driving in the house

One should always excercise caution when driving...

Driving while standing up is a no-no!

Joe was sulking and pouting when we wanted to take Joy-Anne's photo because he wanted to block her.

Then after he was done with his 'drama', he wanted to zoom at me.

So I gently pushed him backwards to take his photo.

After that....he said, "I skidded and crashed. Now my car is dented".

"So now....I have to fix my car!"

when mama doesn't work

...mama gets busy taking photos for yee yee to see.

kiasu baby and Bob fever

Joy-Anne is 8months old today. My mother thinks she should start studying.

Joseph will also say, "I want to study" while he disturbs Joy-Anne.

It's hard to concentrate when there's so much distraction around.

Joy-Anne eats books rather than read them. Eat books - maybe that's why she looks so skinny.

We've got the thin genes. I'm never gonna have chubby babies. Some day she'll be thankful she can eat and not grow fat.

phew...all that studying makes me tired.

Joseph is currently into Bob the Builder...

Scoop is for pooing in the toilet, Roley is for peeing by himself, Benny is for cutting hair without crying, Muck is for holding his own bottle and Lofty is for eating medicine without any fuss.

wearing his new Bob the Builder pyjamas from Ah Koh

Yee yee says it's bribery. I prefer to call it incentives.

belated mooncake festival

Ah Mah and Ah Kong came for dinner last night to have a belated mooncake festival celebration. They brought homemade mooncakes. Before marrying Edwin, I had never eaten homemade mooncakes and never did really like mooncakes.
Now...this is my favourite - the 5 nuts variety. But I eat only homemade ones. Yup...my tastebuds have been pampered. Last week I tried a 5-nuts variety one made by Genting. Supposedly cost over RM13 for one mooncake. Tasted like...blearrgghhhh!!!!

Ah Mah and Ah Kong had a good time playing with the kids.

Ah Kong tried to take photo of the kids for his cellphone. Joe wanted to see his photo in the phone and Joy-Anne also wanted to busybody.

I'm growing, jumping, learning...

Joy-Anne decided to make herself useful this morning. She used her face towel to clean the table. After wiping the table, she wiped her mouth, much to my mother's dismay.

She's also trying to walk....jumping up and down a lot in the safe confines of our very tahan lasak 6th-hand playpen.

Nope...can't escape.

Joseph is all better now.

But thinner, don't you think?

one painful night

Joseph has had fever since Thursday 4th September. He is not very cooperative when he's sick - refused medicine, won't let me sponge him and wouldn't even let me check his temperature with the digital ear thermometer.

We spent all Saturday in church and he was just lethargic, napping 3 times in total. On Saturday night, our 8th floor doctor-neighbour-friend came over with her stethescope to check him. Apart from slightly enlarged tonsils, she couldn't find anything else wrong with him.

He fell asleep at 8.30pm and then woke up at 11pm crying. I found him burning hot. I estimate now that his temperature must have gone beyond 40C because he was hotter than last night when his temperature was 39.8C.

Yesterday morning (Monday), he woke up happy without any fever. We made a visit to the paediatrician anyway since Joy-Anne was having flu. Just like our dr-friend, the paediatrician again found nothing wrong with him.

In the afternoon, his fever came back. After a dose of paracetamol at 2.30pm, he was happy for the rest of the evening until at about 8.30pm when the fever started again.

At 10pm, we decided to take him to Pantai Hospital. He was slightly delirious and did not put up any struggle. I was worried sick because he just kept saying, "mama...help me...."

I requested for a blood test to check for dengue (even though he didn't have any rash) and any other infection. So the poor boy had to be wrapped up in a blanket, held by mama and papa while doctor and 2 nurses took blood from his left hand.

They then wrapped up his hand so prevent him from pulling out the line, in case they needed to test again. We waited for about an hour for the results to come back.

Reading "Billons of bugs" book borrowed from DUMC Children's Church library while waiting for the results.....he wanted my head on his, and I had to hold his left hand, while hugging him too. Unfortunately I only have 2 hands, so he settled for just putting his left hand on my lap.

The results came back at about 11.30pm - all normal. No dengue. Doctor said it's probably some potent, unknown virus. So we could go home.

waiting to have the bandage and line removed

Joseph was very good and didn't move at all while the nurse removed the bandage and the line.

He was much happier when we left the hospital because the fever dropped to about 38.6C after a dose of paracetamol.

see my plastered hand....I can go home now.

This morning - Day 6, he woke up grumpy and very manja....slightly warm. I'm glad to say he took the medicine without much fuss. I can feed it to him alone - which is a very big improvement considering it used to take 3 persons to feed him medicine. I hope and pray he recovers completely soon.

learning from Playhouse Disney

Last week at bedtime, Joseph said he wanted to carry Joy-Anne. So we put her on his lap and he hugged her. Then I asked him if he wanted to say a good night prayer for his sister and he said, "yes." So he did. After that, he leaned over, kissed her forehead and said, "I love you sweetie".

I was very pleasantly surprised. He said he learnt it from watching Jojo's Circus on Playhouse Disney Channel.

------

I'm so surprised that a 3-year-old can tell the difference between a screw and a nail. Yesterday while sitting on the toilet, he pointed to a screw in the wall...

Joe : Nana, what's that?
Nana : it's a nail.

Joe : No...can you see...there's a cross on it. So you can put a screwdriver there and turn it. It's a screw. You're wrong.

**Nana is baffled!**

I'm pretty sure he's learnt this from Handy Manny.

Joy-Anne and the rubber ducky

Joy-Anne loves her bathtime. It's sheer joy for her to splash around and try to catch her rubber duckies. She refused to let go of the rubber ducky when she was taken out of the bath tub this morning.

Even after getting dressed....

don't I look cheeky?

there's more fun when you have company

Cut Hair Day

Today I was kept busy all morning with my non-paying part-time job....cutting hair! First I cut Edwin's hair. After that I managed to persuade Joe that it was his turn.

This is a breakthrough!!! No crying, no screaming, no running away. He squirmed a little but I managed to do a decent job. He even held still enough for me to trim the ends with a scissor.

After Joe, I trimmed and thinned the back for my mum. And then, it was Joy-Anne's turn. Yes, yes....we finally decided to shave her head. My mother has been complaining tha she looks like Mr Lopard (the guy from Handy Manny on Playhouse Disney who has only a few strands of stray long hair). So I first snipped off the locks for keepsake.

And then the clipper went to work. She didn't seem to know anything and did not cry.

In fact she was quite happy!
Now I'm still not used to seeing Joy-Anne bald. She looks even more like Joseph when he was a baby.

I hope her hair grows back thicker soon.

All I want for Christmas is a head full of hair...

Last weekend...

...we went back to Seremban on Merdeka Eve. Joy-Anne finally did not cry when Ah Mah carried her.

On Merdeka evening, we went to the Kong's residence for baby Hannah's full moon party.

pretty cupcakes from +Wondermilk... Su Yin says it's very expensive!

Baby Hannah was born to Su Lin and Ben on 1st August 2008 after 53 hours of labour.

Joy-Anne checking out the food that she can't eat yet.

The kids had fun in a little ball pool

I really admire Su Lin's guts... she was very persistent with breastfeeding even though she struggled with being on a catheter for 2 weeks, and baby Hannah had to be admitted to Seremban GH for very high jaundice (bilirubin count over 360).

Back in KL.... we discovered Joy-Anne could let go off one hand, turn 180degrees and then hold the play pen edge again, in a new position.

And this photo was taken just before her hair cut on Monday. Now she's bald.