New Way to Play with a Toy Wrench

Hello! Mommy is glad to be back again at blogging after a bout of 'silence'. Please forgive Mommy for not being able to visit your blogs as frequently as Mommy wanted to. Anyway, today's post is a short one as Mommy is still hard-pressed for time with office work.

This is Juan Or's old toy wrench. Mommy bought the DIY toy tools set from the Litt Tak'sWarehouse Sale about 2 years ago.

Then, Juan Or's itchy fingers went on to dismantle the wrench into 3 parts.

Juan Or used the middle-sized piece as his gun, .....

....and the smallest piece as his ring.....

....or rather his wedding ring!

There he is....sitting and posing like a big tai-ko (big brother)!^_^

Mommy's Articles Published in CozyCot.com

Somewhere towards the end of year 2010, CozyCot.com, an online women's magazine based in Singapore, contacted Mommy to invite Mommy to be one of their guest writers for the Motherhood section. Mommy accepted the invitation and so far, Mommy had contributed two articles to CozyCot.com. CozyCot.com would give Mommy a topic to write about and of course the deadline to submit the article. Of the two topics given so far, Mommy always end up scratching the head as to what to write about the topic because somehow, the given topics don't seems to 'click' well with Mommy. Because of this, Mommy always end up writing and submitting the articles at the very last minute. For that, Mommy must thank Mommy's 'last-minute' lucky stars for always being able to spring an idea on how to approach or write about the topic that didn't seems to 'click' well with Mommy at first.

The first topic assigned (in January 2011) to Mommy was about pregnancy fitness. Mommy isn't one person so keen on exercise and fitness to begin with, so Mommy finally came up with Mommy's anecdote called "Confessions of a Fitness Non-enthusiast", which was published on 4th March 2011. The second topic assignment on children's party only came in early March 2011 and the deadline was 21st March 2011. But Mommy remembered submitting the article only on the 22nd March 2011 (as usual, the inspiration to write only came in on the deadline iteself!). So that's how Mommy's second article called "Children's Pseudo-party Ideas (for Parents Who Are Not That Into Parties!)" came about and was published on 25th March 2011.

Happy reading! ^_^

Ben10 Calciyum

Lately, Juan Or has caught the Ben10 fever, most probably from the babysitter's son who is now in Standard 3. 

"Wanna see what my Mommy got for me?"

"I would  prefer to say that she has gotten me Ben10 cards although Mommy insisted she has actually bought Calciyum for me to eat, not the Ben10 cards."

"Actually, at one point of time not too long ago, I got fed up of eating Calciyum almost every night although I loved eating it since I was 1+ year old. But now that Calciyum has Ben10 picture on it, I love to eat it again!"

"There is something more to it than just the Ben10 cards. There's this scratch-and-win thing on the card. Scratch-scratch and if I see a Sony PSP icon, then that's what I'll win. All I have to do is to attach the winning card on the attached form and send it to them. But if it merely shows some Ben10 character power score, then too bad-lah!"

"One pack of Calciyum contains 3 packs of Ben10 cards. Each pack has 4 cards. I scratch and scratch and scratch, in the end also I don't see any Sony PSP icon. Hmmmph!"

"But hmmmm.......on second thoughts......off and on we have been seeing in the newspaper how many people got cheated by the scratch-and-win scheme and that those people who got cheated are adults. Whoa.....now we have the scratch-and-win at the kiddy level!!? But ok-lah, even if didn't get to win the Sony PSP, at least get to enjoy the Ben10 cards also good enough already, so as long as there are Ben10 pictures, right?"

"Anyway, the week after, Mommy told me she went to Tesco again to look for Ben10 Calciyum because Tesco is selling it cheap for RM6.49 per pack of 8. Turned out, there's nothing left on Tesco's chiller shelf. All has been grabbed already. I think that's because of the price itself and Ben10...."



Mommy's disclaimer: This blogpost is not meant to implicate/connect Calciyum with any of those scratch-and-win schemes. Mommy understands that the Ben10 Calciyum scratch-and-win thing is just for promotional purposes on Calciyum's part and 'fun-fun' only on end users' part. There is purely no malicious intention on Mommy's part. Mommy bought the Ben10 Calciyum purely on Mommy's own free will.

