Sleeping Pattern

How should a baby or toddler sleep? Ever wonder how come they will perform "sleeptime acrobactic" and loud screaming at the middle of the night? OK, perhaps sometimes it's due to nightmares or play too much during daytime. Or maybe having stomach pain??!! All of these seems cannot apply to En En.
My little En En tends to scream and perform sleeptime acrobactics till mummy & daddy have to give her thumbs up! Why? We merely just lost our precious sleep for almost a week now. Mummy thought En En will grow out of her night-time habits when she's older but actually it grows into even more vigorously than before. Daddy even offered En En a place on the bed and daddy sleeps on the floor. Poor dear, guess daddy never sleep well coz turning the body is also difficult since daddy is big-built guy. Moreover, the screaming of this little fella always waken everyone.
This morning around 1.30am & 4.30am, En En suddenly screamed. Mummy got to calm her and rock her in the bouncer since she can't fall n the bed. Then, waited till she had fallen asleep, mummy still had to carried her back to the bed coz worry she might fall from the bouncer which she did, many times.
After don't know what time, En En was turning around at the bed - up & down, left & right with her legs kicking on the bed. Then, she hit mummy face *Ough!* then turned again, the head knocked on my chest (that's hard!) then slept a while besides mummy before she continued turning towards the other side of the bed. A few seconds, my daughter was away from my sight - fell down to daddy's place on the floor. En En eyes were closed, obviously she's still sleeping but just can't understand why she needs to turn so far and so hard till got herself down to the floor. Luckily daddy is a big pillow, she never hurt herself and continue sleeping.
The worst part is , En En was awake by 5.30am and still turning and kicking on the bed.Her parent was so tired and simply can't open their eyes. Mummy know this is not the usual time En En got out from bed, so made her the milk, she finished it then mummy sing to her, of course she got back to sleep eventually. She is really and truely an energectic baby!

Excited baby back home now!

En En was so happy and excited when reached home today. Mummy didn't follow daddy and Ah Mah go to Alor Setar coz Mummy was working today. I can't wait to see my baby, felt excited too since our last week's short gathering.

When mummy first stepped into the house calling En En, she's just stared and thought for a while. Within second, she gave me a big smile for welcoming me! that's the great part of being home. En En sticked to mummy and Ah Kong alot today and pushed away Ah Mah, so strange.

En En just wanted to do everything she did here before she went to Alor Setar and for sure she got very good memory on all the activities that she's been doing here all the while.

En En can't wait to:

play the piano...


meet the cousins.... who missed her alot...


had fun with her gang! En En even allow them to place toys on her head by remaining still, like this:


En En is definitely one playful baby since she will stop everything (eating, sleeping, crying,...) as long as she got to play and go kai-kai.

En En in cloth diaper!

The colours are so nice and delicious, yummier than I saw online. A lot of mummies now aware of the benefit of cloth diapering, I don't have to explain here again. Been waiting for the suitable cloth diaper for En En quite a while and finally.... they are here.

Just to show off a few (in fact that's the only I got... hehe..) diaper in action today!


BUMGENIUS in Butternut
Fitted just nice but will outgrown very soon... *Sigh*


White-Pink GAD
This one is bulky coz in size L, diaper stay dry but leaked outside and outer diaper was wet. Still very roomy...


Aqua-Light Blue GAD
Fit like a glove but leg casing abit tight, can't use thicker insert.

Need more information, do visit Mia Bambina!

Pre-wash for Cloth Diaper

Well, I was quite doubt about the pre-wash for hemp insert for cloth diaper. I was told by Sandra to wash & rinse hemp item at least 3 times before can combine and wash with other cloth diapers item. So, as a beginner in cloth diapering I just follow the instruction... Yes m'dame!

This is the reason behind:

1st Wash


2nd Wash


3rd Wash


See the difference?? That's the so-called layer of oil covering hemp. The normal inserts when wash looks like below:



Still can see through the water...

Music Examination Board

I don’t want to offend anyone here but this is just simply my own opinion. You can object if you want to. I just wish to express my thought.

Anyone who learn music, be it piano or violin or any other instruments when ask about preparing for graded exam – must be ABRSM (Associate Board Royal School of Music). Seems like ABRSM is the only choice available (so untrue!) and very popular in Malaysia (yes, thanks to parents’ advertising). Well, at least I thought back in my music learning years. In fact, I would said ABRSM is the Number One choice in Asia, bet no one in music line will against me. Yes, ABRSM has very high reputation and very demanding in producing quality and hardworking students batch by batch all years round.
Moreover, ABRSM is well-known for its difficulties in achieving high marks as the requirement for technique and accuracy is so high. Not to highlight anything here but that’s why the quality is damn good!

Trinity College London exam board came to me when I was about 17 years old and was thinking it’s a new exam board that entered our country recently or maybe newly formed??! I was so wrong!!! Trinity exam board is the oldest music exam board in the world!!! Only know this recently after attending a small seminar held by the music center. It is now known as Trinity Guildhall. Not so sure whether this is the college in Cambridge University? I think most probably not.

