cousin time in Yong Peng

School holidays have come and gone in the blink of an eye. We started with a busy weekend - Joe's sports day, followed by 3 full days in church for VBS (Vacation Bible School).

The kids are underaged (VBS is for 6-11 year olds) but were there because their father was in charge of worship.
On Tuesday evening, I told Joe that I had to work the next day, and he would be staying at home because it's the school holidays. Joe said, "Let's go to megamall!!!"

Hmm....he must think holiday = kai kai.

So anyway, I explained to him that he had to stay home for 2 days and then on Friday, we would go to Yong Peng.

Mama : Today is Tuesday. Tomorrow is...?

Joe : (sings his days of the week song) Monday....Tuesday.... ohh....I know....Wednesday!

Mama : Good....and after wednesday is...?

Joe : (starts singing from the beginning again) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.... ahh...Thursday!

Mama : Good! And after that will be...?

Joe : (starts singing again...from the beginning) Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.......it's Friday!

Mama : Ok...on Friday...we will go to Yong Peng.

Joe : When we go to Yong Peng...have to be very good. Because....Ah Koh is very fierce!

At this point Mama is dumbfounded!

Mama : So at home you don't have to be good? Would you like me to be fierce like Ah Koh?

Joe : No.....I want you to stay just the way you are.

Mama : Why? So you can bully me?

Joe : No....so I can love you!

So anyway... we went to Yong Peng on Friday. The kids napped all the way there and was fully recharged when we arrived. Joseph and Brandon had a good time fighting, playing, bullying each other. Now and then each will complain about the other but overall, I think they had a good time.

Joy-Anne also had a very good time, especially on the bicycle. She went for lots of rides.

She didn't play much with Mabel. We'll have to wait till Mabel toughens up.

two, three or more?

I have been thinking : How many children should we have?

In this day and age, most people would agree that it is appropriate to 'close shop' since we already have a boy and a girl.

I now have, in many people's opinion, a perfect family. And I'm absolutely thankful for that!

Edwin has been checking out MPVs. He wants at least one more child. Me? I'm not sure.

Looking at my 2 delightful kids, more children = more fun!

I don't mind pregnancy and childbirth. But it's the first 6 months that terrifies me. I get so stressed out with night feeds, low milk supply and endless bouts of crying.

Babies = breastfeeding. But I have a love-hate relatonship with breastfeeding. From experience with Joseph and Joy-Anne, my babies take forever to feed. I would start feeding at 8am and finish at 9am. Then the next feed starts at 10am and finishes at 11am. This goes on all day! I felt like a full-time cow! If not for my mother's help, nothing else in the house would get done. In spite of how troublesome and inconvenient it seems, I cannot bring myself to not breastfeed simply because it's the right thing to do.

So we've been talking to friends who have more children.

The Godly words of wisdom they impart is to have more children. God's first command (even before the 10Commandments and way before the Great Commission) is to "be fruitful and multiply".

I googled "How many children should I have?" and got some interesting results...

Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor for TimesOnline says, "COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment".

In his research, sociology professor Hans-Peter Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania, found that people with children are, in fact, happier than those without children.

In comparing identical twins, Kohler found that mothers with one child are about 20 percent happier than their childless counterparts; Interestingly, second and third children don't add to parents' happiness at all. In fact, these additional children seem to make mothers less happy than mothers with only one child—though still happier than women with no children.

With more children, there is the worry of how we would raise them, educate them and care for them? I've only got a pair of hands (and so does every other mother). But as Foong Lin, Lily and Jean puts it.... it's a journey of faith.

Now that I'm a parent, I look at my parents and my in-laws and I wonder how they raised their children. My family of 3 siblings survived on my father's lone pastor's salary. Surely all the holidays, piano lessons, violin lessons and everything else are by God's providence. My in-laws gave all 3 of their children each an overseas university education on teacher's salaries. And we all turned out just fine.

Of course, I have no intention of emulating Nadya Suleman - the single mother of 14 children (with no stable income). Neither will I emulate my maternal grandmother who had 10 children.

I don't want to be irresponsible. But maybe, just maybe....in God's perfect timing.... we will have more.

Joe's first Sports Day

Yesterday morning, we got up early to go to YukChai school for Joe's sports day. Joe was the first from his class to arrive. Teacher Hong Hong had asked for help from ChildrenChurch leaders so we availed ourselves. She asked us to be there by 7.30am but in the end, didn't require us to do anything because they got enough teenagers to help out.

The event started promptly with a march past.

The kids then assembled in the field while Mrs Cynthia Ngui, Pr Margaret and Pr Daniel gave their speeches.

Joy-Anne enjoyed posing for Mei Ling, one of the official photographers.

We participated in one of the parent games.

