Rascal #2 is a real slacker when it comes to doing her homework. She will surely have tons of excuses to give me each time I remind her to do her homework. This hyper Energizer bunny who rarely feels tired or sleepy in the afternoon dozed off one afternoon last week when I asked her to do her homework.

When I saw her sleeping on the chair, I brought her in to her bedroom. But once she was on the bed, she became spirited and energetic again, as if I had just clicked on her ‘ON’ button!

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My sweetie-pie is transforming into a naughty-pie fast and furiously. Nothing can stop her from climbing up table tops, sofa tops, beds, playpen and chairs. She has been falling down and hurting herself very, very frequently now. The other day, the moment I turned my back to get something I heard BANG followed by a loud BAWL. Baby had fallen off the chair at my computer desk and landed on her face OUCH!!! There was a bruise just below her right eye.

I tried to apply an ice cube wrapped with a hanky on the bruise but she snatched it away and sucked the ice!

And then asked for 1 more, then 1 more and ended up eating a handful of ice cubes!

The next day, she climbed up the chair at the dining table and wanted to grab Alycia jie jie’s food but fell and hit her chin with a loud THUD on the marble table. I tell yer, my heart stopped beating for a moment and I thought she dislocated her jaw coz she kept crying and crying to no end. Her chin is now bruised. I can tell that it was really, really painful!!!

The next day (today), I warned her not to climb on chairs and table again. I demonstrated to her that she will hit her chin on the table and it’s going to be “very pain, pain, if you fall and hit your chin on the table”.  Minutes later, when I walked away, she tried to show my mil that if her chin hit the table, it’s going to be very pain pain and true, she could not control the pace, hit her chin on the table and cut her lip with her teeth till it bled!  Aiyoh, I tell yer, I have a phobia of leaving this rascal alone now, lest she injures herself again. 

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Alycia was craving for California roll / hand roll early this week. Day after day, she pestered my mil to make char siew California rolls for her. Some time back last year, my mil made some homemade char siew (roasted pork) and used them for the California roll. Since then Alycia was hooked on the char siew california rolls.

This time round, my mil made prawn and fish roe California roll with avocado. It’s pretty simple to prepare and here are the steps:

First she cooked some Japanese rice with shelled prawns. She double boiled the rice since she cooked very little rice.

Then she placed a spoonful of rice with prawns on a sheet of Japanese seaweed.  She then cut a wedge of avocado and Japanese cucumber and placed them on top of the rice.  Then squeezed in some Japanese mayo.   

Next she placed a scoop of fish roe on top of the pile of ingredients.  

Then wrap the ingredients up with the seaweed.  My young foodie enjoying her California roll when she was back after a long day at school. She was one very, very happy girl

Me, I enjoy my California roll with all the ingredients minus the rice

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Whenever there is pasta, spaghetti or noodles, I will have no problem getting Baby to eat her meals on her own. She can kuai kuai sit on her booster seat at the dining table and chomp down the bowl of noodles or pasta in a jiffy by herself. But my mil says Baby is Chinese and she has to learn to eat rice coz Chinese eat rice. For the past 2 days, I have had no luck getting her to eat rice with dishes. She would only eat a couple of spoonfuls, then she would turn her head away when I bring the spoonful of rice to her mouth. The rice ended up in the bin and she ended up eating bread with cheese spread.

A few days ago, I cooked chicken porridge and threw in some diced carrots and french beans. This is what happened:

This little rascal had absolutely no interest in the porridge which I find very tasty and played with it with both her hands.

She squashed and squashed the porridge and then clapped her porridge filled hands!!!  It was a total mess everywhere and she needed a shower immediately after dinner. The remaining crockpot of porridge went into my maid’s tummy.

Yesterday I made her mushroom pasta with diced carrots and voila, she whacked the bowl of pasta by herself, no problem, fuss-free and stress-free!

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Baby’s Terrible Two symptoms are getting stronger and stronger each day. It’s now a chore and struggle to get her to pee in her potty, let alone poo poo. She did very well in this department when she was first potty trained at about 15 months old. Now, she has regressed, boo hoo hoo….

