My Recent Visits to Keith

I have managed to see Keith as per the agreement that it has to be in the presence of, and it was with Elaine for the past few weeks but the trouble is we still have our BIG fights. I guess it is rather hard to working things out and I am really hoping that we can start everything anew as friends. I am rather overjoyed because Keith has been rather ecstatic to see me and he is still just as attached to me but of course he has gotten more attached to his mom.

Keith has gotten quite demanding and has began to order around, even starting to ask for things but the good thing is we can still talk him out of it or to promise him to give it to him later, then he is ok already. All we need to do is to be really angry or when he does something really wrong, he would come over and keep giving the angry one his kisses.

Well, as for the toys I have given him, he is not too interested in it because I know that he had always wanted someone to be there playing it with him, only then will he be interested. Of all the toys, the one he had like most is the bus toy and the drawing table. But we all know how kids are, they always change their preference almost on a daily basis.

I wanted so very much to post up his pictures here but Elaine made me promised that I will not post his pictures up until much later on, for reasons I dunno why. Sigh!

This week have been a very expensive week for me. I have bought 2 case of Enfagrow A+ in Isetan which is retailing at RM74.90. (there is 6 tins in a case)


Before that I have went to the e-Toys warehouse sales to buy toys for Keith and a birthday present for Nicole too.

Since Keith has always been fascinated to get onto the driver seat so I got him this


This one is definitely better than those MatchBox car toys


A bus with alphabets and phonics. To him this is another car toy.


This is the most expensive one, costing RM100, not sure if he likes this one or is he going to use the teacher as a joystick


Got him a table drawing board to get him interested in writing


And lastly this standing drawing board is for Nicole but now I got to figure out how to send this one back to her.


I have also bought a Vtech Floating Boat and got a free RC Helicopter from their lucky draw.

I guess from next few months I will have to be really thrifty and to spend as little as possible. I might have to even skip some of the things that I really needed, like getting a new pair of spectacles to replace my 3 years old glasses.

The revelation

It is high time I reveal it to all since my relationship is already beyond any help. I will refer back to my earlier post on 2nd June 2008 (Bad Day!)

I do not want to write this first part down but I really needed to remind myself of this incident to I will do it but I would not want to go into too much details, rather just vaguely mention it because I do not want to hurt anyone's feeling. I'll just mentioned the person as "A". I have always tried my very best in doing things to please "A" that I can, yet "A" is never seems happy. Everytime when things like this happened, the whole situation would looks as though I am always given the right to choose but I make the choice that is not in "A" favour then I am bound to get it badly..... mentally and physically too.... talk about abuse!!! (Doesn't this makes you think our of beloved country?)

I was just trying to teach "A" a lesson because I never liked being ordered and being bossed around (nobody does!) When I made my choice not offer my help to "A" because I wanted "A" to know what it takes for me to do the job. "A" tried to get the job done and was really unhappy about it. In the end when I tried to let "A" know that I faces the same helplessness when I am ordered to do the same job, I got battered!!!! and battered badly too!!!! Sigh! So much for a freedom of choice!!!!

Sad to say tht the A in the quote refers to Elaine, and when I say battered, she had slapped me so hard that my glasses flew off and punched me in the chest with all her might...... For those who might see this as a minor thing, she did this in the restaurant during business hours when it is half filled with people and also right in front of my mother. She kept punching me until my mother has to come over to stop her.

It is not that I cannot defend myself but I was afraid that my retaliation will cause her injury so I have to bear it. Instead of confronting her and make matter worse, I opted to run out of the restaurant and seeing her being so violent, I took Keith along with me. I was still being very patient and controlled then. After a few minutes, she chased after me like a mad woman, wailing and all, I still walk on ignoring her. Then she confronted me in front of Citrus Park and snatched Keith away from me. During the commotion, Keith was unhappy about her shouting at me, so he cried and I have to let go of him so that she would stop struggling. I hated it when she always uses Keith to threaten me.

I walked on leaving her and she walk back to the restaurant with Keith. I do not wish to go into detail of what she shouted, all I can say is, it is not nice things :( We argued but I kept my temper very well that day and avoided hitting her when she keep trying to coax me to...... I chose to walk away.

I was in dire need of a friend to talk to that day but I didn't call anyone up. I was really lucky that my mom and sis has helped me out that evening. I will stop here for now so that I can take my mind of it all for now.

