Haagen Dazs Unlimited

We're back in Penang and last night decided to indulge in some sinful gluttony. 'The Cafe' at The Berjaya Georgetown Hotel has themed buffet dinner every night from Fridays to Sundays which include unlimited amounts of Haagen Dazs ice-cream. For RM38++, you can eat all the food you want and gorge yourself with ice-cream until you lau sai.
Seafood bisque, seafood paella, smoked salmon, curry fish, pasta marinara, jelly fish kerabu, etc etc.... Eat until you don't want to see the seafood.

round 1

pasta marinara - cooked on order.

grilled to order seafood

desserts

Joy-Anne busying herself while we eat

Joseph ate mainly the seafood paella without the seafood, fish and potatoes. He said, "eat rice with jelly and butter." He has gross eating habits and I'm quite sure he didn't inherit that from me

Joy-Anne ate her dinner and made a mess as usual.

I had 5 scoops of Haagen Dazs ice-cream in all. My stomach capacity has certainly shrunk.

Joseph also had ice-cream... and I made sure he brushed his teeth before going to bed at night. Joy-Anne only ate ice-cream cone although Nana would have loved to feed her more than just that.

It was a pretty good deal since senior citizens get 50% discount. And these senior citizens can really eat.

the happy senior citizens

Dutch Lady Learning Exhibition

Joe had a very enjoyable time at the Dutch Lady Learning Exhibition which is on at the MidValley Exhibition Center till 2Dec2008. We've been there twice already.

It's actually pretty educational for adult too. We get to experience what a child does when he/she is learning how to walk (there's a lumpy platform for us to walk on), learning to write, and learning to feed him/herself.

Joe : See mama....I draw mountain!

There are 7 stations in all. This is the balance beam one. Nothing too extraordinary.

Joe liked playing with the playdoh because I don't let him do it at home. It gets wayyyyy too messy because I find playdoh in every nook and cranny of the house.

And this has got to be his favourite....outer space!

We told him he had to nap in the afternoon so that he could go see outer space when mama got home from work. And he slept all by himself without anyone patting him. Very early and quickly too.
He pointed out Saturn and he knows the biggest planet is Jupiter. Then I pointed up to the ceiling and asked him what he saw up there. He said "constellations". And then he pointed out The Big Dipper and The Little Dipper.

Finally he also had fun on the huge car bed (custom made to fit 2 queen-sized mattress) with Uncle Ravi who is Ah Ku's clown-colleague. Uncle Ravi told him stories and drew a nice picture for him.

I hope he doesn't think the exhibition is a permanent feature and wants to go again.

who has the bigger bicep?

We went to the park on Sunday morning. When we got back home, the boys had a topless time showing off their muscles. (yes yes....I can 'hear' some people saying "where got?")

Or more like who has the bigger ribcage???

And who has the prettiest smile?

And what exactly did we do at the park??? Stay tuned...

bathtub for 2

Physics from a 3-year-old

We were reading together another book that Joe borrowed from the Children's Church library. There was a picture of a giant squid. And I asked him how a giant squid moves. He said this....

"It takes water into a special part of its body and then pushes it out from the back. When something goes back, then you can go forward."

I just smiled in amazement. The week before, he read another book - God thought of it first. It's about things around us and how the invention idea actually comes from creation e.g. the helicopter works like a hummingbird and and aeroplane works like a giant squid. I was just amazed at how he understood it and could explain it back to me.

morning in the playground

I had good morning with Joseph in the playground. The weather was lovely - cloudy with a cool breeze. It almost felt like we were in Cameron Highlands.

Joseph made me really happy.... he sat down at the playground and we had a chat...

J : hmm...looks like it's just you and me. Yup, mothe and son time. Come on mama... let's talk about mother and son time.

M : (trying not to laugh too much) ok... what shall we talk about?

J : let's sing the mama and jojo song. I sing first... (starts to sing) you are my mama... my only mama... you make me happy...when I am sad...you never know dear... how much I love you...please don't take my mama away..... (then he hugs me and plants a kiss on my cheek and says...) I love you mama!