Yesterday morning, her diaper was overloaded with pee. When I tried to bring her to the bathroom to wash up, she as usual bawled, arched her back, screamed, kicked and almost banged her head on the wall when she struggled. Now, I need my maid to help me coax / carry Baby to go to the bathroom. I suspect that Baby does not liked her down under being sprayed with water each time she pees. But I have no choice but to bite the bullet and break my back, due to her medical history. Anyway, coming back to yesterday morning’s incident. After I had cleaned her up and changed her diaper, my maid led her back to the living room to watch TV, while I took my shower. As Baby was walking to the living room, she grumbled and mumbled this to my maid “kakak, mummy notti”! (naughty)

Second incident yesterday morning. After her shower, when I took out the singlet that she normally wears at home to put it on her, Baby bawled again. She screamed and kept saying “dowan tis, dowan tis, I wan kai kai, please kai kai, mummy please kai kai” … and then ran to the drawer and fished out her favorite dress meant for outing. She is now at the stage of resisting whatever clothes that I have chosen for her. Instead, she wants to choose clothes herself - all kai kai clothes!

Third incident yesterday morning. As I was removing Baby’s diaper before her shower, she pushed my hands away and said this “tik out self” (take out myself) and then insisted to remove the diaper herself!

Fourth incident, which happened 2 days ago. When rascal #2 poured all the foam alphabet from the box onto the floor to play, Baby scolded her jie jie and said this “so messy jie jie“!

My Baby is really growing up way too fast. Though she is at her cutest now, I nevertheless can’t wait for her to grow up so that I can regain my independance!  

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News of a 9-year old girl who was almost abducted in her school recently sent shivers down my spine. I was waiting with Alycia at the lobby for the driver to pick her up yesterday morning when I read the news in the newspapers. I immediately showed the paper to her and exaggerated a bit to scare her. Kids, you really have to scare them out of their wits to leave an impact in their head…. and you have to be an old granny who keeps reminding/nagging them everyday, lest they will forget. I told Alycia that if anyone, woman or man walks up to her and tells her that I have instructed that person to pick her up from school, ask that person “what’s my mummy’s name?” and “what’s my daddy’s name”. Even if that person knows, don’t follow him/her home. Run as fast as you can to the school office and tell a teacher.

I have been drumming into Alycia and Sherilyn’s head never ever to follow a stranger home, no matter how convincing that person may appear. I told them that they should never accept any food from strangers too and used Snow White and the poison apple as an example. The news yesterday made me rant and rant to Alycia. I don’t care if she liked it or not, my goal is to make her remember to never follow any stranger home.

After nagging and reminding her, I then asked her this to test her if she knew what to do:

Me - Alycia, what must you do if a lady whom you don’t know told you that mummy asked you to follow her home?

Alycia - haiyah…. I will say I AM NOT FOLLOWING YOU HOME! (she was pissed off with my long-windedness haha!)

Me - what else must you do?

Alycia - mu_mmy, I want to buy a long ruler today!
(She was badgering me to allow her to buy a long ruler by herself at the school’s bookstore)

Me - you must run as fast as you can to the office or to any teacher and tell them what happened.

Alycia - ok, ok. Mu_mmy, I said I want to buy a long ruler today!

Me - NO! I will ask daddy to bring you to the stationery shop to buy the long ruler in the evening.

Alycia - That stationery shop don’t have long rulers.

Me - Who says? A long ruler is a very common item. Any stationery shop will sell long rulers. Daddy will bring you to buy this evening. You don’t buy the ruler yourself.

Alycia - Mu_mmy, but I want to buy.  My friends can buy anything that they want in school.

Me - NO means NO and you better make sure you don’t follow any stranger home or you will never ever see me again!

And guess what, Alycia came back from school yesterday with 2 long rulers. 2 of her classmates (boys) bought her a long ruler each! She seems to be able to get her classmates to buy her anything that she wants from fish balls to Vitagen, nuggets, mechanical pencil to long rulers and she told me that her classmates willingly bought them for her.

Long story cut short, my mil and I were mad that she has been accepting things from her classmates and told her vehemently that she has to return the 2 long rulers to her classmates the next day. We nagged her till she was in tears. This girl is really sensitive and will be in tears very, very easily, unlike rascal #2 who is the polar opposite.

Ever since Alycia attended Primary, I worry about her in school a lot. I pray to God everyday that she will come home to me safely everyday. Well, that’s one of the things that a mother worries about, that’s one of the throes of motherhood.

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of wellnessdaily.com. All opinions are 100% mine.

