Milk tooth extraction at home

Joe lost his first milk tooth today. I had noticed it shaking a couple of weeks back and was hoping it would stay at least until after his concert. Well it did. But in the last few days, I found he could tilt it forward up to almost 90degrees. So I suggested removing it to avoid him swallowing it.

Here's how a dentist does it at home.

Get some dental floss. Be generous - make it long enough.

Tie one end around the shaky tooth. It's quite tricky with the smooth satin floss.


Here's the last picture of the tooth still in the mouth.

Tie the other end of the floss to a door knob. I let Joe pick which door he liked and he picked the bedroom door.

And this is how you do it...

He felt a pinch kind of pain at the split second when the tooth came out. But by the time he actually felt any pain, the tooth was already out.

I asked him if it was painful and he said "just a little bit" but he is game to do it again when the next tooth shakes.

This is indeed a milestone - my firstborn's losing his first milk tooth.

I'm so proud of him. But no, the tooth fairy does not live in this house.

Year-end Party and no lollipops!

Today is Joe's last day in his 5-yr-old class. My baby has only one more year in kindy before moving on to primary school! The kindy had the usual last-day-of-school-party.
When we got home, Joy also wanted to wear a costume.

I thought it was very nice of his teachers to give out little gifts to all the students. In his right hand is a present from Teacher Suet Ling and the other hand is holding the present from Teacher Kathleen.

Teacher Suet Ling is his class teacher. But because Teacher Kathleen (Lily class) can't teach Mandarin, they swap classes i.e. Teacher Suet Ling will teach Lily class mandarin while Teacher Kathleen teaches Bluebell class Bahasa Malaysia.

A lot of the food stuff that the kids brought were not eaten there but teacher packed it up into a party pack. So when Joe got home, his sister rummaged through his party pack.

I'm proud of my children. They have learnt well.

Marathon Shopping

We were out for about 10 hours in total today! Out shopping! Arriving at Ikea just before 9am, we had breakfast there with free coffee.

Thereafter the kids played at Ikea...

...and The Curve...

...until lunch time.

After lunch, we went to buy stuff and then drove over to Tesco whereupon Joseph's batteries ran out and he fell asleep in the trolley while we walked around.

Joy-Anne seemed to be high on some unknown substance. She was so hyper and was singing non-stop. For the record.... she lasted a total of 13 hours from the time she woke up at 8am!

For the duration we were out, I would probably have paid almost RM10 in Midvalley Megamall (which since 1st Nov 2010 has increased it's weekday parking by 100%!!! Disgusting!) But today, I paid nothing for parking! Zero! Zilch! Wonderful!

A butterfly and a thunderstorm - by Joseph

My storyteller... aided by a tambourine, a rotan, 2 maracas, a djembe (Balinese drum) and his sister the butterfly!

Joseph's First Concert

Joe much-anticipated-First Concert finally happened last night. He had been practising it at home when he thought no one was looking but refused to dance for me. In fact, until Saturday he told me, "The concert day is very near already. You just have to be patient for one more day".

Yesterday evening, in spite of the very heavy rain, we made our way to DreamCentre at 5pm. The children had dinner in ther classrooms while parents had dinner in the Sports Hall.
After I helped Joe's classmates to touch up on their make up, I made my way upstairs where I found Joy-Anne pining for her brother.

She kept saying, "I want my brother.....I want my brother..."

After Negaraku, speeches by Pr Daniel and Teacher Stephanie, the curtains went up to reveal a most impressive backdrop.

Joe's item was the first one - Colours of Malaysia, to the tune of Siti Nurhaliza'z Warna Warna Malaysia.

The costumes were all really colourful and beautiful. Sure looked good on stage!

I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching all the dances. The children were all very good and they danced so very well.

After the concert, Joe got a photo with his classmate, Miss C - she danced really well too.

This costume will be recycled for Chinese New Year next year. Joy wants me to "please please pretty please buy me a pink costume".

