Sarah Turns 3!

After waiting for 1 whole year, my princess finally turns 3! And in the last few months leading up to her birthday, we've noticed a significant change in her. It's as though she's aware that her birthday's coming and it's time to grow up a little more.

Looking all grown up

On her first and second birthday, she didn't quite understand the meaning of "birthday" and when we celebrated her birthday for her, she appeared quite clueless. This year, however, when I asked her what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she told me in a very assertive tone that she wanted a Cinderella cake. So, for the last 3 months, every time she meets Yee Yee, she'll remind Yee Yee that she wants a Cinderella cake for her birthday party. And a few weeks leading to her birthday, she overheard me having a phone conversation with Yee Yee discussing about the flavour of her cake and she immediately tried to interrupt in the background, once again reminding Yee Yee about her specific request. And I was talking to Yee Yee about Cinderella having a blue dress, and again she interrupted and said," No, I want a pink cake, with flowers and butterflies." So, the girl really knows what she wants.

Over the last few months, I've also seen Sarah flaunting her taste for clothes and fashion. She has been coming on rather strongly about which clothing she likes and dislikes and she has been very verbal in expressing her preferences. She would also tell somebody if she likes what they're wearing. On a couple of occasions, she has told her cousins, Nic and Nat that she liked what they were wearing, or that she liked the colour of their clothing, and she would say things like,"I like your dress. It's very cute."

Sarah getting a chance to paint her nails at a birthday party and showing off her painted nails.

One thing that she's been extremely fascinated with is the high heel slippers that are sold in those girlie dress up kits. I bought a dress up kit for Nat for her birthday (upon request from Yee Yee) and it comes with a pair of high heel slippers. When Sarah first saw them, she couldn't keep her eyes off them and kept asking if she could try them on. I wasn't that keen to buy her a pair coz she's so super "hiao"(vain) already and I really didn't want to encourage her in that area. Well, however hard I tried to avoid that, it seemed inevitable that she would end up receiving one of those dress up kits for her birthday. This dress up kit, which came from Mama, had a full set of accessories ranging from a necklace, earrings, bangles, a wand, handbag, a ring, and the glass slippers. The first thing that Sarah did when she saw the present, was to point to the slippers and say, "I want to open that!" And since then, she's been tottering round the house with them everyday.

Her pink high heel slippers

Other than clothes, shoes & accessories, we've also found her to be rather nurturing recently. She seems to have grown into her role as Sophia's big sister and we started seeing her attempt to take care of Sophia and mother her around. She would say things like,"Come, Sophia, come... come to che che...", or "che che help you". In the mornings, when Sophia wakes up and stands at her cot to call for attention, Sarah would scramble up from her bed to go lie with Sophia in her cot. Some days she would try to hug her and pat her like a doll, or she would try to kiss her. If Sophia wants to get off the bed, she would attempt to give her a hand. One thing that she likes to do is to feed Sophia. She'll try to take Sophia's bowl and feed her fruits with the spoon, or she would share her cornflakes with her when Sophia asks for some.
Whatever it is, I'm happy that she's getting into this big sister mode and I can see that she would make a great sister who would take good care of Sophia and whom Sophia can look up to.

Having fun with Sophia

See the motherly side of Sarah, pretending to take care of her baby

Ah, other than Sophia, she's very attached to her Kor Kor, Caleb. He's really her favourite playmate. She wants to play with him all the time and follow him and have all that he has. There are days that the two of them are just laughing non stop and playing rowdy boy games. And there are also days where she'll irritate Caleb till he gets extremely frustrated. This girl can read her Kor Kor quite well and when she's annoyed with him, she knows how to get him exasperated by appearing nonchalant and pretending that he's not talking to her at all. It really gets him very upset when she does that. Somedays, she would even go to the extent of purposely pinching him or using her hand or leg to nudge him again and again just to irritate him. The boy hasn't quite figure out how to manage his sister but hopefully he'll get there some day. Even though she behaves like that with him at home, it's a different story when they're out. She's the princess at home but when she's out, she depends on her Kor Kor to protect and take care of her. As long as he's with her, she'll be ok to be without us. But once he runs off somewhere without her,she would panic and cry. So, she's really quite "gu niang" (girlie) and in need of "protection". Me and ND think that with her behaving like that, she's gonna be twirling a bunch of guys round her finger tips when she grows up!

