Health Freak Mommy

I Am Going To Melt!

admin — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:22:53 +0000

As I am typing this post, the girls are now at the pool, attending swimming lesson. Today has been an exceptionally hot and humid day. You can see from the picture that the temperature is 35 degrees Celsius. I do not even feel like sitting under the cabana to watch them swim. I am already sweating profusely sitting under the fan and packing my customers’ parcels. If I sit under the cabana in such sweltering weather, I’ll definitely melt like a block of butter! Eeeesh, hate the itchiness all over my body now. I tend to have heat itch whenever the temperature goes up. I think I better come up with a migration plan to migrate to some cold countries!

Bye Bye School, Welcome Holidays!

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:06:23 +0000

Today is Cass’ kindy’s parents-teachers day where the parents will meet the teachers and collect the child’s report card. I wonder how she has fared in her first ever classroom style exam. For BM, she has just started to master suku kata and has just started to get the hang of stringing the suku katas to form a word. For English, her word recognition is still at beginner’s level. Her Math is pretty good but she may have had problems reading the questions during the test. I have been wondering how she coped reading the test papers. Well, even if she gets red eggs for some papers, I ain’t going to scold her. I will continue to read to her as often as I can find the time to. In the meantime, we are going to enjoy our 2 weeks school holidays before the grind begins and school exams put the pressure on us again.

Tomorrow will be the kids’ teacher’s day celebration and class party. And today, I will be a nice mummy as I will be buying JUNK FOOD for their class party tomorrow kekekeke

Hot Hot Day Again

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 03:33:09 +0000

Today is another skin grilling, super hot, hazy and humid day. A 15-minute laundry hanging at my balcony at 10am, with streaks of burning hot sun rays roasting my skin all over made me perspire as if I had spent half an hour in the sauna, I kid you not. Yesterday I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that I’ve got a tan on my face and arms! In half an hour’s time, I have to pick up Cass from the kindy. I am still thinking if I should sweat it out and brave for a headache after a 5-minute walk to the kindy or just drive there?! Aaargh, I just hate this weather!!

Burning hot at 34 degrees Celsius at 10ish am.. I hope the temperature will not shoot up to 38 degrees again in the afternoon!

My Monday - 20 May 2013

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:06:58 +0000

This week is bound to be a nail-bitting 4 days for me from today through Thursday. My 3 daughters will bring home their Mid-Term test papers for me to sign. I think Alycia is going to be A-OK with her overall results. I have no idea how Sherilyn and Cass have fared. While Sherilyn is a pretty street smart girl who always gets what she wants through her own crafty ways, she however tends to have not much priority placed in academics. As for Cass, it is still a little early to tell but I think she is in between her 2 sisters. I know it is pointless to worry now as what’s done is done and there is no turning back. But still, I am ANXIOUS! After the 2 weeks school holiday, which will begin this Friday, it will be the much ~~dreaded~~ anticipated once-yearly report card collection and meet-the-teachers day at Alycia and Sherilyn’s school. I am already getting a headache just by typing this post, pass me the minyak angin someone!

After this 4 jittery days for me, I can get to enjoy the school holidays and catch up on my beauty sleep! We are checking into a 5-star hotel on Sunday to utilize the free hotel room stay that the hubs gets with his membership with the hotel. And next week, we will be heading back to Ipoh to bond with my parents and to ~~binge~~ savor some of the tastiest street food in the world!

Did I tell you that just last week, I turned down an opportunity of a life time from Disney for a FREE 3-day 2-night stay to Hong Kong Disneyland for 2 adults and 3 kiddos in return for some blog posts and postings in my Facebook page? It would be a work cum holiday for me. I am kind of regretting it now but well, if it’s mine, opportunity will still knock again on my door and if Disney is kind enough to accede to my request, I will accept the December free trip, that is IF they knock on my door again.

Happy 520 everyone and I hope you are not as gloomy as the weather is today

Do you have any incentive scheme for your child to study hard and to score well?

admin — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:04:28 +0000

It’s been almost 2 years and Alycia is still not through with her craze over the mouse series, Geronimo Stilton. She also favors Wimpy Kid, Enid Blyton, Famous Five, Ronald Dahl, Helen Moss, James Lee and any type of manga and comics. Well, basically this girl just loves to read books and magazines except her school books alright. She even hijacks my Reader’s Digest. And Geronimo Stilton and Thea Stilton are still her first love. I have been telling Alycia that she has to get over Geronimo Stilton and move on to other authors. She has over 50 titles and still wants to collect more!

