被迫扮淑女

两个星期前，爸爸突然买了一台电子琴给我。但是，我觉得这是爸爸的阴谋。因为他玩琴的时间比我还多咧。没关系，反正我并不是很在意。爸爸妈妈说，周杰伦说会听音乐的孩子不会学坏。所以他们决定培养我的音乐细胞，顺便希望用音乐的熏陶让我可以淑女一点。

今天下午，妈妈拿出一本魔术彩色书还有一支特大号的水彩笔，让我练习画画。很神奇耶！只要沾上水，魔术彩色书就立刻出现色彩了！但是，我真搞不懂妈妈干吗硬要我学习琴棋书画扮淑女。

看在妈妈那么用心的份上，好啦，随便啦，我“青青菜菜”涂几笔，应酬她老人家，免得被她唠唠叨叨地说我浪费她的钱。


涂没两页，我就没有耐心了。其实妈妈涂得比我多。我看妈妈挺喜欢做手工的咧。爸爸看我就快变猴子了，就叫我换衣服到楼下去游泳。哇！解放了！开心哦！！

虽然我在游泳池玩了一个小时，我还想继续玩！我企图用一哭二闹来阻止妈妈带我回家，但是一点效果也没有。后来妈妈答应让我回家吃饼干，我也见好就收，立刻收起眼泪跳上来。离开游泳池之后，我发现自己打手指皱皱的，于是叫妈妈帮我擦一下。奇怪咧。干吗爸爸和妈妈笑得那么大声？我的要求很好笑咩？

回家冲凉吃饼干之后，妈妈帮我换上奶奶买的新裙子，还兴致勃勃地给我系上发夹。拜托啦，妈！我头上的头发也没几根，夹上发夹不会很奇怪吗？

你看， 我随便摸一下下，发夹就掉下来了啦。哎哟！！！还夹带着几根珍贵的头发！妈妈！快赔我头发！

算了吧，妈妈。放弃吧，妈妈。你想帮我扮淑女，但是你的女儿我根本不是那块料。虽然孔子说“知其不可而为之”，但您也别再赶鸭子上树了。人家穿起龙袍不像太子，我是穿起裙子不像女子。

其实今天是三八妇女节，也是我奶奶的生日。难怪妈妈要帮我打扮起来。哦，凯凯弟弟也来咯！这家伙，整天在睡大头觉，也不赏脸起来欣赏一下姐姐的风采！哼！

呃，其实，我也可以很淑女的，对不对？既然今天是三八妇女节，我就配合一下吧。

给23个月大的黄靖媛买的玩具

今天媛媛23个月了！下个月，她就2岁了！

23个月，好像应该“隆重”庆祝一下，因为她下个月就步入“2”字头了，坐飞机也要买儿童票了。

于是，我今天买了3样玩具给她。第一，是训练她成为贤妻良母的“切蔬果”玩具。用一把玩具刀把蔬果切成两半，还挺好玩的（对我来说）。但是媛媛只切了半小时左右，就把东西丢一边了。=_=
婆婆一边喂媛媛吃晚餐，一边教媛媛怎么切蔬果。

第二样玩具，是训练媛媛成为有时尚感的“小熊家族”。熊爸爸，熊妈妈和熊小弟都有一厨的衣服鞋子，让媛媛给它们替换。但是，媛媛只玩了5分钟，就开始把衣服鞋帽乱丢了。=_=

有鉴于此，我不开第三样玩具给她玩了。=_=

媛媛，预祝你生日快乐哦！妈妈爱你！

三流的托儿所

我的好友猪姐姐在我和她共写的博客讲到没有良心的托儿所，刚巧昨天我踏破铁鞋走遍了整个武吉班让的托儿中心，帮媛媛物色学校。

刚巧在这一区，有两所“名牌”托儿所。我先到哪里去询问，结果一所太热门，没有办法承诺6月有位子给媛媛。另外一所只在2009年招收2006年出世的孩子。结果我只能留下名字，等候入学。我原本计划让媛媛在2009年上托儿所之前，让她在一间普通的托儿所玩半天。但是，我去到的托儿所，真是差强人意！

首先，那里的校长看起来已经不像校长。如果她手拿扫帚，我不会怀疑她就是清洁女工。我告诉自己不要以貌取人，要详细谈过才下定论。

“请问，如果让孩子上半天制的话，是从几点到几点？”
“呃，应该是一点。”
“包括午餐吗？”
“午餐？呃，好像有。但是没有包括洗澡。”

