My Father

26 July 2009 (Sunday)

Father falled down today, given everybody a scare. He stepped on the toy bullets that the kids were playing. Luckily he was ok after resting for a while. I was surprised that father did not blame me for it because he used to remind us not to have anything on the floor as they would cause him to fall.

I was so focus taking photos of my kids that I realised I had not taken photos of father for a very long time. I think it was good to take photos of everyone once a while as people changed over time.

When I took photos of father, he happily posed for me, making me realised that this was something that I should do long time ago. When I looked into the photos, I was a bit taken aback to see father looked so old, so frail and so tired in the photo. He was totally different from his young vibrant self which I had always remembered him as. I always remember how he loves all of us so much when we were still in childhood and had done much for us despite his meagre income.

The mild stroke 4 years ago had changed my father's life. If it had not happened, life would be much different for father. It was very important to look after our health and be careful on what we consumed.

Mei Mei so happily ran over to Kung Kung to take photos

Mei Mei wanted more

Father was reminiscing the good old times.

I believe even when we are old and retired, we should have some occupation or some interests that could occupy our time. That is very important for a good balance life. We need to have our social life interacting with other people, to keep our brain active and thinking .

Animals of the Zoo Negara

18 July 2009 (Sunday)

Here are only some of the animals in the zoo that we had given some attention to in this trip.

Ko Ko's first Exam Results

26 May 2009 (Tuesday)

A backdated post. But I think I need to note it down for future reference..ha ha ha

I went personally went to collect Ko Ko's results at 6.00 pm as parents were asked to collect personally. My boss was so nice to let me leave a bit early so that I could be in time to collect the results. Thank you, boss.

When it was my turn, surprisingly, the Form Teacher did not say anything much. She just asked if there was anything I would like to ask her. I thought she should have some things to tell me instead of I had to ask her. If not, why the school asked the parents to go and collect the kid's results. At least she should prepare on what she should say about each student. Hmmmm...

Well, I must say I was not prepared since I thought I was to be briefed by the teacher on the overall results, performance or behaviour of my boy. Well since she had already asked me, so I just asked her how's my boy was doing in the class, a natural question that I think most parents would ask. She did not say anything much, just that Ko Ko was a bit playful...

Hmmm..I saw that other parents could ask so many questions and the teacher said so many things. Just wondering what they were asking so much about....kiasu parents???

After all, we should know more how our kids were like better than the teacher. After all, the teacher had to look after 51 kids in a class and she had only the allocated hours with them. I really had no ideas what to ask. So my turn was very fast. Well, I do know what my playful pampered boy is like.

One thing that surprised that day was the standing that Ko Ko got in the class (27/49) and in the whole of Primary 1 (474/707). Hmmm...that was not very good.

Before I saw Ko Ko's standing in the class, I felt that they were ok for a boy who didn't go to a good kindergarten and didn't spend so much time to study every day. The shock was that his standing was a bit low than I expected. That means there were a lot of very high performance students out there.

Well, since I do not want to be so exam oriented kind of parent, I said to myself, that's fine. What I need from him was to just to sit with me every schooling night (Monday to Friday) at least one hour to do some exercises. For me, it is important for him to brush up his languages namely Chinese, Malay & English, regardless whether they will be useful for him during his future working life.

So long that he's following our national school, he must master the 3 languages.

One thing is he's more keen in Maths than any other subjects. Guess, that is typical of boys. Hmmm...I am not so keen to focus too much time on Maths as the level of Maths in Standard is quite low. However, I do have to teach him Maths since he's always asking to do Maths.

Daddy should come in once a while to teach the boys Maths. It would be good that they have a different parent to tutor in order to maintain their interest. Different parent can bring in different insights into what they are learning. After all, different people have different styles and perception of things.

Zoo Negara

19 July 2009 (Sunday)

As usual whenever we stayed overnight, CJ bought us a wide spread of breakfast consisting of Chee Cheong Fun (CJ and My favourite) , Wan Ton Mee (Darren & Daddy's favourite), Nasi Lemak ( CJ & My maid's favourite), Loh Mai Kai, Char Siew Pau and various type of kuih-muih. He he he...we tend to have eyes bigger than our stomach. How to finish so many things?