Juan Or's Potty Training Updates

It has been a long time since Mommy last wrote updates about Juan Or's potty training. This is a flashback of Juan Or's past chronological history of his potty training:

• 9-10 months old: Knows how to instinctively urinate or pass motion when seated on the potty.
• 12-13 months old: Goes nappy-less during daytime only (but at the babysitter's house only!) and periodically put on potty to urinate to which he did. 

Now Mommy is reporting his updates starting from where Mommy last stopped:

• 13-23 months old: No progress on Mommy's effort to potty train Juan Or as we were still staying in the in-laws' house because in his paternal grandparents' presence, he would refuse to do many essential things such as drink milk, eat solid food and conform to routine schedule. Also if Mommy was to bring the potty training effort to higher levels, Mommy could foresee a lot of reprimanding/scolding on Juan Or which will 100% lead to quarrels with the in-laws as they always go all out to comment or criticize Mommy for going hard on Juan Or. We moved out of the in-laws' house when Juan Or was 23 months old.
• 24-27 months old: Still no progress on Mommy's part to potty train Juan Or as Mommy was still getting used to the routine of staying on our own and at the same time juggling with the most stressful part of Mommy's job, i.e., preparing the documents for programme accreditation renewal from the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA).The only insignificant effort that Mommy made was to put him to sit on the toilet bowl (with the kiddy adaptor) when he said he wanted to pass motion, but he was too terrified to sit on the adaptor!
• 28-29 months old: Mommy started to bring potty-training to a higher level whereby Juan Or went diaperless in the daytime when at home. Generally he won't have accidents but he tends to have accidents when Mommy scolded him for something unrelated to potty training. So probably in times of stress, he lost control of the muscles that control urination.By then, Juan Or is also no longer terrified at sitting on the kiddy adaptor on the toilet bowl when passing motion.
• 30-33 months old: Juan Or is already capable of going diaperless without accidents when at home, regardless of whether it's daytime or night, but Mommy dared not let him go diaperless when sleeping through the night. Also when Mommy disciplined him by scolding (and beating), he no longer has accidents. However, when we go for outings, Mommy still put on the diaper for convenience. And just because he had the diaper on (even when at home), he won't bother to tell Mommy that he wants to urinate or pass motion - he would just let it all go into the diaper!
• 33-34 months old (at present): Just because Juan Or had the diaper on, he would just let go without telling. One day, just after changing into a fresh diaper to prepare to sleep, he 'shitted' into the fresh diaper which made Mommy very angry! So Mommy punished him by making him sleep through the night in standing position (but upper part of body was leaning on the side of the bed) and with him still wearing the soiled diaper! Sure enough, the lesson taught him well and from that day onwards, he told Mommy that he wanted to pass motion even though he had the diaper on. Yippy! ^_^
• 34 months old (at present): Mommy decided that it's high time to train him to go diaperless throughout the night. So on the night of 27th March 2011, Juan Or went diaperless. Mommy asked him to go urinate first before sleeping to which he said he had no urine. Mommy remembered checking whether his shorts was wet or not at about 2am, it was not wet, so Mommy went back to sleep. Another check done at 4am and his shorts and the mattress were all wet! Mommy was furious and scolded (and lectured) him repeatedly! Mommy even threatened that should he wet his shorts and mattress again, Mommy would impose the sleep-standing-up punishment on him again. Sure enough, the scolding and threat worked and he didn't wet himself nor the mattress on the nights of 28th and 29th March. He even obliged to go urinate at the toilet bowl when Mommy asked him to. Anyway, on Mommy's part, Mommy also woke him up at approriate intervals to go urinate to which he did, sometimes with fuss, sometimes without fuss. Anyway, Mommy's objective is reached already! Yippy! :-D

 Photo of Juan Or sleeping soundly, diaperless and without any accidents for the first time ever taken on 28th March 2011 at 6.22 am. 





