My bed is crowded

It's 6:50 am and I've been up since 5:30 a.m. after giving Ryan his milk. My wife in US for her business meeting for a week now. She is currently on her way back, expected to reached Tokyo by 3 pm Malaysian time. We have successfully for many months now `kick' Ryan out from our master bed. He has also `graduated' from his playpen cum baby cot to his own super single mattress on the floor for one month. Our plans are to slowly get him accustomed to his mattress and then proceed to further `kick' him out from our room to his own room.

However, he has been sleeping on the master bed with me for the past one week since my wife left for US. I had to put him on the bed with me as he was ill with a fever, the day my wife left. I literally had no sleep for the first three nights, checking his fever every hour, feeding him his milk and his medicine. The poor guy's nose is so blocked that he has difficulties sleeping soundly.

Having a king size, one baby does not take up that much space. Unfortunately, when it starts to rain with thunder and lightning, my `daughter' Zoewe, the toy poodle would also insist that she too has to share the bed. She is absolutely terrified of thunder and lightning and will always without fail look for us to `protect' her when there is a thunderstorm. Needless to say, that is probably the only time that she will lay perfectly still by our side without moving a muscle.

Well, it is raining now with a few flashes of lightning and thunder. And guess what, Zoewe is also now on the bed, tucked neatly and comfortably (for her of course) just next to my pillow while Ryan is doing his `helicopter' stun . I have resorted to occupy just a small space, almost falling off bed, trying to balance my laptop on a pillow and trying very hard not to kick either one of them.

I am not complaining. Looking at the two of them, I can not help but to count my blessings, having a complete and happy family. But blessings or no blessings, Ryan will be out of the room in a couple of weeks and Zoewe, back to her own bed on the floor once the thunderstorm ceases. I need my bed back and I could do with some sleep.

Feng Shui anyone??

Although we are not staunch believers in Feng shui, but we do not discount the fact that certain feng shui recommendation of furniture arrangement are good basic sound advice for comfort and provide a better ambiance or serenity at home. So, when a feng shui master recently came to our home and pointed out that it would be advisable to rearrange the living room furniture to further enhance our wealth and health, we went ahead.

Honestly, it was quite fun too because it gave us a chance to re look into our furniture arrangement that we have not changed since we moved in 2 years ago. Our main door (which was originally by the side) was `moved' to the center of our home when we renovated our house, with the believe that a centralised main door would welcome good `chi' (health and wealth). A little step was created between the porch level and the living room area to `elevate' the living room and hence the home. However, in moving the main entrance to the center of the house, we have aligned the main gate, main door right through the kitchen which was the back of the house. (What to do? Small house!). So, something has to be put up at the hallway to block the `alignment'.

So, instead of spending thousands of our hard earned money in building a cabinet, we rearranged our L-shape sofa and reposition our wall cabinet. To get some height for the cabinet, we went to SSF during the weekend to get a plant arrangement to be placed on top of the cabinet. The plant also added some additional colour to our overall arrangement.

So, did it bring us additional wealth and health? I think it's a little too early to tell. But, we like the recent arrangement better, felt more privacy and comfort with the repositioning of our L-shape sofa and definitely a breath of freshness to the overall home. Wait till we are bored and then we will bring in another feng shui master for another reason to redecorate! Or until we struck lottery and move to a much larger bungalow!! HAHAHA!

Our `Eldest Daughter's Birthday!'

Yupe. We seemed to be celebrating lots of birthdays lately. This round was for our `eldest daughter' in the house, our maid. She has been with us for slightly over a year now, and we have come to refer to her as our `eldest daughter'. While news of maid abuse and rights seemed to dominate the local headlines recently, we are only too glad that we are lucky enough to have minimal problems with her so far.

She has her limitations but then who doesn't. While we continue to remind her of our expectations of her performance (we made it a point to lay down our expectations and work schedule the moment she arrived), we are also constantly reminding ourselves that she is also taking care of Ryan now. With Ryan being quite a handful, we have also lowered our expectations on her towards her house chores (although we didn't specifically told her that). The biggest relief is that she has demonstrated time and again her affection towards Ryan and Ryan fondness of her as well. However, we are quick to ensure that we do not allow her to replace our love and our position as parents to him.

