Lesson in Life

Last Sunday while giving Bryan a bath, I caught a cengkerik (cricket) in the bathroom. Ok, at that time, I forgot what is cengkerik in English, so I just told Bryan that it is a grasshopper. At least he know what is grasshopper from his books liao mah.

I put the cricket in a clear plastic container so that Bryan could have a close look at the cricket.

Bryan was a little scared of the cricket. He dare not hold the plastic container in his hands.

The first thing he noticed/ say is, “Eh..just like butterfly one.”

He meant that the cricket has a pair of antenna just like a butterfly. So I took the opportunity to explain that both cricket & butterfly are insects. And insects have antenna, just like ants, cockroaches…etc. I also pointed out to him the texture of the cricket legs, and how it can make sounds when they are rubbed together… At that point, I think he was a little confused liao. Anyway, it was a good short lesson on biology or issit insectology ..hahaha…

He gets bored of the cricket in a short while, so the next thing to do is to release it into the “wild.” So we took the cricket to the deserted corner house at the end of the road because it has a deserted garden there.

But before that, a short lesson on why we should let the cricket go… Every creature deserves freedom and respect. And the cricket belongs to the garden.

And you know what Bryan’s reply was, “Yes…put in garden and play with friends… Got butterfly, got dragonfly, got spider….” (btw, he has got a story book on garden friends… hehe)

Bye bye cricket, have fun with the butterflies, dragonflies and spiders….

More blogs

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My personal blog: http://justmytots.com/

My baby Bryan’s blog: http://mybb.justmytots.com/

Yeah…I have Penang FON now

Finally after months of unsatisfied service with Streamyx, we have Penang FON at our house. Why are we switching to Penang FON?

1. Streamyx keep dropping off, especially on weekends, starting from Friday night. Lately, it is getting worse that sometimes it will drop off in the middle of the work day (on the rare occasions when I work from home) or during my night conferences on weeknights. This is a big problem for me as I regularly have teleconferences at night, and is an even bigger problem especially when I am the host for the meeting, and need to share presentations.
2. My Streamyx connection is only 512kbs at RM66 per month
3. Penang FON is up to 2GB/s at RM60 per month
4. Most of the people I know who is on Penang FON are satisfied with the service
5. Only setback of Penang FON is I have to incur another round of startup fee, which totaled RM300 (inclusive of 3 mths refundable deposit).

So now, I have to go and cancel my Streamyx account. Let’s hope it’s an easy process.

Bryan’s angpow saved the day

I was out for my regular car service appointment when the Penang FON staff came for the installation.

We asked the Penang FON admin to install on Saturday morning, but they never confirmed our appointment. So we did not expect them to come and thus did not prepare the RM300 for the start up fees & deposit.

Hubby had only RM100 cash with him, and was caught by surprise when the Penang FON staff came. He actually told them to wait while he confirm that he has enough cash to pay them.

We had Bryan’s party just a few weeks ago, and all his birthday angpows are still at the top drawer in his bedroom. We haven’t had time to even take it out from the packets and bank it into his account yet. So obviously that was the first place hubby went to hunt for $$.

Oh-oh…sorry dear, mummy & daddy will replace that for u ok.

New Mothers’ Room

We have been asking for a new mothers room for a long time. There was a mothers’ room previously but they tore it down to accomodate our company’s expansion.

Pumping moms were asked to express milk at the sick bay at the in-house clinic. They did separate out a section for pumping moms but security is very loose.

A few mothers had their privacy intruded by people who were
1) looking for their sick friends; or
2) plain busy bodies

It is also not hygienic or conducive as there are sometimes unwell employees at the nearby beds.

So a few of us at the company had wrote multiple emails to the HR department and the Workplace services asking for a separate Mothers’ Room and to ensure privacy and security for the pumping moms.

I had also wrote to WABA for materials to support our cause. WABA was very supportive to help provide materials. But unfortunately, the breastfeeding regulations in Malaysia is very weak. Eg 68% of the countries around the world has breastfeeding breaks for working breastfeeding mothers, but sadly, Malaysia is not one of them.

So since there are no rules governing the rights of bfg mothers, we had to champion our own cause.

I had been quite lucky that i do not used the old Mothers’ room very frequently last time as
1) I extended my maternity leave until my baby is 3+ months
2) I worked from home for most of the days until my baby is about 10 mths old. I have been lucky that most of the projects that I was assigned when I returned to work do not require me to be physically at the office. I only went to the office once a week.

But since about 2 months ago, I was assigned to a new project that requires me to work with the local team and thus need to be at the office most of the days.

Anyway back to the blog title, as of yesterday, we have a brand new mothers room.

It is a bit smaller than we requested- we wanted min 5 stalls but were given only 4. But nevertheless it is a BIG improvement.

