Archive for October, 2008

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.

Bento books !!

After courts last Tuesday, I dropped by KLCC.

I thought I checked out Kinokuniya and see if their Japanese books aisles have any bento books.

And true enough, what did I find !!!!

 
I got these at a steal at RM42.

It is a good deal because they are selling them at ebay for like USD19. Plus that with USD4 for shipping or probably USD9 for EMS and you get the idea.

I got this other book as well. It’s around RM46.

If you ask me, I still prefer those pictures that those Japanese moms churned out in their daily blogs. However, these books does makes a refreshing reading (flipping) at bedtime.

However, I think the prettiest bento book has got to be from this book that I got from www.NST.my 6 months ago, before the price hike from their supplier.

I still haven’t utilised any of them ideas in the span of the 6 months since I got this book !!! I do enjoy flipping through them, though.

Perhaps this coming school holiday.

Let’s hope I have some time to make some kawaii bento for the kids.

So, bento addicts ! Fast, fast hop over to Kinokuniya check out their bento books. There aren’t many there the last time I looked.

And this is not a paid post, by the way. haha.

Happy bentou-ing , folks !

Mind your kids at the mall, earnestly !

What is the world coming to?

I get so paranoid whenever any one of my 2 kids wander away from my sight. And I would tell Kimberly off in public right there with my husband telling me to shush and not to be so loud.

But I just cant help it each time. I just want to get the message across to her that it is not done. And if it is not done, then it is not done, period !! And if it happened again, no shopping for the whole month.

Why am I so paranoid? Bet Malaysians know. All the headlines, all those news about kids missing (Sharlinie, the classic case, for e.g), popping up at your face every now and then when you read your paper over your morning cup of Milo-Kau.

To compound it, I have just receive one of those forwarding email on a child’s kidnap attempt, of which I will attach below in a while.

I don’t know how much of these circulating emails are true or substantiated, but as usual, its a case of readers beware.

Plus, one of my ex maid once tried to take Ashley out of the Mother and Baby fair away from my side, when Ashley was like, I dont remember, one year old? She had only worked for me for a week. This happened during the days when I used to have maids.

That particular day, I remember telling Brenda of babysashaandmom that she is a new maid, and I remember Brenda (who is selling her cloth diapers at one of the booths) telling me that when I move along, the maid made no attempt to follow me nor knew that I had moved along, but stood there resting her arms on the handle of the stroller, which Ashley is sleeping in, and watch people go by.

So, I made her stand by my side each and every time I stopped by a booth to check things out, while my other maid, a trustworthy one, Atin, watch over Kimberly.

And that particular instance, as usual, I check that she is with me (cos she is pushing the stroller) and again, remind her to stand beside me and not to walk away from me to examine things cos I want Ashley by my side. I had needed to keep repeating because she repeatedly walk away from me with Ashley despite my constant reminder over that hour itself.

Anyhow, within a split second, she was gone. How could that be? I had only held up a cloth diaper in my hand to feel the microsuede, put it down and she was gone. Frantic, I asked one of the girls at Babyzandmom’s stall to help me look at the other lane while I looked down that lane. I couldn’t spot them ANYWHERE !! My heart was just about went as cold as an ice.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I have an instinct that the maid may be trying to smuggle my kid out. So I ran out of the exhibition (at Midvalley) towards the exit, and what do I see? The maid, zeroing in towards the exit. And, the maid, , whether feigning innocence or not, told me that she want to go outside to the stores to look for ma’am.

First of all, shouldn’t she not leave my side as instructed? Secondly, shouldn’t she be standing in the same spot? Thirdly , to look for me, shouldn’t she attempted to look for me around the booths, instead of pushing my kid out of the exhibition zeroing on the exit, in a hurry, not looking left or right for me?

I had my doubts and told my husband but he dismissed it as one of those “incredulous” things that some Indon maids do. But this lesson taught me to push my kids myself when out shopping. We don’t let the maids push the stroller anymore after that.

Well, the maid took off a 2 weeks later anyhow. That was before we were informed by  our then renovator, who were doing up the kitchen, that the maid had on her 3rd day of her arrival tried to strike a deal with the Indonesian contractors at the construction across the road to sell my baby.

Apparently one of the Indon contractors assisting our Chinese renovater is in the same “housing” settlement as the Indon she tried to strike the deal with.  He is one of the 2 part timers working for our Chinese renovator in renovating our kitchen. He told our renovator and our renovator told us.

Lucky for us, the part timer Indonesian found it in his heart to warn us. Perhaps he found it weird that the maid keep “singing” messages to them in Bahasa Indonesia whenever they are at the back working on my kitchen. She is always singing whenever they are around. Atin said she is actually “talking” to them in a sing song way.

The agent gave us the money due for runaway maids, but refused to have anything to do with the kidnap attempt. We haven’t time nor the passion to pursue the matter ,and are only glad that the maid is not within our midst anymore.

I normally don’t like to waste time dwelling on the issues of maids but I figure it may be prudent to share my experience.

Our last agent also told us that there are always always syndicates all around taking advantage of maids as a tool to rob houses etc.

This is what add to my paranoia that my kids MUST constantly be by my side.

Anyhow, this is the email that I received earlier today about a child’s abduction attempt.

I am cutting and pasting the entire e-mail below in verbatim.

Hi parents and soon-to-parents,

A friend of my husband told him this true story which happened to his own sister in our very own Mid Valley City (for the benefit of those overseas, MVC is large shopping complex in KL) :-

The friend’s sister and her husband where having a meal in one of the restaurants in MVC with their young son. Then suddenly, they were intruded by a big fat lady who tried to be very annoying and intrusive. They tried their best to get rid of this stranger. As all this commotion was going on, the husband noticed that their young son was no longer sitting at the table with them. When the husband looked around for his son, he saw that the little boy was walking towards a man outside the restaurant who was beckoning him to come over.

The husband quickly got up from his seat and started calling out his son’s name. This was when the big fat lady gave a ‘hand cutting neck’ signal to her accomplice outside indicating that the ‘mission’ was to be aborted. The man and the fat lady then disappeared out of sight.

I’m sure you have heard of syndicates out there that are kidnapping young children, handicapping them and then putting them out on the streets to beg. This story shows that what we’ve heard is very true. We’ve also been told that the ‘targeted’ children are those who are between the ages of 2 to 5. And, the fairer they are, the better the price they’ll fetch too.

My hope is that you’ll let your family and friends know of this story and ask them to always be alert when they take children out. Please feel free to pass this email to anyone whom you think will benefit from it.

A very wise man had said this to me about his family — ‘… you are all I work so hard for. If I don’t have that, nothing else matters at all.’

I couldn’t agree with him more.

Warmest regards,

Janice

Parents out there, receiving this email reminds me again how diligently I need to watch my kids when we are out.

So, hopefully, this will nudge you guys as well.