She was quite surprised when we took out the birthday cake and told her to change so that she could take some pictures. She loves having her pictures taken and sent home. We also make it a point to allow her to call home to speak to her family and daughters, so that they too could wish her happy birthday.

At the end of it all, I can see that she was happy and grateful. To us, we are only happy that she is happy and hoping that she will continue to treat our family as hers as well while she is here.

Zoewe's 2nd Birthday!

Zoewe finally turned 2. It was as if we only brought her home yesterday while she was just 3 months old. How time flies. I can still remember clearly how little she was and how active she was, jumping all over the house, not forgetting peeing and pooing all over the house ....sigh. It was initially a nightmare trying to house train her. And the Sunday mornings that we have to take her for her puppy obedience training classes and the stress I had to go through to ensure that she listen and obey me with simple instructions to pass the final test. (Incidentally, if she fails, it is not her fault but the owner who have not done enough!! stress!)

I can still remember seeing her in her cage at a pet shop and how cute she was. I actually called my wife who was then in Hong Kong and lied to her that I actually place RM500 deposit for a puppy! (Just to get a kick out of it. haha). She was shocked and repeatedly questioned me whether am I sure of the responsibilities that come with it. When my wife finally came home, I took her to have a look at Zoewe at the pet shop and we told ourselves to have a cooling period and will proceed to get her if she is still there one month later. One month later, when we went back to the pet shop, there she was. Much larger now but ever so cute. She kept on `hard selling' herself that my wife could not but to agree to `adopt' her (with the condition that she will only play with her, while I would have to shoulder all other responsibilities...that's what husband is for...sigh)

I can still remembered how she jumped over the bean bag on the 3rd day at home, knocked her head and went into fits. I thought I have lost her there and then. Thank God, she was fine after a check with the vet.

And then, a month after she came home, we found out that Ryan was on his way. We were struggling to decide whether we should keep her or give her away (with mounting pressures from friends and families that baby and dog does not mix well). But by that time, Zoewe is more than just a pet. She is family. We could not just give her up and decided to ensure that she gets the equal amount of love and attention that we would give to Ryan.

Since her arrival, she has brought nothing but sheer joy and adventure into our lives. She is without temper, without mood swings, ever so ready to give, ever so ready to share her bubbly cheerfulness, ever so ready to love.

Happy Birthday Zoewe.

`Chef at Home' Sunday

We decided to turn last Sunday into a `Kitchen day'. Instead of `lepaking' (loitering) around shopping malls, we thought it would be good idea to whip up some new appetizer's and deserts recipe. So off we went to Subang Carrefour early in the morning to do our marketing for the necessary ingredients. By the time we finished and had our very late breakfast, we were ready to start at 1p.m.

For this session, I have two lovely assistants, namely, my wife and my younger sister. They were fooling around with the food and were pretty demanding as assistants. They must have music before they could cook and were only selecting in the tasks they like to do...aiyoh!

Anyway, by 4p.m. we have finally managed to present the dishes below. Rather successful I would said (with a few minor fine tuning if we were to cook them again in the future).

This is a modified recipe from Jamie Oliver. Proved to be an excellent hit recently when we served this during Ryan's birthday.

I had to soak the glutinous rice the night before for this recipe. Best to serve while still hot and while the spring roll is still crunchy. It's more of a sweet desert than a appetizers.

This is one of the easiest appertizers to make. Simply stuff a mixture of minced shrimp, onion and mint leaves, olive oil and lemon juice into cherry tomatoes. Best when served chilled. The only thing is that sizable cherry tomatoes can be pricey.


This fish cutlet recipe is a mixture of minced fish, onions, chili, mint and mash potatoes coated with bread crumbs and fried. The mint and coriander dip is an excellent compliment. Again, ideal to serve while still hot.

This is again another simple appetizer to prepare. Shrimp coated with coconut shreds served with mayonnaise, sprinkled with lemon zest. Yummy.