Joy also ran around....very busy body.

Joseph's event was the second last. He waited very patiently for his turn.

He had to fish with a chopstick and then run to drop it into the 'shark' mouth at the end. He dropped his fish twice.

I told him it was ok....as long as he did his best. All in good fun.

He got his medal from Pr Mike. Pr Mike is Mrs Cynthia (the principal)'s hubby.

Later, Joe told me "Mama....I want to give the medal to you. Because you are so good to me".

I asked him if he had fun and he said he did.

It was a good day even with the slight shower which only served to cool the weather.

YeeTeow's last day in Malaysia

Friday morning I took YeeYee and YeeTeow to 1-Utama. We walked around and then YeeTeow had his ice-kacang fix.
We spent most of the day there...while Joy-Anne slept in her stroller, I had a free massage on a RM23K Osim chair and fell asleep momentarily too. YeeYee and YeeTeow went to get a foot reflexology massage.

In the afternoon, we went home to get Joe, and then went to Ah Ku's office.

Before YeeTeow left, I had to ensure I got a photo of my clientele. For barber services that is.

They all look so handsome, don't they?



Before putting the kids to bed, YeeTeow and YeeYee said their goodbyes.

Joy has grown so much since her last goodbye with YeeTeow.

YeeTeow looks all ready for fatherhood don't you think?


Joe also covered them with slobbery kisses...

Joe understands that they have gone back to Philadelphia. But as for Joy...this morning, she asked me, "YeeYee where?"

Thank you YeeYee and YeeTeow for all the lovely stuff you brought back. Hope you had a wonderful time here.

family dinners and horse races

Ah Ku and Kim Kim came back from their short honeymoon (in Cameron Highlands) on Wednesday. We had a family dinner together. Joseph wanted to ride a 'horse'. So we had a 'illegal' horse race. He's not very good at playing fair because he will insist that he wins.

He blocks Joy-Anne so that he gets a headstart.

After that the kids helped Ah Ku and Kim Kim to open some presents.

This is a handmade gift from Ruth and QuanYoung. Ah Ku told me to put this photo up.

Joy wanted to climb the soyabean milk maker.

On Thursday, yee yee dressed Joy in her wedding veil to take photos.

Someday I'll put this photo up on her wedding day :-)

On Thursday, Ah Ku and Kim Kim came over for dinner again. This time we remembered to take a photo.

And then we had another illegal horse race.

I think Joe is gonna miss this 'horse' when the horse goes home today.

It'll be quite some time before we have another family dinner and more horse races.

outings with YeeYee & YeeTeow

Monday - we went to Midvalley Megamall after fetching Joseph from school. YeeTeow wanted to bring us to this taiwanese restaurant that is supposedly world-famous for siau long pau.
We had 6 trays of siau long pau (total of 60 paus) for 6 adults.


It was good but pricey. Good thing USD paid.

Joy-Anne slept for 2 hours while we ate. She woke up in ToysRUs.

Then we went for tea. YeeYee bought a chocolate-covered doughnut from BigApple for Joseph. RM2.20 for a doughnut! But YeeYee says she has never seen BigApple doughnuts in the Big Apple (New York)!!!

Joseph also wanted the yummy porridge from the Yoo!tiow stall. Joy also ate some porridge.

I think she looked very pretty and grown-up in her new dress from USA. Size 4T!

After a whole day out, Joseph fell asleep in the car, even before we got out of the Megamall car park. He slept on even when I took him out of the car and into the stroller.

Tuesday - YeeYee and YeeTeow roamed KLCC by themselves.

Wednesday - mama took leave to be cab driver for a day. We went to Ikea/Ikano/Curve/Tesco.

Joy-Anne dozed off at 12.15pm and slept in her stroller for 2.5 hours.

After she woke up, she didn't want to drink her milk.

She found a soft toy football which she clung onto.

She didn't want to put it back and YeeTeow tried hard to pry it from her.

She pulled it far from YeeTeow....

Then she shed crocodile tears so YeeTeow had to give it back to her.

Finally mama got it away from her by exchanging the ball for the photo frames that mama intended to buy.

Then we went to Tesco to get food...

Joy played with YeeTeow's nose...

And then he fed her doughnut because she still didn't want to drink her milk.

We got home at almost 6pm. Just in time for Joy-Anne to do her big business. She's a very good baby.....hardly ever poos when we're out.

And then she kept washing her hands.....obsessive compulsive disorder???

She can push the stool to the sink, climb up and switch the tap on all by herself!

And then she pumps the soap and washes her own hands....all by herself!

YeeYee is trying to test YeeTeow's child-minding skills....

She says he has to pass her 'tests' before they can have kids.

I hope he passes by tomorrow because they leave on Friday.