听到这样的回答，我已经对这个什么都不是很清楚的校长没有什么信心了。但我还是把我要问的问题问清楚。

“早上的课程包括哪些？”
“呃，请你过来这边看时间表。”

于是，我们一起站在布告栏前看学生一天运作的时间表。

看着时间表，校长“恍然大悟”似的说：“哦~~原来你十二点半可以接孩子下课！啊~~有包括午餐！嗯，早上他们做这些这些，嗯嗯，下午他们做这些这些。如果你把孩子留在这里半天，她就会错过这些这些活动。”

我已经下定决心不要把孩子放在这个什么都不很清楚的校长的托儿所了。但是，我还是要求在中心走一圈，看看环境。

我看见一个满头银发的，看起来真的很像咖啡店里捧咖啡的阿嫂，一只手扶着一面白板，另外一只手在指挥围坐在她面前的5个小朋友端正坐好。白板上粗糙地画了几只动物的头，阿嫂口里唱道“Old Macdonald had a farm, yee ya yee ya oh! and on his farm he had a dog..." （她用食指点了点白板上画的那只有点像狗的图案，继续：“yee ya yee ya...SIT DOWN PROPERLY, boy! oh! and he woof woof here...”

这个地方太恐怖了！校长，老师，全没个样！

我说我会考虑，然后就头也不回地走人了。

我不是崇尚名牌学校，也不是看不起邻里托儿所。但是，孩子的启蒙教育跟他将来的学习和兴趣息息相关，我绝对不要孩子遇人不淑！我觉得孩子的童年和教育，绝对不能耗在这种三流的托儿所。

Playing with the dough

是时候训练我的二厨，将来我烘蛋糕或饼干的话，她就可以上阵了。

这些照片是我的用新的傻瓜相机拍的。效果真是令我满意！

Verbal Gymnastics

Jae talks a lot.

Oh yes, she has always luuuuurved to talk. She's the Chris Tucker of babies, I tell you.

She can talk without an audience. Without a topic. Heck, she can even talk without a language (not one that is comprehensible by others anyway).

Here, she's at it again. This time, at VivoCity, apparently musing over the black "gor-gor" performing bar gymnastics at the roof garden.

A Stroll In The Park

Jae took an earlier-than-usual afternoon nap yesterday and she woke up from it, well, earlier than usual. The weather was fabulous so I decided to bring the girls out for a stroll in the park - at the Botanic Gardens.

Mommy dressed her in this sweet little cheery-looking red checkered Osh-Kosh outfit. At the BG, Jae's mood was as every bit as cheery as her suit. She even did a little Harry Potter. Wingardium Leviosa! *Swish and flick*



She also found this....I don't know what it was either....this apple-look-alike...thing, which to her was simply "Ball-ball!". She loved it, especially when I rolled it up the sloped grass patch and it'd just roll back down to her feet.



There was this Jam On rock performance going on at the Shaw Foundation Symphone Stage. This was an interesting event organised by the SPH in that the performances featured both English and Chinese songs. The performers included Jive Talking, Nyak and the Ang Mor Pais and the Taiwanese band Soda Green (苏打绿).



What was great was that admission to this performance was free. Visitors to the park just plonked their butts down on the grass (or on picnic mats, or on the SPH bags that the organisers gave out during the performances), and enjoyed the very spirited jamming by the bands. It was quite a sight. I must say that the accoustics were great! Not some crappy set up with muffled sounds you might find even in some paid concert.



The little one seemed to enjoy the singing too, clapping and dancing to the tunes belted out on stage. Her own "mini-performance" even attracted the attentions of those around her. The couple beside her took a picture of Jae and showed it to her, who pointed at the camera and exclaimed "媛媛!", then continued clapping and dancing.



It was a pity we didn't manage to stay till the appearance of the final band Soda Green. Right after Nyak aka 黄星魁 finished crooning his 881 hit song "身外物", our girl declared that she was hungry and demanded to be fed. Oh well....it may be sometime before this girl would decide that a little hunger is small price to pay to catch a glimpse of her idol(s). For now, food is king!

