Domestic Helper

I started out thinking July was probably too early to start searching for a domestic help but nonetheless I started. As I search, I went into a shock which lead to despair and subsequently, DESPERATE. Apparently, because of some memorandum that has not been signed between Indonesia and Malaysia regarding domestic help, there are no housemaids being released into Malaysia now. WHAO! The numerous agents that I contacted simply just turn me away and asked me to come back in a few months' time. FEW MONTH's time???

So Daddy and I sat down to discuss IF we can do without a domestic helper, or perhaps we should engage a baby sitter? Our talk went on for many days and we finally concluded we needed a helper or a pair of extra hands at home. It may be just as simple as having someone at home with Jerry while I run errands or picking up Sofia from school. There will be days I need a break and I can safely hit the malls or going for a massage and know that Jerry is safe at home. Daddy travels quite frequently so a housemad would provide some company for me and also help with the housechores.

With the direction all set, I tried my luck again, this time round, I called Ana's agent in Jarkata. He got me linked up with his KL agent and yes, something can be done! It was such a BIG relief off my mind, I could eat, sleep and dream peacefully again. Yes, we are very dependent on domestic help and I never never fail to admire those SAHMs who take care of their kids and manage the household with their bare two hands.

To me, it is nothing short of a MIRACLE.

Hokkaido Fair

One big difference about living in Kuching vs living in KL is that the variety of food we can hunt down to eat. Basically we like to EAT. We eat almost anything, other than those bugs or "exotic food". Back in Kuching, it was always those few restaurants and cafes that we took turns patronizing. Here, we are busy trying out new restaurants over weekends.

Isetan here organizes Hokkaido fair every year and we have put off going to it because of the crowd. But today, we just wanted to have that "Japan" feeling again so off we went with Sofia. Daddy had this "Shoyu Ramen" which smelled and tasted just as good. Sofia liked the ramen too and helped Daddy to polish his bowl real clean.

My seafood fried rice was so-so, it tasted more like teow chew type of "Mui Fan" where you just pour soup/gravy over cooked rice.

But we enjoyed ourselves very much, it was nice to experience the Japanese culture for that brief period, where people around you are so hyped up and warm.

We would love to visit Hokkaido as one of our holiday destination in future. I remembered the photos my BIL took when he visited Hokkaido with my sister, the animals were gorgeous.

I am sure Sofia and Jerry would be delighted to see them all. This plan would probably materialize when the kids are older and are fully aware of what is going on then the holiday would be more meaningful to them.

New Friends

It has been a total new experience for me since we moved to the new house. I am so used to living in a "pigeon hole" that it took me quite while to get used to living on the ground. One aspect I needed to get used to was the uninvited "new friends" that would visit us on different occasions.

The wild squirrels would pop in any time of the day to help themselves to Fefe's food and poop all over the backyard. We also have beautiful birds popping by too and Fefe's food is always the main attraction. The most irritation guests we have are the hungry stray cats, they would almost end up in a confrontation mode with Fefe every time. We would have to break up the standoff by chasing them away.

Recently, it has been raining hard and we had a new friend in the garden scaling up the wall. With this fella around, I get questions like "Mummy, where is the snail going?", "Mom, why is the snail climbing the wall, can you ask him to come down?" or ,"Mummy, where is the mummy snail?". Next day, Sofia would be asking me where is the snail and spend the next half of the day searching for the snail in the garden.

I guess these are all good opportunities for the kids to learn about our earth and we are certainly not alone on this planet.

March Events

It has been such an eventful March for us, many things happened and some have probably already slipped my mind ...


1. Jeremiah has finally started teething with 4 teeth at one go, there were a couple of nights in a row where he woke up every hour. It was the ultimate test of endurance for me. Fortunately my mum came over this month to lend me a hand and I could catch some sleep during the day when Sofia napped.

Despite all the night wakings, the boy was still his usual cheerful and energetic self. Jeremiah was also down with a chesty cough and cold for 2 weeks and after it was all gone and done, the finale came with a fever and skin rash. During this period, he broke his own record with a record 5-hour morning nap. We were so very worried if he was alright cos he has never took a nap this long! After the nap, we were all relieved to see him playing and eating again, phew!