Just about a week ago, I was pretty stressed up preparing Alycia, Sherilyn and Cass for their Mid Year exam, which started on Monday and ended today (YAY!!!!!!!). And Alycia was pretty stressed up too, with her throwing tantrums and getting emotional each time I gave her my stack of Math questions, which I set myself and I copied some questions from her school exercise books and work books. I did not want to pressure her too much, lest she goes cuckoo o_O! During one of those early morning exercise sessions, a light bulb moment popped up! I told Alycia that I would ~~bribe~~ reward her with a Geronimo Stilton book for every 90% and above she could score for her test papers. She was totally cranked up when she heard that and I could feel she was already very motivated to study hard *evil smile from Tiger Mum*!

As of today, Alycia has already earned 2 Geronimo Stilton books — 1 for 96% for her Math and 1 for 95% for Chinese paper. I hope she gets to claim more rewards from us next week, even though this would mean a dent in our wallets.

I know some of you may not agree with such incentive to motivate your child to study hard and to score well. For me, if the reward ain’t very expensive and if it works in motivating my girls, I’m fine with it I believe in spicing up your child’s stressful school life with some ’sweets’. Even we adults are motivated to work harder when our bosses promises us with good performance bonus and merit increments, right? Just to side track a little, yous truly was a recipient of Merit Award and Merit Increment every year when I was working in a bank ;) So I strongly believe in some ’sweets’ for motivation.

Do you have any incentive scheme for your child to study hard and to score well?

Beet Root Smoothies

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:41:28 +0000

Today, I made some healthy smoothies with beet root, the root that is a well-known powerhouse of antioxidants and soluble fiber. With one medium size beet root, I made:

1) beet root + green apple + chia seeds smoothie for myself. I used about 3/4 of the beet root and 1 whole green apple.

2) less than 1/4 beet root + 3 oranges + 6 strawberries + chia seeds to make 3 cups of smoothies for the 3 princesses. I used strawberries to mask the raw taste of beet root and to add flavor to the smoothie. I love adding strawberries to my smoothies to add flavor and sweetness.

Since beet root is high in fiber, I had to add about 3/4 cups of water to blend with the beet root and fruits to dilute the smoothie and to make it smoother and easier to swallow. I was really surprised that my girls had no problem gulping down their cup of healthy tonic. In fact, my most pernickety eater, Alycia is the biggest fan of all, of my healthy smoothies. She likes it as she could drink it chilled and this is also the only time I relax on the ‘no cold drinks and cold food’ restriction on her. This girl of mine has a sensitive throat and gets phlegm pretty easily. Recently it got so bad that each time she drank ice drinks or ate ice cream, the phlegm would gag her throat till she puked after her meals. Ever since I imposed the ‘no cold drinks / cold food’ restriction on her plus removed milk from her cold turkey, her throat has improved remarkably well.

Scorching Hot Weather

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:38:12 +0000

The weather for the past few days has been killing! A 5-minute stroll in the open air during the day when the sun is scorching hot can literally grill your skin till it browns with sweat sizzling out from every single pore on your body. It is so hot that I have to shower 3-4 times a day. My poor rascal is down with a fever yesterday. It was the first day of her exam yesterday. She came home yesterday looking like a zombie and complained of headache and feeling hot. And she told me that she thinks she will fail in her BM test as she was feeling dizzy the whole day in school.

Yesterday’s temperature was 36 degrees Celsius. Everyone at home had flush cheeks, sweaty heads and sticky bodies. According to the Meteorological Department, this super hot and humid weather will continue until end of May! I think by then, I would have succumbed to the heat wave and fallen ill as well.

Dear God, please help Sherilyn to be fit and well today to sit for her Science in Chinese and English test papers today. Please help her to answer the test papers intelligently and well, amen!