All confident with Kor Kor by her side

Personality wise, she's growing up to be a very sweet, loving girl who thrives on affirmation and attention. She'll look very pleased and be very agreeable when we tell her that she looks good or that she did very well. Some days she'll just come up to us to express her affections by putting her arms around us to kiss us and tell us that she loves us very much. This girl knows how to work her way around people.

ND with his princess

She's really a joy to have and I really thank God for blessing us with such a sweet and lovable little girl.

Happy 3rd Birthday, my princess Sarah!

PS. In this last photo, there's a photo of a baby in the background, next to Sarah. We just realised that that's Sarah at 1 years old. Look at how she has grown!

Visit to T3 Changi Airport

Now that it's the school holidays, we've been making a conscious effort to bring the kids out everyday.
So last week, after the kids woke up in the morning, we brought them to one of their favourite haunts, T3@Changi Airport. Last year T3 had a very huge bouncing castle that the kids loved, during the Xmas season, and the Xmas decor was not too bad. This year, the Xmas decor was so-so, but we discovered that they brought back the bouncing castle again! Only thing is that they only inflate the castle from 12noon onwards, so the kids couldn't go play there. Caleb wanted to go on the slide at T3 but that too was only operational from 12noon onwards. Never the less, we still managed to have some fun at the airport. Our kids can be easy to please at times.

We had breakfast at Yakun to fill up the kids' stomach before moving on to let them work out their energies. They started off spending some time at the section where they provide crayons for us to sketch out iconic motifs on paper. Sophia was very fascinated with the crayons and enjoyed it quite a bit.

The girls colouring away

Sophia, trying to decide which colour to use

It shall be the pink one!

Sarah with her masterpiece

And where's Caleb? Well, he very quickly lost interest in colouring and moved on to the kids corner where they were screening the cartoon Tom and Jerry. Though we try hard to restrict the amount of time he spends watching TV, still that doesn't stop him from wanting to watch TV all the time. Every chance he gets, he's glued to the TV. So here he is, sitting on the floor all by himself.

And laughing by himself too. Recently Tom and Jerry has become one of his favourite cartoons.

After a while, we decided to move on to check out the Xmas display. The theme this year is called "The Magic Teapot". And this is it. Nothing very impressive. It's supposed to give out gifts every hour.

Our attempt at getting the 3 kids to take a photo together. It's rather difficult to get all 3 of them to stand still and look at the camera at the same time.

Caleb, trying his hand at photography. He took this photo of me, ND and Sarah. Not too bad right?

And Sophia, while we were busy taking photos, she was busy walking around the place. This girl's a walker. When we're out, she doesn't really like to be carried. Instead she wants to explore the place on her own and keeps walking off every where. It really takes a great deal of energy to catch and keep up with her.

The busy explorer

After our short time of photo taking, it was time for us to go home for lunch and for the kids to take their afternoon naps.

Television, Information and Reflection

Caleb comes up to us quite often asking if he can watch television. We often try to resist, hopefully minimizing his (and his sisters') exposure to the shows, regardless of how harmless or even educational they may be. Sometimes I ask myself why we resist. After all, there are some really educational cartoons around. Dora helps to enhance memory and thinking in procedural steps, Word World teaches phonics and word creation, Imagination Movers helps stimulate the mind to think creatively. (No mention of Ben 10 is entirely intentional.)

I guess the problem is the incessant drone of images and information that just goes on and on without stopping. When I was growing up, story books were the de-facto medium of communication. Reading allowed me to stop as and when I needed to in order to reflect. Did the character do the right thing? What are the ethical and moral implications of the action? How would the other characters react to such an action? How does that change the storyline? But in television, before I could even start asking the first question, I have to start catching up with the next set of images that flash in front of my eyes.

Story books allowed me to stop to imagine the scene that was painted by the words. They allowed me to exercise my imagination, build up the scene mural by mural, tearing down the last one and rebuild in my mind if need be. It allowed me to be creative. In television, others have imagined for me. They have built the murals. They get to be creative, I have to be passive.

Perhaps that's why we have resisted allowing the children to watch too much television. Caleb rarely asks us questions when he watches the television. But when we read him story books, he frequently asks to go back to something he didn't understand. He turns the pages backwards in order to see how the previous page links up with the current page. He gets to think.

