Adventures of Juan Or and Mommy

Juan Or's Home-made Baby Walker

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:03:00 +0000

Actually, Mommy never thought about this before but after seeing Juan Or doing it, then only did it strike Mommy's mind about this baby product:

(picture courtesy of Pram Centre)

Mommy has never really thought of this baby product to be useful. To Mommy, the main thing is for the baby or toddler to push the toy as he/she walks. And of course to add more functionality to the product, the manufacturer adds buttons and levers and keys to spice things up for the baby/toddler. Of late, Mommy noticed Juan Or making use of chairs to push here and there. That was how Mommy realized that such product is made to imitate such typical toddler actions. The only difference is that the product makes the whole thing look more baby-friendly and nice whereas the 'home-made' version doesn't look nice and can even appear to be 'dangerous' in the eyes of super-protective parents/care-givers.

Here's Juan Or's home-made version of baby walker:

Juan Or has also come up with the 'terbalik' (opposite) version as well!

So, Mommy's conclusion is: Children's imagination is limitless. Anything can be made into a toy (which can be dangerous sometimes!) and adults often make use of children's imaginative ideas to come up with new baby products/toys and make money from them! ^ ^

Trip to Seremban Lake Garden

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:47:00 +0000

On the Sunday that has just passed, Juan Or's sleeping and waking time-table became a little different, so by 8am plus, Juan Or was all set to go for outing (the norm is that Juan Or is only ready by near 10am). Because the time was still early (which is rare nowadays), Papa and Mommy decided to take a joyride trip to Seremban (so that the trip is sufficiently long without stopping to enable Juan Or to have a good nap in the car). So along the way, Juan Or slept for 50 minutes, then woke up and by then, we had reached Mantin (we took the old road). Actually, the thought of going to Seremban Lake Garden was Mommy's spontaneous idea upon reaching Seremban. Originally we didn't plan to stop anywhere in Seremban except for lunch in a restaurant! So finally, we reached the Seremban Lake Garden and Mommy found the garden to be more beautiful than the park at Bukit Jalil (except for one dilapidated spectator sitting place) . Here are some snapshots capturing Juan Or enjoying himself there:

A portion of the garden leading to the fountain.

Juan Or at the fountain area and Papa was busy taking photos of Juan Or (while Mommy was doing the same also.)

This naughty little Juan Or loves to play with water!

Walking with Papa.

Juan Or was caught rubbing his hands onto the wet and dirty concrete garden bench. "Juan Or, are you trying to help the Seremban town council do some clean-up job!?"

The more Mommy said no to Juan Or for rubbing his hands on the dirty surface, the more Juan Or wanted to do on purpose! Mommy's teaser boy!

Another scene of the garden.

Father and son.

Another scene of the garden, this time with a shaded bridge going across the lake.

Juan Or was caught in the act of trying to pluck the leaves of the decorative plants alongside the bridge.

Another father and son scene. Juan Or was seen walking around happily on the bridge.

Juan Or was looking up at Mommy as Mommy was snapping this photo.

After spending about 40 minutes at the garden, Papa and Mommy decided to go to the restaurant for lunch (although it was only about 11.20 am), about just in time before Juan Or was expected to become sleepy again. So we headed to Sikamat (a mukim in Seremban) for Restaurant Min San (this restaurant has been frequented ages ago by Papa's side of family whenever visiting relatives in Seremban).

Min San Restaurant

This was how Juan Or occupied himself while waiting for food - by biting on the sauce plate!

Here's what Papa ordered:

Pork in don't-know-what sauce

Prawn (medium-sized) in curry with lemony taste.

Sweet potato leaves in sambal belacan (has pieces of pork lard in it).

How about the price? Very cheap, only RM29.10! Prawn dish was RM12, pork was RM8, vegetable was RM5, the rest were 2 plates of rice and a teapot of Chinese tea. No tax or service charge involved. Taste-wise? Moderate to good.

Updates on Child Nutrition and Health Seminar (Part 3)

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:06:00 +0000

This is the continuation of a previous blogpost.

2. 2nd speaker - Prof. Dr. Khor Geok Lin (Dept. of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UPM) on "Socioeconomic Disparities in Childhood Malnutrition". Prof. Dr. Khor shared about statistics of child hunger, malnutrition, underweight, mortality (death), and obesity. Here are some interesting statistical facts:

Where child hunger in Asia is concerned, Bangladesh tops the list and surprisingly, Malaysia has the lowest (but Mommy didn't see Singapore in the list at all!).
Three-fourth of the world's underweight and stunted children in the world actually live in Asia. Being underweight is a high risk for young children. South-east Asia has the highest prevalence of underweight children below 5 years old, and Latin America and Caribbean Islands has the lowest. Within South-east Asia itself, Malaysia has the lowest prevalence of underweight children and Timor Leste the highest.
In terms of child death before the age of 5 years (in Asia), Singapore has the lowest and Myanmar the highest. China and Malaysia have low prevalence.
Rural children are twice as likely as urban children to be underweight. In Malaysia, among children below 18 years old, the prevalence of underweight is lowest in both Penang and Selangor (in fact, much lower than the national average), and Sabah is the highest (in fact, much higher than the national average).
As for the prevalence of overweight children below 18 years old in Malaysia, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka are among the highest and Sabah is the lowest.
It is found that child obesity is more prevalent among the lower socioeconomic group.
Adequate nutrition before and during pregnancy and the first 6 months of life is critical to a child.
Among the determinants to reduce child malnutrition, women's education actually contributes the most.
Prof. Dr. Khor also brought up the issue of health inequality in the Internet. She pointed out the trend that health websites are mostly written at a level understandable to high school up to graduate level readers. Thus, the lower level group is at the most disadvantaged in accessing health information from such websites.

Stay tuned for the gist of the next speakers.

Free Drypers Drypantz is Finally Here!