2. Daddy has been travelling a lot again so my "single-mum" days are back again. Sofia misses Daddy a lot when he is away, she will always ask me "Where is Daddy?" and "Let's pick up Daddy from the office?". So when her hero is back she will be all over him, tailing him wherever he goes.

Daddy will try to come back with presents for her and here, she was trying to cover Daddy with her new clothes.


3. Sofia and Jeremiah loves to bang on the piano together. I don't know how my neighbours take it, they are probably very disturbed by the noise pollution we create day and night. Sofia loves to sing and dance too and the best part is Jeremiah loves to join in. He would stand, hold on to something and sway with the music, or sometimes, he would go "WAH BAH BAH BAH BAH! MAH MAH HOO!" , which makes everyone laugh!



4. We celebrated Daddy's birthday as well with Jeremiah in the picture now. When Sofia saw the cake delivered to our house, she was so excited over the birthday celebration that she kept singing the happy birthday song over and over again! Of course she could not wait too, kept asking me to take the cake out and cut it, arrrghhhh!!



5. I also came to know my good friend, R, is going back home for good mid-April. It came very sudden due to family reason and everyone has little time to react. We will spend some time catching up before the whole family moves, hope we will meet again soon.

New Year, New Friend

Sofia has not met this Gu-Gu of hers since two years ago but they hit it off right away when they met on New Year's eve. We celebrated New Year in KL this year so Gu-Gu came over to join us from Singapore.

The duo were best of friends for the six days they were together, it was like "Where is Gu-Gu?" the moment she wakes up in the morning and happened again when she wakes up from nap.

When Gu-Gu went back to Singapore this morning, Sofia tried to hold her back by pulling her leg. This is the first time I see this girl being so attached to another person again. I am sure Gu-Gu had a good time with her too! Hopefully we will meet soon again in Singapore!

Up the "Mountain"

Just when we were finishing off the house a week before we moved in, one of the major decisions we needed to make was to decide what sort of tree or plants we want to have in the garden. There were some trees that we loved to have but due to the potential growth of that specie, the tree may cause damage to the pipes running underground. So Daddy and I went around some of the new properties to see what are the options we have.

Sofia was very bored with our "shopping" though I tried to show her the tadpoles and beautiful flowers, it could only hold her interest for couple of minutes.

Then she found this little slope and she started calling it a "mountain" and the fun started. She started running from one "mountain" top to the other "mountain" top like a little mouse. It was lots of fun for her but I was not ready for her to get sweaty and dirty when we have other things to do later. So I made her stand on the top of the "mountain" and strike some poses.

Does she look like someone whom has just completed an incredible feat?

Updates

Things have changed quite a bit for us over the last one and half month. We finally shifted on 16 Dec and for the first time, I did not pack ANYTHING prior to the move. I left it all to the packers, including the skeletons in my closet. I think they were probably disgusted by the amount of skeletons I have! Things are different now at the new house, we have taken over the roles of Chief Security Officer and Gardener, all of which are new to us. FeFe is also now an outdoor cat and she is fiercely guarding her territory from other stray cats.

We settled in in the quickest time possible and drove up to Ipoh and Penang to spend Christmas there. We are starting to explore places in West Malaysia, beyond KL and it is very interesting to see how each of these places carries their own individual charm and culture. The white coffee at Ipoh was REALLY good, so smooth and we were ready to soak in the aroma the entire afternoon if not for the kids. Is there such a thing as coffee spa, I wonder?

Sofia went to play sand at a real beach for the first time at Penang. As usual, it took us a while to coax her to put her feet down on the sand but she insisted on pulling up her pants all the time on the beach. She looked so funny. It was a good short getaway and I think the kids felt good to see us both in a relaxed mode compared to a week ago, we were so stressed up over the move.

More things to share later ...

Falling in Love Again

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23

As hard as I tried, I was falling in love all over again ... with this little chubby baby of mine. His smile is so irresistible, so charming, anytime, anywhere. Though he still wakes up at night for feedings, he will never fail to greet you with a wide broad smile every morning. Be it 6am or 7am, he will be ready to start his engine on all fours, crawling over to pull my hair or to disturb Sofia.

I am certainly not ready to wake up yet but when he flashes that toothless grin, I am just overwhelmed with his cuteness, just lovely ...