My new handphone

I have bought myself a new handphone lately because my old Nokia has been bugging me with quite a number of problems. I have many customers complaining to me that they cannot call me when my phone is actually switched on with full signal bar. Rubbing salt onto my wound, surprisingly Maxis doesn't SMS me back about my missed calls too.

When I am on the line with a customer, I keep getting dropped calls. Initially I thought all this problem was from Maxis but then I tried to use an old handphone and it worked fine without any problem. I wanted to continue using the line with that phone but Elaine wanted to use that phone instead. I ended up having to get a new phone.

After much looking around and many rounds of trips to Low Yat and Sg Wang, in the end I have decided to get myself a Sony Ericsson G900

Although the phone that I am buying is already past the promotion period, I still got the free SE Bluetooth headset as well as the 2GB M2 card although it is no longer stated on the box :D

I really liked the phone, especially the touchscreen and best of all the response time is rather fast compared to my N73ME. As for the N73ME, I am passing it over to my mom because she has always bugged me that my sister's Samsung phone is too soft for her. Hope she can bear with the slow respond time of the N73.

Life goes on again

Starting on a new job is indeed very hard when you have to really juggle between work and private life. I just hope that everyone will have a little more patience with me and my blog. I have been feeling rather guilty because I have to take some time off to settle down my things. The only hint that I can crop right now is I will try my very best to post up the latest happenings.

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform all that I guess it is time that I turn this into my own personal blog. As there might not be any turn to the events that has happened and what is to come is unavoidable. To those who know what I meant, please keep it all to yourself. I only have myself to blame for what that had happened.

Life goes on

Some of you might have known this (especially those in Facebook) but I guess it is time that I do a small announcement here. I have already left the restaurant and right now Elaine and her family is running it.

Life goes on no matter what and I have just started on my new job as a negotiator in the real estate. Right now my job is to get more listing and to gather as much info as I can from all parties involved. I am very grateful that I have joined a very supportive company with many people whom are more than willing to help me in my job, which is a rare in this line.

I am very sorry that I have made this "father writing about his family, especially his son" blog into my own personal life blog but I do hope that I will be able to do some, if not more, of what I have started out this blog for.

For those whom are curious about my answer,

"Yes, there is no turning back to what is about to happen and I am willing to accept all the consequences"

I am really thankful to have supportive friends during this period of time and as I have promised to you all, I am now standing up for myself after such a very long period of time of darkness.

It is sure hard to live a life where you have to start all over. With so many things that I would be needing to get and spend on. Then again the problem is still hovering me as it has always had, though to a lesser extend but I guess I really needed more time to iron things out before I can really move on with my own life.

The better news is that I am now finally able to go online and I can also chat and do things online with much greater freedom but right now what I am lacking is the time. Come Monday, I will be starting of with my new job and will be letting you all know about it later on, if everything works out fine.

Right now the other of my problem is getting a new car. Any salesman out there you all might wanna suggest to me, if I am going to get the P2 car?

Blog break

I know I have not been blogging for a while now and I did not even do Keith's development for his 18 months old. My sincerest apologies to him!

I'll be on a blog break for a while because I really needed the time to clear up my personal life and stuffs too..... Something major is about to be announced and those in the know, please do keep it to yourselves about it. I would really appreciate it. It is a very sad thing to announce but I really guess this is the only thing that I can opt for right now.

Keith is 17 months

Keith just turned 17 months (1 year and 5 months) yesterday. I am supposed to do a few more posts before this one but my hands has been rather tied up with many happenings in the family and business. This month we have the waitress quiting on us without notice, meaning she left right after payday. So lately have been rather tiring for all of us.

Keith has been becoming more and more adventurous and mischievous too. This picture is taken in 1U TGI Fridays on this Tuesday and I happen to meet up with Shereen and her family too. This is the first time Elaine, Keith and I, as a family meet another family from online, on an outing.


Statistics from last month (will update later on)
Height - 77cm
Weight -8.75kg

Diet
His milk intake is now about 5-6 bottles of 7oz, he is no long taking his usual porridge anymore but instead he is sharing part grandma's lunch portion and Elaine's or my portion of dinner. We are also ordering the kids order for him when we dine out. Practically eats almost anything except veggies, sourish or spicy stuffs.

Sleep
He will only fall asleep on our bed because it is big enough for him to turn and toss around to find his best and comfortable sleeping position and only after he fall into a slumber sleep, we would move him back into his cot. He dislikes to be left alone in the room or in the dark but funnily on one occasion he was being whiny and wanted to go out so I went out to off all the lights in the house except the night light in our room but he was not afraid of the dark although he just stood there. If others, like Nicole, would already be crying or whining because of the darkness. That is a great improvement compared to the power trip situation last month.