But I realize the children are not the only ones facing the issue of incessant drone of images. I too face the same problem. My browser has at least 200 over links to web sites which I feel provide good information. From online news, to reviews on new gadgets, to social networking, to theological websites. I desire information more than ever before. BBC news accompanies me in my car journeys, podcasts fill my ipod, sermons accompany on my long runs and facebook updates by friends and loved ones fill in whatever small snippets of time I have here and there.

Reflection has almost become an after thought. My most productive thinking times (I have come to realize) are the times when I'm taking a bath. Can't bring my gadgets in there. (Incidentally, Hilton Hotel in KL actually has a television in the toilet facing both the bath and the great white throne, a bad idea in my opinion.)

Hopefully when my son reads this blog many years later, he'll come to realize why we more often than not say "no" to his television requests. I guess I have also come to realize that each time I say "no" to him, I have to say "no" to myself as well. After all, the Apostle Paul did say in 1 Corinthians 10:23 that "all things are permissable, but not everything is beneficial." Perhaps, less information but more reflection is a better way to go.

Caleb's First Movie Treat!

Caleb's already 5 and a half but believe it or not, we've never taken him to the cinemas to watch a movie. If you ask me what's the reason? Well, it's coz our son gets very affected by the scenes he watches on TV and it gives him nightmares in the middle of the night. When he was two plus, he watched "Finding Nemo" and "The Polar Express" at Yee Yee's house. And the exciting scenes in both movies gave him nightmares at night. When he was three plus, we made the mistake of allowing him to stay up with us during Chinese New Year's eve to watch "KungFu Hustle". We thought it was a comedy so should be ok. Alas, we didn't get any chance to sleep that night coz he was coming to us every hour to tell us how scared he was and started asking us whether we remembered to lock our main door and gate.
Last year, he watched "Cars" at a friend's house and when the car "Lightning McQueen" got lost in the desert, he told us he didn't want to watch it anymore coz he was scared that Lightning McQueen was lost. We think he has got a high level of empathy for the movie characters and any scene of danger leaves him feeling very disturbed and it would keep him awake at night.

Well, over the weekend, we got 3 free tickets from our dear friends Wendy and Uncle John, to watch Chronicles of Narnia. They had specially gotten one for Caleb as well, thinking that he would enjoy the show. So, with that, we decided to pluck up our courage and bring him along for his first movie experience.

The night before the movie, he kept telling me that he didn't want to go watch Narnia coz he was afraid that he'll get nightmares. But when he woke up the next morning, I told him that he was the only one who was old enough to go watch a movie with us and the girls had to stay home, and we were going to bring him out for breakfast with Grace and Choo Choo. And I kept assuring him that the show wouldn't be too scary and that me and ND would be there for him, so he agreed to go along.

I think the actual movie experience was quite interesting for him. We gave him his own ticket stub and when he stepped into the cinema, I announced to him that "This is a cinema!". He was like "Wah!" Very "suaku" reaction if you ask me... Once, he got into his seat, he was glued to the screen. Big screen, loud sound system, plus popcorn. I think he quite enjoyed it. He didn't fully understand a lot of the show and I had to do some explaining along the way. 15min into the show, he asked me whether the show was ending. I had to tell him that it was a long, long show and wouldn't be ending so quickly. And he kept asking me,"it's going to show for a long, long time? Much longer than when I watch TV at home?"

Overall, he took to the movie pretty well. I thought the movie was pretty good. Not too scary, except for a scene towards the end which showed a sea serpent attacking the ship. That was the only part that he held on to me and tried to hide his face.

Ah, but with my boy, the litmus test is at night after he goes to bed. If it affects him, he would keep coming over to our bed every hour to tell us he's scared and wants us to switch on the light and sleep with him. Some days, he would stand beside our bed to cry and tell us he can't sleep, he's scared, he needs us to sleep with him. We will pray with him. Sometimes, we'll lie beside him for a while and there are some days, when we get cranky ourselves coz of his persistent crying and whinning hour after hour, that we'll lose it and order him to go to bed and close his eyes.

