Fri-yay

Woes of solo parenting this morning. I’m pumping in the living room and straining my ears towards two bedrooms for sounds of stirring from the dynamic duo. At the sound of the first whimper, I will have to down all pumping equipment and fly to tend to the child before the cries grow loud enough to wake the second child. What happens if both wake at the same time? Tend to the one that cries the loudest loh. Luckily for Saitaomei, she wins hands down in terms of volume, but Saitaoha is more demanding in tone 😂.

Yikes, first one is up.

Oh hai mummy. I am ready for breakfast followed by morning coo and chat session please.

This one is always cheery after a feed. She’s bursting out of her 3-6 months onesies, which I guess is a good thing only R and I cleverly bought boxes and boxes of infant nappies when they were on sale. They seem rather tight now so everytime R changes her he says ‘aiyoh cannot keep eating baby’. ‘Putting on weight is good!’ I chide him. He replies ‘What do we do with the boxes of nappies? Unless we have a third child …’ He’s talking to the wind by then coz I’m gone at the mention of a third.

The dynamic duo will grow up to be teammates and best friends I think. They are already tag teaming to torture their parents at night. Saitaoha took the early shift with her crying and wailing from 1am to 4am. Then Saitaomei took over by not being able to fall back asleep after her feed at 4am. So R and I played our favourite game of musical chairs again *yawn*.

Sneaky fella took off this morning for his blood donation session. I’m inwardly thinking ‘donate blood to save lives for what?save ME!’ but no lah, it’s good to donate blood. I used to go too pre baby and hope I can return to regular sessions in the future.

Yesterday’s dinner was loh bak and loh ark. But the main was bak kut teh. We are trying to cook things that my brother misses and won’t get to eat in US. The cooking part is mostly fun but gosh the washing up and cleaning afterwards is a pain! We really should start using our dishwasher, so far we’ve been doing the Asian thing of using it as a drying rack 😅. I think we’re going out to eat tonight 😁.

City city

We headed into the city today with all the kids. I always feel a bit stressed at the thought of bringing both kids out, but I have lots of support so it always turns out much better than I imagined it to be. I guess I’m just a born worrywart.

My brother said local food that he misses the most is Kolo mee. Chicken rice is no.2 on his list so we headed to Tak Chee for a yummy chicken rice lunch. I used to go to Tak Chee a lot years ago, but then the service became snooty and I hated their cash only requirement so I stopped going. I’m pleased that their service was much better today but sadly it’s still cash only. R is going to cook chicken rice for the folks on Friday, I hope they will like our homemade version.

Saitaoha likes chicken rice too, all kids seem to love chicken rice, I guess because it’s so flavourful.

Another homecooked dinner, ah Ma made kiam chye duck soup for us, it’s my brother’s favourite soup, he likes it so much it even made it onto his wedding speech 😂. I helped with the veggies and a stir fry beef dish which they seemed to like. My sister bought Corica apple strudel for dessert, custard, cream, apples and puff pastry, what’s not to like? Ah Ma is not a sweet tooth (unlike the rest of us 😅) but she likes this strudel a lot!

Tomorrow ah Ma and I are going to cook bak kut teh, hopefully I’ll remember to take a picture this time. If I have time I would love to bake a pandan chiffon cake for my brother. Except I think he’s suffering from holiday overeating.

Aldi closes at 8pm so we had a mad dash to the supermarket at 7.45pm. Luckily we made it phew. R bought more tools (don’t know what he’s doing with a mitre saw ), I stocked up on milk, yoghurt, and my brother bought mineral water (seriously he’s so healthy I’m not sure we’re from the same family). It feels silly saying this but I felt so happy that I could go for a grocery run with my brother. I wish he lived in Perth. Sigh.

Laksa night

My big/little girl is learning how to put on and take off her shoes. She gets frustrated if she puts them on the wrong side and refuses to give up. I’m not sure whether to be pleased that she is so independent or worried that she’s so stubborn.

Meanwhile this little one made a new friend. Ah Ma sent me a video of her cooing away to teddy, so cute.

Both kids had their immunisation jabs today. Saitaoha was actually just there to accompany her sister but the nurse offered to give her the free meningococcal vaccine (there’s an outbreak in WA) so she ended up getting a jab too. Luckily she was very good and didn’t even flinch or cry. Nurse was so surprised she rewarded her with a sticker.

My beef brisket noodles for lunch. It was nice meeting up with the family, I feel a bit sad that I can’t go for many outings with my brother and sil. It’s just difficult going for long outings with my pumping schedule and two kids in tow. I just hope I’m not stopping my parents from spending time with their son too. Lately I’ve been thinking of how much my parents had to sacrifice to send us overseas for studies. Worse still, they lose us to foreign countries when we migrate and don’t return home! We can hardly bear to be apart from our kids for more than a couple of days, yet my parents are willing to be apart from us forever if it means we will have a better life elsewhere.

We had a Sarawak laksa night with char kueh. This time I made the laksa instead of R, but it’s his turn to make chicken rice on Friday woo hoo.

After dinner we had a little music session. My brother played on his guitar and my niece sang a lovely song. We all clapped in rhythm to the music, Saitaoha too, she even stomped her foot 😀. Ah pa was video-ing the entire scene and I was carrying Saitaomei who seemed to enjoy the music too. At that moment I wished time could standstill.

Then it was time to go home. I carried Saitaoha in my arms, we admired the stars in the sky and sang twinkle twinkle little star together in soft whispery tones. A heartwarming end to a lovely family day.

Easter egg hunt

Saitaoha had a lovely time Easter egg hunting at my sister’s today. She has an obsession with kinder eggs and toy eggs so this game was so fun for her.

My sister’s garden and house was so prettily decorated with Easter signs and decorations.

So cute!

Ready to hunt for eggs.

Hmm is that an egg? Am I allowed to take it?

At first she was a bit hesitant to pick up the eggs and received lots of help and hints from my sil.

Then she started getting into it and would gasped in delight ‘egg egg!’

Checking out her Easter egg loot.

She enjoyed herself soo much.

My sister’s Easter egg themed afternoon tea was so on point! Even the table cloth and placemats had chickens and ducks haha.

My sister made the scones, sil made the cinnamon rolls and brother made the dark chocolate nut bars. All very delicious.

Bonus pic of my chubby Saitaoha, her hair is getting long, we have to tie it up, but I think she looks cute like that.

Afterwards we had a BBQ at home and my good friend Jaso dropped by. It was so nice to catch up with him even though I was a bit distracted with the kids.

Ah pa was so funny, he came over and gave me a little nudge ‘ eh since your friend is here, maybe we can ask him to help us take a family photo ?’ We’ve been trying to take a good family photo for days but keep failing with our lousy selfie stick skills. Poor Jaso became our photographer for the night 😅, luckily he’s so nice and he’s also a great photographer so I’m sure we got some good pics.

In every photo Saitaoha was holding on to a chocolate rabbit though, oh my child 😓.

Bond girl goes to IKEA

😂😂😂 my sister sent me this collage.

Hey I want to be Bond girl too!

What do you mean I’m not cool enough? Check out my cool Bond girl face.

Bond girl trying out IKEA sofas. No tantrums today, ate well and slept early! Please don’t be a fluke.

Dinner with the family. I asked R whether I should crop out his prawn cracker eating daughter.