Now he knows how to wiggle/backward crawl himself to get down from the bed!!! Before I was afraid that he would fall of our bed and now he is yet to be able to climb up. It is sure tough to put him to sleep in the afternoon because he keep wanting to go out and a little more noise than average would make him all excited. I guess it made it hard for him to fall asleep thinking that I might go out without him.

Teeth
He now has 16 teeth but they are all so crooked leh.


Verbal
He would be calling me as "apa", his mom as “ama” and my sister as “aka” (supposed to be "ah ku" for paternal aunt. He would now called us to give him food by repeating "umm", and the expression of "ah!" when he wants water..... He rather point with his fingers than verbal.

Mobility
He is beginning to explore everything now and as before when he want to go somewhere further he would turn around to face us when he wants us to carry him. He has the bad habit of picking up things from the floor but good habit because he would walk to the rubbish bin to throw. He like to do the rowing motion, especially when i hold on to both his hands and he also knows how to rock on a rocking horse too. Now he is able to crawl up one step of the stairs but descend is only with someone holding his hand. He also likes to dance his own moves to the tune of the children songs as well as those more funky (bass filled) music too but lately he prefers the short movie clips I have made for him.

Others

• He would try to be cute by slanting his head to his side and look at me whenever I scold him or give him the stern look. But as soon as I am not looking at him, he would be back to the same mischief again, like bullying Grandma.
  
• When there is no one to pick him up from the baby chair, he would turn to those he wouldn't normally prefers carrying him, just as long as the person is not a stranger. He is more picky when he is not in the mood or when he wants to go out.
• He is still unable to board onto another person's car without his mommy and I carrying him. Nobody else can carry him into a car because he would start crying, as soon as he boards the car, until he puked on a few occasions in my sister’s car.
• Developed a liking to shout at a very high pitch, when he is unhappy, not given what he wanted, not carried and he baby babbles a lot too.
  
• He likes to point at things with his index fingers, it is either to where he wanted to go to, something he wanted or when he sees pretty girls. Now he also like to give flying kiss too.
• He is also able to respond very well to "tim choong-choong", "clap-clap hand", "friend kiss" and "habis and occasionally remembers to "gong xi, gong xi". He is not doing less of this because he prefers to shake his body more.
  
• Likes to put his hand into his mommy's shirt and torture her mole on her upper chest or even our earlobes. Sigh! Sometimes it can get really painful because of his repeated torture and he likes to use his fingernails too. This also serves as a warning to those who wanted to carry him, he likes to put his hand into your shirt and grope....
  

Look at how cheeky he can be at times :P

New family member

Last Tuesday, 8th July at about 10am+, there was an arrival of a new family member.... Keith's new cousin sister, his Uncle Jason's first daughter. it was a planned C-Section but things got a little complicated when his wife's water broke early in the morning and it was raining heavily causing a massive jam in KL due to flood in many areas, and the doctor was stuck in it.

By the way she was delivered by the same doctor as Keith too. She weights 2.4kg. Now Keith, Yong Jin and baby is born in the same place too....

My hectic Tuesday

Tuesday was a rather hectic and tiring day for me. In the morning I have to run to the LHDN alone and also to meet up with my very good friend, DD. I am very thankful for the time that DD took to help me out on many things. The other person that I am grateful with is my sister who took leave that day to help me to assist Elaine so that I can go out in the morning. While Grandma has gone back to Penang the night before for her medical checkup that day itself. By noon I took Keith, Elaine and my sister out for lunch at Tony Roma's.

The food was ok and we ordered 3 sets. Keith was the one having the most fun because he seems to be enjoying himself with all the food we shared with him.

He is taking some bread. Does he looked shocked?


He even wanted to try it with the dressing the waitress gave him. The carrot and celery was a compliment for him :D but he don't seems to like it though.


The yummy look....


Recently he has also began giving different expressions when we put him in front of a mirror


All I can say is I was totally tired by the end of the day.

Another thing that I would like to add is Keith's Portable DVD player from Citibank has finally arrived. I am very happy about it because now I do not have to share my laptop with my boy anymore to watch his children songs.

