Change of Taste

Remember the rocking giraffe that Mommy bought from My Dear Warehouse Sale? Actually this giraffe has a 2-in-1 function. You can either let the giraffe move on wheels or you lift up the wheels so that it can rock.

When Mommy first bought the rocking giraffe, Juan Or didn't like the rocking function. He was only satisfied with moving on wheels. When Mommy tried to teach him to rock, he would fret and refuse, so Mommy finally gave up.

About 2 weeks ago, all of a sudden, Juan Or knows how to rock! And mind you, he finds rocking fun now, no longer wants to move the giraffe on wheels. Mommy also took a video of him rocking, but the moment he saw Mommy taking out the handphone camera, he cannot concentrate on rocking anymore. So in this video, you will see Juan Or rocking rather half-heartedly because he was too eager to see what Mommy captured of him! And notice too that the eye stickers of the giraffe were gone already because of his itchy fingers peeling them off. As of the time of writing, the sticker deco at the neck has gone too! *Faint*

Mommy Got Tagged!

Last week Thursday, Mommy got tagged by Aunty Alice Law from 'My Little Sprouts!". The tagging game goes that the person who got tagged will look into his/her first folder according to Picasa or hard drive and then select the 10th photo, blog about the story behind the photo, mention the person or blog that tagged the person and finally tag five other blogs.

When Mommy looked into the first folder, the Picasa programme in Mommy's laptop actually indicated the first folder's date of creation as '18th July 1912'! Mommy's first reaction was like,"Huh, how can that be? The computer wasn't even invented back then!" On top of that, the folder contains only videos and Mommy recalled these videos were captured by Mommy's previous Motorola camera handphone (which was damaged as a result of short circuit following battery defect). When Mommy checked the handphone's micro SD card, apparently the same video is still in there, but dated 18th February 2009, i.e., when Juan Or was 9 months old. So how did the year change to 1912 (and the month to July) when a copy of the file was saved into Mommy's laptop? Anyone to offer Mommy an explanation? By the way, Mommy only bought this laptop in July 2004.

Although the game is to select the 10th photo of the first folder, however, Mommy decided to select the 10th video of the first folder instead because of the 'auspicious' year change! If Mommy is to stick to the rule strictly, the 10th photo would have been some boring agarose gel electrophoresis photo which was part of Mommy's M.Sc. research results!

So there you go. This video shows Juan Or at 9 months old, was already able to sit up steadily and he enjoyed listening to noises of plastic containers cluttering and knocking on the floor. This video reminds Mommy of how much he has grown 14 months later (Juan Or is now 23 months old)! You can see from this video that his head, body and limbs still had the chubby baby look but now he looks like a little boy already. Even his skin texture appears to have 'roughen' up just a few days ago. Just by looking at this video, Mommy really misses Juan Or's infant days, although Mommy must admit his infant days are not without difficulties. Whatever it is, it is a record of fond memories for Mommy to rekindle when Juan Or turns into a grown man.

Mommy is tagging the following five mummy blogs (preference is given to mummy blogs that have not been tagged for this season):
Aunty Agnes Loke from LilHyppos Hypopotamum
Aunty Sheoh Yan from Blog With Yan
Aunty Lee Pei Yi from BoeyJoey
Aunty Kam from The Kam Family
Mom-Daughter Style

First Home-cooked Meal in the New House

Last Sunday, Juan Or woke up from sleep twice and ended up in a cranky state and crying spell. He didn't even finish his morning milk - only drank 2-3 oz and after that vomitted everything out together with some slimy stuff with saliva, probably due to his excessive crying earlier. After that, Mommy rocked him to sleep in the spring cot and Mommy continued with ironing clothes. Since it was already quite late in the morning (morning is the usual time we go for family outing) and Juan Or was already back to sleep, we decided not to go for any outings and that Papa would go out alone to buy things while Mommy stayed at home with Juan Or.

It was during this nap-taking time that Mommy had the chance to do some household chores. Mommy managed to finish up the rest of the ironing and proceed with opening up packages of kitchen utensils and washing them since they have never been used before. There were many things to wash - ladles of all shapes and sizes, chopsticks, wok stand, kitchen knives and cleaver, various containers and bottles for storing salt, sugar, MSG and pepper, oil pot, rice cooker's pot, 40-cm wok and the cover, measuring cups and spoons, garlic crusher, peeler, pestel and mortar- you name it! Just when Mommy had done about half of those washing, Juan Or woke up after sleeping for about 2-and-a-half hours. Mommy fed him the remaining milk that he didn't finish that morning and by then it was already 11.45am. How time flies!