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:17:00 +0000

Remember how Mommy got the Drypers Drypantz form which requires Mommy to introduce people to the product in order to get some free Drypantz? Well, late this evening, Mommy finally received the free Drypers Drypantz via the post! Mommy last sent the entry forms somewhere in September and it took 2 months to arrive. Another thing is that the Mommy requested for size L, but instead SCA Hygiene gave size M. So that night itself, Mommy used it on Juan Or before Juan Or grows out of it! Turned out to be just fitting for Juan Or. Anytime soon Juan Or won't be able to fit in it already.

When Mommy took out the Drypantz packages from the envelope and placed them on the floor (because Mommy was sitting on the floor that time), Juan Or immediately came over and purposely stepped over the packaging. Mommy guessed the diapers and the packaging itself must have felt spongy and soft such that Juan Or found it fun and amusing to step over several times!

(Juan Or caught in the act!)

Compilation of Fun Tools (and Links) for Kids to Learn Science and Maths

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:44:00 +0000

Not too long ago, a lady by the name Adrienne Carlson brought to Mommy's attention (via email) about her website which has a compilation of 100 fun online tools and links for kids to learn science and maths. So Mommy visited the URL page she gave and indeed, Mommy found the webpage to be a good (and interesting!) one-stop centre for links to fun activities, interactive games, printables, newsletters, how-to articles written with the children audience in mind, fun science projects, science-related jokes and riddles, fun online science episodes and many more. The title of the webpage is "100 Tools to Make Your Kids Maths and Science Stars", and Mommy has also included a link to the same webpage at the right hand panel under the category "Fun Stuff for Kids to Do!" by the title "100 Fun Tools for Learning Science and Maths" for everyone's convenience. Enjoy!

Updates on Child Nutrition and Health Seminar (Part 2)

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:54:00 +0000

Remember how Mommy mentioned about registering to attend a seminar on updates on child health and nutrition in UPM? Well, Mommy attended this seminar on 10th November 2009 and would like to share some interesting information with fellow parent bloggers. But first, before Mommy goes into the hard facts of the seminar, let's see some photos taken that day:

(The Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, where the seminar was held.)

(A bunting of the seminar. See the tables and chairs with skirting in the background? That's for the tea breaks and lunch provided for free during the seminar!)

(The official opening ceremony of the seminar.)

(Associate Professor Dr. Pantipa Chatchatee from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, conducting her opening address on "Child Nutrition and Immunity".)

(Here are the 'goodies' in the seminar bag given out to participants: EnfaMama, EnfaGrow and EnfaKid free sample sachets, a Mead Johnson ballpen and seminar tag.)

(The seminar materials that were also included in the seminar bag: clockwise from top left - Sustagen cardboard folder, fullscap paper for jotting down notes, leaflets on EnfaGrow and Sustagen, and the seminar programme and abstract book.)

(And finally after finishing the seminar, Mommy received a certificate of participation!)

OK, here are the things Mommy wants to share with fellow parent bloggers/readers and of course, Mommy tries to minimize the usage of scientific terms for the benefit of the general audience:

1st speaker - Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pantipa Chatchatee (Head Division of Allergy & Immunology, Dept. of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand) on "Child Nutrition and Immunity". Dr. Pantipa shared about how nutrition can affect child's immune system in many ways and that the interrelationship between nutrition, immune functions and inflammation can be targeted for health promotion and disease prevention. Some interesting points mentioned during her talk:

Imbalance in fatty acids may drive certain immune cells towards the inflammatory direction, so you will see more allergic reactions.
When mom consumes fish oil regularly during pregnancy, the baby will have less allergy problems because more DHA equals to less inflammation, BUT excessive DHA can disturb the blood clotting process, more so during childbirth.
The function of immunity is not only to fight against foreign matters, but also to tolerate foreign matters found in food, self, environmental components and other bacteria living together in our body. It is the imbalance between fighting and tolerating that causes allergic and inflammatory problems. The T-regulatory cells are the ones in charge of controlling this balance. The development of tolerance actually starts prenatally.
You are what you eat! Immunity starts from the gut! Dr. Pantipa cited one experiment done on newborn mouse. The newborn mouse was subjected to sterile environment since birth, that is, sterile food, sterile water, sterile living condition and the likes. Of course, the baby mouse grew up and then scientist started exposing it to normal living conditions and the mouse got sick easily. So the lesson learnt is that you need some 'dirty' living conditions and exposure to germs so that your immune system gets the necessary 'practice' or stimulation to fend off infections.
Dr. Pantipa also mentioned about the increasing prevalence of allergy in nowadays society. The issues that she highlighted were: (1) Is our environment becoming more toxic? (2) Or is the population becoming more and more susceptible?

Mommy will have to stop here now because Mommy will need to go fetch Juan Or back from the babysitter's house. So stay tuned for more posts after this where Mommy will share the main points picked out from subsequent speakers (there were 10 speakers in all).

"I Feed You, But You Don't Need to Feed Me!"

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:10:00 +0000

This is really an outdated post, thanks to Mommy's crazily busy schedule for the past weeks. It happened almost 2 weeks ago. Juan Or's cousin sister, Juan Juan who is about 8 months older than Juan Or, was around in Grandma's house for quite some time already. Later on, when Mommy came back from work, Mommy picked Juan Or from babysitter's house as well. Juan Or, upon seeing Juan Juan enjoying a small plate of muruku (actually, this muruku was given by one of Mommy's chemistry class student in conjunction with Deepavali), came to join her as well. He sat directly opposite her and started taking the muruku, piece by piece, and fed muruku into her mouth! Don't know whether Juan Or was being generous, or he was simply finding it fun to feed food into other's mouth (but Mommy thinks it's probably the latter because Juan Or likes to shove leftover food that he can't finish into Mommy's mouth)! Juan Juan was also very sporting to eat what was fed to her, and seeing her enthusiasm to eat whatever he fed her, Juan Or kept on putting muruku into her mouth! Here are a series of snapshots of the feeding action.

After Juan Or was done with feeding Juan Juan, Juan Or climbed onto a sofa to relax and watch television. And Mommy can't help snapping more photos of this little boy concentrating on watching the television.