Keith is 16 months

Keith has turned 16 months (1 year and 4 months) four days ago but I have not been able to do this post until now because I am really being tired down with too many burdens to shoulder recently. Sadly he still has his running nose and occasional cough. It is sure tough to give him his medicine but we managed to give him his medicine with minimal fight back despite his reluctance. We have delayed his MMR jab again because I don’t think he will be given since he is still sick.

Despite his skinny size, he is really a big eater. I just wonder where all the food he ate went to….. Perhaps his move around activity and his moves to the rhythm took it all


Statistics from last month (will update later on)
Height - 77cm
Weight -8.75kg

Diet
His milk intake is now about 5-6 bottles of 5-8oz, in addition to his 2 actual meals of solid but he is no longer interested in his porridge. He is more into out normal food, like rice with sauces or noodles cut to bits. He can even finish half a portion of my dinner of salted egg with steam meat and he can get really eager to share it too.

He always wanted to share our meals with us. He tend to like meat better and don’t quite like veggies. I think he might be cutting down on his early hours feeding (late night feeding) because he is not completing his bottle of milk during his 2 early morning feedings.


Sleep
Lately he will only fall asleep on our bed and would not want to sleep on his cot. He dislikes to be left alone in the room or in the dark. On one occasion the power got tripped and he squatted down on the floor and started whining for us. When he sleeps in his cot, he would sometimes cry out and would only fall back to sleep after Elaine or I pat him and let him know that we are there by his side. To my surprise, without any accidents so far (knock on wood!), he is able to get down from the bed by himself!!!! And I was afraid that he would fall of our bed. Lately it is getting harder to make him sleep in the afternoon in our restaurant because he keep wanting to go out and because of our staffing problem, I have not been able to take him out as often. I guess it made it hard for him to fall asleep because he is afraid that I will go out without him. I think I have not been a very good daddy lately too.

Teeth
He now has 12 teeth and 2 of his upper molars had already appeared on his gum. He really gave me the scare by teething so early. Funny thing is many parents were so disappointed that their toddlers were teething late.


Verbal
He would be calling me as "papa" "apa" "da" and even "dada". Funnily he seems to dislike calling "mama" or “ama” but he would if we tempt him with his favourite chocolate pudding or when he is in his talking mood, normally in the morning. He would just ignore us when we repeatedly say "mama" in front of him without any response from him or he would say “ka” or “aka”. He would spit out his pacifier and begin to call out "umm", "umm-mum or mumm-mumm" when he sees us taking food. He would even say "ah!" when he wants water..... Guess because I kept playfully gave him the expression of "ah!" after he takes his water, in hoping to encourage him to drink more water since he is now taking powdered milk. Whenever anyone tried to make him say some words which he is unable to utter, like "ku" - (paternal aunt) for my sister "grandma" or "mama", he would keep saying "da" or "dada" in return. I wonder if this "da" and "dada" is for me or everyone! He calls my sister “ka” and “aka” too.
Although he is yet to greet people close to him, he is able to point to the person when we ask him where the person is.

Mobility
He is beginning to walk on his own more steadily now and he would turn around to face us when he wants us to carry him. Sometimes he would put both his hands in mine or would be pointing at me (with his index finger) and call out to me, sort of telling me to carry him. He seems to have the habit of picking up things from the floor and walk to the rubbish bin to throw. He is also able to sit down more properly now, when we tell him to sit especially if it is for food! He also knows how to rock on a rocking horse too but he is still afraid of stairs. He also likes to dance his own moves to the tune of the children songs as well as those more funky (bass filled) music too :P

Others

• He is now more okay with people carrying him, just as long as the person is not a stranger. He is more picky when he is not in the mood or when he wants to go out.
• He would try to be cute by slanting his head to his side and look at me whenever I scold him or give him the stern look.
• He is still unable to board onto another person's car without his mommy and I carrying him. Nobody else can carry him into a car because he would start crying, as soon as he boards the car, until he puked on one occasion in my sister’s car.
• Developed a liking to shout at a very high pitch, when he is unhappy, not given what he wanted, not carried or when I switch on the blender! He also likes to "quarrel" with my sister!!!!
• He likes to point at things with his index fingers, it is either to where he wanted to go to, something he wanted or when he sees pretty girls. Now he also like to give flying kiss too.
• He is also able to respond very well to "tim choong-choong", "clap-clap hand", "friend kiss" and "habis and occasionally remembers to "gong xi, gong xi"
• Likes to put his hand into his mommy's shirt and torture her mole on her upper chest or even our earlobes. Sigh! Sometimes it can get really painful because of his repeated torture and he likes to use his fingernails too.
  