前世今生

沈殿霞逝世的消息，震撼了整个华人社区。像我这个年龄的人，都是由沈殿霞的笑声陪伴长大的。因此，我连续几天都买了新明，追踪这则新闻。

喜欢看新明，是因为它常常都从各种有趣的角度报道新闻。昨天，就有一则新闻写香港的一个玄学家通过《三世书》来看沈殿霞，郑欣宜和郑少秋的前世今生。

玄学家说沈殿霞前世是一个暴发户的儿子，生性风流，娶了很多小妾。郑少秋的前世就是沈其中的一个小妾，因为没有为其生下一儿半女，所以郁郁而终。今世，他俩再结夫妻缘，就是为了生孩子。生完孩子之后，两人今世的缘份也尽了。来世只有可能做亲戚，不会再做夫妻了。而郑欣宜与母亲的缘份深厚，来世有机会再做母女或夫妻，来报答母亲的养育之恩。

这番判词，当然是无从考证的。然而，对于前世今生，我个人的看法是认为它存在的。

有今天，就一定会有昨天，还有明天。活在今天，不代表昨天不存在。还没有经历明天，不表示明天不会来。昨天做的事，也许等到今天或明天才有结果。只要有因，就会有果。

有人向我解释过：前世今生来世，就好像倒骨牌。因为你所做的每一件事，每一个念头，每一句话语，都造就了你以后的遭遇。但是，我们虽然在尝“果”的同时，我们也在制造“因”。我们也许在“偿还”上辈子的“因”而陷入制造一个“恶果”的境地里，但是，只要我们行善，言善，心存善念，我们还是能够改变骨牌倒下的方向。

前世今生的概念，学识浅薄的我说也说不清楚。但是，这一则小小的花边新闻，却让我想到：沈殿霞和郑少秋今世的孽缘是上辈子的恶果。面对这样的一个处境，沈殿霞可以选择教唆孩子憎恨父亲及他的新家庭，可以用她的影响力给前夫没有办法在影艺圈继续工作下去，可以恨对方一辈子。但沈殿霞却选择在自己的清谈节目中化解这段孽缘，并告诉孩子要尊重父亲和阿姨。

这样的肚量，这样的胸襟，这样的豁达，这样的智慧，我会时时牢记在心。

THE Song for Mothers!

Saw this in Idy's blog. I cant help it but I want to put it in my blog too!!

Famous Arches Around The World

This is quite funny~!

OH.MY.GOD.

Do you know the Singapore bad taste joker Steven Lim? Do you know the Edison Chen sex scandel? Can you link them up together?

I was surfing the net when I chanced upon a report on Steven Lim's disgusting video clip he posted on youtube, titled "Stop Bullying Edison Chen". I clicked on it and true enough, my hair stood up and I almost puked!

The comments on the video were quite hilarious. Apparently some found him very funny, and most of them thought he forgot to take his medication.

See for yourself if you are interested. I shall not contaminate my blog by embedding the jaw-dropping video here.

Please, Mr Steven Lim, do whatever you want but please, kindly refrain from telling others you are from Singapore. It makes me feel so ashamed to be on the same island as you are.

Splashing Good Time!

Have been bringing Jae for dips in this little heated Jacuzzi pool over the past few days. It's great to see her enjoying herself and building up her confidence with water at the same time~!

China Doll

Jae in the three suits mommy dressed her up in, on 除夕，初一 and 初二 respectively.

Tantalizing Turqoise, Ravishing Red and Pretty Pink.

Which one do you fancy? ;D

No Choice?

I have to say that some of the recent forum comments I've come across over the topic of maid abuse make me feel rather pissed (Pardon the bluntness here).

I am empathatic with the fact that some families simply do not enjoy the same extent of luxury when it comes to childcare matters e.g. familial and financial support. I truly am. Not everyone is lucky enough to have parents or in-laws to assist with looking after their kids while they go to work. Not everyone can afford or find good suitable childcare services. For those of us who do not have to grapple with such problems, we really ought to thank our lucky stars (or equivalent), recognize and acknowledge that we are, indeed, blessed.