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I have been extremely busy the past few days. Was busy with:

1) Orders from my blogshop
2) An enquiry from a customer from California who wanted to purchase 25 pieces of clothing from my blogshop.
3) Busy replying emails.
4) Busy calling / texting / emailing my suppliers.
5) Busy coaching Alycia in her homework. In the beginning, there was not much homework given. However, things have changed now. Homework is getting heavier by the day. 2 days ago, Alycia was given 2 worksheets to complete at home. The worksheets consisted of Math, BM, English and Mandarin and each set of worksheet had about 10 pages!! Alycia stayed up until 10ish pm to complete her work, then I hurried her off to bed. The next morning when she dragged herself out from bed, she was so sleepy that she sat at the dining table chair with her eyes closed and could not bring herself up to drink her milk.
6) Busy coaching Sherilyn in her homework and teaching her Math.
7) Busy bringing Baby to the potty and washing her up after each pee. With Baby, I have to make sure that she pees very frequently and her down under is squeaky clean to prevent another UTI.
Busy coaxing Baby to pee, to poo and to wear clothes that she’s supposed to wear at home. This I will blog in another post. This cutie pie is slowly transforming into a rascal as her 2nd birthday is fast approaching.
9) Tried to blog-hop to at least 3 blogs each day.
10) Tried to update my 3 blogs. For my health blog, I have to do a lot of reading to find interesting health related articles. 
11) Spoon-feed Baby formula milk.
12) Still run and exercise at least 30-40 minutes every morning without fail.

and sigh….. I don’t even have time to finish reading the newspapers.
Have no time to ‘p8at’ in Facebook
No time to visit blogs that I really wanted to visit
No time to finish last month’s Reader’s Digest
No time to read the Bible … can’t even remember when the last time was that I read it *forgive me God*
No time to do things that I love to do

…sigh……

Here’s a pic of rascal #2 who had dozed off on the couch. This rascal hardly takes her nap in the afternoon now. By 9pm, she is normally so sleepy that she would doze off at the couch while watching TV.

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This invitation is open to everyone! I am pretty sure many of you have stuff that you want to dispose of but don’t know where to dispose them or who to give them to. Sometimes, you feel that it would be a tad too ’sayang’ to give your stuff away and have thought of selling it. Well, now you can sell your stuff both old and new at my blogshop, Old And New Stuff For Sale!

You can sell just about any stuff - old baby clothes, your old clothes, bags, costume jelweries, accessories, belts, iPod, your old car (!!) and anything under the sky that you have EXCEPT for pornographic stuff, illegal stuff, banned stuff and stuff that I don’t support.  Listing of your stuff at my blogshop will be subject to my review and approval. You only pay me 20% in handling / listing fee and commission. For eg. if someone buys your old handbag at RM20, you only need to pay me RM4, that’s it!

You can also make nice stuff - costume jewelries, crafts, kids’ stuff, even cakes, cookies, etc. and sell them at my blogshop.

This is the procedure:

1) Take pix of your stuff
2) Write description of your stuff
3) Set pricing for your stuff
4) Email the pix and description of your stuff to shireenyong@gmail.com
5) I will post your pix and description of your stuff in my blogshop
6) Any enquiries from interested customers, I will direct them to you.
7) Payment will be to my bank account.
I will transfer the money to your account less 20% (10% handling / listing fee + 10% commission) to be paid to me.

You like this stuff? If you love my stuff, quick go through your wardrobe and garage/storeroom to look for old stuff now, snap pix and email them to me.   Spread this news to your friends and relatives too.  You don’t have to go to eBay or sweat it out at the weekend bazaar to sell your stuff now!   Sell it at Old And New Stuff For Sale.

BTW, I got this idea from self-made millionaire Rob Kalin when I read from last month’s Reader’s Digest about how he made his millions doing this at his website. He is only 29 years old and he grosses more than USD12 million a year!! Well, I don’t dream of making this much, just a million a year will suffice

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I have always loved having my hair long. When I was in primary school, my mum did not allow me to keep my hair long as my hair was once infested with head lice. I was in Primary 2 then. Since then, my mum was adamant that my hair was kept short, until I was older and knew how to care for my hair properly, i.e. with proper washing and regular combing. I still remember that when I was about 12, I kept looking at hairstyles magazines and all I wanted for my birthday was an approval from my mum to allow me to have my hair kept long! My birthday wish was granted and since then, my hair has been long most of the time. Occasionally, I still cut my hair short, but with the latest hairstyles. I am a vain pot too and my 2 younger gals have inherited my genes

Throughout my adulthood, my hair has always been long. I prefer to let my hair down as it is more feminine this way. Ever since my kids came along, my hair has always been tied up. With 3 hyper-active and demanding kids, I sweat all the time and it’s hard to work when your hair is all over your face. Thus, I feel more comfortable having my hair tied up. Lately, I have been looking at the latest hair styles magazines and websites and am so tempted to have my hair cut short to chin-level, something like Victoria Beckham and Paris Hilton’s bob hairstyle! A Bob hairstyle is the easiest to manage for a busy WFHM like me who is devoid of time for hair grooming or make-up. But I really have to sleep over my decision to have my hair cut short, lest I’ll live with regret for the next 1 year when the new hairstyle proves disastrous.

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