I dragged CJ to go for a morning stroll with my Mei Mei. After all, I had never really walked around the housing area. While at the park, we chatted with a lady with 2 young kids who stayed there too. Being a matured housing area, I understand the need for the lady to chat with me, seeing that I had a young toddler similar age with her girl (4 yrs old) and her boy (same age with my girl). Nowadays, my Mei Mei really does look like a 3 to 4 years old girl, much older than her 2.5 years old. I always tell Daddy that genes of looking older than the actual age must have come from him...he he he..so bad of me...

That Sunday, initially we wanted to visit YH since her condominium was just about 5 minutes away. Well, we only called her that Sunday morning itself to check on her availability. So, being a a young girl, it was not surprising to be informed that she had programmes and was not at home.

As such, we decided to go to the Zoo instead. We left for the Zoo at 11.30 am. Mei Mei really had a wonderful time. We did not bring any stroller and Mei Mei walked most of the time. For a toddler, it was really tiring. So by 4.30 pm, Mei Mei had become cranky as she had not been eating properly and had missed her afternoon nap.

On our way back to CJ house to collect our stuff, Mei Mei slept but she kept crying in the middle of sleep. Our guess was she was too tired to the point of not being able to have a restful sleep.

We left for Puchong at 5.30 pm. We decided to ta pao for our dinner since Mei Mei was not feeling that well. It was a bit worrying as she had never cried like that before especially that we thought she might have tooth ache. Her teeth were in bad shape...one of her big teeth had a very big hole in it.

Going to queue up for the tickets.

We read from the newspaper that our Zoo Negara is lacking of fund.

Enjoyed the photo taking session. Mei Mei happily stood in from of the poster for the camera.

Family photo time!!! See, everyone was so restless. It's not easy to take a proper photo without the kids moving around too much.

I practically had to hold Darren from moving else where. A lot of time whenever want to take photo, Darren will dash off somewhere els...sigh...

The happiest and curious lady for the day!!

Mei Mei was big enough already to enjoy the animals. The two Ko Kos had passed the age and they had been here for a number of times. Nowadays they craved for something different, something new....like to staying in resorts/ hotels, or visiting places.

Look at the temperamental little guy's face!!!

Darren was showing his tantrum!!!

He insisted to buy the sugar cane to feed the elephant. He had done that during our last visit...that was June 2008, a year ago.

Getting the $$$ from Daddy for sugar cane. Mei Mei also did not want to be left out as usual.

Have a look of the video showing Darren & Ko Ko feeding the elephant.

Family photo again!!

More photo

Look at CJ's mouth!!

The kids were so excited with Yi Yi giving them the attention and telling them the names of the animals. All of them followed her closely.

Thanks to Yi Yi who had the patient to do so, despite knowing that they won't understand the scientific names of the animals.

The kids were touching the goat. They enjoyed it since the goat was tame.

Looking at the Otter.

Bear

It was so hard to get everybody to take photos.

The boys simply ran off...

Managed to capture Mei Mei from Daddy's arm.

We were looking for Food. The boys were asking for food. There was a restaurant in the middle of the Zoo. It used to be Marrybrown.

You see the naughty girl!!!..She didn't want to take photograph and showed me her unhappy face!!

A bad habit learnt from the #2 Ko Ko!!!

The kids liked the pony!!

I think Ko Ko liked this pony the best.

Feeding the goat.

We spent quite some time here while waiting for the performance to begin at 3 pm.

Feeding the cow.

Ko Ko was standing contentedly enjoying feeding the goat when the cow knocked Ko Ko from back, giving him a big scare.

He practically ran for his life!!

Performance time!!! Nothing much to the performance...so poor...

Darren and his Yi Yi.

After visiting the aquarium. It was nice and with air-conditioned.

Forgot to take any photos at the aquarium. Anyway, it was a bit dark there.

Mei Mei was too tired and hungry.

She had not had her milk since early morning.

We were leaving !!!

Heading towards the entrance/exit.

Darren spotted something that he wanted to buy. Pop corn!!

He managed to get Yi Yi to buy for him. Ko Ko had chosen the hot sweet corn.

When either one bought something, the other one must buy something too!!

Otherwise, they will be fighting already.

Bye Bye Zoo Negara...We were leaving!!!