The thing that I have an issue with is that people have this tendency to gripe. Don't get me wrong. It is perfectly fine to gripe. I do that myself. All the time. What gets to me is when some of these people gripe that "they have no choice". I'm really cheesed off that these people appear to be blaming everything else, other than themselves for their predicaments. Ok, "blaming" may be too strong a word to use for some of these chaps, but basically they are all pointing their fingers at all sorts of things (society, bad luck, family structure etc.; as long as it is not themselves) in an attempt to prove one point - that they have got no choice but to do what they have done.

The reasons put forth to justify why they have got "no choice" typically includes stuff like:

"Both me and my hubby are working so no one at home with maid"
"We have two/three/x kids that needs to be taken care of"
"We've got lots of loans to finance"

Pleeeze lah.

Can earn a bit less or not? Sure, quality of life won't be so good, but isn't it still a choice?

Cannot ah? Cos got housing, reno, car, whatever loans to finance? Isn't this a choice you've made upfront, to take up all these loans?

Oh, you HAVE TO take these loans cos need to cater to x kids so small house/car/whatever wouldn't be suitable? Come on lah. Whose choice was it in the first place to have x kids?! Did someone kenna raped x times?

What I want to say is: Don't bite more than you can chew. If you have a broken jaw and can't chew at all, then don't bite at all until your jaw is fixed.

I guess many of these people just want so much to get that picture-perfect future. So much so that in their attempt to get there, they end up sacrificing the present. Hugely unwise, IMHO.

Anyways, before all these hoo-hahs, I had already penned my thoughts on this topic in a previous post. I still feel as strongly about this now as I do then.

Ok, enough griping already. It's CNY for goodness's sake!

KFC Daddy and Kiddy

Hmmm... the finger licking good dinner on the first day of Chinese New Year!

The Little Red Dot

Today's the first day of CNY. Donned in 'Ang Pao red' two-piece, armed with 2 x mandarin oranges, and having drilled her "恭喜发财" (with accompaniment hand gestures) to perfection, Jae was all set for her quest to collect those red packets.


Looks like meat, no? Taste like meat too. But these are really vegetarian stuff. Every CNY we'd eat a vegetarian meal (吃斋/"灾") at my IL's. These used to be around midnight, immediately upon crossing over into the new year, but since last year (cos of Jae lah) these have been pushed back to breakfast times the following morning. Each of us need to eat > 1 bowl of rice somemore.


Brunch was at my parents' place. As per the vegatarian meal practice, things over here have been so routine over the years that we'd be able to expect what the dishes are gonna be, cos they're 90% the same year after year. Can bet your marbles that there'd be fried meat balls, deep fried prawns (no longer crispy by the time we eat it), chicken abalone soup, steamed fish, braised chicken + pork and yam cake.

Jae must have enjoyed being spoon-fed by mommy, and rewarded her with a kiss after the hearty meal.


The next visit was to Jae's 姨婆祖's place. Again, routine - every CNY we'd get to savour her really yummilicious 年糕 fried with yam slices, and the uber-tasty 金瓜糕!


At our fourth stop, Jae got meet for the first time, her little cousin di-di 黄靖凯. Thought Jae would be excited to meet di-di cos she'd been chanting his name for sometime already since his arrival some 2 weeks ago. Alas, the girl was just too distracted by the toys at Ah-Hann's place to be bothered with anything else beyond being cajoled to give a light peck on baby's forehead.


No wonder little Kai-Kai didn't look that pleased. It's all Jie-jie's fault~!

For dinner, we had KFC.

Shanghai Blues

Today is the eve of the Lunar New Year. Tomorrow we will be officially ushering in the Year of the Rat. Yes...it;s all very exciting, isn't it? Well, what was really more exciting was the fact that today most of us need work only half a day. Yay!

After her afternoon nap, we were to visit Jae's 公公 & 婆婆 and after that proceed to 爷爷 & 奶奶's place. For these dual visits, mommy dressed Jae up in her new cheongsam. This particular turqoise piece was bought by Jae's 'Ah-Zor' - her great-grandmother, my grandma.

We thought she looked pretty good in this outfit, so I grabbed the camera and snapped off a few shots. Wah...Jae so lady-like ah... Got pose to show off her 'curves' somemore.

When posing with 'Jaimie's friends' (her collection of stuffed toys in her room), she grabbed Eeyore and put up a show of affection towards the purple donkey. Wah...so demure ah...



Perhaps the little girl has decided to finally live up to her name 媛媛. You think?




Alas. With Jae being Jae, it didn't take long before she reverted to her usual 搞怪 self.