Keith is sick again!!!

I hope I am not ranting too much in my blog….. Guess life has been rather exhausting for for my family lately….. Probably the reason for our dilemma is because Elaine has calculated things to the extreme without leaving much room for a breather, I am not blaming her, just my own opinion only. It is sure tough to manage our personal lives without the maid because we are now short of hand to care for Keith, not that we really have to her carrying or caring for Keith all the time since he is not that attached to her. Now we just have to juggle between Elaine, Grandma, I and occasionally some help from my sister too. Life is surely gonna be much easier if everybody put in a little more effort to make it work.

I would like to thank those whom had passed to me their contact of maid agency. I still do not know which one would Elaine be choosing but I am really thankful and truly appreciate the help.

What really makes it tough is when people starting to snap at each other over small things. Sigh! It is sure hard on everybody. Life is never a bed of roses….. anyway I don’t think there is anybody wanting to sleep in that if the thorns are still attached to the stalk!

Funny thing is when the maids were still working for us, I would be the one to suffer all the complain against them and now that they are gone I was just hoping that everyone chip in a little extra to make the family function, since the new maids would take about 2 months to arrive. Even then we would have to be patient with them to teach them to do house chores correctly.

To add salt to our wound, Keith has fallen sick with cold, cough and phlegm again. I do realize that he tends to fall sick whenever he is close to his month old. It surely nade it harder for us trying to adjust and having a whiny Keith, especially when we get really busy in our restaurant. In this picture you can see that Keith is rather worn and tired by his sickness this time and we are rather lucky because he happen to sleep a lot because of that too...... Just that he would want to sleep with us at night and start his acrobatic sleep act in the middle of our bed...... I woke up this morning with a leg on my nose and I can see that he was also trying to reach out to grab his mom's ear.


It gets rougher when we try to give him his dose of medicine administered with syringe….. He would either cough till he puke or he would force himself to throw up…… This is his reaction as soon as he sees the syringes


Actually he vomited so many times I really feel heartbroken, he had either coughed himself till he vomited or right after we gave him half of syringe of medicine. I never minded having to change the bedsheets, comforter, cleaning him up or the mess he left. I just hated it, being ordered around. I even ordered to do three things at the same time!!!! Sigh! Guess I have became the replacement maid :P We are planning to take him to see his paed if he is still not responding to his medication so that the would administer another shot of nebulizer to hasten his recovery.....

I would sure like to thank my lil’ angel for being there and being my pillar of support during this hard period, without that I doubt I could go far!

Runaway Maids

Today is a horrible day to do this post..... Most who have my MSN would know that I am a late night bird. Last night, as usual I went to sleep at 5am But I only get to sleep until 8am. The reason for the short sleep was because my mom came rushing into our room telling us that the maids has gone missing (my sister's and mine)

Grandma has made the discovery when she was going to the bathroom. After looking thru our personal stuffs we found that we are missing quite a sum of money from Elaine's pouch (our own money and "loose change" money we keep for the cash register) We also found a half bottle of milk on the table in the hall along with our keys and their passports, which was taken from our pouch as well.

What really made us totally unprepared for this is because my sister's maid is due for home in October and mine is in December this year. my sister's maid even told my sister that she wanted to continue her employment and she requested that we send her back. We have promised her that we will allow her to go back for a month in January. We were really shock that they have decided to runaway and was even daring to steal money right under our nose. Elaine, Keith and I is sleeping in the room where the theft took place.

From my guess, she has used the opportunity to steal it when she came into our room at about 6 - 7am to feed Keith his morning milk. She only fed hin halfway thru because she did not want to force the whole bottle to Keith because he would normally starts to whine if he is given more than half a bottle. Since Elaine is a light sleeper, she is normally woken up by Keith's whining so I guess she took the caution ot that.

Despite a check with the guard house, they were unable to provide much information because ours is practically manned by foreigners too, my guess is probably Nepalese.

In my opinion, the reason for their daring act is probably due to the fact that they knew where I put their passports. Recently the government has required us, employers, to bring along their passport whenever we bring them out. It has really been an inconvenience, it would be better if we can have the immigration dept issued ID cards and have their passports kept in a safe place or even with the agency. According to the maid agency, the immigration dept has discontinued sending it out these recent years.