By the time, we finished sampling all the above, we were already full and hence skipped dinner, which we originally intended to have angel hair cooked aglio oglio style with shrimps and mussels. That, we will do for our Tuesday's night dinner, where we still have our Watermelon Granita prepared on Sunday. Food! Food! Glorious Food!

His Presents!

Children nowadays are so fortunate! I don't quite remember the birthdays that my parent celebrated for me. The only one that I remembered well and with pictures taken was my 21st! But here we have Ryan celebrating his 1st birthday 3 times! And the amount of presents that he received from our friends and relatives were more than what I got in 3 years!

Of all the presents, I must said, I love the remote control love buggy the most! Honestly, I have always looked at kids with this little gadget with envy and thinking how lucky they must be. The closest I've got was a battery operated toy tank (which incidentally, was already a big thing to me back then!). Secretly, I was hoping that his toy car could fit me..hehe...so that I could give it a spin. Oh well, never mind. Maybe, my son would fancy one of those remote control helicoptors soon...hahaha..

But seriously, the amount of presents do not represent the love our parents have for us. It's rather unfair to compare my childhood with Ryan's because we live in two different era. Education, exposure, standard of living, financial capabilities and a host of other factors have changed the way parents demonstrate their love for their child. Not receiving the amount of presents like Ryan or getting the birthday celebrations like he did, did not mean that I receive any less love from my parents. The amount of education and life they have given me has been a good proof of that. It's just that today's parents will go a long way to ensure that their children would have their needs and `want's taken care of.

However, I believe that being a responsible parent, we got to constantly remind ourselves that we do not spoilt our child or uses material possession as a replacement of the quality time or love for our child. I have friends who have bought luxurious condominiums and cars for their children once they are old enough to drive, all fully paid for. And some even had the guts to specifically asked for the type of car and NOT just any car!!! I think it's an excellent idea to invest in good properties for the future of our child but to hand everything to them in a silver platter could sometimes do them more harm than good.

His 3rd Birthday Celebration in A month!

Last Saturday, we celebrated his 1st birthday for the 3rd time. This time, it was with his mommy's collegues. We had a small party at home. He was obviously enjoying all the attention and lots of presents too. And he gets to cut his birthday cake for the third time and this round, we bought him a 3kg chocolate banana cake from Cake Sense.

Besides having nasi lemak, fried meehoon and curry chicken, I prepared several appertizers as well. Thankfully, they turned out OK.

More pictures of his presents and him, tearing and thrashing his presents later.

Father's Day - A Cooking Day!

My wife wanted to cook for me to celebrate Happy Father's Day. She brought out the recipe book and asked me what I wanted to eat. I chose Seafood Risotto (something that I've tried before earlier despite buying the incorrect type of rice). A very good friend of mine was kind enough to find and buy for me the Arborio rice this time.

We opted just to put in prawns and grilled salmon this round. We could not fine saffron threads. Hence, we could not get the exact yellowish colour of seafood risotto that we wanted. Nevertheless, the dish turned out to be superb and the cooking process enjoyable.

Besides the Risotto, she also prepared home-made minestrone soup which proves to be a hit!

Of course, not to be outdone, I promised her to make the desert, MANGO SORBET. The preparation is simple but just required a lenghty time to freeze to get it ready to be served.

I would said that it is a very memorable Happy Father's Day to me.

New Version of Smart Tag!

What similarities do you see between these two items? I don't see any but Ryan obviously does.

A couple of weeks ago, he did something that had us roaring with laughter!

I normally had my smarttag nicely tucked into my drivers' compartment and will take it out and hold it up everytime I pass by the Smart Tag toll booth. He has been obviously observing me doing that for quite a while because this cheeky guy had some new trick up his sleeve.

A couple of weeks ago, while we were going home with him sitting on his mommy's lap (yupe, this guy now refuses to sit in his car seat because he is just so curious), he has been playing with one of his shoes that he has taken off himself. As I approached the Subang Interchange and was about to reach the Smart Tag booth, I took out my Smart Tag from my driver's compartment and held it up, ready for it to be scanned.

