Mothering Corner

I thought I would have a busy working week, but things are not going the way I’ve planned. Hubby was sick, and then my boy got sick too. He was infected by influenza A virus and had very high fever since Sunday. Hubby brought him to the hospital on Monday morning while I had to rush to an important appointment. Of course, we didn’t expect that it’s influenza A, until the doctor did the test and confirmed the result. He was admitted immediately and his temperature was beyond 39.5 most of the time.

I rushed back as soon as possible and packed some clothes for him and me. I arranged to get my gal to stay at my office under the care of my SIL and office maid before heading to the hospital. In short, everything happened very fast, but thank god we had a lot of help from the people around us. At least I don’t have to tag my gal along to the hospital with me! She might be infected too as she’s feverish now, but I shall monitor her closely.

My boy spent a night at the hospital, being measured every 4 hours but his temperature didn’t drop below 39 deg. Needless to say, he had to be str*pped and sponged each time his temperature was taken during his 24 hours stay. Gosh, hubby and I were basically up all night long, but the nurses were great. He’s in a very good care indeed.

This morning, his temperature dropped to 38.4 and he’s allowed to be discharged. At first hubby was wondering how much the medical fee and hospital fee will be since we don’t have expatriate insurance coverage here, no matter how many times I asked him to check the available option from any agent or www.wholesaleinsurance.net. *roll eyes* But then, it’s quite affordable for a single room stay because hubby didn’t mention a word about the bill after making the payment. LOL! With hubby and I staying together with our boy, we needed a single room.

Anyway, it’s not really about the money spent. It’s more about getting our boy the medical help he needed. We shall monitor him at home, and I’m crossing my fingers that my gal will be fine.

Have you ever wished that you will have more than 24 hours a day? I did. But if I would to have more than 24 hours a day, I hope that I can get a babysitter to help out too so that I can spend some time on spa. LOL! I used to be able to squeeze some time during weekdays for spa but not anymore. After I started working seriously, time is so limited!

But I still have some personal time at night after putting my kids to sleep. Then I will take my time putting on my skincare and watch a nice series. I have putting away my knitting needles and jewelry making tools and handicraft sets because I’m too lazy to do them nowadays. Basically, I will just lie on the bed watching series. LOL! What a lazy pig.

After a long day at work and doing chores, I think I deserve to be a lazy pig.

I used to buy a lot of shoes when I was in Ipoh, but I slowed down a lot since I moved here. Besides having a smaller shoe rack, I hardly wear shoes around when I work. You see, I will change into my FitFlop upon reaching my office because I need to climb up to the fifth floor to my desk, and if I need to go out during office hour, I will change to another pair of shoes in my car. Normally, there are 2 pairs of pumps or heels in the car which I change according to my outfit, so the rest of my shoes are placed in the shoe rack collecting dust.

When we are out in the weekends, I will normally be in my flats these days so that I can walk around faster, especially if I need to chase my kids!!! Those heels are really collecting dusts and I gave some away to a part time cleaner. She’s so happy even if she can’t fit any. LOL!

But still, the shoe fetish in me didn’t die off totally. I’m eying on the boots and heels by Jaspal’s fall collection, which haven’t hit the store yet. They will probably call me once the boots and shoes arrive.

On top of that, I’m still waiting for a pair of Oxford heels which I bought online. Some online stores carry a lot of nice designs, including heels, flats, wedding shoes or even kiddie shoes! So I enjoy checking them out.

Ah…why is it taking so long to get my new shoes? Hope to see the parcel next week!

I like to stay away from the busy city of Bangkok because I hate to spend too much time getting stuck in a lousy traffic. If I have a driver like some expats here, then I won’t mind being stuck in a traffic. All you need to do is just take a nap to kill the time anyway. But if you are driving, you have to stay alert! I’ve seen a driver who slept in the car after queuing for more than 20 minutes on a road. Frankly, I almost dozed off myself too, but I kept talking to hubby to keep myself (or HIM) awake.

I don’t know how those people which mobile homes do it by driving around all day. It’s too tiring for me. I know how it feels after I’ve starting working for hubby. Not to mention experiencing a car break down on a busy road! That’s pretty awful too. Of course, there are motor home repairs for your mobile homes or a mobile mechanic for our cars, but I bet getting one here who can speak in English is pretty hard.

So, unless it’s really necessary for me to travel around for work or for picking up the kids, rather than that, I won’t drive into the city. Let’s just take a cab!

It’s a boring weekend for me as hubby is down with fever and the boy is slightly affected too. My gal started coughing again last week but it’s not too serious. I guess they haven’t been eating well when I was away, and hubby is lack for rest too. So now he knows how tired I am each time when he’s away. LOL!

No matter what, hubby has to recover by tomorrow as I will be very busy next week. I need to visit some customer, and shall leave home early. He has to attend to the kids and get them ready for school in time.

What to do? He’s the one who passed his business to me, so I have to work harder to buy gold for him huh? LOL!

Again, today’s title sounds weird! Anyway, you will know what I mean later.

