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! 

Blissful Sleep

Mommy is still very tight of time at work to do things with the internet so today's post is just a very short one.

Here.....the same day after Juan Or and Mommy returned home after an outing at Sunway Pyramid (see the post below), Mommy caught this photo of both father and son sleeping blissfully while Mommy was busy washing the dirty dishes, clearing things in the kitchen and bath for the day.

What a peaceful sleep - both father and son together - with the son laying his head on papa's arm for comfort and security! :-)

Juan Or's 'Toy Bed'

Recently, Juan Or reopened his old toy storage box where most of his infant toys are kept. He digged out everything, jumbled them up and then fill them back in a disorderly manner again. Then he went on to 'dip' his body in the jumble of toys as if taking bath in a bath tub! No just that, he even went on to use the Toy Story box as a backing to place a baby pillow to support his head which is dangling from the toy box, like the photo above.After that, he requested Mommy to bring him his big Mickey Mouse to hug.

Mommy was about to go to sleep already but he still didn't want to come out from his toy box. So Mommy gave him the mandate to use the toy box as his bed for that night, gave him goodnight kisses and lastly told him,"If you already feel uncomfortable sleeping there, then come and join Mama on  the bed ah?" He nodded with a smile. Mommy switched off the light and went to bed. Not even five minutes had passed, he came out from his 'toy bed' and felt for Mommy's body so that he can climb onto the bed to sleep!


The next day, Mommy purposely asked him if the toys pricked his skin when he slept in the box so much so he had to come back to sleeping with Mommy on the bed, to which he nodded with a cheeky smile! ^_^

Trip to Cherating: Day 2 - Morning Sunrise, Beach and Stuff Crabs

On the second day, Mommy woke up early, at around 6.30 am and managed to capture the morning sunrise at the beach. Beautiful sight! Wish Mommy can wake up everyday to the sound of waves beating the beach and the beautiful silhoutte of trees at the beach.

By 7.00 am, we went for breakfast at the hotel's restaurant and after that we headed for the hotel's swimming pool. Mommy had purposely bought a float for Juan Or from Mr. DIY's shop for this purpose. Juan Or was very eager when he saw the swimming pool. But as soon as he realized that Mommy wanted to take off his diapers and change into his briefs, he started crying in protest, holding on to this his pants tightly! So in the end, Mommy gave up coaxing him to try the swimming pool, instead Mommy changed into swimming suit and took a brief dip.

After that, we headed to the beach. Once at the beach, Mommy attempted to remove Juan Or's slippers. And this boy seemed to be a 'clean freak'. Since one side of his slippers was already removed, he didn't know where or how to put his bare foot when Mommy tried removing the other side! ^_^ But finally he realized he was supposed to go barefeet on the sand. You can see his reaction that it gave him a funny feeling to walk barefeet on the sand, but eventually he got the hang of it.

We took some photos too at the beach just for memory's sake.

Here are some beach photos captured by Papa on his handphone (which is more capable than Mommy's handphone to get better quality photos!):

Then by 9.00 am, Mommy went for two more meetings, i.e., the Annual Programme Review meetings for Food Science and Nutrition and thereafter for Biotechnology degree programmes, this time merely as normal participant. While Mommy was away for meetings, Papa took Juan Or for a rounding at the Kemaman area, to which Papa bought back some satar (fish paste dumplings of their local Malays).

After lunch at the hotel, another meeting went on and then followed by team building activities. Luckily only two games were arranged for the team building activities, so by 4-plus pm, it ended. So Mommy quickly rushed back to the room so that Papa can take us out for rounding around the Kemaman town and to look for stuff crab.

Indeed we found the restaurants for stuff crabs at Kemaman. However, the more famous one (can't remember the name of the restaurant) was closed, so we settled for second best at Restoran Stuff Crab Kemaman.

Stuff crab is supposed to be the specialty dish of Kemaman and Cukai area, so we were eager to give it a try. The dish finally came and mmmmm.......it was very tasty - very pure, i.e., lots of crab meat in the stuffing, but it was quite expensive - RM7 for one stuff crab. Papa ordered four, so the whole dish was RM28.

After that we headed back to Cherating and on the way, Mommy asked Papa to stop at the same keropok lekor stall again to buy some lekors to eat, some seafood snacks and a packet of not-yet-fried lekors. The not-yet-fried lekors were selling for RM5 for 10 long strips (of the lekor). Mommy only bought one packet to try because Mommy wasn't too sure whether it will still remain good when we transported it back to Klang Valley without any refrigertion the next day.

