These uncooperative models

We didn't depart early for the trip home last weekend. On Friday night, we watched Shu Qi's "old movies" when she wasn't that famous yet until about 3am, that's why.

So, we took out sweet time to get the butts up from bed, had our favorite hakka mee for breakfast with JM, and while she's around, asked her to babysit the kids for us again while we check out MATTA fair in PWTC. This time round, we didn't buy any packages or vouchers. So, no holiday plans yet so far, but hubby is interested to go to Bali.

By the time we packed and ready to set off, it was about 4pm. We reached home just nicely for dinner after shower. And the dinner was yummy. And cheap too. 11 of us (big and small), 7 dishes, only about 130 bucks. This meal is like a treat for my mama from us. She will be flying away to HK in a few days time. (MY, take note! haha...)

The next day, we went to Ming Court for dimsum. Darn loh.. so crowded one. Where got recession wei?? We have to find table which has nobody waiting for. Lucky too we didn't wait too long. I wasn't very patient and wanted to leave, but I knew how much hubby wanted to eat there. It's really been way too long since the last visit. Somehow, MC dimsum has something to make us yearn for.

After enough stuffing ourselves, it was good, we hopped over to nearby studio for the phototaking session. The kids were running around too much, and they aren't tired, but I was. Telling them not to run and shout, that is. Jeez..

Here they are, after some spraying on their hair and changing of attire...

(Mommy, this baju giving me rashes...)

(EEK! what's that?)

(Ewww...)

(Mommy, I'm a princess, I'm a princess!)

(All ready for the shots. Must smile, else no icecream later, hoh?)

We had several poses of
1. everyblardy inside - his parents, my parents, the 5 of us
2. 5 of us with my parents (in casual, own baju)
3. 5 of us with his parents (in evening gown and chinese kwa - my mil)
4. 5 of us
5. 2 of us
6. 3 of them
7. me and luilui
8. luilui only
9. didi only...

and they were restless, we had enough, and we called it a day.

We stayed on to look at the pictures, chose the ones we wanted for enlargement and framed, and had some negotiation with the lengchai. It's very challenging, 'cos he was telling us the package didn't include a CD to let us have the soft copies of the shots. Of course, we were furious and after some series of attacks and bargains, we managed to wrestle the soft copies back to us. And I can show it off here or in FB later. Have to wait 3 weeks, or maybe more, depending on when we will be going home again.

It was 2+ by the time we were done, and we headed to the Gunung Rapat main road for noodles and stuffed fish in everything. It was easy to find a small table, as only meimei were hanging around with us. The others left in different cars, back home for mahjong sessi already. Basically, we had a good time eating, eating and eating. Something it's hard to do if we were to go back during long weekends or festive seasons. Yummy! I love my hometown food.

Oh and by the way, Fusan (the dimsum king) is building a majestic restaurant of its own just opposite MIng Court. We look at it and can only say "Wow!". Foh San is helping MC to solve its problem of over-crowding... I hope they have a system of Q-numbers when it opens its doors. Look at the open air area on the first floor.. I can imagine how fantastic it is to eat dimsum there even during midnight. Can't wait for it to open business.

This weekend balik kampung tangkap gambar.

Ooh.. I'm so sexcited. Remembering how fun it was being a "paying-model", taking pictures before the wedding. I remembered I hardly sleep a wink the night before at that time. But the session dragged till 7pm and hubby dozed off most times. He complained it was too boring and that's why till now, I didn't pester him to take a family picture together.

Oh yeah, we did, during our stay in Taiwan, before coming back here for good. But there were only korkor. After the younger 2 came, we didn't have another family pictures taken by a photographer anymore.

Taking the excuse this year being our 10th year anniversary, we are going to do this. Yay! Actually, we bought the RM99 package for 5 prints and complimentary makeup, hairdo, outfits last year. It's now or never (going to expire mah!).

Boy! I need to run and do facials, manicure, pedicure, hair color, hair perm and oh no.. my eye-bags!!! Duh! Never mind la, photoshop can la, still got meaning, right, Goolypop?

(donch worry, I will NOT put the pictures here up for you to lose your appetite)

Bastard? Ohh.. it's busted.

Heard didi cursing "Bastard!" under his breath the other day, I was too shocked for words and asked him where he learnt that word from. Of course not from me or his dad la, we use "Shit!" most of the time only. His dad is worse than me, anyway, it's not him I want to talk about today.

Eventually, I found out he learnt it from one of those cartoon networks and they were actually saying "busted" instead of bastard. Korkor asked me several times what the word means, I told him the latter is a bad word.

Being kids, all of them have no idea what bad words mean, so some of the time, I still catch them using the word like it's helluva fun. I guess the fact it makes me fuming is fun. When I plead with korkor not to use that word, he asked why, he's just saying busted only mah..How to teach, huh?