A Seminar on Child Nutrition and Health

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Mommy got this interesting announcement from a colleague yesterday. She got the invitation to this talk because she is in the field of Health and Nutrition (she is one of the lecturers in the Food Science and Nutrition programme). According to her (and the invitation card), this talk is free-of-charge and anybody can attend it. And the topics sound very interesting to Mommy. Here are the details:

Theme: Updates on Child Nutrition and Health

Date: 10th November 2009

Venue: Main Lecture Hall, Dewan Kuliah Utama, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University Putra Malaysia.

Time: 8.30 am - 5.30 pm

Deadline to RSVP: 30th October 2009

Who to RSVP to: Chin Yit Siew (chinys@medic.upm.edu.my)

Yap Su Ling (suling.yap@mjn.com)

Organizers: UPM and Mead Johnson Nutrition

Topics that will be covered:

Child Nutrition and Immunity

Socioeconomic Disparities in Childhood Malnutrition

Parental Feeding Practices and Nutritional Status - What Do We Know?

Micronutrients and Cognitive Development in Young Children

Fatty Acids and Children's Health

WHO Growth Standards 2006: What Does It Measure?

Assessing Physical Activity of Children: What's New?

A Practical Approach in Managing Childhoon Obesity

Cow Milk Protein Allergy: A Clinician's Perspective

Nutrition Interventions for Young Children: The Way Forward

By the way, Mommy only RSVPed on 2nd November 2009, which is already past the RSVP deadline, but luckily they still accepted because Mommy received a confirmation email from Ms. Yap Su Ling. So if you are interested to attend, you can still try to RSVP.

Yay! Juan Or's Videoblog Won Something!

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:36:00 +0000

Yay! The DiGi's "Pimp My Broadband" Contest results are out! And much to Mommy's surprise, it is the videoblog that won something rather than the photoblog. In Mommy's opinion, the content of the photoblog is better and funnier than the videoblog.....but, ah, never mind, at least something is won - a free 3-month DiGi's broadband subscription - better than nothing at all! However, Mommy suspects DiGi probably made sure that no one participant gets two prizes. So considering that the number of photoblog entries way exceeds that of the videoblogs, and putting into consideration some participants who gave good photoblog entries, but never submitted a videoblog, so DiGi must have done some justice to all the deserving ones so that all gets to enjoy the free 3-month broadband. Thanks to DiGi and thanks to all of Mommy's blog readers who painstakingly spent some time to give thumbs-up to vote for Mommy's entries. Mommy knows that Mommy had been quite 'irritating' by bombarding the Facebook almost everyday with Mommy's microblog by asking friends to vote. Sorry about that, no choice, but Mommy really want to win something. So a BIG THANK YOU to all of you who have contributed in some way or other to make this winning a reality!

Juan Or and the Shape-sorting Toy (Part 2)

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

(Juan Or is picking a shape out.)

(Juan Or is happily fitting a shape in.)

(Juan Or is making another try on another shape.)

("Eh....why cannot go in one!?")

Remember how Mommy wrote before about how Juan Or would always pick out only the round and oval shapes to be put into their respective holes? Well, this time (actually about 2 weeks ago!) Juan Or is already able to comprehend more variety of shapes and how they fit in into their respective hole shapes. Of course, once in a while, Juan Or did get one or two shapes fitted into the wrong hole, but most of them were correctly put. But one thing sure for sure about Juan Or is that he is impatient in orientating the shape until it fits into the hole! With just one or two turning steps and if the shape still can't get into the hole (the shape is already correctly befitting the hole!), Juan Or will start fretting! What an impatient boy!

The Consequence of Looking Cute

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:16:00 +0000

Let's say, one day, Mommy is posed with this question:

If a baby is cute, which of these consequences is applicable? The baby:

A. gets more smiles from everyone
B. gets more pinches on the cheeks
C. gets more pats on the head
D. gets free food!

Well, for Juan Or's case....you can probably guess by now by looking at the photos below. Yes, that's right, the answer is 'D' - Juan Or gets free food!

It was one of those short night trips to the nearest supermarket - The Store Sri Petaling. When Juan Or and Mommy passed by the kuih bauhulu man, the man signalled to Mommy and handed out a piece of kuih bauhulu to Juan Or. Juan Or took it and Mommy asked Juan Or to say thank you to the man, but Juan Or merely kept silent.

After that, we went on with Juan Or still having the kuih in his hand, Mommy saw a small book fair section. Most of the books are bilingual cookbooks and either bilingual or fully Chinese children books. All cookbooks are subjected to 20% discount. As Mommy was browsing through the cookbooks, this was what Juan Or was up to (with his kuih bauhulu, of course!).......

Instead of concentrating on eating the kuih (well, he only managed a few bites at first), he took the kuih and banged it onto the shopping cart's handle bar!

Next, Juan Or gave Mommy the surprised look for Mommy to photograph as if he hadn't been doing anything funny with the kuih!

In the end, it was Mommy who finished up the kuih for him! Actually Juan Or doesn't really know how to eat this kuih. If Mommy continued to let him hold the kuih, he would evetually throw it onto the floor and end up wasting it! And by the way, in previous trips to The Store Sri Petaling, one sweeper lady (The Store's employee) saw Juan Or, then started calling him. Then she disappeared and later appeared again, this time with a kuih bauhulu in her hand to give to Juan Or. (She must have asked for one from the kuih bauhulu man!). However, for this case, after Juan Or took the kuih from her, and after Mommy pushed the shopping cart till we were gone from the lady's sight, Mommy had no choice but to take the kuih away from Juan Or and throw it away (Mommy hates to throw food away but there's no choice). Reason? Because the lady was also holding the broom and dustpan in her other hand!