Turned out, the not-yet-fried lekors still tasted good after three days since the last day of the trip (of course it stayed in the refrigerator after we got back home). Hmmmm......now Mommy regrets not buying more!

This is how it looked like before it's fried.....

.....and after deep-frying.

Here's the lekors eaten with the chilli dipping provided.

Now back to the trip again. We got back to the hotel, had a barbecue dinner (which did not taste nice at all!) at the hotel and then went back to our room., though not at the same time because Papa took Juan Or back first while Mommy continued eating. There was a meeting going on at 8.00 pm on the laboratory's strategic management, but thankfully Mommy was not required to be involved, so it was yippy time for Mommy to get to rest and relax in the hotel room! Same thing, Mommy tried reading newspaper, but because of the hotel room's dim lighting, Mommy felt very sleepy and went off to sleep by 9.30 pm. Same goes for Juan Or - he slept early too (in fact he already fell asleep when Mommy got back to the room) without needing any coaxing, and that's probably because of the room's dim lighting. So aren't hotel vacations good for both Juan Or and Mommy? Juan Or is able to go to sleep early and easily, and Mommy gets to have plenty of sleep and rest - something so rare for Mommy if in own home! ^_^

That sums up our second day at Cherating. Stay tuned for the third day.

Juan Or at His Paternal Great-Grandma's Birthday Lunch

This blogpost is an outdated post - 10th September 2010.

This was the day the Lok family celebrated Great-Grandma's birthday by having a birthday lunch at Leong Ah Restaurant (Puchong).

At his age of 2 years 4 months old, Juan Or no longer cries when he saw unfamiliar relatives' faces (unlike when he was an infant), but of course he still doesn't like them to touch him ('See no touch' motto!). Also, when he saw his beloved Grandpa and Grandma and also his Second Uncle at the luncheon, Juan Or went into manja (wanting to be pampered) mode. And that also meant some form of 'freedom' for Mommy because Juan Or would want to be carried by them almost all the time (in fact both Juan Or and Juan Juan from My Little Sprouts were competing with each other for Grandpa, Grandma and Second Uncle's attention). This also meant Mommy was able to eat in peace.......hehehehe.


Here's Juan Or sticking to his Grandpa like leech.....

.....and as usual, he would be sucking ice.....

.....and sucking his fingers too!

Here's the Little Sprouts' family together with Grandma (Mommy's mother-in-law), ......

......and Juan Or's uncles and aunty (i.e., brother-in-law and cousins-in-law to Mommy).

Both Grandparents were busy entertaining the Grandchildren's wishes and wants right from the time of waiting for food till the eating process so that Mommy can shake legs and eat.

But when sleepiness finally struck Juan Or, he somehow knew how to look for Mommy! So Mommy had to hold him on the lap while eating. Luckily it was already towards the end of the course, otherwise it was going to be a handful to have to attend to two things at the same time. Luckily too, Papa is a fast-eater, so Papa finished his food well ahead of Mommy and took over sleepy Juan Or. Phew!

See....Juan Or was so blissfully asleep! Who cares about the endless chattering and the clanking of the forks and spoons, bowls, plates and glasses? Sleep means sleep! Mommy captured his sleeping photos from all possible angles (just for keepsakes!).^_^

*Sleep, Baby, Sleep! Sweet dreams, Baby!*

Juan Or is a Big Boy Now

Yesterday night was the first time Mommy left Juan Or to sleep alone by himself in his own room. It was already 11pm. Juan Or was still in a playful mood and wanted Mommy to read to him, entertain him and play with him. By 11.30pm, Mommy insisted that it was time to lie down in bed and go to sleep and that Mommy was going to switch off the lights. Mommy also reminded Juan Or that for that night onwards, he had to sleep alone in his own bed because he is a big boy now and that Mommy would go sleep in Papa and Mommy's room. He obediently and eagerly nodded his head - no sign of resentment on his part.

So Mommy switched off the light, closed his bedroom door and left his room. At that time, Juan Or was already lying in bed but still awake. Still no resentment or cries on his part. Mommy walked to the master bedroom to join Papa in bed. After a little while, Mommy heard Juan Or's cheeky shout from his room and that was all. Mommy still remained in the master bedroom and finally dozed off. It was a peaceful night and Mommy woke up at 5.10am the next day. Mommy went to Juan Or's room to check on him. Turned out he was still sleeping soundly. Mommy's conclusion: So far so good - getting Juan Or to sleep alone in his own bedroom turned out to be a breeze after all. What a relieve for Mommy! On the other hand, Mommy now misses sleeping together with Juan Or. Tonight Papa will not be at home because Papa has gone outstation and Mommy feels undecided whether or not to sleep with Juan Or tonight since Papa is not around. What do you think?