As I was driving the other day, I thought about this matter and wondered aloud why then my brothers and I never use much foul language from young. Well, we are just too obedient children, I guess. But really. Why, hmm...

I think my mama is a very disciplined mom, she firmly believes in caning. And the eldest set a role model for the younger ones, so the eldest always had to behave. So, anything done against her rules and regulations, out comes the cane. And my brothers bear most of the caning sessions. But still, they didn't rebel. And most times, her way works.

This age, it seems not so cool to use the cane all the time, right? Then, how do I solve this problem? *scratch scratch head*

Found a superhero sleeping last night.

Last night before I went to bed to call it a day, went in to check the boys, as usual. Particularly didi, who STILL would wet his pants at times, especially after a cup of water before bedtime.

What I saw made me burst into little giggles, he was really awful cute. It was finding a dunno-what superhero sleeping there. You see, last business travel, papa had brought home a pair of funny looking socks-shoes, which don't look like shoes and don't look like socks either. It's a mixture of both. And a piece of eyepatch, which is those given on flights to let cover your eyes and sleep in the dark. When the kids asked me what that is, I do not know the term for it and told them it's sleep-goggles, just like goggles is used for swimming, this one is particularly for sleeping.

So, all 3 were fighting to get their hands on it, and I have to settle the dispute by saying everyone must take turns, else all it goes to the dustbin. So, korkor had the shoes-socks, meimei grabbed the sleep goggles before it's too late, while didi just had to wait.

Last night, he took both of it and donned it on. Somehow, he wore a black and blue pyjamas, such matching colors to those stuffs on his face and his feet. He looked so damn cute. I quickly rushed out to take the camera and snapped a picture of it. Another beautiful parenting moment.

Cuti-cuti Malaysia

We depart at 12 noon, went up Genting to pick up 2 very important people and back downhill onwards to somewhere in the woods after about, what, 5-6 hours later. Somewhere along the highway, we were cruising about 110km/hr when suddenly after the bend, the cars in front were all stopping at a halt. Hubby was furiously stepping on the emergency brake and all of us were plunged forward, the screeching sound was heard and our hearts almost jumped out, I think. I can only think of "die loh, die loh, this time sure die loh".... That was certainly not the adrenalin pumping activity I had in mind.

After that near-miss, I was really glad no mishap happened and everyone is safe and sound. Perhaps that put me in a good mood throughout the trip and appreciate the family time we have together, albeit...never mind.

The first night, we went to check out the best resort in that vicinity, walked around a bit, had dinner somewhere which took about 1 hour to arrive, even though we were only the 2nd table of customers there and back to hotel to dot dot dot. Watch Star Movies only la. The one with the weapon was too exhausted from the day's driving and left me alone yak Ngan Yin fahsang with the TV. What a waste. A rainpour outside was making me in the mood also. So, after finished watching half of dunno-what-movie and bits and pieces of National Treasure - Book of Secrets, with my eyes shut-open-shut-open again, I finally gave up and went to sleep too.

Kor kor was the first to rise and shine early in the morning, and after breakfast in the morning, we packed our stuffs and went to the jetty, saving RM120 for a guided tour to the highest canopy hike and a rapids shooting activity, to follow the trail on our own. The hike was about 1 hour, it was very serene to be in the woods with my little girl in hand, taking our sweet time, enjoying the nature, snapping pictures, watching out for leeches, eeee.... but no, lucky no leeches were seen. *whew*

When we arrived the site, there were about 200 people waiting in line, it'll be roughly a 2 hours wait for our turn. What to do, went all the way there, can't possibly quit right there, yeah? So, we so-kang-kang waited for whole of 2 hours to walk on the highest canopy walk in Malaysia and enjoy the view from the top of the trees with the birds.

Finally our turn came and happy that the wait was over. I went first with meimei and she was sooooo shaking. Honestly, I was shaking too, but had to encourage her, so I was telling her, "no need to be scared, look in front, look at the treehouse, look at the birds".. but she was walking realllllly slow. Haha.. the people at the back were like, catching up fast with us and shooing us to "move it, move it".

I changed strategy after the first stop and told her to walk behind me and hold my clothes tightly. It worked! She walked at my pace, though it wasn't fast either, but at least, it didn't halt the traffic. I was a bit geram though, as I waited 2 hours for this, but instead of walking and enjoying the view from above, I was kept being chased all the while to "fai tit la, fai tit la".. Dang!

After the jungle walk and the shaky walk, our legs were numbed to the toes and the wong-thai-hau die-die also wanted a boat to get back to our starting point. So, the 3 men got a boat and paid RM160 to get us to upriver for some splashing fun before going back to the jetty area. (My camera's batteries died down on me while on the canopy walk, how upsetting!)

