Sofia the Doodle

Recently, Sofia likes to grab hold of any stray pen lying around the house and start doodling on her feeding time record book or her high chair. I was scratching my head over where to find the appropriate materials for her newfound habit. My friend in Kuching, Mummy Doraemon, had the perfect answer for me! She bought a pack of these non-toxic Faber-Castell crayons and a few pieces of white mahjong paper for Moh-Moh to doodle and it was more than enough to make a toddler happy!

I did not even know such things exist! All I can remember of my crayon days were the sticky-waxy feelings on my fingers, not the mention the stains on my clothes, hand and everywhere. I am so glad such good stuff are available for kids now and for mothers too, we can now save time on cleaning!

On my way to TTDI to pick up FeFe from her "hotel" yesterday afternoon, we happen to park right in front of a stationary shop and I went in with much glee to get some crayons and paper for Sofia too.

Hope to post up some of her artwork soon!

Vitamin C

I have been recommended to give Sofia a daily dose of Vitamin C to build up her immune system against flu bugs. Great idea! The doc always prescribe some Vitamin C for me too whenever I am down with flu. So I went to arm myself with a bottle of Vitamin C from the pharmacy today and this shall be part of Sofia's daily booster from now - 2 tablets of milk colostrum + 2 tablets of vitamin C. Let's hope this helps!

Flu Again!

While Daddy and I had a great weekend in Kuching, going to our fav Nasi Briyani joint and having Sarawak Laksa for breakfast, Sofia fell sick on Sunday. We guess it must be due to the long hours we spent at LCCT on Thursday.

She was running around like a wild horse set free! With the huge crowd at LCCT, it meant plenty of virus in the air and Sofia must have caught some of it too.

So I brought her to Dr Lim this afternoon to get some help. As usual, she started crying the moment we step into the clinic. Even refused to let us put her on the weighing scale! Clung onto my maid like a koala bear. Imagine the scene she made when we went into the consultation room? The poor doctor was trying to appease her so that he can listen to her lungs properly but I am not sure how successful he was. The funny part was, in the midst of her fountain display, Sofia could still shake hands and "high 5!" with the doctor! So was she really scared or upset??

To Kuching We GO!

I need to go back to Kuching again, one of the reasons to is renew my work permit and this has to be done in Kuching since the original was issued there. This calls for a longer stay in Kuching as the processing will take more than a day. So I decided to pack Sofia and my maid with me and we will take Airasia this time round!

This is the first time we are at LCCT and the full glass panels at the waiting area gave Sofia a good view of the planes. My in-laws condo in Kuching faces the airport runway so she enjoyed watching planes taking off since young. She stood there at the glass window with her new friend watching the planes passing by and signing at the same time. "VVVROOOOOMMMM!!!!!" I wonder what goes on in her little head while watching the planes? I started tell her about this trip a few days back and how we are going to fly in the aeroplane and she should not cry and behave herself onboard, etc..

And yes, she did not fuss and cry this time round but she also did NOT sleep throughout the 1hr 45min flight! She was having fun on flight by walking between me and my maid, pulling the uncle's hair who was sitting in front, peeping over her seat to look at the baby behind. Sofia is kind of like our inflight entertainment set?

I actually planned to take the flight at 1155hrs which coincide with her nap time so that she can nap on the plane, unfortunately Airasia cancelled the flight and put us on the 1525hrs flight which was also delayed. In the end, we reach Kuching at 7pm and we were all so tired. Sofia was tired too, she spent 1hr+ running around LCCT, watching planes and disturbing other people. I hope our return trip next Tuesday would be smoother.

My Signing Time! DVDs

The Signing Time DVDs we ordered for Sofia finally arrived at the Post Office today! It took a grand total of 27 days to arrive from the US after it was shipped on 05 June. Or perhaps I had the wrong expectations? When I ordered their DVDs, it says all orders will be shipped via UPS. I thought "UPS" was United Parcel Service, a courier service company which I believe is reliable enough to bring my parcel to Malaysia safely.

But NO. "UPS" is actually "United States Postal Service" which is SingPost equivalent in Singapore. O.o. What a wrong assumption I made! I have nothing against United States Postal Service, just that it means my parcel is going to go through POS Malaysia! They would probably ask me what are the DVDs for, tax me heavily ... I got really worried after that. We actually considered for some time being ordering the Series Two DVDs cos the products are not cheap. So we tried watching Sesame Street and Baby Einstein with Sofia but she show no interest in both, in fact, she cried when we watched Sesame Street. Guess the furry monsters do not appeal to her.

I spent about 25 days waiting nervously at home, peering into the mailbox every now and then, hoping to receive some news on the DVDs. Finally on 26 Jun, I received a letter from POS Malaysia asking me to decide and appoint a clearing agent for my parcel. Of course I appoint them, don't know of anyone else who can help me on this. And the parcel finally reached Kelana Jaya Post Office on 01 July, ready for collection, yeah!

Of course it told me quite a while to figure out the way to Kelana Jaya Post Office and true enough, the taxes and custom clearance fee I had to pay came up more than RM300! Now I know. We really have to make these DVDs worth their while and generate better returns - by having more kids!