There is a bigger fridge now (1 door) instead of the miserable Minibar we had later, and there’s a hot water pot and sink (but no soap *aiyo*) in the room. There is also some shelves for us to put our bags.

We had also asked for notice boards to be placed in the room, so that we can post bfg articles and our babies’ photos. HR promised us this in Stage 2 of the plan (whatever it means).

Anyway, although this facility comes late for me (my baby is already 1 yr old) , I am still very happy on it, and am happy for the new pumping moms in my company.

Proud grandparents

My parents are really a pair of protective grandparents. It is obvious to everyone that they love Bryan to bits. Their neighbour, an elderly woman also took care of a baby girl – YanYan who is about 2 months older than Bryan.

But the girl is very “smart” – she understands most of the things we say, she can say quite a lot of words, can walk/ run unassisted and can imitate a lot of actions – the most funny is the “kepala sakit”action where she will put her hands to her forehead feigning headache.

So in comparison to YY, Bryan is very quite far behind, but i have always told my parents to not care or compare about it. Children develop at different speed and there is really no use to compare. And to be honest, Bryan is not behind in his development milestones, so there’s nothing to worry about.

Last Friday, my mom told me that she don want to take Bryan out when YY is outside. Coz YY’s grandma said to the other neighbours that YY is faster in her development than Bryan

How kiasu, and in a way sad, coz the old people’s kiasuism is in a way affecting the children, since Bryan will have less chance to play with YY until my mom gets over it. Luckily, me knowing my mom, it won’t be long.

Ooops…I kiss someone’s put-put

Yesterday was the last day of the Sushi King RM2 promotion. So since it was so cheap, I decided to take my mom for a treat. So after work, immediately rush home to P Terubong and fetch mom & Bryan. My sis & LK meet us at Sushi King BJ.

Arrived at BJ at about 6:10pm and there was a huge crowd outside. Luckily LK arrived earlier and therefore we can go in once everyone has arrived.

At Sushi King, as usual, we place Bryan into the baby chair. And in a few seconds, he turned around, grab the back of the chair, and pulled himself into a standing position. We did not even notice him doing it. When Lk noticed it, he was already standing proudly in his baby chair *pening*.

The chair does not have any strap to secure him & he would not sit still in the chair since he discovered a way to stand up. End up, we had to eat with him on our lap. Luckily it was just sushi, so fairly easy to eat.

After dinner, sis took mom home, LK drove home by himself and Bryan with me. But as it was late, he was quite fussy, so i had to keep entertaining him along the way.

As i stopped at the traffic light near my house, I forgot to switch my gear to Neutral but instead just continue to step on the brake. Then i played with Bryan and must have lose my footing resulting my car to slide to the front and knocked the backside of the Wira in front of me.

I kinda shocked and step out of the car and apologise immediately to the driver. Then i got back in to reverse my car. The driver inspected the car and realized that there were no damages, gave me the OK sign and got back into the car.

*Phew* Lesson learnt. No playing with kids while on the road! I may not be so lucky next time.

Handycam

Finally, we bought a video camera. So far, we have been taking video from our digital camera. The quality is fairly good, but it is troublesome to convert to dvd, and thus difficult to share with family. Also the recording time is not long on the camera.

So yesterday, went to the camera fair at Gurney Plaza and bought the Sony DCR-DVD605E handycam. Cost was Rm1999 + free gifts – dvd player (worth Rm290), 3 dvds, handycam bag, tripod, umbrella, 2 sony cups (haha) & desktop calculator (pasar malam quality one). The price is usually standard but we get more gifts if we bought it during the fair

Features:
- PAL
- 20 x Optical Zoom
- 800 x Digital Zoom – B&W Viewfinder
- 2.5 in LCD Screen
- Touch screen
- Carl Zeiss lens

The other model that we were considering was Panasonic. The advantage Pana model has is 30X optical zoom. But we have used Aunt 5 Sony handycam before and the video quality is very good. Plus Aunt 5 has bought the camera years ago and it is still in good condition, so sony quality is reliable. The Sony model is made in Japan. With Pana, we have no experience, and although the Lumix Panasonic camera we have is very good, i don’t know about their handycam. Btw, we bought the Lumix camera coz it uses Leica lens and is also wholly made in Japan. Leica lens is the best (or one of the best) lens in the world. But their handy cam are not using any branded lens.

Another thing my sis cautioned me is to get a camera with built in flash (?) so that can get good night scenes. We have recorded good night scenes using Aunt 5’s Sony. During our trip to Korea, I manage to record some street dance by the teenagers at their public park from easily 200-300M away and it was at night.

Anyway, I haven’t tried recording on my new handycam yet. Can’t wait to use it. It’s definitely gonna help us capture a lot of precious Bryan moments.