Anyway, just a sidetrack, at The Store bookfair just now, Mommy ended up buying something for Juan Or: 4 bilingual picture books for RM4.90 each. Each book (about 30 cm x 30 cm in size) has waterproof, sufficiently stiff but bendable cardboard pages, and the colors of the background and pictures are very vivid and attractive. The pictures are large-sized and pleasing to the eyes. And surprisingly though, the publisher of these books is Novum Organum - the publisher known for publishing bilingual recipe cookbooks. And the kiddy books come in 5 themes: fruits, transportation, shapes, actions and colours. Mommy bought all themes except for the colour theme because the colour one only has pages with the different colours (and the words) but no pictures at all.

Trip to Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) - Part 2

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:52:00 +0000

After Mommy bought some plantlets from Unit of Planting Material, Seeds and Farm Breed Production, Mommy drove to this part called "Laman Sayur-sayuran" (Vegetable Front) which is just a short distance away. Juan Or and Mommy were greeted by two banners hung at a shade-like structure of the vegetable park. The banners wrote "Edible Landscape". Mommy thought this is a good idea if you have some land in your own home - planting vegetable plants both for food and decoration for the outside of your home.

(The edible landscape.)

Now Mommy and Juan Or walked under the shade structure. You can see many vegetable fruits hanging down and the creeping veegetable plants providing shade as well. What a beautiful sight! Now Mommy knows - vegetables plants can be just as good for landscaping purpose. The only thing is that if you plant the creeping type, you need to built a substantial structure for it if your other aim is for landscaping purpose, and of course building such structure requires money!

(Many loofahs and snake gourds can be seen hanging down like Christmas ornaments! What a delicious and beautiful sight!)

(The garden pathway with more of these vegetable fruits hanging like Christmas ornaments.)

(Another angle of the garden pathway.)

(A closer look of some of the snake gourds among the foliage.)

(Net structures plus rafia strings at the side parts of the shade structure as means for the creeping plants to do the initial climbing. Seen here are bitter gourds hanging among the foliage.)

(Juan Or, all wet and sweaty, was looking around under the vegetable shade.)

("Yikes, a dead vegetable flower on the floor! That's mine!")

(Juan Or was so happy to walk under the vegetable shade.)

(After passing through the vegetable shade, we arrive at the lakeside landscape. Seen here is Juan Or running towards an orange garden hose on the floor.)

(Juan Or seems to be more intrigued about the orange garden hose than the vegetables.)

("Mama won't let me touch the garden hose because it's dirty, but I touch it already! What can Mama do!?" Look at Juan Or's cheeky laugh!)

(Mommy was attracted to this bottle gourd. Would you believe it if Mommy tells you this gourd is humongous?)

(Taa-dah! Mommy's hand is put here....now see for yourself how humongous it is!)

(This is another big bottle gourd but not as big as the one just now, only thing is that it is nearer to the floor. So Mommy asked Juan Or to go and touch it while Mommy snapped a photo. Too bad, Mommy's handphone camera is not fast enough - shown here is Juan Or already done with touching the gourd!)

After this edible landscape, Mommy and Juan Or headed out of MARDI because the day was becoming too hot already - it was afternoon by then. So Mommy sent Juan Or straight to the babysitter's house because Mommy had other things to do after that.

Trip to Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) - Part 1

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:46:00 +0000

One weekday, Mommy found the opportunity to pick Juan Or up from the babysitter's house to take him for a short outing to MARDI Headquarters at Serdang. But why a place like MARDI, you must be wondering? That's because MARDI has nice agricultural landscapes, plus some recreational landscapes as well. Because Papa was working that day, so this was considered Mommy's first solo outing with Juan Or.

To reach MARDI without using the toll way, Mommy used the Sri Kembangan way which passes by South City Plaza and then kept right (the left is Mines Wonderland) to lead to a highway (SILK highway, perhaps? Not sure!) which leads into UPM area and from there headed into MARDI. Upon reaching the main entrance of MARDI, Mommy told the security guards that Mommy wanted to go buy vegetable seeds from Unit Pengeluaran Bahan Tanaman, Biji Benih dan Baka Ternakan (Unit of Planting Material, Seeds and Farm Breed Production), so Mommy got the visitor's pass after giving the guard the driving license.

Upon reaching the unit, Juan Or was already fast asleep, but luckily it wasnt' too difficult for Mommy to wake Juan Or up without making him fretful - Juan Or happily woke up, much to Mommy's surprise!

Mommy went to see what seeds were on sale that day - turned out that only cucumber, chilli padi, round brinjal and long bean seeds were available. So Mommy didn't buy any of those seeds because Mommy has them already. So off Mommy went to see what fruit tree plantlets were on sale this time. The last time Mommy went to MARDI looking for pisang berangan plantlet, there was no stock. However, this time, they had pisang emas and pisang nangka only (pisang berangan was still out of stock but is available at the Jalan Kebun branch of MARDI), each plantlet sold for RM2. During Mommy's tour round the plantlets-for-sale nursery, Juan Or had a good time too with those fruit tree plantlets in polybags that are about as tall as him!

(Juan Or was playing hide-and-seek with Mommy. "Juan Or, you think Mama cannot see where you are hiding meh?")

(Juan Or seems to enjoy stepping on those tiny pebbles covering the floor of the nursery.)

(Mommy managed to capture closer view of Juan Or walking around happily.)

("Juan Or, you are still not done with stepping on those pebbles?")

(Juan Or was so happy to be here.)

("Juan Or, cannot pluck those leaves ah! Mommy is not buying those plantlets.")

(An ever-so-curious Juan Or walking to and fro, in and out of the maze of fruit plantlets in-polybags.)

In the end, after browsing through the nursery, Mommy bought a pisang emas (RM2), 2 round brinjal (RM1 each) and 2 chilli padi (RM1 each) plantlets - all in all RM6. Shown here are the plantlets which Mommy has already transferred from the polybags to the garden soil.

(Left is round brinjal and right is chilli padi.)

(The pisang emas plantlet.)

After Mommy was done with buying plantlets, Mommy took Juan Or (by some short driving distance) to the "Edible Landscape" - so stay tuned for the next blogpost!