Later on, Papa came back home with the things he bought and McDonalds for lunch. Mommy stopped all the housework temporarily to eat. Juan Or joined in to eat, but he was more keen on the French fries and Coke only.  After eating and clearing up the dining table, Mommy continued with wiping those utensils dry and keeping them in their proper places. Next came the step to fill up those containers with cooking oil, salt, sugar, MSG, all-in-one seasoning, cornflour and pepper. And finally, Mommy opened the cooking gas tank seal for the first time and attached it to the hose, then tested the new gas stove. Mommy was glad everything went well despite having some feelings of anxiety because Mommy has never done this before!

That evening, Mommy decided to cook dinner for the first time in the new house. Mommy cooked rice, hot assam prawns and stir-fried Beijing cabbage for dinner. The preparation involved for the hot assam prawns was the longest compared to other things Mommy did for the day. The prawn dish's gravy made use of bird's eye chillies, fresh turmeric, garlic and powdered turmeric being pounded together. And these were the yields for dinner!

And since this was our first time having a humble home-cooked meal for dinner in our new house, Mommy got Papa and Juan Or to pose in front of the food as well! ^ ^

Here's Juan Or having his dinner. He prefers to scoop himself and insisted on eating rice only and refused to eat the prawn and vegetable. On seeing his rice so plain, Mommy secretly added a bit of the cabbage gravy to his scoop of rice. The moment he ate it, he gave Mommy the signal that he wanted to spit it out! Later on, Mommy added a bit of the prawn's hot assam gravy to his rice and he kept on eating!

This day (Sunday, 18th April 2010) marks the day we ate our first home-cooked meal together as a family in our new home.

Seeing Monkeys Again! (Part 2)

This is a continuation of the previous blogpost.

Remember Mommy mentioning that the tram appeared to not only take the passengers up and down the Bukit Malawati, but also a little beyond that? Well, apparently the tram went on further to Taman Alam which is Kuala Selangor's own nature park.

Immediately when the passengers got down the tram, there was a man, the park's officer, checking the passengers' tram tickets. Upon closer inspection of the ticket, then only did Mommy realized that apparently the ticket did include Fresh Water Fish Park as part of the itinerary. So looks like the RM3-per-adult fee is worthwhile after all since it not only includes the tram ride but also the fee for entering the park.

This is the ticket that covers both the tram ride and the entry into the fresh water fish park in Taman Alam.

This is Juan Or posing at the entrance of the fresh water fish park. Mommy was so much in a hurry to ask Juan Or to put up a pose so much so Mommy didn't realize that his shorts was 'eaten' up by his crotch!   ^ ^ It was only at this time of writing that Mommy realized the pose defect, but too bad, this photo is his one and only pose in front of the aquariums!

After that, Juan Or and Mommy went into the small building complexes to see the fresh water fishes in aquariums. What was Juan Or's reaction to the fishes? Well, he appeared indifferent towards them, but was clingy to Mommy in that he wanted to be carried all the time. These are among some things we saw:

A humble collection of fresh water fishes in their respective aquariums.

Fish with no name! Well, not exactly that they have no names, but rather, the name tag of the aquarium has probably fallen off and not replaced till now. But other aquariums had their fish name tags still intact at the top of the aquariums.

After the aquariums, we went out of the small building complexes to visit the 'super mini' zoo. There weren't many varieties of animals, but nevertheless, it was a humble collection. We saw....

....the porcupine,....

....the birds,.....

.....some colourful jungle fowls, ......

.....a peacock without its beautiful tail, and......

..... two peahens who seemed more vain than the peacock to want to have their photo captured!

Besides looking at the animals, there was also the nature park for visitors to stroll. So of course, Mommy asked Juan Or to pose some more.

When the next tram arrived, Juan Or and Mommy boarded it and the tram actually took the passengers for an extra three or four circles on the car park area of the park, probably to give the passengers their money's worth and perhaps to give more thrill to young children with the tram's sharp turning motion. During this time, Mommy managed to glance back at the park's direction and saw a big signboard at the main entrance stating that an adult's entry fee is RM2 and child RM1. So Mommy's conclusion is that the RM3 fee paid just now comprises of RM1 for the tram ride and RM2 for entering the fresh water fish park.