The sick cat only had appetite to eat bread with avocado and cool cucumbers for dinner. I was amazed that this rascal found this sandwich combo appealing! I’m glad that she has the health freak genes and taste bud in her too

The Great Flood

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:14:29 +0000

I have crossed path with several major ‘tornados’ in my life. Though the tornados tossed and tumbled me 360 degrees in the air, I am glad God gave me the resilience to pick up my composure and helped me to rebuild my life after the ‘tornados’. Tornados as you know are only fleeting. They come without much warning and when they reach you, there is no way you can run away from it. Within a few minutes, your whole life is upside down and the tornado would be gone after wrecking total havoc for just a few minutes. That was what happened in February 2006. The great flood came without any warning. It was around 5ish in the morning and it had been raining for several hours. Suddenly, I heard ‘waves’ outside our landed house. I quickly went down to check and to my horror, I saw muddy water seeping quickly into our house!! That was the ultimate nightmare that turned into reality! Within 2 hours, the flood water reached our waist. My hubs and I, along with our live-in maid moved around like speedy Gonzales, salvaging whatever we could as speedily as possible. There was no time to drive our 2 cars out to the bridge, where the level was higher there. We could only watch our 2 cars submerge in muddy waters. Inside my car was baby Sherilyn’s expensive car seat, immersed in the filthy water.

Next we heard things collapsing in our kitchen. First it was our 2-door fridge that tumbled. Then our 2 washing machines turned to their sides too. Then we remembered our Beagle dog at the back! Gosh, it was a scene from Titanic. But amidst it all, my hubs and I could still record the horrific scenes with the camcorder. We tried to make the best out of a disaster and managed to crack some jokes. Today, our kids find a lot of amusement each time they watch the video of this great flood.

We later found out that the main cause of the flood was due to clogging of some of the big drains at the neighborhood. Some irresponsible developer who was constructing houses at the neighborhood clogged the drains. After the great flood, our entire residential area looked like a post-Tsunami scene. Because of some irresponsible people, we the residents suffered and paid for their mistakes. We could not claim a single cent from our insurers and suffered close to over RM20k in losses to our belongings. The irresponsible people were evading the blame and accusations. The clogged drains needed major clearing and some drains needed to be installed again. I hope the developer did engage some experts in drains and drainage like those drain installation Toronto specialists to prevent another flood. We were lucky that just months after the flood, we managed to get a buyer for our house and the buyer was well aware of the terrible flood! We were once again the lucky unlucky couple when the buyer signed the S & P Agreement!

Exam Season Yet Again

admin — Mon, 13 May 2013 05:37:13 +0000

It’s the most dreaded time of the year again. This time, I have 3 times the amount of stress as Cass is in her 2nd last year of kindy and has to sit for the twice-yearly exam as well. Today, I spent my morning doing revision with Cass. It is a kindy holiday for Cass as Saturday was their sports day, thus they get today off.

Fortunately, it ain’t that stressful revising with her. I remember those hair-pulling moments spent with Aly and Sherilyn each time I did revision with them in Math. Cass is pretty good with her Math and numbers. After this stressful week, I can’t wait for the school holidays to start so that I can get away from this exam pressure and enjoy our 2-week holiday, yipeeeee!!

Testing Cass on smallest number, biggest number, ascending, descending, money, time, etc.! Thank God, she has no problems mastering them. These days, a 5-year old kid has to know all these and even more!

Of Foreign Language And Translating Languages

admin — Mon, 13 May 2013 01:06:32 +0000

The other day, I was charged close to ten bucks for a half-minute call I unknowingly made to France! I had absolutely no freaking idea that my regular supplier of meat and vegetables was on a vacation in Europe with his wife. I remember him telling his customers that he would be away for 2 weeks. I asked him if he was going to China again and he nodded but this dude has only been humble, not wanting to announce his very expensive vacation touring Europe!

Can you imagine a regular and unassuming couple selling meat and vegetables on a van by the roadside and dressed mostly in almost tattered clothing most of the time touring Europe? They must have exceptionally good savings habit and I can imagine them eating only left over fresh produce that they are unable to sell off for the day. Such humble and simple lifestyle is exemplary of how a couple who work hard everyday can bring them to the four corners of the world. Yup, they had toured many countries in the past.

Anyway, I wonder how this couple communicated with the French when they were in France. They only comprehend a smattering of English and speak only Chinese. I think there must have been some English to French translators or French to English translators in the tour group to assist these Chinese speaking tourists. Or maybe there was a French to Chinese translator to assist the tourists.

Alycia’s swimming teacher is a Chinese Malaysian and he can speak fluent Japanese to the Japanese kids at our condo. He is a full-time swimming instructor who earns a very comfortable income and living in a luxury condominium. I always believe that knowing another language is an advantage. I would strongly encourage my kids to master a foreign language, be it Japanese, French, German or even Indian. Being equipped with an extra language is definitely an advantage to you in many ways. I remember my boss once paid a hefty sum to a translator to do a simple Canadian French translation for a project paper. Had I knew French, I could be the one earning the handsome pay for the translation job!