Buffalo Power (Part 3)

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:50:00 +0000

Remember how Juan Or came up with his buffalo power or 'kuasa kerbau' (i.e., a sudden gush of physical energy) to hammer using his squeky toy hammer and how finally the hammer broke into two because it could no longer withstand his buffalo power? Well, this time, Juan Or took his buffalo power a step further by pushing the clothes-drying frame to and fro. See how Juan Or's little body churns up the buffalo power needed to do the pushing job!

Handphone Crazy!

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:58:00 +0000

Juan Or used to be intrigued (even till now!) to see and touch real handphones. Even the babysitter sometimes has to use her handphone as 'bait' to get him into the mood to drink milk from the bottle. Even Mommy's handphone is not spared. Whenever Juan Or notices Mommy using the handphone to capture his photos or videos, Juan Or will want to have a hand in that. For that matter, Mommy will make sure to shift Juan Or to be seated on a mattress while Juan Or is holding Mommy's handphone - just in case Juan Or drops or throws the handphone, then at least the handphone gets to land on soft surface! And yet giving Juan Or to play with spoilt handphones (or rather liveless handphones!) or even toy handphones does not seem to satisfy his craze for the real thing. Now Juan Or has gone one step further as in using Mommy's computer mouse as his handphone instead! See how this toddler acts with his imagination!

By the way, Juan Or also demanded (but was refused) to hold the conventional telephone's receiver to his ears. He even used an oblong-shaped empty stationery kit to put at his ears as if it was the receiver of the telephone!

Crescent News Book Warehouse Sale (13th-22nd October 2009)

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:50:00 +0000

Oooohhh yes, it's the book warehouse sale again! This time, Crescent News is doing it for the second time. The first time was a good warehouse sale with nice, colourful, hard-covered and glossy-page children books at bargain prices (RM3/book)! So finally, Mommy found time to go visit this sale yesterday.

(Not much people going to this sale.)

This time round, the warehouse sale is held at the Kompleks Sukan Kelana Jaya. How is the sale like this time? Well, not much people (Mommy went on the 3rd day of the sale) and on the whole, majority of the books are more expensive than that of the previous one, though there are certain books (but limited) still sold at the same price as the previous one. In terms of variety of books (children books especially!), if you talk about books at bargain prices, then there's not as much variety compared to the previous one. Mommy can NO LONGER find those nice, glossy pages, hard covered, and colourfully illustrated children books at RM3 anymore! :-( Even funnier, some children books here are sold at a way more expensive price compared to MPH Bookstore's normal price. Hhmmm.......Mommy wonders whether Crescent News did any market survey first before price tagging their books for the warehouse sale? Some snippets for you to see:

(These are Brown and Watson books in large print sold at RM19 each. Mommy recall seeing MPH Bookstores selling them cheaper at RM14.90 and at normal price some more!)

(Mommy bought these range of books before in the previous sale. In the previous sale, each was priced at RM5, but now it's RM9!)

(These books are sold at RM79 each, but MPH Bookstore is selling them at RM29.90 and RM39.90 at normal price.)

(This time, Crescent News sells all their Ladybird books at RM6.90 each. But in the previous sale, some Ladybird titles went to as low as RM3 each!)

(If Mommy didn't remember wrongly, the board books to the left side are priced at RM15 each, the right side RM10. The publisher is Dreamland, a publishing company from India, but the photos/pictures of objects are of high quality.)

What about Mommy's purchases? This time, Mommy bought only very little because Juan Or already has lots of books at home. But this time, Mommy bought herself a book. All in all, Mommy spent RM39 only. Here are the bargains books that Mommy bought for Juan Or:

(Two colouring books with word-learning aspect and a paper model book where you tear out the animal parts and shapes in cardboard to build animals, each at RM3.)

(Origami book with step-by-step colour illustrations for RM11, and a large print, hard-covered animal story book for RM6.)

(Dr. Spock's baby and childcare bible, still in plastic wrapper, selling for RM5 only! But sorry, this is the only book left among the disorderly pile of books. The other one is a board story book where children can wipe clean whatever they have coloured with the crayon, for RM5.)

There were certain other things too that went up in price, for example, a PhP Publishing dot-to-dot activity book (with good quality paper pages) sold at RM3 previously, but now at RM5. So the lesson here is if you know this is the first time a company does warehouse sale, then better grab the good deals because chances are, when they do it the subsequent time, the price won't be as good as the first anymore.

Demanding Boy

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:14:00 +0000

These days, Juan Or has been getting more and more demanding and hard-headed as well. These are such situations:

1. It was at Giant Kinrara that Juan Or sat on a kiddy ride. Finally when Papa decided that it was time to make a move, Juan Or refused to budge. When Papa tried taking him out of the kiddy ride, Juan Or held on tight and made fretful sound that ended up with tears. Finally when Papa managed to make his little hands let go of the kiddy ride, Juan Or cried even louder.

(Juan Or crying in protest when lifted out of the kiddy ride.)

(Juan Or settling himself down after the protest, though with a more sober look, but still with a hint of the crying face expression.)

2. In the car, Juan Or always likes to be playing with something in his hands. So usually, Juan Or, when sitted on Mommy's lap (with Mommy holding him firmly at both armpits), will open the dashboard drawer and ransack the things Mommy put in there. Among the things Mommy put in the dashboard drawer are the mileage notebook, a pencil to write mileage and petrol fillings, an empty business card box, keychain, hands-free kit, office keys, leather business card holder-cum-pouch and a stationery kit consisting of a highlighter, mechanical pencil and ball-point pen held together in a container (courtesy from Nikon). Sometimes, when Juan Or got hold of an object which Mommy deemed to be dangerous (such as the pencil and mechanical pencil), Mommy would take it away from him. That's when Juan Or started crying out loud. Even if Mommy offered other objects in exchange of the ones that Mommy took away, Juan Or cannot accept it.