Fireflies @ Kuala Selangor

Tonite was one of those rare nights that we actually planned an activity for the family. Actually we do not really have a choice, we wanted to see the fireflies at Kuala Selangor and the only way to see them was to visit them at night.

It was raining in the afternoon and it cleared the skies of all the haze, dirt and whatever. By the time we reached Kuala Selangor, the clear night was a perfect setting for vieiwng the fireflies. It was more crowded than we imagined, there were a few loads of tourist before us and we noticed most of them had come from Japan! Only then I knew fireflies only exist in tropical countries.

Each of us had to wear a safety jacket before we got on the boat, Sofia looked so funny with the oversized jacket. Unfortunately we were too excited to go and forgot to take a photo of her. We were hoping that Sofia would be able to learn and understand more about fireflies from this trip but she was more excited about the boat ride on the river.

Finally it was out turn to set sail and the boat brought us out to the dark and quiet part of the river. There were indeed many fireflies and it was so lovely, like Christmas trees but with REAL lights. We asked Sofia to look at those blinking lights and told her those were fireflies but I think she could not quite understand. To her, lights are lights, how can they be a bug? Then she got bored and started fidgeting around the boat, we were supposed to be still and quiet. Ended up, we had to distract and keep her entertained as much as we could.

Though the boat ride was very short, approx 15 mins only, but it was a very refreshing experience. I have never taken a boat ride on a river at night before, it was so calm and still ... of course, the thousands of fireflies made the ride even more special. The numbers are starting to decline due to urbanization, glad to see them while I can. Hopefully they would still be around couple of years later, we would love to return with Sofia and Jeremiah for another romantic boat ride.

Accommodation Planning

Now that we know the new place would not be ready before I pop, we have been cracking our heads on accomodation arrangements in our current place when everyone is here next month. My mum would be coming over to help me with the confinement and baby. My in-laws would be here to take over the driving and helping out with the usual household stuff.

We would have altogether 6 adults, 1 toddler and 1 baby in this house which has 3+1 bedroom. Daddy and I have been playing around which configuration and arrangement would be the best and here is the conclusion:

Master bedroom - My mum, Me and baby
Sofia's bedroom - Daddy and Sofia
Guest room - My in-laws
Maid room - Ana

Daddy is a very light sleeper and Sofia sometimes "talk" while sleeping, thus he might possibly be disturbed at night. So we tried to switch around again but could not find a better arrangement. Of course, the option to sleep in the living hall is always open! Or the balcony with FeFe! Anyway, the above arrangement is more or less fixed.

The other challenge is the miserable fridge our landlord gave us. It can barely hold the stuff for us currently and we will have more than double the food for storage come May, how eh? The easy way out is to buy our new fridge and start using it first but again our current kitchen is unable to accommodate a second fridge. We cannot find a solution for this one yet, will continue to ponder over it.

Daddy's Birthday

Today is Daddy's birthday and I gave him a surprise by ordering a cake for him which was delivered to our doorstep. It has been a long time since we celebrated each other's birthday with a cake so I guess this is a good surprise from his smile?

Actually, I have no idea what to get as a present. Daddy has been working hard on the house project and this is a good opportunity for me to give him a reward. He enjoys good dessert so I thought a cake would be good. We did enjoy the cake very much and so did K and W who happened to dropby on the way to KLIA.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Major Delay

Our roof truss is finally up today. This critical component of the house has caused some major delay to the rest of the plan. Initially we were not too keen to change the entire roof, our contractor did remove some of the worn out timber beams and original plan was to replace these beams only.

However, after giving it some thoughts, Daddy decided to change the entire roof and replace the supporting beams with metal ones which last longer and are termite-proof. The new roof will also be covered with clay tiles instead of concrete tiles which reduces the amount of heat into the house. So with this major change, we spent a great deal of effort looking for roof specialist, getting quotations, comparing materials, their installation proposal, etc..

This really set us back by a month on the project schedule but I think we feel better with a sturdy roof over our heads. Another consideration we forgot was the "resting" period for hardwood flooring. We were reminded over the weekend by one of the timber flooring installer that we must let the wood rest for 4 WEEKS after installation before sanding. OOPSSS!

I do not have much time let before the second one comes and it was our plan to move into the new place before delivery. Now it looks like we have to stay put at the current place, do all we can up till I pop and move during or after confinement.