I have never liked the idea of having strangers, like maid, in my house because I have always felt uncomfortable with them and also thinks that there is a loss of privacy. FYI, I never spoke to my maids, they get their instructions from Elaine all the time. I am considered lucky because Keith is never attached to our maid and he never really quite liked her. Anyway the reason for us to get the maids is because we needed them to help Grandma to care for Keith (and Nicole, formerly) as well as Grandma herself too because she has been having problem with her legs and movement is rather limited lately and she had fainted once on us because of low blood pressure. Grandma herself is on High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol and Controlled Diabetes medication.

Sadly we don't have a big family so we have to resort to employing maids to help us out on out daily chores as well as taking care of our family so that we can spare more time on our business. The most depressing part of the day is losing the maid has sparked a few arguments in the family and I am being victimized all the time.

My thank for all the friends whom have given their advises, for all the concerns we have been given, for sharing with us their experiences and contacts for maid agencies, since most are closed on Sundays.

Remote Controlled Cars

Lately I have bought Keith a remote control car and Yes, I know that it is for 3 years and above I would be the one controlling the car and let him chase it or we would do something really bad and use it to scare and chase after the cats. Keith sure liked to play with the remote although he is unable to control the car, I guess he liked to use it to go after cats.

Seeing the fun that Keith and I have had with the remote controlled car, Aunty May's husband, Edward went to buy another set. Sadly he had bought the car of the same frequency and there is no way that we can change the wave and Yong Jin kept wanting to control our car because it is a more powerful and fully charged too. So you've got Yong Jin and Keith (me) trying to control the same car because his parents forgot those rechargeable batteries. Now we cannot play both cars together because the both remotes can control the same car. In fact this has caused our "zero" accident car crashed into the drain a couple times.... eeeewwwww! I know.

From this picture you can see that Keith is rotating the steering control control while Yong Jin is the one pressing on the accelerator moving forward/reverse.


After a while, fun became fear when Yong Jin turned the remote into a imaginary gun. We were all scared by his pose but Keith kept wanting to get close because the car is behind Yong Jin

Keith's Twist, Feeding and my personal message for a friend

Recently Keith has been much more active than ever but sadly I don't quite have the energy to cope, since someone is not co-operating much. Anyway what caught my attention recently is his liking to dance to tunes. He would be twisting if he is sitting down, holding his hands up in the air and shaking them while twisting if he is standing up, jumping if someone is carrying him, do the rowing motion if someone is holding both his hands or twisting his shoulders if he is inside the car.

Dang! I should have taken part in Nuffnang Twister thingy with this.... Too bad Grandma had ordered us not to give Keith any publicity of those competition kind!!! Funny thing is she is ok with the blog idea :P


I am really glad that Keith's wound had healed rather well and the scar is not that obvious. My thanks to all the advises that I got and the well-wishers too.


I have always been wanting to do this but everytime I could not as I needed one hand to hold the bottle. This time I have had the camera ready before his feeding starts. Keith takes 3 of his milk feeding like this everyday!!! Once in the early morning, another in the afternoon/evening and lastly at around midnight.

Recently many unhappy things had happened in my life. I am not using this opportunity to rant about it but instead I am taking this to thank someone really special. This is not the first time I have chatted with a stranger since I have always find it easier to talk that way. You know the "I dunno anyone from your circle of friends and you dunno anyone in mine". I am really glad that I found this special person because we have had many things in common, especially with many relating to our personal lives. We were able to match up with each others going online timing too.

Online friends never really cared on how you look, who you are, rich or not, nor is height a problem! The way true friends really are..... Not that I don't appreciate all my other friends but the trauma would have really driven me insane if not for this person.....
I really to say this:

"Thank you for being there for me.... I really appreciate your support, advice, time, sharing and trust. Most of all, you made me feel that I am not on my own"

My turn to rant on Petrol Hike!!!

Today is the second day of the petrol hike aftermath!!! I didn't want to do any post on the petrol hike because there has been many news and many rants on numerous blogs on this matter. I didn't want to post anything earlier because I felt that no matter what, the whole scenario is unavoidable. Today I wanted to do this post because I have not read this before in any blogs so I might as well do it (but probably someone I didn't visit might have said it)

There has been many conflicting billion of subsidy paid but as a normal citizen, like everybody else we don't really care about it, since we won't have the authority to question on them neither does the opposition

I really don't quite understand why the government fail to see it from our point of view. Did anyone of you ever known that we have been indirectly covering our own petrol subsidy? You see, whenever we buy our cars we are indirectly already paying for our own subsidy because of the high taxes (now they con us with the term excise duty la) Imagine how much petrol we can buy with that money saved!!!! I wonder when will the government realise that we are not all that stupid and even if they take away the subsidy we can still afford to maintain our livelihood provided they remove the extra we are paying on buying cars. I think it is still a win-win situation because the government can still use the money they made from Petronas while we can afford those better fuel efficiency cars at a lower price.