By the way, on a side note here, Juan Or has 'matured' in thoughts already as in Mommy no longer faces problem in getting him to drink milk. In fact, shortly after we have moved into the new house, Juan Or would tell Mommy when he desires to drink milk. Mommy would prepare the milk and he would drink eagerly. No need for Mommy to bribe him with watching DVD anymore. Or sometimes, we need to be going somewhere, so Mommy would wake him up from sleep and asked him to drink milk. Juan Or, still feeling sleepy, would obediently finish the milk so that we could get going fast (which was not something possible to do when we were still staying with the in-laws)!

Here are photos of Juan Or drinking milk while lying down on the floor. Notice that his limbs are no longer the babyish limbs anymore (Mommy misses that!). He can even lift up and cross his legs while drinking milk - like a big shot! ^ ^

Sleepy Episode

Yesterday, after dropping by at our new house, Papa wanted to go window shopping at IOI Mall, Puchong. By the time we reached IOI Mall, it was already something like between 2.30 to 3.00pm and a very hot sunny afternoon as well. When we were still in the car (almost reaching IOI Mall), Juan Or already looked quiet - a sign that he's sleepy (he last woke up at near 10am). After getting out from the car, Juan Or appeared to be revitalized, probably because he was excited to see all things associated with kai-kai (outing).

With Juan Or sitting in the shopping cart, we went up high and went down low in the shopping mall. Finally, we decided to make a quick stop at IOI's Jusco (the Jusco sale is on!) before leaving the mall. By then, it was already 4+ pm. It was at Jusco's electrical goods department when Mommy spotted Juan Or like this:

(With tiny hands holding on to the shopping cart's railing, Juan Or's head dangled forward and sideways like floating in air.)

On seeing this, we decided to go back home immediately. Papa picked Juan Or up and out of the shopping cart and carried him with his face resting on Papa's shoulder. Mommy followed from behind and managed to capture this:

(Eyelids too heavy - already dozed off at Papa's shoulder!)

The conclusion from this sleepy episode is that Juan Or has 'grown up' already. In the past, whenever we go for outings and that if it happened that Juan Or felt sleepy and we were not in a moving car, Juan Or would end up crying non-stop. With this sleepy episode, looks like Juan Or is able to settle himself to sleep anywhere (hopefully not just this time, but next time as well!) minus the fretting and crying.

Mommy's Progress in Weaning Juan Or Off the Spring Cot

Juan Or with his 'smelly' towel, sleeping soundly in the spring cot.

Mommy first felt the urgency to wean Juan Or off the spring cot when one day, in the middle of the night, Mommy was awaken by the fretting cries of Juan Or. Still feeling drowsy, Mommy quickly went to check what was up with him. Turned out, Juan Or actually 'fell' out of the hammock and into the surrounding mosquito net! Well, didn't know how Juan Or 'did it', but luckily the mosquito net that envelopes the hammock is there, otherwise Juan Or may have a hard knock on the floor (there were always two pillows laid on the floor directly underneath the hammock as backup)!

So some nights after that, several hours when Juan Or is already soundly asleep - and that's if Mommy is able to wake up in the middle of night without any prompting from Juan Or's frets - Mommy will slowly and gently lift him out of the spring cot and transfer him to sleep together with Mommy on the mattress laid on the floor. Sometimes, Mommy's attempt is successful, sometimes not. When it's not successful, that is when Juan Or started fretting, Mommy has no choice but to put him back into the spring cot to rock again until he stops fretting. By the way, Juan Or really has got a bad temper whenever he is disturbed from sleep.

So far, there was only one successful attempt in getting Juan Or to fall asleep by himself without the spring cot. There was one night when Mommy had already put Juan Or into the spring cot, but he refused to sleep, instead, wanted to come out to play. By then, everyone had already gone to sleep (Mommy's parents-in-law were not in that night), the lights were switched off, Mommy was feeling very sleepy and laid on that same mattress on the floor to watch over him playing. All Mommy remembered was Juan Or finally became tired and laid next to Mommy and fell asleep by himself. Later the next day, Papa (who came downstairs in the wee hours in the morning) told Mommy that he saw Juan Or changed his sleeping position to somewhere out of the mattress (that is on the floor) but near Mommy's head! So Mommy thinks this is a good start to weaning him off from the spring cot.