媛媛 ah~~

搬家小插曲

搬家之离别曲

要搬离旧家，真的有很多的不舍。人非草木，怎么可能头也不回地离开一个住了7年的地方？正如阿敏所说，那是我们打基础的地方。婚姻的基础，经济的基础，家庭的基础，事业的基础等等。

草木真的是无情吗？

搬家的前一天，餐厅的灯突然坏了。厕所的水龙头突然不能关上了。一股难过顿时涌上心头。这是它们离别的眼泪吗？这是它们说再见的方式吗？

对不起~再见~再见~对不起。再见了。

这里是我们和媛媛的睡房。这里有很多的欢笑，还有媛媛成长的足迹。

这里是我们的书房。我们在这里上网，写部落格，看书，看影碟。

虽然我不会下厨，但是厨房仍然是我的骄傲！

搬家之大头虾

我这个人一向来做事粗枝大叶。从搬家收拾东西，可见一斑。搬家的前一天已经收拾到午夜12点多，以为已经收拾完了。谁知道，早上老公再检查书橱时，发现我还有一柜子的东西还没有收！搬运工人快来的时候，老公再检查我的衣柜，发现我还有一抽屉的衣服忘了收！搬运工人在搬运东西的时候，我自己再检查一下厨房的柜子，差点晕倒~~还有一柜子的酱油胡椒粉等等等着我处置它们！再检查一下厨房的抽屉，妈呀！几个碗盘可怜兮兮地望着我，以为我要抛弃它们。

真受不了我自己！

动作麻利的搬运工人快手快脚，在两个小时之内完成所有的搬运工作！



搬家之大义灭亲

因为新家的储物空间非常有限，很多东西根本不能带过去。不能送人的，只有一条路可以走：丢弃。有很多东西，丢就相当心痛，收就相当占位。这些东西通常是可以带给我们一些回忆，可是纪念价值不高的物品。我“大义灭亲”地把它们送入垃圾槽时，不知道为什么，总觉得自己在屠杀些什么。屠杀我的记忆，还是屠杀我的心情？

“侥幸”被我们带过去的东西有42箱。

我们花了三天，还是没有办法把所有的东西整理好。因为，储物的空间真的不够！伤脑筋哦~~

20-10-20

No.....that is not the date of a day in the future. That's the timing we clocked on the road this morning, our first ever trip to work from our new home. Being the inaugrual journey, we didn't have any sense on how the traffic conditions might be on the roads, so like typical kiasu Singaporeans, we decided to set our alarm clock to get us up from bed at 6am sharp (Actually not THAT kiasu lah. The even more kiasu ones would have done a trial-run of the journey one week in advance).

After spending 30 minutes washing up and changing, we were on our way. Jae was still asleep and resting on mommy's shoulders when we stepped out of the house.

1st leg: This part of the journey saw us travelling on an unusually uncongested Bukit Batok road. I was doing like 70km/h which was the speed limit along this stretch of road. Traffic speed slowed a wee bit when we neared the school zones. The little tot remained asleep as mommy waved goodbye. Almost 20 minutes for this leg of the trip.

2nd leg: This was the shortest leg, clocking just under 10 minutes. Traffic, despite showing some signs of picking up, was still pretty smooth. I stopped at quite a number of traffic lights, though. Yes, the sleepy head was still very much in dreamland. She did open her eyes very momentarily when Por-Por picked her up from the car, as if bidding me goodbye.

3rd leg: Ah, this last portion of the trip would usually have meant that I'd pay the ERP charges at two gantries - one along BKE and one along PIE. I passed through the former at 0700hrs and the latter at 0710hrs so no charges. No need to contribute to this system that is raking up quite a bit of displeasure among motorists nationwide with the recent announcement of hike + new gantries. Smooth traffic on the highways meant that I was able to reach my office in record time, at 0720hrs.

50 minutes from door to (last) door. I called Angie from my office and she was surprised at how quickly I've arrived at my final destination. I suggested that we could squeeze off a little more, say 10 minutes worth of sleep tomorrow morning, but she pointed out that traffic conditions worsen rapidly and that a difference of 10 minutes at departure would likely be met with a traffic slowdown resulting in delay several fold this duration. I think she's right.

Oh well. Perhaps I can do more of such early morning blogging in the future.