purple floral cupcakes anyhow !

The cupcakes were gorgeous !!!

I pass the container of fondant butterflies and flowers to Kimberly and have a quick chat with Yozora.

In the midst of chatting to Yozora, somehow, Ashley manages to pry the container of fondant flowers off Kimberly’s hand and was hogging it all. ha ha.

These are the leftovers fondant flowers and butterfly, which Ashley was willing to let go in exchange for one of the cupcakes.

None of my pictures were half as nice, so, took these pic of Kimberly and Ashley’s cupcakes from Yozara’s site instead. ha ha.

Weren’t they absolutely absolutely beautiful?

Before making a hasty departure so that those icing won’t melt under the hot sun, I took pictures of the cupcakes in the car first. I have a feeling those cupcakes wouldn’t last too long.

Took this one quickly before it end up in Kimberly’s tummy.

Between the 10 minute drive from Yozora’s place to home, the kids has already polished off 4 cupcakes.

That was a lovely day for the kids that day.

We deposited those cupcakes inside the fridge first before heading to Ikea to get the kids their lunch.

These are taken after lunch.

It was so crowded at Ikea , since it was a weekend, that we left soon after that.

Protected: Weekend at FIL’s

Her recent quirky quotes

“Mommy, can u please help me hold my cup? Fish hungry. Daddy, can you please pau pau me? I got dah feed dah fish. Oh my god, Fish died! “

Turning to me with huge amazed eyes, Ashley says,” Momma !! Fish died. What shall we do now?”

Her father smiled at her chattiness, and said,”Its okay, honey”

Ashley goes on, “How about we buhree the fish, momma? “

I am rather amused by my toddler. My little chatters box speaks like the train all the time ie. on sorting out shape sorters and puzzles, she would go, “Where this one go? Right here! Oh yea, right here.”

And she would go, “How about this one?” digging into the box we dug out from Kimberly’s hand me down boxes and trying on another swimsuit. “Oh, it’s too big …. how about buying another one for Ashley?”

Upon seeing pictures of delicious bento on face book bento group, she goes, “Is this chicken, momma? How about chicken for Ashley?”

I am so guilthy of not recording her milestone (unlike as with my firstborn, Kimberly) that I try to record snatches of moments like these in my laptop for when I have the time to record them into my blog journal.

These are my 30 months old’s other recent quotes.

If we tried to get her to eat, she goes, “Not now, momma. I am beeeeeezeeeeee” “ah… yam… playeeeeeeeng!” she would stressed.

And toddlers as toddlers are, she has such quirky ways about her - “Chieh chieh ng ng. Chieh Chieh so smelly. “Pinching her nose, she repeat, “Smelly, see?”

And she would insist on climbing up the forbidden top cushion of the sofa, and never failed to ask for help, “Almost fall down, Ah Kung, almost fall down! Ah Kung, can you please hold me?” crying plaintively clinging to the curtain gingerly.

Anyhow, sometimes, in time of anxiety, she would still stumbles on her own words.

There’s this time she wants to go with her cousins and her aunt and I said, “you go yourself, momma stays here”.

In her anxiety to get me to come along, she grab my shirt and anxiously said, “ No. Momma, No, you came with you !” Ha ! Ha!

One time I was at my work station, I heard her reprimanding, “Naughty boy !!!” Ashley was scolding from her bedroom.

There is a pause. “Naughty boy !!” she scolded again.

Then another pregnant pause. Then there it goes again, “You naughty boy, Aidan !!”

Mystified, I got up from my work station to see what she is up to.

She turned from her doll house towards me and said, beaming, “Look, momma !! Aidan is a naughty boy !! “Pointing to one of the dolls in her wooden doll house.

“What did naughty boy do, honey?” I asked her.

“Naughty boy push Dale, momma.”

“Has Aidan ever pushed you before, honey?” Like a mother, I had to know.

“Yea !!! Aidan push you.”

“Did Aidan push Ashley?” I ask again to re-confirm

“Yay, Momma. Dale is my friend. Aidan is not my friend. Aidan push you”

“You say, Aidan push me.” I corrected her. “You don’t say, Aidan push you.”

“Yay, Aidan push me.” She bopped her head up and down.

Well, it’s normal that kids jostled a lot in school anyhow, so I let it be. I have only wanted to check for safety measures and to see why she keeps saying Aidan is not her friend. Aidan is the 4 year old boy in her class and charges at everyone like a bull, ha ha, when someone rings the doorbell. And Dale is the 3 year old boy. Ashley is the youngest in class at 2 ½ year old.

In relation to the “naughty boy !!!” pretend play, I figure she must have copied her teacher in school. Ha ha.

You don’t really see these phrases in TV nowadays, because kids’ programmes nowadays don’t really encourage negative remarks. They go more along the lines of,”That isn’t a very nice thing that boy do, isn’t it? ” instead of “You naughty boy!”.

Digressing again ! Anyhow, going back on track on her other recent quirky quotes.

There’s this time she observed her chieh chieh leaving her study table to wander off to the kitchen. And she said, “Chieh Chieh did nah do homework, momma, Chieh Chieh homework on dah table”

I replied absent mindedly, “Yea, chieh chieh didn’t do homework”

Ashley prompts me, “Chieh Chieh not clever?”

Smiling, I replied, “Yes, chieh chieh not very clever right now”

Her father, hearing this, smiled indulgently at her and asked, “How about Baby? Baby is a good girl?”

The little one retort, “Daddy so silly. Baby don’t do homework !!! “And nonchalantly climbed up on my lap for nursing, dismissing him.

Toddlers this age can be oh-so-cute. I had missed these moments with Kimberly because she grew up with my in laws. I am so glad now I am afforded this opportunity to spend more time with my kids instead of seeing them only once a week.

Being parents may be exhausting, but snatches of little precious moments like this can light up your whole universe, don’t you think?