Good friends

Are they cute? Andrew and Caden are 5 days apart in age. Caden's parents dropped him at our place because his mom gave birth this morning. His mom and I used to be colleagues in KL and Melbourne office when I first came to Melbourne. We both are no longer colleagues but still close and lives about 4km away.

Taking care of 2 toddler boys is not easy but I must say it attracted lots of attentions, even in the toilet! They were wearing the same t-shirt today and they looked like twins! It was a coincidence that they have the same T-shirt, at least 2 persons came to me and ask if they were twins?, lol. One will do/say something and the other one will follow. It is like hearing echoes , hahahah!!!

Who is smarter?

You do your weekly supermarket shopping and the bill came up to around $92. Because you have a $5 off voucher ( need to purchase a min of $100 in one bill to utilise the voucher), you decided to look/take small items (which are at the check out counter) to make up the bill to $100. These small items added up to approx $10 and hence the total cash payment for the bill came to approx $97

$92+$10-$5=$97

and you went home with the following unplanned (small) items:

1) 1 pack of hot cross bun
2) 2 packs of chewable mints
3) 2 packs of chocolate

In the above scenario, who benefited? The supermarket for making you purchasing more? OR you ( the consumer) for utilising the discount and getting more stuffs back home?

What say you?

10 reasons why women get upset

1) We need rest or some me time too - when we are at home looking after the kids, we exhaust our physical and mental. Trust me staying at home is more exhaustive and stressful than working in the office. The only moment that we have our me time is when we are at shower or toilet! So sometimes we deserved a longer shower. Women has more nurturing character but that does not mean that we do all the house work all the time. Men and women must work together as a team. A child can throw tantrum when upset, women too need some 'fresh air' to clear our mind! We are less likely to have child free time as much as men.

2) Volunteer to help - you don't help after being asked to especially with carrying things. Men always claim to be stronger than women, so proof it! Pushing the pram alone (even if it is a double pram!) doesn't make you look stronger when the opposite sex walking next to you is carrying the kiddo bag or the bag that has water bottles( for the kids and the adults!)

3) We are as hungry as you when it comes to food even though we may eat lesser. We also like to relax and enjoy our meal after a long day! Men and women must learn to take turn to attend to 'emergencies'. We need food to keep us going! Also always ask if we want more before finishing the food/ drinks. We sometimes take longer time to finish our food/ drinks because we are busy attending to 'emergencies'

4) Driving the wheel is tiring but it is not as stressful as sitting next to a crying child, so try to find the fastest route to your destination. We don't expect you to speed, just be smart to use the fast route. Also remember, sitting on the driver's or co- driver's seat is the most comfortable seat, others seats are less likely be comfortable if there are more than 2 adults in the car. Also don't try to be too ambitious to try long road trip. Small trips first!

5) We are not expert in attending to unsettled child, we learn through experience. We are panic too when the child cries or throws tantrum but we don't ran away or pass on to another person or raise our voice. We learn to take control of the situation.

6) We women are the more emotional sex- we can be superwomen but we still get emotional easily. Once we get upset, if it doesn't hurt, just let things be done our way, don't try to out smart yourself.

7) We love compliments and/or pleasant surprises, small compliment and/or pleasant surprises can make our day. Prolonged absent of compliment and/or pleasant surprises can make us upset!

8) When we need to be early for an appointment the next day, we get enough sleep and get ready early(eg wake up early). We don't plan to be late, we plan to be early. We don't blame the history, we plan the future.

9) When we are upset, we want men to support us not trying to analyse whether it is reasonable for us to be upset. We don't keep our emotions well, when we are upset, we are upset, that's it!

10) Our dislike of messiness doesn't make us like cleaning. Keep the place clean and tidy together all the time at all time.

When would you stop driving?

Have you ever thought of when would you stop driving? When you reach a certain age or when you lost your judgement on distance? Or when someone tell you that you are no longer fit to drive?

Last Friday, our dear neighbour ( an old lady who is probably in her 60s) drove over our garage and damage the garage auto door. It is beyond repair and we had to replace the entire garage door! Our garage is a double door and the drive way is reasonable big for her to reversed her small car. She didn't even realised that she hit the garage until our landlord rang her and told her about it. We were at home and we actually saw she hit the garage because of the loud 'bang' noise. She hear the noise and got off her car to check her car instead of the surrounding. When she notice that nothing wrong with her car, she just drove off!

Few years ago a friend's cousin was involved in a terrible accident in a hospital car park where she and her friend was hit by a car driven by an old man. I think the accident either cause her to be paralysed or she had to undergo plastic surgery. I notice that many old (some are really old) people here tend to continue driving not realising that they could cause accident due to their poor judgement and slow reflects.

What do you think?

New addition to the family

Anthony, Andrew and I are delighted to welcome Alvina Jay-Mee Tan to our family on Monday, 21 January 2013 at 3:38pm. She weights 2.63 at birth.

Alvina is our second child and the entire pregnancy journey has been great with no major pain and problem- no morning sickness at all! The labour stage itself was very different when I had Andrew about 2.5 years ago. Andrew was a long labour process which I have described it as a marathon or at least a 2.4km run. With Alvina the labour process was quick like a 100m sprint ( in fact too quick described by the obstetrician). Both are as exhausive but I think with Alvina it was more painful during the last stage. But I must say I recover faster this time, maybe because it was a short labour. A friend once told me that there was a belief that if you open up all drawers in the house right before the labour process, the labour will be 'quick and easy'. I knew this before I had Andrew and I told myself to do that in the morning before we head to hospital this time but still forgotten to do it! No wonder the easy bit didn't happen on Monday! So, friends who are pregnant or planning to get pregnant, why not try this, there is no harm doing this :)

Now that the pregnancy and labour are over, the fun part starts- (breast) feeding, nappy change, baby laughing/crying, bathing the baby, cute baby pictures taking, baby language, weaning and not forgetting this time we have a 2.5 y.o getting involved in bonding with the newborn (a new 'soft moving toy' for him!)

Moving

Yes, we are moving again. We have been here(Melbourne) for slightly more than 4 years now and we have moved 3 times and will move again this month!!!!

Why? This current place is too big (going for a smaller and cheaper place) and we have a nosy neighbour (Anthony cannot tahan!)

Where?another 2 km away from where we are now,still within the school zone and Malaysian eateries :)

Who? Of course with my double As

How? Got a quote from a mover, the price will cost a bomb,so decided to do ourselves :(

Random

Work this week is not too bad even though my to-do list keeps adding and never seemed to be strike off. After few catch up with friends and reading some posts on Facebook, few thoughts running on my mind this week.

1) you may need to sacrifice your personal dream for your child because your child only grows in one direction ie once you miss one of their milestone,you will miss that forever. No turning back, just one way! You may still catch up with your dream when you have more flexibility later. Key words to note - 'may', 'sacrifice', 'forever','catch up' and 'flexibility'

2) treasure what you have now as it may be taken away tomorrow.

3) Learn to empathise, especially if someone is far away from their family.

4) Before you mistreat someone, take 2 seconds to ask yourself, would you like to be treated the same way? $$ or status or nationality do not give you any privilege to mis treat anyone.

5) Always have enough sleep so you can be productive the next day.

