Blogger’s Picnic

I know I am supposed to continue with the holiday posts, but will take a break and post on the bloggers picnic instead, since its a shorter posts and won’t need memory recovery. The holiday to Hong Kong seems a long time ago now. Haha. Speaking of which, I am also roughly 2 weeks behind in bento posts. haha. Will catch up on them as soon as time permits.

Anyhow, on the 7th day, Yan Yat of CNY, Laundry Amah arranged a picnic. Wasn’t that fabulous of her? On CNY no less.

It was Kimberly’s and Ashley’s first picnic ever !!

We almost didn’t make it, cos Ashley was throwing up the whole night. I was changing bedsheet after bedsheet and p.j after p.j. Phew. anyhow, by 11 am, she seems fine when she woke up, so I thought we can make it to the picnic after all.

It was at Taman Rimba at Taman Tun. It was a long time ago since I went there, and with my first visit, I had followed someone’s car. So I had a hard time looking for the place and end up at the other park across the school. This one is the one across the Indian temple.

As Ros from My Mom’s Best’s forum ( a breastfeeding forum I used to frequent) said before, this park is one of K.L’s best kept secret.

Following Jacss’ style, I am just going to post the pics.

This is a group photo. I had needed to get these from Annie and Laundry Amah.

More group photos

The 2 Ashley’s.. Chumsy’s Ashley and my Ashley… both thirsty kids. haha.

Kids in the park. That’s Kimberly and Kieran playing badminton….Kylie taking a stroll, and Chumsy’s Ashley walking towards the group. The two little hensems are not fully visible.

Fearles showing off his catch. Is that a bug???!

Annie in action.

Barbara in action.

Jacss and one of her hensems.

Jacss and me.

With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row.

Actually, with muffin cups and chicken wings, and pretty moms all in a row.

It was a great picnic.

Peggy bought lor mai fun. and ridsects and insect repellents, I was told. *grin*, Jacss bought dim sum, Barbara bought char siew pau-s , Annie brought chicken wings and I got us a basket of fruits. Cos with Ashley like that, the food was the last thing on my mind that day. For food pics and more pics, go Barbara’s blog, ok?

We had the picnic around 11 am, but I got there late about twelve. Come 1pm, the rain came and we all scattered for the safety of our cars. Not before everyone exchange angpows though.

I didn’t remember to pack angpows for the kids in my haste that day. Lucky there were some angpows not distributed over CNY from a few days before left in my wallet *embarassed smile*

So that’s Kimberly and Ashley’s first picnic ever. Being their first picnic, they don’t eat much. I think they probably took one muffin each and some jellies and then scoot off to play.

But it’s a great way to spend Yan Yat nevertheless. Good company, good food. Here’s happy CNY to you guys, whatever is left of CNY. haha.

Have a great day today !!

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 !

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.

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