My gal requested that I fixed her some mini heart, so I thought of decorating the hearts, instead of just packing them as plain heart sandwiches. I spread some jam on the bread and cut and sealed the bread with 2 heart cutters as shown below:

The cutters are slightly different in sizes. Make sure that the smaller one is used “upside down” so that it will seal the bread instead of cutting through.

Then, I proceeded to decorate the jam sandwiches. I fixed two hens for my gal by adding picks and cheese as wings.

They will be hens, after adding nori and kamaboko as their rosy cheeks.

As for my boy, I cut 3 pieces of cheese with 3 different sizes of round cutters to create the shell of the snails.

I stacked the cheese to create the spiral effect.

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Two Little Hens Bento. Let’s pretend that the hens are hatching eggs.

There are quail eggs, oranges (hidden under the strawberries) and rose apples in the bento too.

These snails belong to my boy.

Pretty simple huh?

It’s something simple again for today’s bento. My initial plan was to fix a brown egg sheets for Chip and Dale, but I was out of eggs. So, this is what I did yesterday:

I cut the cheese with the cutter and mold.

Try not to press hard with the imprint mold. What I wanted was to get the outlines of the chipmunk, then I cut off the excess cheese with an exacto knife. You can also use a toothpick to cut the cheese.

I wrapped the cheese pieces and kept them refrigerated. This morning, I cut some bread with the same cutter, and fixed some butter and sugar toasts for today’s bento. Once the toasts cooled down, I topped the cheese on them and added nori as decoration. The nori bits were punched with the chipmunk puncher, which came in the same set.

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s Chip and Dale bento, with strawberries, blueberries and rose apple too.

This bento belongs to my boy.

When my boy saw his bento, he asked me why are there only 2 chipmunks but not 3? I was puzzled, then I realized that he was expecting to see Alvin and the chipmunks!

But I fixed Chip and Dale! LOL!

Ok, next time boy! I think the same set can be used for Alvin and his friends too.

I’m not a car lover. To me, it’s just a mean of transport, so as long as my car is working well, I don’t have much to complain about it. In fact, when I bought my car 2 years ago, I didn’t have any model in mind. Hubby had a budget constraint, but it’s none of my concern. LOL! I was more worried about how fast can I get the car?

The most affordable cars in Thailand are either Honda or Toyota, so we went for Toyota. Furthermore, some Toyota models are cheaper. We managed to get our car in 3 days! It’s super fast since that particular dealer had existing stock. I was sick with using cabs to fetch my kids to school, and I didn’t feel like bothering SIL anymore. Having a car is a NEED!

But if I would to get another car, maybe I will get something cute like a VW new beetle convertible. I used to know someone with a cute Beetle, and it’s not a lot in Ipoh more than 5 years ago. You could easily recognize one on the road. A volkswagen routan would be nice as a family car too, but I don’t think I’ve seen one here. Maybe I’ve missed it?

Given a choice, I would choose a MPV or SUV like dodge caliber , suzuki xl7 , Audi Q5 and etc. Hubby is driving a CRV now, so he shares the same taste in cars as me. But still, I don’t think we will get another car soon. Really no point buying one unless we are trading in my car! Or unless… I strike a lottery? LOL!

I’m back! After a week of rotting in Penang, I just can’t wait to be home with the kids again. As much as I’ve prepared myself that the house will be in a total mess, but I still got a shock seeing the amount of clothes piling up on the sofa waiting to be folded or ironed, the floor was quite sticky as it’s only mopped once during the 7 days I was away, and the dishes were piling up on the drying rack!!! Actually, there are more, but you got what I mean!

So, I shall put away my dream of having an all-girls holiday with my friends at Branson vacations or a shopping trip to Hong Kong. I don’t think I can enjoy much knowing that I will be home doing more chores than usual. LOL!

Anyway, it’s great to be home. I shall get back to bento-ing next week.

I don’t have much to say about the education system in Malaysia especially in Chinese school) because my kids won’t be studying here. On top of that, I was Chinese educated, from primary to high school, so I have a rough idea how life is at a Chinese school. It’s competitive, and there’s always a lot of homework. No matter what, the amount of pressure and homework have escalated as comparing to my time, and young kids these days face a tougher challenge studying in Chinese school.

However, most parents will still prefer to send their kids to Chinese school, if they are Chinese. The standard is higher, and most believe that it gives a good start to the kids. I don’t have much complain about that because if my kids are here, I would probably send them to Chinese schools as well. But I really hate to see the amount of books in their bags. My niece and nephew study in Chinese school, and they have to use trolley bags. It’s impossible for kids to carry a heavy load like that, 5 days a week, and some might have to climb up the stairs. Not a lot of schools have lifts here ok?

Some schools have Lockers, from what I’ve heard. But some kids might forget to bring home their homework or books for revision. But still, I prefer kids to have School Lockers.

My kids have theirs in their school. Not that it’s a real locker as you can’t lock it. But they are assigned to racks where they place their books, milk, or even shoes outside the classroom. The older kids have Gym Lockers for their extra curriculum of swimming or sports, so it’s pretty convenient for all.

So now you know why I hardly buy school bags for my kids. The bags can last them at least 2 years. Most of the time, it’s quite EMPTY!