Did I mention money saved plus interest? Yeah, I think I forgot to mention that the money saved will have to add on interest too because it adds up to make our loan higher too.... Just imagine 10K @ 2.8% for 9 years will add an additional RM2.5K to your loan. Personally I think our excise duty is way more than 10K!!!

I have never wanted to fall into the government "watch out blog" radar but this hike is taking its toll on us parents. Any layman could do the maths.... we pay the car tax/excise duty so we should be getting our subsidy.... from the tax we had paid, what has it got to do with Petronas earnings???? Take the subsidy off, then refund us our money la!!!! And take the excise off the cars!!!!! I think it make good sense to all of us because we need to save money somewhere.... There is absolutely no point that the government keep taxing us on our cars as well as earning off Petronas and keep complaining how much they are subsidizing all of us!!!!

I wonder what would the price of a car and petrol would be when our little ones grow up....

Bad Day!

Yesterday was a very painful day for me and Keith. There was two major things that had happened and also would really have a major impact on my life.

I do not want to write this first part down but I really needed to remind myself of this incident to I will do it but I would not want to go into too much details, rather just vaguely mention it because I do not want to hurt anyone's feeling. I'll just mentioned the person as "A". I have always tried my very best in doing things to please "A" that I can, yet "A" is never seems happy. Everytime when things like this happened, the whole situation would looks as though I am always given the right to choose but I make the choice that is not in "A" favour then I am bound to get it badly..... mentally and physically too.... talk about abuse!!! (Doesn't this makes you think our of beloved country?)

I was just trying to teach "A" a lesson because I never liked being ordered and being bossed around (nobody does!) When I made my choice not offer my help to "A" because I wanted "A" to know what it takes for me to do the job. "A" tried to get the job done and was really unhappy about it. In the end when I tried to let "A" know that I faces the same helplessness when I am ordered to do the same job, I got battered!!!! and battered badly too!!!! Sigh! So much for a freedom of choice!!!!

The second major thing really breaks our hearts...... Last night I came to the restaurant on my sister's car. Keith was in the backseat with me, while Grandma sits in front. After my sister parked her car, I let Keith off the car and passed him to Grandma. I only let him go after Grandma have a good grip on him. Then I turned back to the car to take Keith's bag. I turned around and I saw Keith struggling to free himself of her grip. I guess he suddenly caught himself caught off balance when he manage to shrug off Grandma's hand and almost fell down onto the tar road face down.

Luckily Grandma caught him in time and he looked at me and cried out loud. So I picked him up and he kept hitting his chest too (the way of him telling me that he is scared) As we enter the restaurant, Elaine looked shocked and kept asking what is that on his face. To our horror, we saw this
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A 3 almost 4 inches red wound running from his eyebrow to his hair line diagonally across his forehead.


It is really sad indeed. I guess now our boy would now look like one of those characters off the Chinese fighting Man Hua 漫画 comic

Keith is 15 Months

Today Keith is 15 months (1 year and 3 months). The good news is this time he is not bothered with sickness, which Elaine and I are rather happy about. In fact we have started to give him an occasional dose of liquid multivitamins, which he has been reluctant to take. We are yet to take him for his jab this month because he is due for his appointment on this Tuesday and probably would be his MMR jab.

What I can say is Keith has begin to show his stubbornness, if he wants something and he would surely throw tantrum and start to cry/shout at a very high pitch which I hope he is not training to be a soprano to get what he wants!!!!


Statistics from last month (will update this on Tuesday)
Height - 77cm
Weight -8.75kg

Diet
His milk intake is now about 5-6 bottles of 7oz, in addition to his 2 actual meals of solid, which is normally porridge. I would try to mash up/grind a small portion of my meal for him because most of the time whenever we adults take our meal he would be salivating to share with us. He seems to prefer meat better. Due to the rumour that Enfagrow would be maintaining their current price but will be downsizing the refill packs from 700g to 650g (According to the Chinese Medicine Shop that we buy from occasionally), we had to let Keith try the Honey Flavoured ones because they ran out of the Original. Surprisingly, Keith seems to like the Honey ones better because he tends to finish the whole bottle now.