However, for subsequent nights, despite Mommy's effort to try to do the same like that night (that is let Juan Or tire himself from playing and then plonks himself on the floor to sleep), turned out it is not successful up to today. Few reasons, main reason being Juan Or's Grandpa is still up watching TV till around 12.30am, so lights are still brightly on. Well, if the adult is still not sleeping at that time, how is the child going to learn to sleep too? And then on seeing Juan Or still playing around in the hall till late at night, Grandpa feels compelled to put Juan Or into the spring cot and then rock him to sleep. And there goes Juan Or's continued dependence on the spring cot.....

There was also another night when both Juan Or's Grandparents were not in that night, so Mommy tried the same thing. Yes, Juan Or continued playing around in the dark hall, but eventually he started pointing at the spring cot, indicating that he wanted to sleep there! So Mommy told him no, he should lie down together with Mommy to sleep. But Juan Or kept on pointing at the spring cot, his voice starting to sound fretful. So what was Mommy to do? Mommy had no choice but to put him there and rocked him to sleep. There goes another failure attempt.......

Trip to Seremban that Ended Up With Lots of Tears and Finally ZZZZZ.....

On 7th June 2009, Papa, Mommy, Juan Or and the rest of the family went down to Seremban attend a relative's wedding lunch. However, Papa, Mommy and Juan Or started the journey first in one car. Papa used the old road to drive to Seremban because the old road has more scenaries for Juan Or to see, plus no toll to pay! Everything was fine, Juan Or was calm and attentive but off and on keeping his hands busy playing with whatever objects he can reach.

Upon reaching Mantin, the ordeal started, but of course at that time, Mommy didn't know it was an ordeal yet ( because Mommy still had some hope that Juan Or can be pacified) . Juan Or started fretting. Then the fretting progressed to crying. Mommy tried all sorts of things to pacify him - giving him a drink on the sippy cup, variable toys to play with, variable small objects to hold on to, singing his favourite song, offering him the breast to suckle on (but he refused!), giving him his security towel - but to no avail! The incessant crying continued even upon arrival in Seremban. Papa droved to the relative's house (in Seremban) where all family members meet before going to the restaurant. Juan Or was still crying. Finally, Papa and Mommy decided that we should turn-tail and go back to Kuala Lumpur. So we headed back home via the KL-Seremban Highway instead.

Mommy suspected Juan Or wanted to sleep. But the problem was that Juan Or refused to relax and fall asleep in Mommy's arms. Before this (except for one similar incident when he was 4 months old), Juan Or was able to sleep in Mommy's arms as the car moved. Unfortunately, on this very day - the day when Papa and Mommy could get to eat good food in the restaurant - Juan Or chose to cry out loud and not fall asleep in Mommy's arms.

Juan Or continued crying for about one hour. Juan Or only stopped crying when he finally dozed off in Mommy's arms. And that was when we almost reached Kuala Lumpur (still at the UPM stretch of KL-Seremban Highway). Then Papa stopped over at Endah Parade's McDonald's to buy lunch. Mommy managed to snap some photos of sleepy Juan Or while in the car waiting for Papa to buy lunch.

(Juan Or sleeping with the mouth wide open, "OOooooooo........")

(Juan Or finally changed his sleeping position.)

(Sleepy B)

(Waiting for Papa.)

(Still waiting for Papa.)

Finally when we reached home, Mommy transferred Juan Or into the spring cot and he still remained asleep. Hhmmm.....Juan Or must be very, very tired, and made even more tired by the long and loud incessant crying.

Later on when it was near 5 pm, the rest of the family members reached home. Father-in-law told Papa and Mommy what dishes were served in the wedding lunch - clams, big prawns, steamed pomfret, shark fin soup among others and the dishes were in big portions. All Mommy could do was just shrug the shoulders, looked at Papa and said,"We missed the good food because the 'B' just couldn't stop crying."

Later on in the evening, Mother-in-law decided not to cook dinner because all the others were still feeling full. Papa didn't feel like eating dinner too although he only had McDonald's. So Father-in-law and Papa went out to buy economy rice as dinner for Mommy and Grandmother-in-law (Juan Or's Great-grandmother). For Mommy, Papa took rice, sambal sotong, sambal petai and ikan bilis, stir-fried kangkung and 2 pieces of sweet and sour big-headed prawns. Mommy asked Papa how much did that cost. Papa said,"RM9." So Mommy asked why Papa had to take such expensive selection to which Papa answered,"Because you missed good food in the restaurant, remember? So I chose all those expensive items for you!" How sweet.

I Dream of ...... Saturday Night Fever!

Mommy caught this photo of Juan Or's sleeping position at 4.05 am. Looks like Juan Or was dreaming of dancing the Saturday Night Fever!

Let's take a closer look......Hmmmm.......on one hand, Juan Or does look like posing as 'Superman', oops...'Superbaby' in this case!

Sleep, baby, sleep.......