3. This happened a few days ago. It was already night, but not yet time for Juan Or to go to sleep. On that particular night, Mommy had already put Mommy's laptop into the car ready for next day's work (Juan Or didn't see Mommy doing that!). Then later in the night, Juan Or went to the spot in the house where Mommy usually put the laptop to look for it but couldn't find the laptop anywhere. First, Juan Or looked at Mommy with a kind of fretful look as if to say,"Where is Mama's laptop? I can't find it anywhere!" So Mommy told Juan Or that the laptop was missing already (actually Mommy was lazy to take it out from the car again!) and that if he still wants to see the laptop, he has to wait till the next day. Juan Or just couldn't accept Mommy's answer, so he went deeper into the nook and cranny of the place to look for the laptop but couldn't find it! His fretful face gradually became a crying face!

4. This happened in the wee hours of this morning. Juan Or woke up from sleep at about 2.50 am and insisted on getting out from the spring cot. So after giving a drink on the sippy cup, Mommy helped him out and he started playing with his books and walking around in the dark (only the staircase has some light). Some time then, Mommy sipped some water from Mommy's working water bottle (space bottle type) and on seeing that, Juan Or insisted that he wanted to drink water from Mommy's bottle. Since Mommy was still feeling sick and feared in case Juan Or got infected as a result of drinking from the same bottle, Mommy refused his request. Juan Or cried out conitnuously and loudly so much so his Second Uncle came down to see what's up with him! Later on, Juan Or went over to Mommy's laptop and started opening the laptop bag's zip - indicating to Mommy that he wanted to watch the laptop. What!? Just the night before (that was something like 4 to 5 hours ago), Mommy had switched on the laptop for Juan Or to watch and here he is, wanting to watch again like a computer addict!? So Mommy shook the head while telling him no and Juan Or started crying! Later on, Juan Or's Grandpa also came down to help to handle Juan Or. Grandpa also refused Juan Or's request to watch the laptop and again he cried out loudly! Later, Grandpa tried putting Juan Or into the spring cot again, but without success because Juan Or was crying and struggling vigorously! What a demanding boy!

5. These last situations were narrated by the babysitter and is not so much of demandingness, but more of Juan Or's selfishness! The first was when Juan Or wore the crocs-look-alike sandals to the babysitter's house. Since it was a new thing, another boy of about 3 years old that the babysitter was also babysitting, went to touch and hold Juan Or's new sandals. Guess what? Juan Or shouted some baby words at the boy as if reprimanding him for touching the sandals! The second was when the babysitter shuts off Juan Or's favourite TV programme. Juan Or would shout baby words at her as if asking her why she stopped his favourite programme! And the third was the case of the baby cot at the babysitter's house. Actually, the baby cot was contributed by the 3-year-old boy's mother. The 3-year-old boy is the only child and has been babysat since infancy, so his mother has decided to leave the cot in the babysitter's house as baby facility. Juan Or, who knows (and understands) next to nothing about the origin (and ownership) of the baby cot, can even reprimand the 3-year-old boy for touching the baby cot! It's like as if Juan Or thinks that Mommy bought the baby cot for him just because he slept and played in the cot since his infancy! How-lah...what to do with this boy!?

Dancing to Pimp for DiGi's Broadband!

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:22:00 +0000

Just recently, Mommy found the idea to look for Barney and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse video clips in YouTube for Juan Or to watch. And Mommy managed to find a quite a handful of such video clips. So Mommy stayed on a little longer after office hours to download them. Of course, downloading these videos at home using the dial-up networking line is obviously not an option at all!

After Juan Or watched those newly downloaded videos, Mommy found that Juan Or is more keen on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse than Barney. Whenever Mommy turned on the Barney video clips, Juan Or would start fretting, telling Mommy to stop it. Surprisingly though, Juan Or enjoyed watching Barney in the babysitter's house (the babysitter has quite a collection of Barney VCDs). The babysitter even told Mommy that whenever she turned on a Barney singing programme, Juan Or would even dance along by lifting one leg up in a rhythmical manner. Back at home, whenever Mommy turned on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Hotdog Song, Juan Or would start smiling and then shake his little body to dance to the beat. Watch this video of Juan Or dancing:

Please, dear readers, vote for Mommy in DiGi's Pimp My Broadband Contest (Videoblog category)! Mommy hopes to win a free 3-month subscription to DiGi's new broadband (plus a free broadband modem) so that Mommy doesn't have to stay on in office so late just to download things for Juan Or to watch. And just yesterday, while having lunch together with one of Mommy's ex-student, Mommy found out from him that there is a Chinese website that allows people to watch movies for free, but not downloadable of course! See if Mommy gets to win something from this contest, then Mommy will ask Keith Kor Kor (Brother) for that website. Then Juan Or will get to watch children programmes and cartoons live (and for free of course!) from that website in the comfort of the home!

Juan Or and His Thomas & Friends

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:51:00 +0000

Last week Thursday, Mommy took out the Thomas & Friends set that Mommy bought for Juan Or some time back (when Juan Or was about 6 months old). What Mommy bought was the starter set - more of the basic and introductory set type - for RM55 from Litt Tak Warehouse Sale. Mommy was not keen to buy the more complex set because Thomas and Friends toys are costly (the more complex ones cost RM150+ to RM300 in the warehouse sale) and what's more, children may find the toy boring after playing it for a short while.

Of course the toy box did mention that the toy is suitable for children ages 3 years and above, but anyway, Mommy merely wanted to try it out with Juan Or just to see how it goes. As Mommy was laying out the train track, Mommy just couldn't do it properly because as soon as a track piece was put on, Juan Or either grabbed it away or dismantled it! So finally, Papa took Juan Or upstairs to occupy him while Mommy fixed the set and put a battery into the Thomas train. After everything was fixed, Mommy brought Juan Or downstairs again. So Mommy instructed Juan Or to sit down and Mommy quickly turned the lever to 'on' position (before Juan Or could even get up and destroy it again!) and the train started moving. Turned out, a moving train seemed to be an amusement for Juan Or - he started laughing as the train moved and continued laughing as the train circled the track many times. Juan Or even used his leg to stop the moving train and burst out laughing to see the train still chunting but not moving anywhere. Here are snapshots to capture Juan Or's reaction to a moving Thomas.