What about his leftover unused diapers? Mommy will now reserve them for outings only (for convenience sake) and also leave some at the in-laws' house since they still have not successfully potty-trained him in their own house.

Snowalk at i-City, Shah Alam

Yesterday, Papa took us to the newly-opened Snowalk at i-City, Shah Alam. Snowalk is a place for visitors to experience snow albeit in a 'synthetic' way. Papa first knew about this from a blog he read and then saw it featured in The Star newspaper in the Metro section.

The moment Juan Or saw the Snowalk building, this was his reaction - fretful and almost crying. By the way, we had not even entered the building, he already reacted like that. Don't know why! *Slap forehead*

The normal price for adult ticket is RM25 and children (from 3 to 12 years) is RM15 inclusive of winter jacket rental, but since this is still the promotional period, the adult ticket costs RM15 and children RM10. Since Juan Or is still under 3 years old, he gets to enter for free and still gets to borrow the winter jacket for free!

Papa tried putting on the winter jacket for Juan Or before we entered, but don't know for what reason, Juan Or refused to put it on! So we thought never mind, let him feel the consequence of his own decision, thus Juan Or entered the snow area in his plain clothes!

The snow place is icy and freezing cold. There are lots of typical Christmas deco structures to see along the way such as snowman, dinosaur, miniature castles and igloo structures made of large  ice blocks, and also pathways for you to ride on a sleigh to slide down the ice. Or if you do not fancy riding on a sleigh, you can merely slide on your buttocks in those miniature castle structures. So how does snow feel like? To Mommy, the synthetic snow felt just like those icy powder sediments you find in a freezer! So for a cheap feel of snow, just open your home freezer and ta-dah!

And as mentioned in previous blogposts before, this boy loves to play with and suck or eat ice cubes. But when he was already face-to-face with ice and snow everywhere, he somehow refused to see or touch anything! Instead he chose to stand there and fret and fret and cry! He even kept on pointing towards the door where we entered to say he wanted to go out!

Papa even went to pull one Spiderman sleigh for him to try but he refused to try it! After that, Papa tried again to put the winter jacket onto him and he still refused so we had no choice but to force it on him with scolding and slapping.

By the way, if you intend to visit this place, Mommy's advice is to make sure you are sufficiently 'equipped' in that preferably you wear socks and shoes rather than slippers and wear whatever cheap gloves you can get hold of such as the gardener's cotton gloves. You know why? Because if you intend to do some sliding on ice, then you can't help having some snow trapped between your feet and the slipper and that's going to give freezing sensation to your feet! Or just in case you need to use your bare hands to help break the fall or slide, your bare hands will have to touch snow or the 'ice powder', that's why it's better to have at least the gardener's gloves over your hands if you don't want to end up spending so much money.....

Anyway, very soon we were out already because Juan Or was fretting so much. He was even terrified by just looking at the life-sized snowman! Once out of the snow place and back at the tropical temperature, he was all smiles again!

Then, neighbouring to the Snowalk, there is a new indoor amusement park. So we went in to have a look. Judging from the look of the amusement play items, we reckoned that probably the amusement park is not yet open for business.

Juan Or saw big horsey arcade games, but don't know why he didn't seem keen to ride on the horse.

There was the basketball type of game....

and guns!

Then there's the machine gun type like Rambo!

There were also very nice, clean and big kiddy rides too, but too bad, that day Juan Or didn't seem to be keen with kiddy rides like these......

.....because there's something even better - something fast and furious! Vroom! Vroom!

Then there were more guns - black gun....

....red gun, ......

....and blue gun! Piang! Piang! Juan Or even went on to point the gun at Mommy and said "Shoot Mama!" and then pointed to Papa and said "Shoot Papa!" *Slap forehead*

Here he was putting the gun back after he was done playing.

Juan Or also enjoyed crossing the 'bridge' that connects the Snowalk and amusement park.

Now he was all smiles walking back to Snowalk!

Now it was time to go back to the car park. See how hot it was outside!

Back to the carpark now, which is just next to the Snowalk building. By the way, parking was free!