Mommy's Little Apprentice Cook

Of late, whenever Mommy is busy at the kitchen preparing meals for the family, Juan Or would come and busybody around help out. So far, Mommy only allows Juan Or to do simple tasks like hoarding the vege out of the soaking water, and washing those small bowls or spoons used during the cooking process but does not require soap. And, yeah, he did the washing, but his washing seems to take forever to finish. Why? Because he also plays with water! ^_^ Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

So far, other things that Juan Or has helped Mommy are peeling the skin of the stalk of the sweet potato leaves, plucking out the leaves of 'kou chye' (bitter vege) for Mommy to cook soup and pounding the shallot-garlic-dried chillies mixture in the mortar. However, Juan Or is still not able to stay on long doing the tasks, at most is only for about 15 to 20 minutes, then off he goes to play with his toys or disturb Papa! As for the pounding job, he could only manage less than 10 times of continuous pounding because the pestel is too heavy for him.

There was once too when Mommy was chopping the shallots and Juan Or came over to ask to help but Mommy only allowed him to see and not do. At that time, Mommy's eyes already became watery. So when he came near to see the chopping, his eyes went watery too and he gave Mommy the kind of look like as if he doesn't know and cannot understand what's happening to him! Poor boy!

This morning, as Mommy was sending him to the babysitter's house before heading off to office, Juan Or looked at Mommy with a thoughtful look and said,"Ai (Want) help Mama housework!"

At this point of writing and thinking back about Juan Or's eagerness to help with the cooking, Mommy feels guilty for scolding him (ferociously) when he started playing with water as he does the washing, more so when Mommy is rushing for time to finish cooking. Mommy is glad however that Mommy's scolding still does not hamper his eagerness to help Mommy! 


"Hugs from Mommy to Juan Or. Forgive Mommy for being so harsh on you even though you have been so eager to lend Mommy a helping hand."

Going Brief

12th September 2011

This was the day Juan Or proudly (and willingly) put on his first brief!

Actually, Mommy bought his kiddy briefs when Mommy was still pregnant with him. You may be wondering why Mommy bought them so early? Because that time, Tesco came up with her new clothes brand, Southfield and Tesco sold them cheaply as introductory price.

When Juan Or was around 2 years 6 months old, Mommy tried introducing the briefs to him but he refused to allow Mommy to put it on him. Then off and on again, Mommy reintroduced the briefs and he still refused.

Now back to the present..........see what he's up to with his brief? Drum roll, please!

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Eeeeeiikkkkkk! Don't do that!!!!

(*Slap forehead*)

Cameron Highlands Trip with Little Sprouts

On 1st Sept 2011, Juan Or had the opportunity to join a day family trip (with Little Sprouts and their parents) to Cameron Highlands. In the trip, Juan Or's favourite Grandpa and Second Uncle were in too, so Juan Or had a really good time being cuddled by Grandpa while on the way to Cameron Highlands. However, Grandma stayed back home because of painful legs.

Our first destination was the Boh Tea Centre at Sungei Palas. The road leading there was really narrow and easily jammed up. Nevertheless, we managed to go through that and parked somewhere. After that, we had to climb up a substantial amount of terraced steps and wooden stairs to actually reach the tea centre. Both Juan Or and Juan Juan held hands all the time while climbing the steps/stairs. How sweet!

Finally, we have almost reached the top.....

...and now at the Boh Tea Centre.

We looked for an empty table to sit and found one. Both Juan Or and Juan Juan eagerly sat down together....

......until the food arrived. What food? It was a set of English tea, strawberry cakes and scones.

And surprisingly though, Juan Or finished up the entire strawberry cake - not something he would usually do!

Mommy managed to take a quick tour to see the tea processing factory, whereby there are exhibits of their tea processing machinery.

Then it was all the way down to the car park again. Again, Juan Or and Juan Juan held hands while climbing down. Notice the sun was high up already but it was not noon yet (but near already).

Of course, as expected of young children, their itchy fingers plucked some tea leaves out of curiosity.

Our next destination was to the Kew Market but Mommy did not snap any photos there because the place was crowded and narrow. Mommy did not buy any vegetables there because the price was not at all comparable to the prices offered by NSK hypermarket in Kuchai Lama. Imagine we went all the way up there and yet those 'Cameronians' cannot afford to sell their vege any cheaper than the vege that has been send down to the lowlands for sale! The only vege Mommy bought was the fresh tiger lily buds - 2 packets (each 600g) for RM10, simply because you can't find them selling here in the lowlands.

After the market, we headed to a strawberry-cum-garden salad farm (can't remember which farm is that) and we had garden salad as snack together with strawberry milkshake drink. Shown here is Papa and Second Uncle taking their garden salad serving and Juan Or fooling around in the background.

Here's the salad....