Finally, the tram brought the passengers to where we first started and Papa came to receive us back again. Papa also mentioned that during his wait at the tram stop, he noticed the tram actually brought the passengers to more than just up and down the hill, so thought the RM3 paid was worth it after all. With that, Papa announced that in our future trip to Bukit Malawati, he will be going on the tram as well! ^ ^

We went for lunch after that at Pasir Penambang (still in Kuala Selangor) at Tian Wai Tian Restaurant (Mommy has blogged about eating here before), only thing now was that Mommy was too hungry so forgot to snap photos of the food! After the restaurant, Papa took us to a stall (near to Pasir Penambang's wet market building) to drink and eat the flesh of pandan coconut. The last time we went to this stall, each coconut costs RM1.50, but now the price is RM2! This time, Mommy remembered to snap some photos (because stomach was full already!).

After the coconut drink, we were ready to leave Kuala Selangor and along the way, we stopped by at Tesco Kuala Selangor because Mommy had to buy the 9V battery for the new gas stove. Juan Or too, was pleasantly surprised that we decided to stop by his favourite kai-kai (outing) place (Juan Or always points at Tesco and says he wants to go there whenever Mommy drives past Tesco Puchong). Mommy used to wonder - what fun is in store for toddlers in hypermarkets? Well, Mommy can't think of any except for the fun ride in the shopping cart and the joy of seeing many different things or perhaps the joy of merely being out of the house!

Seeing Monkeys Again! (Part 1)

Last Sunday was a last minute decision to head the car towards Kuala Selangor. Both Papa and Mommy decided to let Juan Or visit the monkeys again at Bukit Malawati, Kuala Selangor. Just like last time, Papa parked the car at the foothill of Bukit Malawati and Juan Or was still asleep. So Mommy woke him up and he ended up fretting and crying! Luckily there was the Bukit Malawati tram passing by and lo and behold, Juan Or's teary face immediately turned into a smiling face!

This time round, Papa and Mommy decided to let Juan Or experience the ride on the tram. The ticket for an adult costs RM3 and is free-of-charge for children 3 years old and below. So Papa asked Mommy to accompany Juan Or in the tram ride while Papa waited at the bottom of the hill since the RM3 fee can be quite costly for merely riding up and down the hill - or so we thought at first.

Juan Or and Mommy then got up the tram and Mommy managed to snap a photo of Juan Or before the tram started moving.

And here's the tram from the passenger's view.

Then when the tram started moving, Mommy can't help taking some more photos, and Juan Or kept on uttering,"Train, train!" Probably he was very excited about actually riding on the so-called 'train' since all trains he has seen before are merely toy trains.

Here we go up the hill!

Still in the tram, this photo is Mommy's favourite self-portrait of Juan Or and Mommy. This angle really made Juan Or looked like a young boy, rather than a toddler.

Finally we are at the top of the hill to see the main attraction - the monkeys!

And more monkeys sitting in a row!

Juan Or was very excited about seeing monkeys and kept on calling,"Monkeeeey! Monkeeeeyy!"

At the hill, there was an ice-cream man selling bananas, longs beans, and peanuts for people to feed the monkeys. The most expensive item was the banana - a small bunch selling for RM4! And the bananas didn't look good either, but anyway, who cares, it was after all for the monkeys' consumption. Even bananas meant for human consumption (like the tasty pisang berangan) cost much cheaper for that same amount! Hahaha....if you intend to feed monkeys with bananas, might as well buy bananas from a fruit stall first before going up Bukit Malawati - it's cheaper that way!

By the way, when Juan Or saw the monkeys peeling bananas to eat, he looked at Mommy and insisted that he wanted to eat those bananas too! ^ ^ So Mommy had to console him by saying that those bananas eaten by the monkeys actually don't taste good. They are not the pisang berangan that Mommy usually buys for him (Juan Or only eats the berangan breed and nothing else!).

It would be a waste if you only go there to see monkeys, so Mommy pointed Juan Or to the scenery from the hilltop and of course, the famous Kuala Selangor lighthouse.

When the next tram appeared, Juan Or and Mommy boarded the tram to go down the hill. However, the tram didn't seem to stop the moment it reached the foothill. The tram went on much to Mommy's surprise. First thing in Mommy's mind was probably the tram was making extra circles to give passengers their money's worth, but turned out, the tram was actually taking the passengers to another destination, Taman Alam, which Mommy will narrate in the next blogpost. Stay tuned!