The reason is ABRSM rooted in Malaysia longer than any other exam board. Lately, they are parents who heard about this Trinity exam board and some are willing to try going for it instead of the all time favourite ABRSM. I’m not selling anything here but I feel glad that there are people who opt for a change instead of following the crowd.

I wouldn’t say which one is good or bad as for me both are also good in their own way, I can’t give any comments on this. Afterall, they are boards that produce music talents by evaluating music pupils around the world. So to me, sitting for graded exam under ABRSM or Trinity has no difference since both are also qualified by QCA, a quality control institute. The main intention is to get yourself evaluated after so many years of hardwork, isn’t it?

Then again, the choice is yours and if people think that they want quality they still go for ABRSM (yes, they have very high expectation and many will fail if ones is not hardworking or talented enough) since that’s how Asian looks for quality assurance exam board. (Don’t understand why we have such mindset) Oh yeah… not forgetting there’s another exam board from Thames Valley University - The London College of Music Examination.

The Precious

It's been quite sometimes that I wish to blog about gemstone. There's so many things to talk about the "stone" since it become a hobby among us (hubby and I) and MIL.
The precious stone among all is still the diamond but in terms of rarity, gemstone will be much more expensive than daimond if it is in great demand.
From the view of the hardness, it ranges like the following:

1) Diamond
2) Corundum (Sapphire & Ruby)
3) Emerald

Just imagine it takes millions of years to harden deep under the ground and become one small, fine piece of precious stone. Different location consists of different type of soil and rocks and that contribute to why different stones you only can get from particular countries.

A very well-known:-
- mines for diamond - South Africa (the more the clarity the most the value)
- mines for ruby - Myanmar (pigeon blood)
- mines for sapphire - Kashmir (India, but there's none nowadays), Ceylon (Sri Lanka)both popular for its cornflower blue and royal ink
- mines for emerald - Columbia (green with tint of blue), Brazil (green with tint of yellow)

Well, sad to say there are more mines closing down nowadays as natural resources also will have the end of the day. When the demand of the gemstone get higer, apparently people start to aware of its rarity and this will always make the price goes rocket-high. There are a few points to remember if shop for colour gemstones:
1) Weight/Carat
2) Colour/hues
3) Size
4) Clarity
5) Cut/Fire
6) Origins of the stone

Different stone, different requirements and demands it will have. I like gemstone as it is so colourful and it's a wide knowledge for you to study. Besides, there are semi-precious stone which comes in variety of fantastic colours but of course they are not as valuable as the gemstone. Example of those stones are topaz, peridot, kunzite, amethys & citrine (both are crystal), tourmaline (another of my favourite), alexandrite, jade, spinel, tanzanite, and lots more.

We visited De Silva just now to have a peek on the pigeon blood rubies which cost about RM12K for less than 3 carat! Man... we are not going to buy it but we do have a nice conversation and sharing with the experts. It's a wonderful learning experience. But before you can talk about it, you must learn to appreciate gemstone and that's make the demand of gemstone rising once you learn to love it.

13 Month & 1 Day Old

Our little princess finally brave enough to walk on her own and love walking everywhere in the house. She reached another milestone and learn new words as well.
Daddy and mummy went to Alor Setar to visit En En after 1 week plus staying with po po(grandma) and gong gong(grandpa, mum's side).
We miss En En dearly and can't wait to see her as soon as possible. Initially planned to bring her back but daddy and uncle still haven't recover from coughing plus po po also asked to let En En stay for another week in Alor Setar with them. So, daddy and mummy got to visit her.
Arrived about 4pm and little girl just woke up from her nap. She was very happy to see us but felt abit shy when asked to hug daddy and mummy. We talked and played with her for a while then only she started to called 'papa' and leaned towards mummy's body. She showed us her pampering looks, how smart!
Mummy brought along her new shoe and sandal, she smiled upon seeing the new sandal. It's in pink colour with little rabbit cartoon on top. She never fuss or complain to take out the shoe. In fact she was surprised with the sandal that comes with sound! En En just simply stood besides the table and continued stepping her shoe to make more sound. Her reaction was so cute! Then, she can't wait to show off her sandal by walking a few rounds in the house.

Noticed that she is able to pronouced a few more words now:

"Pei-pei" - it's actually calling grandma's dog "Poppy", don't know why she changed the name?!
"Gong gong" - grandpa, in a more clearer pronounciation
"Bok" - book
"Pooh" - En En's pooh bear toys
"bear" or "ber" - teddy bear toy
"kai1" - means open in mandarin
"nu-mor" - no more
"bi" - baby
"car" - car
"no" - think she doesn't really know what it means yet as she just follow what we said to her not to do on anything

En En understand alot of simple words when show her the picture book, she is able to point correctly on:
- apple
- orange
- biscuit
- butterfly
- car
- monkey
- bird
- pear
- book
- baby (sometimes she will point to herself, LOL!)and few more which I lost count

It abit sad when daddy and mummy left Alor Setar after afew hours with En En coz our child is very cute and able recognized everyone around hervery well now. Well, another week and we will be back together (that means the end of En En's holiday trip).