....and all three - Juan Juan, Ah Xuan and Juan Or - were very eager to wash their hands before handling the salad. However, Juan Or did not eat a single salad even though he washed his hands.

Mommy took some snapshots of the farm....

....and an amusement corner of the farm (for children who are bored about vegetables!). ^_^

There is also a souvenir shop corner to which Juan Or tried on one J.W.W. Birch hat with a cheeky face!

By then, it was already lunch time and our final destination was to a nyonya restaurant.

Mommy didn't take photos of the food because the situation was not very conducive to do so and that everyone was so busy eating. As for Juan Or, he was satisfied with eating only white rice and drinking his own 'home-made tuak' which is actually his white rice poured into Chinese tea!

A closer look of his air tuak.

On our way down from Cameron Highlands and heading home, Mommy stopped by an Orang Asli stall to buy bamboo shoots. According to the Orang Asli, this breed of bamboo shoot is known as rebung manis (sweet bamboo shoot).

There are five pieces in a packet selling for RM10 and the whole packet weighed about 2.5 kg. Mommy sliced them...

....then boiled them to get rid of the strong smell and also so that the bamboo shoots can be stored in refrigerator for a longer period of time.

After boiling, drain the water away, wait till the bamboo shoots cool down and then store in refrigerator.


Anyway, many thanks to Little Sprouts' parents for treating us to the food in Cameron Highlands! :-)

1-day School Holiday Programme at UCSI-Child Development Centre (UCSI-CDC)

It was the eve of Hari Raya (i.e., 29th August 2011) and the UCSI-CDC held another session of school holiday programme but for one day only. Since Juan Or has been expressing his desire to start schooling, Mommy has no qualms to enrol him for such short classes since time is still well ahead of Mommy's plan to start his school from January 2012.

This time round, only two classes are offered in the one-day programme: martial arts (9am-10am) and cooking class (10.30am-12.30pm). So as usual, Mommy would park the car at Southwing, took Juan Or to sit around in Mommy's office first, and after that boarded the UCSI shuttle bus to Northwing where the kindy is. Here's Juan Or enjoying his bus ride.

We arrived quite early at the kindy, so Juan Or had the chance to play with the kindy's building blocks set with other children before the martial arts class started.

Finally, the martial arts class started, but Mommy hid somewhere so that Mommy can take some photos of Juan Or doing his punches and kicks. ^_^

The teacher first went through some warming-up exercises. Notice there were only 3 kids including Juan Or? Turned out too that Juan Or is the youngest of them all.

During the warming-up, Mommy noticed Juan Or was not very good at following the actions of others. Instead he would rather stand and watch what others were doing. Because of that, finally the martial arts teacher had to go to him and guide him in moving his body parts!

After that Mommy left the kindy to go back to office while Juan Or stayed on for his morning break snacks and cooking class.

Here's Juan Or's yield from the cooking class - teddy bear-faced sushi plus other sushis!

For him, it's more like playing rather than eating.....

....and as expected, he only ate the teddy bear-faced sushi simply because he is only interested in white rice and nothing else! Even the seaweed and tiny ham pieces that make the eyes, nose, ears and mouth were all peeled out before he ate the sushi! *Slap forehead!*

Looks like Juan Or is one classic example whereby those parental tips on decorating children's food to make it look more attractive to eat does not work at all! To put it simply, Juan Or is not easily taken in by decorations, frills and the what-nots on the food.

After a whole morning at school and right after eating his sushi for lunch, Juan Or went ZZZZZZ......

Sweet dreams, baby! 

Mommy's Yield at Toys R'Us Members' Clearance Sale

Recently, Mommy got an SMS notification about Toys R'Us holding a members' clearance sale at The Summit, Subang Jaya from 21st to 25th September 2011. Since both Juan Or and Mommy are Transformers fan, Mommy took the opportunity to see what good deals are in store for Transformers toys.

Here's how it looked like for the section selling Transformers toys.

And here's how the discount scheme is like for Toys R'Us Star Card members.

However, not all toy items have these colour-coded member discount stickers. Meaning to say, this clearance sale is also opened to non-members, only thing is that if the toy bears no colour-coded sticker, then everyone buys it at the price-tag price regardless of whether you are a member or not. As for the Transformers toys, none of them have the colour-coded stickers, but the tags' prices already show prices that are lower than the normal price. However, beware that there are still some Transformers toys which are priced no different (or only slightly lower) from what you can find in Parkson or even the Toys R'Us chain stores. All in all, if you want to know whether you are buying at a bargain, then you have to really know the normal retail price!

Here's Mommy's yield....

The Power Core Combiners consisting of 5 individual robots combining into one big robot is priced at RM49.90 (normal price is RM99.90) and that's an attractive 50% discount compared to most other places who don't even offer discount or even Parkson at Plaza OUG that offers only 10% discount. Funnily though, in this clearance sale, Toys R'Us does not label the price consistently. That means, other exactly same units of Power Core Combiners bear the price tag RM99.90! For non-members, do not despair as this item does not bear the colour-coded stickers  - that means both members and non-members get to buy it at RM49.90.