In the mean time, he'll get to wear it again on Friday at their year-end party.

White walls and what colour doors?

I have to decide.

On the paint colour for our new home. Real soon.

To make things easy, we initially decided on everything white. Yup. A white house. Or rather, home.

But after the weekend at Avillion Admiral Cove, I'm so inspired by the blue/white colour scheme which I find so soothing. Maybe just one blue wall.

Or blue curtains. I can easily change curtains when I tire of the colour.

And what colour doors? White as well? Or something else?

Breakfast & Bye Bye Avillion

Breakfast at the Traders Coffee House this morning was marginally better than yesterday's. They had guava juice and orange juice. Yesterday they had mango juice and orange juice. I started off with a bowl of fruit. The nasi lemak (only with sambal and the usual condiments, no chicken/beef.) and mee goreng looked too unhealthy. So I had some eggs, sausages and hash browns (nice and crispy).
I finished my breakfast with another huge plate of fruit. The breakfast fare is alright if you just want something to fill your stomach but can't beat the quality that we had at Saujana and Cyberview Lodge.

After breakfast, Mr Alan the General Manager arranged for the marina manager to give us a guided tour of the pontoon area.

Overall, it's been a good holiday. On the hotel - it look really nice and pleasant. Staff are friendly and courteous. The signboards leading to the hotel are rather obscure and not easy to find but Mr Alan says they are working on it.

As for the little things (in the room) that were not in working order, Mr Alan's offer to change our rooms made all the difference.

I like the Vista Wing much better. The design shows that somebody did some thinking. For example sink at the pantry, bedside power points and conveniently-located switches. The daybed is also spacious enough to sleep 2 small kids. It's actually the size of a super single bed (3.5' wide). We'll certainly consider this hotel in future, and maybe bring the kids along.

Avillion Admiral Cove for our 8th Anniversary

We take a short break every year in conjunction with our wedding anniversary. This year, we decided on a different view and found ourselves at Avillion Admiral Cove, Port Dickson. We picked the Straits Studio for RM235nett per night, booked at Matta Fair.
First impressions was that it was clean and neat.

But we eventually found lots to complain about. The safe wasn't working, the tap was faulty, the electric kettle didn't switch off automatically, there was no TV programme and the telephone was faulty as well.

Maybe it was just this one particular room we were in. Nevertheless, I liked the looks of the KDK Baby Fan. We bought one unit of this for our new home.

The view was lovely. It's a sea front hotel. Not beach front.

That's good for us because we like looking at the sea but not swimming in it.

On our second evening there, we took a short drive to check out the lighthouse in Cape Rachado.

Signboards leading to this place are quite scarce and we had to stop twice to ask for directions. We finally found the entrance to the Hutan Rekreasi hidden behind Ilham Resort. This forest reserve is actually in the state of Melaka.

We hiked the tar road and it took us 8 minutes to get to the lighthouse.

Another flight of steps took us to the gate which was locked.

So we walked around it, taking in the view.

The only other lighthouse I've seen close up was at Cape Schanck, Melbourne.

There was another trail which we walked a while but then decided to turn back because they sky looked like it was going to pour.

Back at the hotel, we got a call from the hotel General Manager, inviting us out for a drink. I suspect that it must have been due to the feedback I submitted to the reception earlier in the morning.

So we met up with Mr Alan Kay at the bar for a very friendly chat over milkshake and (virgin) pina colada. Then he kindly offered to move us to another room in their new wing.

So we got an Executive Room on the top floor of the Vista Wing - newly opened in April this year.

It's much bigger the interior deco is pleasing to the eye.

The cute little pantry area has a small sink so you don't have to go all the way to the toilet. And the kettle works nicely.

The bathroom is spacious and comes with a nice rainshower.

Tomorrow, Mr Alan has kindly offered to arrange for us to visit the pontoon area (normally restricted to only boaters).