And so, that night, yes, unfortunately for us, he did wake up. I heard him go over to ND to tell him he was scared, and ND told him,"Go back and sleep, Caleb." Next thing I know, I felt him beside me trying to wake me up. I was really tired and I heard him say,"Mummy, I'm scared. What should I do?" And I remember telling him,"Pray, Caleb." Then I went back to sleep. I think he must have been exasperated not to get much responses from both of us or he must have been tired out, having to try so hard to wake us up, coz I found him asleep on his own bed in the morning. No crying or whinning from him. ND didn't even remember him waking up in the middle of the night at all. So, my conclusion? I think we can bring him out for more movies!

Genting Resorts World - Day 2 & 3

Day 2 at Genting Resorts World was theme park day for us. There's an outdoor theme park and an indoor one. Though the theme parks in Genting are a little old and the rides are not as thrilling as the ones like Universal Studios or Disneyland, but to my kids, they were wonderful. They loved the mini train rides, the carousel, and the bumper car. Till today, they are still talking about it and asking us to bring them there again for the rides.

We started off with the Indoor theme park after breakfast.
First ride of the day... the Carousel. We all got onto this, including Sophia and all the kids enjoyed it.
Nevan loved it so much that after going on the carousel twice, Yee Yee still had to force him off the carousel. Yup, the boy's very strong and he put up quite a far bit of resistance.

Group photo while waiting for our turn on the carousel.

Lovey dovey photo of grandma and grandpa who were waiting very patiently for us to finish our carousel ride.

Next up was the mini train ride. This one got to be Sarah's absolute favourite.
See the bright radiant smile on her face? Each time she gets on this ride, she'll have this absolutely delighted smile on her face throughout the ride. I think she went on this at least 3 times and she's still reminding me to bring her back for her train ride.

Nat, Nevan, Caleb and Sarah driving their vehicles.

Nic exceeded the height limit for this and was very disappointed that she couldn't join in the fun. Again, Yee Yee had difficulty extracting Nevan away from this ride. She had to end his ride with a "naughty corner" threat before she could pluck him out of his vehicle.

Next we went on the gondola ride. This was quite boring. Very slow moving and there's this wax figure of an old man rowing our gondola with loud opera like music being played as the boat drifts along. Sarah was terrified of the wax figurine. She clung on to ND and eyed the wax figurine throughout the boat ride. After the ride, she kept telling me she didn't like the old man.

After this, we went on a couple more rides that brought us round the mall before stopping for lunch. The rest of the rides were like the gondola one. Nothing very exciting but still the kids seemed quite thrilled to be sitting on boats and trains and ships etc. See the enthusiasm on their faces? That's me and ND looking very productive, sharing a train carriage with our 5 kids.

I think the most exciting ride for Caleb and Nic in the indoor theme park, got to be the bumper car. We managed to squeeze this in just before going back to the hotel to let the kids eat lunch and nap.

Nic was really good at this and got the hang of driving the car very quickly. Caleb took a little while longer to orientate himself. He loved driving the car but I don't think he really embraced the idea that it would be fun to bump other cars. He, being "Mr Orderly", was trying to avoid other cars and drive safely. It was only after lots of encouragement from us, that he attempted to bump other cars. And even then, he only went for Nic's car and not anybody else. If somebody bumped him, he would just smile politely at them and try to drive off.

After lunch, and a short rest, we headed out to conquer the outdoor theme park.

We made the mistake of queuing for the monorail. It really wasn't worth the 1 hour queue. Monorail was super slow and the sights round the outdoor theme park was so-so.

Sophia fell asleep when we started queuing and awoke just in time for us to get on the monorail an hour later. Here she is, all refreshed and cheeky again.

Nic and caleb on the Astro Flight

Another ride that Caleb enjoyed. This ride lifts them up and down up to about 2 storeys high. Caleb was a little apprehensive at first but he went for it when he saw Nic going for the ride.

Trying to act cool after realising that this ride's not that scary after all...

Caleb and Nat on Dumbo the elephant

I rode with Sarah on another elephant. She was rather apprehensive coz it was her first time riding on one.

After this, we went on the ferris wheel and then decided to call it a day coz it was dinner time. The kids were really tired out and starting to crank up. With 6 cranky kids in toll, we decided it was best to ta bao dinner back to our hotel room to feed them. After dinner, Nevan and Nat decided they've had enough excitement for the day and went to bed.