Bad Temper Baby

Mummy mentioned before that En En finally show her true colors... guess what, she's not only smart but she is even bad temper. So, how bad is really that bad?

Remember when daddy was away in Vietnam, mummy will accompanied her to sleep everyday. Read her story book, especially Winnie the Pooh, Peter and Jane. En En will listen at the beginning, 2 nights is fine. Then came the third night, she started to lose interest and crawled away from mummy's laps, down to the floor headed to the drawers and started to throw things out from the drawer. asked her to keep back all the stuff she thrown from the drawer, initially she put back then after a while she threw out away. Then didn't bother to keep.

Then, the high point came, En En started to shout "Mah! Ma!"... think she's calling Ah Mah (grandma) to release her from the room. Come on, it's almost 11pm, time for bed but she was so energetic still and moving here and there non-stop. After that, she went to the door, standing up leaning towards the door and hit the door with her hands. Mummy just ignored her and guess what she did? She hits her head at the door!! Mummy scolded her but she kept doing it anyway. Mummy dragged her to the bed and she hit her head on the bed several times and mumbled to herself.

When she's done with that, she crawled to the drawer and opened the drawer again. Mummy wanted her to sleep but she was busy pulling and throwing anything out. Then Mummy beated her hand softly to stop her, in fact to get her attention that mummy is angry. Mummy looked at her seriously but didn't say a word, she shouted and hit back as if she's scolding back mummy! Gosh.... what a baby I have!

En En only went to sleep when she's tired playing around. There were a few nights whereby mummy was so tired, yawning and pretending to sleep on the bed, sometimes mummy really slept, En En will either crawled on my body or took the opportunity to bite on mummy's thighs or toes... OUGH!!!

Scrapbooking Supplies

Had been to scrapbooking store twice in a week! Gosh... I'm burning my $$ and I got so many stuffs from the store again! I even bought the extension for the album, means I decided to do scrapbook seriously now.
I think I'm addicted and I just can't help myself not to have the pretty pattern-papers and those cute and stylist embellishments. Being a lazy mum, I know what's best for my projects and I was once determine to do hand cutting alphabets and embellishment for my scrapbook. But when I visited sb store, there are so many easy ways out and that's means more money got to be out in order to get the conveniet.LOL

The pattern papers are so nice and pretty, how to resist??I went twice, snaps a few different designs and colours papers and was so happy as I can back to sb work!

Cardstocks: Various colours group to choose from I just got the pastel colours for my daughter's scrapbook.



Pattern Papers: Tempting already....


Embelisment: they are little helpers and very cute and handy

In fact, you can even think of something and come out as embelisment too, no need to buy that much.

Tools: a must for SB. I even get a craft knife as I just love to do paper cut-outs and paper piecing.

Tag: Food Around the World

Penang Hokkien Mee


I got tagged!!! What the games like? Well, I'll try to reply on this tag by Sandra.

The topic is about food... well, there are too many foods to choose from if you are staying in Penang - the Heaven of Food in Malaysia! There are many types of dishes available in Penang be it Chinese, Malay, Nyonya, Thai, Japanese, Indian,... you name it but of course the most popular is the hawker food. Once you are in Penang, you don't have to worry about food as they are everywhere and within reach.

I choose Penang typical Hokkien Mee, it's a chinese dish and it represents Penang coz origin from here. It is a soup noodle (cooked yellow noodles and vermicelli), I trid to eat without the yellow noodle but it didn't taste as good as eating together with the yellow noodle. Love the hot soup with chilli and top with shrimp, bean sprouts (I love to ask for more veggies), water-convolvulus, hard boiled eggs, sliced lean pork, and a little bit of fried onions and so yummy even with the smell!

I seldom take outside food now coz need to promote balance and healthy diet at home. But when I feel like want to give a twist to my normal meal, I'm sure I'll find Hokkien Mee is always one from my list.

Ok, I'm not going to tag anyone since this tag is been around for quite some times and most people already replied.

*********************************************************
Proposition: What is your favorite food in your state or country?
Requirements: Find some info about the food and show delicious pictures of it?
Quantity: FIVE PEOPLE.
Tag Mode: You leave their blog and post link and add to the list below.

I'm back!!!

En En being so manja after seeing daddy

Well, feel lazy to write blog after "resting" for about 1 week plus. A lot of things happened during last week and I think I need to recall one by one.
Daddy came back from Vietnam and En En was so happy to see daddy again and become so manja to daddy. She just need daddy to hug her and lean her face towards daddy's face, very manja.
En En started to walk now and I think should have a separate blog to write only about her coz she showed us her true colours at last which made everyone in the family were so tired with her. Well, En En went to Alor Setar again today with my parent. So coincidentally, MIL, daddy and BIL are having eithre sore throat or coughing, so it's better En En temporarily go for her holiday to avoid catching flu or any virus that might have in the house. Blame on the weather and lack of sleep.
We have visitors these few days from Singapore. They are PIL 40 years old friends and it's kinda nice to see the gathering among friends who treasure each other for 40 years plus!
Hmm... I still have lots of things to do even En En not around and we are going to miss her coz the house turned quiet now.