M : awww.... you're so sweet. I love you too Joe. (then I sing it back to him)


Joy-Anne joined us at the playground later. It was her first time. She was quite happy.

samseng princess

Joy-Anne may be younger....but even at this age, she seems more tough than her brother was when he was this age.

to make Yee Yee laugh...

Today....Joy-Anne suddenly picked up Nana's cellphone, put it to her ear and said, "Ooohhhhh..."

The busy mum's guide to losing post-natal flab

1. Breastfeed

I won't go into the details of the numerous benefits that far outweigh the downside of droppy breasts, sleepless nights and not being able to go on long vacation. You can find all that information via google. It's great to burn calories while just sitting and bonding with my cute baby (while she digs her fingers into my mouth, my nose, pulls my hair and kicks the chair/table)

2. Carry baby in a sling while shopping

Since there's no time to lift weights at the gym, this is the next best thing. I get to burn calories, hold her close, smell her and develop muscles all at the same time.

3. Rock baby to sleep

Do this at every opportunity you get. Sarongs are known to be dangerous. By rocking baby to sleep, you get to practise your singing, burn calories, develop muscles and get close to baby.

4. Do mini-workouts

I sometimes put baby on the bed and do push-ups while talking to her. Then I make her 'fly' by lying on my back with her on my legs and I do sit ups. At other times, I do some exercises on the trampoline or use the pilates band while talking to baby who is safe in the playpen.

5. Park further to walk more.

It's 6 levels from where I park the car in P2 all the way up to the 2nd floor where I work. (There's P2, P1, LG, G, 1 and 2) Instead of taking the elevator, I walk through the mall using the escalator. I also walk as much as I can while doing grocery shopping during lunch hour.

6. Eat healthy

One makcik told me that bayam helps to increase breast milk production. Even if it doesn't, it does have a lot of iron and helps ease the morning big business ritual.

This morning, I stepped on the scales (I do this every morning after big business) and for the first time in years, my weight dipped below 48kg. Yup....the digital scale showed 47.9kg. Now if only I could invert this everted belly button....

Visiting mama at work

Tuesday was Teeth-cleaning Day! My mum needed a scaling so I decided to have daalin and Joe do the same.

Daalin went first and after the scaling, I let Joe help to polish daalin's teeth.

This was to help allay his fears because he said, "I'm too scared" when I told him about a dental visit.

whhhhrrrrrrr......

After seeing what happens up close and having a better understanding, he gladly got into the chair.

He obediently opened his mouth and let me polish his little teeth. Absolutely no fuss!

I was really surprised because he usually squirms around and does monkey faces when I brush his teeth every night. Needless to say, I was very proud of him and gave him 2 stickers when I got home.

see my clean and white teeth

Joe's busy Monday

Yesterday, we stayed home to recover from the tiring Sunday we had. Joe kept himself busy at home.

First....I learnt a new thing. Did you know that you can turn the entire computer screen upside down? Yup! Even the mouse cursor works upside down i.e. if you move the mouse up, the cursor goes down and vice versa. Well....I found out about this function (although I wonder who on earth would need to view it upside down) when Joseph pressed some buttons and poof! the whole screen went upside down.

I called daalin who had to ask his student for help and we learnt that to fix the problem, you press Ctrl + Alt + the up arrow button. To make it upside down, you press Ctrl + Alt + the down arrow button. Go have fun!

Then, Joe broke my chair. I was sitting on it while feeding Joy-Anne at the computer and Joseph was climbing behind me when suddenly I heard this loud thud and turned around to see the backrest on the floor.

Next up, we build 'outer space' together! Joseph borrowed a book from Children's Church library. So I read the book for him and when we got to this page...

...before I said anything, he pointed to Saturn and said, "this is Saturn". Needless to say, I was surprised! I then asked him how he knew and he said, "yah....from Little Einstein!"

I guess tv ain't all bad.

So I took out Joy-Anne's baby mobile, took out all the soft toys and replaced it with ping pong balls on string. I made Saturn's rings out of cardboard.

I also made him a simple rocket using more cardboard. He enjoyed it so much!