This little `monkey' watched me silently doing what I am doing, and the next thing we knew, he was holding up his shoe in the same manner that I was doing, as if waiting for the `beep' sound once the tag has been scanned. He took us by surprise! As if that was not enough, as our car passed the toll booth after the tag was scanned, I put my smart tag back into the driver's compartment (the compartment between the driver's seat and the front passenger seat, just before the gear stick).

He did the next most amazing thing that gave us the next surprise. He leaned forward and push open the compartment and proceed to `stuff' his smarttag (the shoe) into the same compartment. Tried as hard as he could, the shoe just would not fit in. Not one to give up easily, he gets even more excited and push it even harder. In order to satisfy him, I took out my smart tag to give his `smart tag' room. The moment his shoe went in, he closed compartment, looked at us with a very satisfied and accomplished look and grinned.

Both of us were dumbfounded and could only laughed and laughed. On one hand, it was funniest thing he has done to-date and on the other hand, we are glad that this little guy is displaying simple intelligence that we hope would continue to grow into something useful for him when he finally grows up.

Children are amazing (especially if their are yours)!

New Trick

This is his new trick now especially when he is playing on our bed. Raising up his butt and looking at us upside down. It really amazes me where this guy pick up all these new tricks and skills but I guess it comes naturally (and NO, daddy did not show him his butt this way...haha).

Will share with you later what he used the other day to imitate me going through the `SmartTag' lane once I grab a picture of his version of the Smarttag.

Best of Friends

Many of our relatives and friends were shocked when they learnt that we have Zoewe (our toy poodle) at home roaming around freely when we have Ryan, all the more so, when they heard that Zoewe sleeps in the master bedroom as well. "You cannot have dogs at home when you have a baby!". "You should give your dog away!" "What if your dog bites him? A dog is still a dog."

We understand that they all meant well and we are grateful. Honestly, we were also apprehensive when we found out that Ryan was on the way, only months after we bought Zoewe, although we made sure that we bought a breed that shed the least and is children friendly. We too have thought of giving her away but she has become so much a part of our family and we could not bear the thought of parting with her. So, in other to have the best of both worlds, we made sure that she is constantly groomed and trimmed and used the best grooming shampoo available (to prevent disease or shedding). We are glad that we did our homework before we went ahead to buy any puppy of our fancy because, Zoewe has proven to be really baby friendly.

As Ryan turned one, we have started to allow him to interect with Zoewe directly under our tight supervision. Our objective is to make sure that he does not develop a phobia or fear of animals and above all, we wanted him to be animal lover from a young age. As you can see from the pictures, the two of them have clicked pretty well and have became best of friends. In fact, they each have found a new play mate.

We have also invested in a air filter cum air purifier to be placed in the masterbedroom to make sure that whatever little dust or shedded fur will be filtered as much as possible. Zoewe has lost that privilege to sleep on the bed with us nowadays as Ryan has taken over that privilege, but we are glad that she has not display any form of jeolousy. We just got to make sure that we have not love her lest with the addition of Ryan.

It is always a joy to see both of them playing together and hearing Ryan's laughter whenever he is with his `big sister'......

Milestone - My First Birthday Celebration!

Ryan finally turned one on the 30th May 2009. It was a hectic and full day for him as well as us. Coincidently, as if he knew that it was his birthday, he woke up bright and early, at 7:10 am., just five minutes away from 7:13 when he was born one year ago.

We had a small celebration with both my wife and my family members at Zipangu Shangrila KL (Japanese buffet lunch). Ryan was so tired yet he struggled to keep awake until the moment we walked out from the restaurant. He fell asleep immediately even, before we reached the car park. He slept on the way home and woke up the minute we reached home. From then, he was busy opening presents and then his favourite dip in his pool with his mommy.

At night, we took him to TGIF Subang Parade for another mini celebration because we wanted to see his reaction when the crew sang happy birthday to him. He was so excited and curious throughout and even went to the extend to pulling off some of the crew's hats.

By the time he got home, and when he slept close to midnight, he was totally exhausted. And so was I ....haha....what a day to remember...