Anything that starts has to come to an end, and so was the moving Thomas train. When Mommy switchd it off, Juan Or went and grab the train and started knocking it on the floor! Fearing the train will crack, Mommy quickly grabbed it away from him and Juan Or protested by crying! Then he got hold of the track and started moving it around till the track got dismantled. So Mommy had to quickly grab everything and put into the box. Mommy's verdict? This Thomas & Friends set has better sit in the cupboard first till Juan Or is past the destructive stage!

Juan Or the Young Gardener

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:42:00 +0000

About a month ago, Mommy was 'infected' with gardening sickness, so Mommy bought planter boxes, packets of black soil and vegetable seeds for this new hobby. In one particular planter box, Mommy sowed three ladies finger seeds and all sprouted and grew into young plants of about one feet in height. Unfortunately, due to very hot and sunny weather of certain days, one of the ladies finger plant couldn't stand the heat stress and so withered and died. Later on, when the weekend came, Mommy attended to the plants. Juan Or was around too, walking at the porch. So Mommy asked Juan Or to come and see Mommy's home-grown vegetable plants. Juan Or, as usual, with his itchy hands, touching and grabbing at whatever within his reach, wanted to grab the leave of one of the healthy ladies finger plants. Luckily Mommy managed to stop him in time. Then Mommy had an idea - why not get Juan Or to pull out that dead plant! So Mommy guided Juan Or in pulling out the dead plant. Of course for Juan Or, the dead plant was just another 'toy' for him, so he swang the dead plant around so much so the soil held by the roots flew everywhere! After that, Juan Or got himself busy by holding the dead plant and meddling with the things Grandma kept at an open rack in the porch. Here are some snapshots Mommy got of Juan Or acting like a gardener!

(After pulling out the dead plant, Juan Or went to touch Mommy's car with his soiled hands.)

("Hehehe....let's see what treasure can I find Grandma's pot?")

("Hmmmm.....maybe I can boil this dead plant as soup!")

("Ok...before I drop this dead plant into the pot, let me do some ritual dance first! Oo-la-la!")

("Oops....on second thoughts..... I think I better not make soup out of it.")

("Let's see what I can do with the dead plant.")

("I can be the knight in shining armour! Arm myself with a shield and presenting a flower to my lovely maiden!")

("Ooops.....cut the crap.....I'm no knight in shining armour! Ai-yah.....how to get rid of the dead plant?")

("Simple.....just dump it into Grandma's pot! That will do the trick! Easy-peasy!")

Goggly! Goggly!

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:39:00 +0000

Goggly! Goggly! This is Juan Or's latest favourite baby word. And Juan Or says it by rolling his tongue in a certain manner such that 'Goggly, goggly' is sounded continuously like a rattling machine. Mommy deosn't exactly know where or how Juan Or made up this word, but it certainly sounds like the name of his piggy plush toy, Gordy, which Mommy bought for him from the Win's Warehouse Sale some time back. Watch this video:

Juan Or Definitely Needs Digi's "Pimp My Broadband"!

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:02:00 +0000

This is what normally happens at home every night on weekdays:

"Yay! Mommy is back from work already! Now Mommy's laptop is all MINE! Mommy, please switch on the laptop for me. I want to watch the educational slideshows and YouTube videos that you have downloaded from office. In the meantime, I'll play with the computer keyboard first while waiting for Mommy to set up the laptop, ya?"

"Ooohh....Mommy's laptop is on already! Can't help fiddling with Mommy's laptop!"

"Mama, why is your laptop on already but the programmes takes so slow to move?" Mommy says,"Well, Mommy's laptop is old already. It's already 5 years 2 months old, sure to become slow in processing. Some more the RAM is too small by today's standard. See-lah, if Mommy can win Digi's "Pimp My Broadband" Contest and get either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize, then Juan Or gets to watch from a brand new laptop or netbook with faster processing speed, OK?"

"Mama, aiyo, your laptop is so slow one...until now I'm still waiting!"

"Yay! Finally I get to watch what I want! Here's my favourite educational slideshow on animals that Mommy downloaded from Brillbaby."

"Hehehe....more animals with the pronunciation as well. This is good to teach me new words and how they are pronounced."

"An animals video that Mama downloaded from YouTube. Hehehe....Mama is always trying to snap photos of me, dunno for what....so I make funny faces for Mama!"

"Mama, you mean that's all the videos you have for me to watch!? Why so little one? I want to watch more videos!" So Mommy says,"Juan Or, Mama has work to do in the office. Mama can't be spending the whole working hours downloading things for you in the office. Some more at home is the dial-up networking type of internet connection, so if Mommy wants to download videos from home, then it's going to take forever to download. Probably if wait until next morning, the download process is still not finished yet. See-lah, if Mama wins something from the Digi's "Pimp My Broadband" Contest, at least if get to win the 4th to 50th prize, then Juan Or will get to enjoy 3 months free subscription to DiGi Broadband plus a free broadband modem! How's that? Then Juan Or gets to watch more funny videos, advertisements, nursery rhymes animation and even Mickey Mouse cartoons from YouTube! Mommy can just straightaway download them from home for Juan Or to watch, no need for Mommy to juggle time with office work to download these for you. How's that, baby? Hope for the best, ya? Tell all Aunties and Uncles reading this blogpost to vote for Mama, OK? And don't forget to thank the Aunties and Uncles who vote for Mama, OK baby?"

"OK, Mama. To all Aunties and Uncles reading this, please vote for my Mama here. And many, many thanks for your support! Alternatively, you can also vote by clicking my photo at the top right hand panel which leads you to Digi's "Pimp My Broadband" voting page. Just look for the 'Thumbs Up" icon and click, ya? One vote per day and everyday until 16th October 2009. Many, many thanks again! OK, in the meantime, since there's no more videos to watch, I might as well play with my good 'ole metal canister."