My New Kakak

This is Anna, our new domestic helper who came to join us on 29 Nov. She hails all the way from Flores Island. We are all amazed by the courage she has to leave home and work in a foreign country at this young age of 21.

Though she no previous experience working as a domestic helper, she learns very fast and we only need to teach her once on how to use the electrical appliances and she would just pick it up! It is almost impossible for us to imagine or live in her kampung, where there is no electricity, gas stove or cars. What would our lives be like? Hmmmmmm .... I guess that is why her family sleeps at 8pm and wakes up at 6am everyday.

We are really thankful to have Anna with us and even Sofia has accepted her with open arms after three days. It has been a month now and we starting to let Anna share the same room with Sofia at night without my presence. I would have loved to continue to sleep with Sofia, just that with the second one coming in May, we think that the baby would disrupt Sofia's sleep at night and it would be best to keep them in separate room for the time being.

We hope Anna would also have a good time staying with us and be a good role model to Sofia too!

Artist's Impression

We finally started this very important project today - 09 Dec 08. No particular reason why today, but we should have started last week by right. We started off with chopping down two huge manago trees in the garden. I would have loved to keep the trees for their fruits but it is way too big and gets into the way. Also, mango trees sheds plenty of leaves and attracts too many ants so they have to go.

I loved the artist's impression our designer gave us, looks beautiful right? I certainly hope the house will turn out just as good!

Aquaria KLCC

Our domestic helper, Nur, officially went home on 27 Nov. Sofia was a bit down during the first two days but seems to recover pretty quickly. I guess it helped that we did a countdown with her before Nur went home. Nur was telling her everyday that in how many days' time, kakak will take a plane and got back to her kampong. We also try to make weekends more interesting for Sofia, to try to distract her as much as possible.

Today, we visited Aquaria KLCC for the first time. I thought the place was pretty impressive. Of course, as usual, Daddy's first remark at my suggestion was "What is there to see??" To that, I reply, "Not for YOU to see, it is meant for SOFIA to see." And true enough, Sofia was thoroughly fascinated by all the different types of fishes and sea creatures. We have the chance to get our hands wet and even touch and feel the starfish and Sofia even wanted to bring them home!

We enjoyed the underwater tunnel very much, it is very fascinating to watch the sharks swim right above us and we can have a clear view of their gills, teeth and everything! Sofia was watching in amazement too, where else can we possibly show her so many fishes? It was a very good field trip and we were all so busy taking turns carrying Sofia that we only manage to snap one photo at the end.

We then went to KLCC for dinner and as we were there before sunset today, we managed to take some photos of the lovely KLCC park.

We ended the night with dessert at Häagen-Dazs, we knew Sofia would defintely be after what we ordered. So Daddy and I had our favourite green tea flavoured ice-cream which is also the least sweet among all.

Sofia's eyes were all on the ice-cream, eager and curious how it taste like.

So it did not taste as good as she thought afterall?!

Yes, it was Sofia's first time eating ice-cream, we tried our best to keep it away from her for the longest we can. But it seems like she does not like it as much as we do, which is good. In the end, she ate more of the waffle cone than the ice-cream.

My First Mid-Autumn Festival

We celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival last Saturday with Saanvi's parents, starting off with mooncakes with Japanese green tea at our place. Then we went off to the poolside with the girls to lit up their lanterns. It was already crowded with kids and everybody's spirits were so high. The girls too were happy, they have never gone down to the poolside at half past eight at night and the place look different with so many lanterns around.

I wish I could say we had a ball of a time, the girls were so fascinated and careful with their lanterns and we adults had a good romantic walk around the area.

Unfortunately, it did NOT happen the way it was planned at all. By the time we lilted up their lanterns, the girls were nowhere to be seen. They were running and walking all over the place. Ok, maybe they have not seen their beautiful nemo lanterns, so we showed them the fish. 5 seconds. That was it! That was how LONG they looked at their fish. And off they went again.

VVRROOMM! VVVRRROOOMMM! VVVVRRRROOOOMMMM!

I was so disappointed but got to admit they were probably too young to appreciate such things.

Now, Sofia only knows how to "eat" the fish ...

and sayang the fish ...

Well, guess nemo would have to sit in the store for while, we shall try again next year!