Sleep
He is able to sleep through the night in his cot but lately he kept whining to come over to sleep with us, he see=ms to dislike to be left alone in the room. When he sleeps in his cot, he would sometimes cry out and would only fall back to sleep after Elaine or I pat him and let him know that we are there by his side.
On Tuesday, he gave us a shock. In the evening Elaine put him to sleep on our bed after that she joined me to watch TV in the living. After a few minutes, I heard a thud sound and as I turned around I saw Keith walking out of our room towards us already!!!! Till today we could not really figure out how he actually got down from our bed and if he really manage to come down correctly because he did not cry at all. We have actually to check for bruise and gently squeeze his hands and legs to see if he is hurt but there was no reaction at all..... I guess he was very lucky and found the right way down that time.

Teeth
He now has 12 teeth and 2 of his lower molars are beginning to show its shape but are yet to pierce through his gum. I fear that he might have to go through this more painful than his others.

Verbal
He would be calling me as "papa" "apa" "da" and even "dada". Funnily he seems to dislike calling "mama" or has he just simply forgotten. He would just ignore us when we repeatedly say "mama" in front of him without any response from him. He would spit out his pacifier and begin to call out "umm", "umm-mum or mumm-mumm" when he sees us taking food. He would even say "ah!" when he wants water..... Guess because I kept playfully gave him the expression of "ah!" after he takes his water, in hoping to encourage him to drink more water since he is now taking powdered milk. Whenever anyone tried to make him say some words which he is unable to utter, like "ku" - (paternal aunt) for my sister "grandma" or "mama", he would keep saying "da" or "dada" in return. I wonder if this "da" and "dada" is for me or everyone!
Although he is yet to greet people close to him, he is able to point to the person when we ask him where the person is.

Mobility
He is beginning to walk on his own more steadily now and he would turn around to face us when he wants us to carry him. Sometimes he would put both his hands in mine or would be pointing at me (with his index finger) and call out to me, sort of telling me to carry him. He seems to have the habit of picking up things from the floor and walk to the rubbish bin to throw. He is also able to sit down more properly now, when we tell him to sit especially if it is for food!

Others

• He is now more okay with people carrying him, just as long as the person is not a stranger. He is more picky when he is not in the mood or when he wants to go out.
  
• He would try to be cute by slanting his head to his side and look at me whenever I scold him or give him the stern look.
  
• He is still unable to board onto another person's car without his mommy and I carrying him. Nobody else can carry him into a car because he would start wailing as soon as he boards the car.
  
• Developed a liking to shout at a very high pitch, when he is unhappy, not given what he wanted, not carried or when I switch on the blender! He also likes to "quarrel" with my sister!!!!
  
• He likes to point at things with his index fingers, it is either to where he wanted to go to, something he wanted or when he sees a pretty girls.
  
• He is also able to respond very well to "tim choong-choong", "clap-clap hand", "friend kiss" and "habis". Still unable to learn his forgotten "gong xi, gong xi"
• Likes to put his hand into his mommy's shirt and torture her mole on her upper chest. Occasionally he would be putting his hand into random people's shirt too, in a way it looks like he is harassing the person too, especially if it is a woman carrying him!
  

The many expressions I got from him when we went to Seafood Baby Restaurant for our belated Mother's Day dinner.

Keith and Soft Toys

Compared to his cousin, Nicole, Keith is less attached to soft toys. He would not even cuddle them when he goes to sleep. The other night I gave him his Tigger and Eeyore to carry and he would walk around with them in his hands for a while and after a while he would either be passing it back to me, he would get all excited and run to pass it to me, or sometimes he would simply throw them onto the floor.


Actually Elaine and I are very glad that he is not attached to these soft toys, we felt that it is a good thing because we would not have to un-attach him later on. For some reasons for his non-interest in soft toys is very much to Grandma's dismay. She probably felt that he is missing some part of being a toddler because he is not being attached to soft toys.

Anyway since Elaine and I have never really been fancy of soft toys, I guess Keith is just getting it from us. Keith seems to be more attached to electronics though, like in the picture below, he is unsure of which to choose..... my laptop or to play catching with me.


Probably the one that is crazy of soft toys in my family would be my sister because she is still nuts about it till today. I felt that Keith is way more comfortable with his hands empty and he seems much more happier too.