The boat ride was very pleasant, meimei was sitting beside me and the wind was blowing on our faces. It was so relaxing and pleasant, and it's certainly much better to be on a real river than on a theme park's made believe tropical river and fake crocodiles. The striper made sure the water splashed in, especially when we went through the rapids. Meimei cried and all of us were like both thrilled and worried that we were dripped from top to toe. The kids and I were lucky as we were seated in the front seats and we weren't so dripped. Hubby's brother and his wife were the most "wet" ones, basically their seats were flooded with water. Oh, that boat ride was so short and fun indeed.

We went back to hotel and quickly showered. Then out came the induction cookers, instant noodles, chicken, greens, cake, tidbits and attack! After that, rest time. By late afternoon, I took out the scissors and comb, to cut the boys hair. Hehe.. this to save the trouble of cleaning up the mess if I do it at home.

Dinner was at one of those "floating restaurants" on the riverbank but it wasn't as good as the night before. After dinner, as we walked back to our car, didi held meimei's hand while guiding her on the rocks, as he had a torchlight and he wanted to be a hero. Hubby and I walked behind, him holding my hand, and I was enjoying myself watching the little 2 in front of us. It was really cute and I felt very "hang fook" at that time too. I guess it's been too long my hubby didn't hold my hand :/

Just stayed for 2 nights, and we cabut after breakfast already. The grandpa wanted to drop by somewhere along the highway to detour to a elephant's sanctuary. We found the place and were so disappointed there were only 2 little baby elephants and 1 bigger one around only. And the poor baby elephants, they were tied up on their leg to the tree to protect the visitors, I guess. We stayed briefly.

So, that concludes our short long weekend break, and hopefully tomorrow and this week onwards, korkor can do better in his 1st term test. What good parents we are! Taking son to a holiday BEFORE he faces his test papers to give him encouragement! This is called modern parenting, tau tak? :P

(Photos on FB, say I look sassy there, k?)

When they are angels.

When I'm down, only the children have the power to make me either shout at them louder than usual or put a smile back on my face.

And when I have noone to turn to, noone I can talk to, no shoulders to cry on, I rely on my kids for some comfort quite substantially.

That was what I did. Just after the shower and putting on the pyjamas for meimei, I asked her if she loves papa or mommy. She answered quite diplomatically she loves papa AND mommy.

Then I gave her an even complex question, I asked if papa stays in Ipoh and mommy in KL, where she wants to stay. She replies instantly KL! That was so cute. Then I turned it around and asked with a puppy face look, what if mommy stays in Ipoh and papa in KL, where does she like to stay then?

Somehow, in that instance, she gave me a look that showed she understood how down I felt at that time and said dearly she wants to follow mommy (no matter where I go) Aww... and we hugged and all the heartache I felt were lift off. What will I do without them? Then again, who knows what they will become when they grow up? Will they be unfilial like me? *go corner with heads down*

Di persimpangan dilema

My mom, had worked in HK for a rich fler for a short stint of 3 months before she came here to stay with me 2 years ago.

It was a babysitting job, twin babies of 1 month old. The parents tried a long time to conceive and when they finally succeed, it was extremely precious to them. They recruited my mom through a sister of hers who was working in HK for another rich tycoon.

Mama had been very envious of her sister's life thus far, who not only earning a fat income and receiving tips here and there, she also had the privilege to travel together with her employer and the kids in tow. Shanghai, Sydney, Caribbean cruise, UK... it surpassed my list of places I visited already. I too felt envious, don't talk about my mom!

So, when the opportunity came, she dived into it, not knowing the days would be so torturing. 3 months, and it seemed like 3 years to her. Taking care of twins, the new mom wouldn't allow the twins to sleep separately, and it was a very stringent and rigid environment where the comfort to the new nanny wasn't even a priority. The stress was too hard to bear, coupled with the fact that her employer ate back her words on some of the conditions and she wanted out after a month. But this fler held her wages and wouldn't let her come home until 3 months full, after my aunt (mama's sister) went over to take over the task from her.

The work environment was so bad that this aunt too, had wanted to quit after 1 month.

Anyway, when she did return home, she looked a few years older and so much thinner. Poor mama, I felt bad, really bad. It's simple to me. If our parents are suffering so much to work for money at this age, it's us, the children who failed miserably to provide them a comfortable and happy retirement.

Now, after these 2 years, the employer called her again, and trying to coax her to go to HK with my aunt to work as a babysitter one more time. She's having her 2nd pregnancy and going to deliver soon, I suppose. Mama is very tempted to dive in again, though I strongly disagree. Is it worthwhile? Not that she doesn't have enough to spend, really. Though it's just plain rice everyday, not with sharks fin and abalone, but at least can afford fish and chicken.

Why she wants to be separated from dad at this old age? Why does she want to suffer? And with the bad records of the employer eating back on her words, why she's still trusting her?

I guess it's plainly, all for money. And it falls back on us, we fail miserably, don't we?