Joyride Trip to a Grapes Farm in Sendayan, Negeri Sembilan

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:57:00 +0000

During the recent Hari Raya holidays, Papa took Juan Or and Mommy for a joyride trip to Sendayan in Negeri Sembilan. Why Sendayan? Because, recently, Mommy read about grapes grown in Sedayan in The Star newspaper. And since Mommy likes gardening, Mommy became very curious to see grape vines growing in the Malaysian hot and humid climate. At the same, Mommy wanted it to be and outing and learning opportunity for Juan Or. So off we went to Sendayan.

Papa used the trunk road from Sri Petaling to Sri Kembangan, Balakong, Semenyih, Broga, Mantin and then veered off to Port Dickson's direction to reach Sendayan (Sendayan is before Port Dickson). Actually, both both Papa and Mommy didn't really know where the grapes farm is in Sendayan, but we merely relied on signboards that mention 'Sendayan'. Papa drove on until Mommy spotted a hilly area with support structures erected in a uniform manner. But of course from far, Mommy wasn't very sure whether those support structures were for grapes or other kinds of plants, but Papa decided to stop-over anyway, and turned out it was the grape farm we were looking for!

Papa drove into the small narrow and gravelled road of the grapes farm, but parked near the exit point. The small road was quite jammed because there were many cars moving and parking there. Probably there were just as many people as curious as Mommy where grapes are concerned! By then, Juan Or almost fell asleep, but luckily when the car stopped, Juan Or woke up without any fuss.

From afar, Mommy thought Mommy saw grapes - dark-looking bundles of something hanging among the vines. However, when Mommy went near, it turned out that the dark-looking bundles were small packets of soil enveloping bare-skin vine branches. Apparently there were no grapes - probably the grapes were harvested already. What's left are just signs of vegetative propagation. So never mind, even if we can't get to see the real grapes itself, at least the grapevine is sufficient!

Here are some snapshots at the grapevine. There were too many people to distract Juan Or's attention from Papa's handphone camera!

By the way, Mommy saw some freshly cut grape branches thrown on the ground - don't know whether these branches were meant to be thrown away or left there on purpose. So Mommy took one of those branches home to try planting them from the stem - don't know whether it will grow or not, but what's the harm of trying? So far so good, after cutting away the leaves, Mommy cut the branch into several segments and planted them onto the soil. As of yesterday, i.e., six days later, the branch segments have not dried and withered amidst the continuous hot and sunny days. So Mommy is keeping fingers crossed and hopes for the best!

Juan Or in the Kiddy Car-cum-Shopping Cart at Ikano Power Centre

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:17:00 +0000

This is an outdated post. Mommy was busy with other things for the past few days, so could not post this earlier.

On the last of the Hari Raya holiday, i.e., on Tuesday, Mommy decided to take Juan Or to Ikano Power Centre to try out the kiddy car-cum-shopping cart. What's more, most city folks were not around during Hari Raya, so there shouldn't be too much crowd in shopping complexes (Mommy was thinking about H1N1!). Thinking that the kiddy car-cum-shopping cart was for free to use, Papa and Mommy decided to go there early hoping to get hold of it before others. Upon reaching the customer service counter, turned out that the kiddy car cart was not for free! A refundable deposit of RM20 was required and the rental was RM2 for every 1 hour. Since Mommy wanted Juan Or to experience the kiddy car cart ride, so Mommy paid the necessary. Anyway, RM2 per hour is reasonable considering that those electric kiddy car rides require RM1 for just few minutes' worth of ride.

Juan Or seemed to enjoy every moment of the kiddy car cart ride. Mommy can see Juan Or busy turning the steering in multiple directions as Mommy pushed the cart. There was one moment when Mommy can see so much happiness shone on his face when the cart was moving. When we were going up the escalator, there was one moment when Juan Or turned his head back to look at Mommy, then he gave Mommy a loving smile! How sweet! Here are some snapshots of Juan Or posing in the kiddy car cart.

(This is how the kiddy car-cum-shopping cart looks like.)

(Juan Or giving Mommy the naughty look when posing for Mommy.)

(Papa and Juan Or coming down the escalator.)

When one hour was almost up, Mommy tried coaxing Juan Or to come out from the kiddy car cart, but Juan Or refused. So Mommy tried taking him out from the car to which Juan Or shouted and fretted with his hands holding on tight to the steering! Mommy then pretended to walk away leaving him behind while Papa tried to get him out, This time there was less resistance though the shouting and fretting was still there. Mommy paid for the cart rental and casually asked the customer service lady whether other kids acted like this too when time was up and she said yes...hahaha!

Later on, we walked to section whether there was display of home interior items such as comforters and bed sheet sets. There were two young guys in their late teens manning the section. What surprised Mommy most was when Juan Or went near the two guys who were total strangers to him (Juan Or usually cries when strangers are in close proximity to him!) and smiled and waved at them! And the two guys smiled back at Juan Or. Don't know why, but Juan Or seemed to like them! After that, Mommy walked him away, but later Juan Or forcefully changed his direction and walked back to see the two guys again! And again, Juan Or smiled and waved at them! Hmmmm.....funny boy!

Juan Or and His New Pair of Crocs-look-alike Shoes

alicephua79@yahoo.com (Alice Phua) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:48:00 +0000

Recently, Juan Or's paternal grandparents bought him a pair of Crocs-look-alike shoes from Carrefour. It turned out that the shoes fit just nicely on his little feet (Hint: Very soon, Juan Or's feet won't fit in anymore!). Turned out, the shoes are like 'love at first sight' for Juan Or. The moment the shoes slipped in, Juan Or was so eager to walk - more so than the shoes that Mommy bought for him at the Hytex Warehouse Sale some time back! Here's a video of his Grandpa taking him out for an evening stroll just outside the house minutes after fitting in the shoes for him:

Look at just how excited and eager Juan Or is to walk and walk and walk. Hahaha....just wait till Mommy asks him to walk round the house to do work for Mommy when he is much bigger! ^ ^