As for the front row robots in the photo, from left is the deluxe range of yellow Cybertronian Bumblebee (RM29.90, normal price RM49.90) and purple-and-white Autobot Skids and Mudflap (two robots in a set combine to form an ice-cream vendor's vehicle, RM29.90, normal price RM49.90). There are other deluxe class Transformers robots too (all are from the Revenge of the Fallen or even older Transformers), but they are priced at RM39.90 and some even at RM41.90 which Mommy feels is still not a good clearance price.


Some cartoon movie books (Cars, Toy Story, Ben10) and magazines are on sale too, selling at flat price of RM5 each. So Mommy chose these Cars' storybooks (normal price RM9.90 each). However, not all the books are in tip-top condition - that's if you are particular about the condition of the book (e.g. slightly crumpled pages, dented book cover corners, etc., yes, Mommy is one such person! ^_^)

The sale is on from 10am to 8pm only. Both cash and credit cards are accepted (no minimum amount required). There are only two cashiers on-duty but there is no long queue at all. By the way, parking at Summit is RM1 on weekdays for first 3 or 4 hours (can't remember) and RM3 for weekends for the same duration of time. Overall, a good sale if you are specifically looking for a particular toy and have good knowledge of the toy's normal price in order to know if you are in for a bargain.

The Story of Juan Or and the A&W Bear

Yes, Mommy is back after a long hiatus with work and a battle with autorun worm infection issues on Mommy's micro SD card (yes, Mommy was virtually 'sick'!). So the posts you see from now on will be a little outdated, nevertheless Mommy has to catch up from somewhere, right? Forgive Mommy, ya? ^_^

Juan Or, Papa and Mommy attended The Little Sprouts' birthday party not too long ago (on 21st August 2011) held at the A&W Restaurant at 3K Complex, Subang Jaya. In the party, the main attraction was the A&W Bear's appearance. At first, Mommy thought that with the bear around, at most is that the children would go all joy and laughter to see the A&W bear come alive, and when the bear disappears, the excitement subsides. Period. But no, there was something more to it for Juan Or that prompts Mommy to blog about Juan Or and the A&W Bear. Here....let the photos tell you the story.

The bear appeared from a door and Juan Or was all ready to pose with both Juan Juan the birthday girl and the bear.

It was like love at first sight for Juan Or! Other children have sort of 'deserted' the bear when the bear walked to the centre stage,  but Juan Or faithfully escorted the bear!

The bear was all ready to start the children activities but Juan Or still sticked to the bear like leech so much so the A&W staff had to purposely separate Juan Or from the bear and led him into the group of children. If the A&W staff didn't come to separate them, then the song and dances wouldn't have started. ^_^

Finally, the song and dance started, led by the bear and the A&W staff. So the other children followed suit and Juan Or paired with Juan Juan in dancing.

After the dancing, all the children were rewarded for taking part. So here's Juan Or receiving his present from the A&W Bear, but first he had to kiss the bear - left cheek, right cheek, and the nose!

Next came the birthday song session to celebrate both Juan Juan and Ah Xuan's birthdays. However, Ah Xuan dared not go near the bear, so Juan Or gladly (and unashamely) took over his place at the limelight! *Slap forehead!*

All the children there had their share of the ice-cream (with Sesame Street-like faces) that also served as decoration for the ice-cream cake.

But Juan Or was not too exactly bothered about the ice-cream at hand. Instead, he was more concerned about spending time with the bear! How? He held on to the bear's paws, kept on telling the bear "Come! Come with me!" and led the bear to meet and greet his family members! Haha, Juan Or is really a public relations (PR) boy! Watch his PR-ness in this video!

Notice too how in the end Papa has to separate Juan Or from the bear? If not, Juan Or would have held on and led the bear to God-knows-where so much so the bear cannot perform its actual official duties! Anyway, many cheers to the A&W bear for being so sporting and obliging to entertain Juan Or's antics! ^_^


Here are more photos to record the joyful event of The Little Sprouts' birthday bash.


Notice how both Juan Juan and Juan Or are similar in the sense that they tilt their heads a little when posing for photo?

Cousins sharing a happy occasion.

A pose with paternal Grandma.

Ah Xuan loving his birthday present to bits!

Posing with paternal Grandpa!

There were A&W hot dogs, fried chicken, French fries and root beer to indulge in, but Juan Or only settled for the French fries and refused the others.

Juan Or and his beloved bear.

Now with Juan Juan in the picture as well.

A closer view of the Baskin and Robbins ice-cream cake.

A family photo with the bear!

Here's Juan Juan the birthday girl showing how much she enjoyed her ice-cream!