Our game plan then was to bring the older kids to try out the rides that only they qualified for like the roller coaster. Nic loved it. Caleb said he enjoyed it but didn't want to go more than once coz it was too cold for him.
Since Sarah didn't meet the height requirements for most of the outdoor rides, I brought her back to the indoor theme park so that she could go on the carousel and the mini train ride again. When Nic and Caleb were done with their rides, we adjourned back at the bumper car area so that they could drive a couple more times. By the time we were done, it was almost 10pm and we were all totally exhausted. Enough of theme park rides for the day. We adults voted to retire early as well coz we were leaving the next day and it would be a whole day of driving home.

Our last day was rather uneventful. We packed up in the morning, had an early lunch and headed for home.The kids were in good spirits and took the drive home rather well. All in all, I think it was a great trip. The kids had fun and we had a good time of bonding with our family.

Genting Resorts World - Day 1

The weekend that ND finished his exams, we headed off to Genting together with Yee Yee and family for a much needed holiday. This is our 1st real hols since ND started his studies. We were really excited about the chance to get away and were really blessed coz Grandma had accumulated some points in her Genting card and it was enough to redeem 2 room night stays for both our family as well as Yeeyee's family. Yeah! So thank you Grandma for sponsoring our holiday!

 We arranged to drive up to Genting with Yee Yee and family, while Grandpa and Grandma took the overnight coach to meet up with us there.

Our mugshots just after we crossed the causeway...















After driving for 3hrs, we took a lunch break at this bak kut teh place at the outskirts of KL. It's one of ND's preferred travel stops whenever we drive past KL.

The kids were very excited to be reunited with each other.

Just Caleb, Sarah and Nic. Think Nat wasn't in the mood for photo taking.















Nevan was knocked out coz we had set out very early in the morning.

























Sophia was definitely very cheery to be let out of the car.
See her sunshine grin showing off her 4 little teeth.















After a brief lunch, we encountered a little mishap. We were trying to get back on the NS highway and then our GPS indicated that we should make a right turn on one of the main roads. So, we stopped at what we thought was the entrance to the turn but we found it impossible to do so coz the cars were just moving non stop. Then we got some rather aggressive horns and then we realised that perhaps we weren't allowed to turn there. So, we decided to continue driving straight. And just when we moved off, this lorry, came from out of nowhere and cut very abruptly right into our lane and dented the front of our car. We gave chase and stopped to talk to the driver. It was a young driver who tried to appear aggressive and started accusing us of not following the traffic rules. We told him that yes, we weren't familiar with the roads but we had started driving according to the traffic flow when he came into our lane. Our guess was that he was upset that we had held up the traffic a bit and he wanted to scare us by cutting into our lane, but his lorry had this huge fender in front and he underestimated the distance. So instead of us scaring us, he dented our car instead. I think he was quite shaken by the accident coz his hands were shaking when we asked to see his driver's license. To cut the long story short, we ended with him compensating us RM100, which was all that he had in his wallet. He offered to pay for the repairs at a workshop further down the road but the workshop wasn't open and we weren't sure how trustworthy the workshop would be so we decided to just repair the car when we go home.

Well, thankfully, the little accident didn't dampen our holiday mood and soon we were back on track to get to Genting.

Our destination still hidden behind the clouds...

Finally! The drive up was windy but thankfully, it took less than half an hour.

Now, to find our hotel...

Once we settled into our hotel room, we started to deck the kids in their woolies coz it was quite chilly outside.

Sophia, our little Jedi master

ND and his babes

Kids all dressed and ready to go explore the place. They were really excited!

Our first dinner. Food wasn't great and quite ex but nobody complained coz we were all hungry.

After dinner, we brought the kids to the indoor theme park to look around before sending them off to bed coz they were quite tired out by their long day.

With the kids fast asleep, we left them in the care of our helpers and then it was our turn to go have some fun.
The resort's really bustling with lots of activities. We stayed out till past midnight and there were still lots of people up and about. There's 3 casinos spread out across the hotels and there were lots of aunties and uncles busy trying their luck there. There's also lots of arcades and gaming places targeted at the teenagers.
For us, we're not into casinos so we didn't go there at all. After a long day of driving, the first place that we all headed for was for a good massage. Me and Yee Yee did a half hour body massage whilst ND tried out the foot reflexology. Me and Yee Yee gave the body massage a so-so rating but ND said that the guy who massaged his foot for him, was the best that he's ever tried across Asia! Ok lah, ND's not that into foot reflexology but he's tried out a couple in Thailand and Vietnam (I think), when he used to go on his biz trips and he says that the guy was very skillful in massaging his feet for him and he would definitely go back to him if we were to visit Genting again.
And after our massage, it was time to exercise our vocals. We ended our first night singing our hearts out at the karaoke lounge before calling it a day.