My Friend

Hi Everyone, allow me to introduce my first friend I made in KL. Her name is Saanvi and our mummies got to know each other at our condo's playground back in May. That was when we also got introduced to each and later found out we were borned exactly four months' apart! I was borned on 11 Jan while Saanvi was borned on 11 May, what a coincidence! Though Saanvi is four months' younger than me, we are of the same height. I can't help but feel rather short in front of her at times.

We play together a lot, especially at the playground during the evenings with other Gor-Gor and Jie-Jie as well. We have a great common interest between us, i.e., BALLS. We each have our own balls to play at home but we like each other's balls better, so it is a MUST to exchange balls when we play together.

But sometimes my mummy is lazy to bring my ball along and I have to borrow Saanvi's ball. Saanvi is a very nice girl and would always lend me her ball even if I do not ask.

Sometimes we would also discuss and discover new ways on how to tackle and play with the ball. It is really nice to have a playmate whom I can get along so well with. Hopefully while our parents are still in KL, we would grow up together and perhaps even go to the same school when we are older!

Kuala Lumpur Tower

We went up the Kuala Lumpur Tower this evening to watch the sunset and the simmering city under our feet.

It feels like being top of the world up there.

A Taste of KL Life

My parents-in-law are here to visit and Daddy and I felt happy to have a long weekend to spend time with them here. We decided to bring everyone out to have a taste of KL wanton mee at Jalan Ipoh. Daddy and I happened to find this coffeeshop by chance and we found the wanton mee very tasty, of course, a generous dose of lard works wonders as a tast enhancer.

Sofia enjoyed the noodles very much too, other than having fun playing with it.

Sofia looks so ungraceful here, eating with her leg propped up on the chair.

After lunch, we had a rare opportunity to be invited to a friend's house in Saujana Golf course. It was a really a big and beautiful house. The house was sitting on 2 acres of land right in the golf course and it was surrounded by greenery. Beautiful. Our friend had a cosy private swimming pool, unfortunately we did not have our swim gear with us.

The house was too big to be captured in a single shot.

Sofia took about half an hour to warm up, fortunately there were three rabbits kept as pets and they helped broke the ice. She was so fascinated and was going ga-ga over them. The next thing I knew, she was zooming around the house like a little rat, sniffing out all the decorative stuff in the house. Then I started to have cold feet. Those crystals and ornaments looked like they worth an arm and a leg. What if Sofia breaks one of those? That would blow my bank account and cost me a couple of fingers as well?

So I quickly bring Sofia outdoors. There was a small field within the house and soon, Sofia was having a good time running and playing around the field. For the first time, I felt safe for Sofia to run barefooted on the grass. I can almost be sure that there is no broken glass or cigarette stubs to hurt her. It felt really good to have our feet rested on the carpet grass instead of shoes. Sofia was not very used to the crispy grass and soon switched to the pebble stone pavement instead.

She felt a lot more at ease on the pebblestome pavement.

A tired girl after running round and round and round the field.

Sofia doing the "freeze" sign, so that I can take a photo of her.

It was a really good workout for both of us, we ended up sweaty and smelly but i enjoyed myself very very much.

I heard there is a botanical gardens somewhere in KL, think I have to bring Sofia there one of these weekends.

My Second Day in School

Today is Tuesday and it is "Sand Pit" day in school, meaning the kids will spend about half an hour in the morning, playing in the sand pit. While I was driving to school in the morning, I wondered if Sofia would like sand? We have not brought her to any beaches so far because we fear the sand flies would attack her. Also, she likes to put her hands in her mouth, what if she swallow a mouthful of sand? How to ask her to spit them out?

I soon found out, this girl do not like sand AT ALL. As soon as I put her into the sand pit, she did all she could to get out and stared hard at her sandy feet. After that, she refused to walk/run/play and clung onto me like a koala. So I washed her feet clean to make her feel better and she came down to walk. I guess the sandy feeling needs some time to get used to, afterall, this is her first encounter with sand.

Sofia spent the rest of the time OUTSIDE the sand pit, refused to let me put her in again. It was really funny cos as I lower her further into the sand pit, she pulled up her feet against her tummy. You would have thought I was lowering her into a pot of soup brewing on the fire.

I am quite sure, after a few more sessions of sand play, she will have fun building sandcastles and burying herself into the sand.