Dancing Lees

Whilst I sort out my huge pile of backlog, here's a little video to keep you entertained.


I personally find this video hilarious and I can't stop laughing myself when I see how spontaneously my kids are dancing.
Btw, their dancing genes didn't come from me. It's definitely from ND. Between the two of us, he's the more flamboyant one. Yah, you can't really tell but ND used to dance for our hall during uni days and he'll take part in Funkamania (which is THE Dance competition that all dancers in the uni covets to participate in every year).
Oh, and if you look at Caleb and his facial expression when he dances, he's a chip of the old block. 
Haha, perhaps one day, he too will try to be a dancing king...

I'm Back... For Now...

3 months! This must be the longest break that I've taken from blogging. And yes, the photos have been piling up and there's this nagging little thought at the back of my mind that I've not been blogging and I'm missing out on archiving my children's childhood memories.

So what have we been up to? The kids have been rather sickly in Sept and Oct. Caleb's been having a bad case of Rhinitis and allergy attack and he's been having bouts of rashes around his eyes. I haven't quite figure out what exactly that he's allergic to but for now, the prime suspect is dairy products. The poor boy absolutely loves his cheese and hotdog buns and cakes and milk but somehow, it seems that they either cause him to have a very bad case of stuck phelgm in his throat or give him rashes when he consumes them. I've never really had this problem with him until the last couple of months and it has been very trying for both of us, trying to change his diet and make sure that he gets enough calcium and all.

And in Oct, Caleb came down with another round of HFMD. Yup, the all time HFMD which persistently haunts our family. This time round it was really bad. It appeared as hot, red, itchy rashes all over his body. When I first brought him to the doc, we were told that it looked like an allergy attack. It didn't look like the typical HFMD coz the blisters are usually contained around the hands, feet and mouth. He did have 1 ulcer in his mouth then but it really looked more like a bad case of allergy. I felt really quite challenged then coz he hadn't taken any dairy products and I really didn't have any clue what was causing the rash breakout. On top of that, his Rhinitis problem was escalating so I had a very unhappy boy at home, complaining and whinning of itch all over his body, pain in his nose and difficulty in breathing. To top it all, it really didn't help that my neighbour next door was renovating his house and we were "suffering" big time from all the dust and noise for a whole month.

Caleb's rashes did subside after a week, and then, Sarah started displaying the same kind of itchy, red rash all over her body. That's when I realised that this no longer looks like an allergy but something contagious. A trip to the ped confirmed that even though the rashes don't look like the typical HFMD ones, it was still very likely HFMD. I asked the ped why there's rashes all over the children's belly and back and was told that it was possible that the body's reacting to the virus. So, for a 2nd week, we were once again stuck at home, putting up with highly irritable kids, dust and noise.

With the reno going on, we had to keep our door closed all the time and I think with the poor ventilation and the dust, it was inevitable that viruses get passed around the house and so, by the 3rd week, I saw that Sophia too had caught HFMD. So it was another week of "detention" at home. Thankfully, Sophia had an extremely mild case of it and didn't really complain as much as the two older ones.

Well, despite the children being down with HFMD and us being cooped up at home, I'm still thankful that what Caleb has is HFMD and not an unknown allergy attack. I'm also thankful that Sophia recovered just in time for our family to go on our much needed family holiday. (Will blog more about that soon.)

For the last two weeks, ND and Caleb started their school holidays. This is ND's first real holiday since he started school. He's usually busy with attachment or internship during his school holidays so it's been really nice for us to have him around. It's also Caleb's first school holidays. The previous school that he goes to is a childcare center and they do not close for the hols. But now that he's in a kindy, they follow the normal school holiday schedule. So we have been busy, busy, busy. Actually if you ask me, what exactly have we been busy with, I can't really say. Other than going away for our short family trip, the days seem to be just flying by. But we are enjoying the family time together and I guess, that's what matters most.