Hiew Chok Sien's Blog

eat your rice or ma will disappear

2012-01-26T09:55:00.002+08:00

Yesterday at dinner time Chen Rui didn't want to eat rice. Michelle demanded that she try at least one small spoonful of rice with some sauce, and if she didn't like it she wouldn't be asked to eat more. However Chen Rui didn't even want to chew or swallow that first spoonful that Michelle put in her mouth. She kept it in her mouth and nagged at us repeatedly, "Yuckie". Michelle decided to try a trick that had worked before. She said that if Chen Rui didn't eat her rice, it would mean Michelle was being a bad mother, and thus a monster would come and take Michelle away. Michelle said that if Chen Rui didn't eat that mouthful of rice, that would be the last evening that Chen Rui would see her, and she would be gone the next day. Suddenly Shee Yun started crying and went to hug Michelle tightly, saying she didn't want mama to disappear. That was touching.

Meanwhile Chen Rui just continued to frown and say "Yuckie". Eventually we let her spit out the rice on a piece of tissue paper.

When something tastes bad, Chen Rui describes it as "yuckie". When something hurts, it's "ouchie".

23 Jan 2012. The children like wearing toy jewellery when we go out. But Chen Rui soon finds them uncomfortable and take them off.

Shee Yun is able to keep her jewellery on. When outside she complains about being bored all the time, so sometimes we bring the iPad to keep her occupied.

Chen Rui must have done or said something naughty to Shee Yun.

more milk

2012-01-25T15:03:00.004+08:00

Since coming back to KK, Shee Yun and Chen Rui are not only napping more, they also drink milk more often. In KL they usually just drink milk right after waking up in the morning and before going to bed at night. Now they sometimes have milk during the day. Sometimes Chen Rui drinks milk four times a day. I think it's because they are picky about food and don't find much that they like, so they eat less during normal meals, and prefer to have milk when they feel hungry.

21 Jan 2012. At LCCT waiting for our flight. Waking up at 4am was tiring.

23 Jan 2012. 年初一. Chen Rui was keen to touch the lions.

This lion spotted her and played with her.

One day Aunty Alice visited and brought her granddaughter Elizabeth along. Elizabeth grew up in Manchester and doesn't speak Chinese, so she speaks English with Shee Yun and Chen Rui. Shee Yun and Chen Rui seemed to enjoy talking and playing with her. Maybe to them it felt like someone on TV coming to life. They only watch English TV shows. This is one time that I can't complain about them speaking English instead of Mandarin when they play.

24 Jan 2012. Chen Rui, Elizabeth and Shee Yun, playing Uno.

Shee Yun gets bored very easily and she complains about feeling bored very often when we are in KK. There are not enough things to occupy her and keep her interested. It can be quite annoying at times, especially when we are outside and she keeps saying she wants to go home.

touching the lions

2012-01-23T19:43:00.001+08:00

Chen Rui walks up stairs normally, but when walking down she still walks like a toddler. Each step of the staircase takes too steps. She puts down her right foot first, and then she puts her left foot onto the same staircase step next to her right foot. I asked her about it and she explained that she was afraid of falling.

15 Jan 2012.

The children has been napping much since coming back to KK, and they nap for a long time. I think it's partly because we had to wake up very early for the flight at about 4am. But I guess it's good that they nap. It's funny they seem to suffer from jetlag after coming back to KK.

Both the children enjoyed watching lion dances. We were able to watch lion, dragon and unicorn (?) (麒麟) dances. Chen Rui was especially enthusiastic. She went up to the lions to touch them many times. She was a little afraid of them, but not afraid enough to stop her from playing with them. When watching the lion dance from afar, she rocked her body to the rhythm of the drum, gong and cymbals. It was funny to watch her do that. I have never seen anyone dance to the lion dance beat.

Chen Rui and Yung Jian

2012-01-22T14:07:00.005+08:00

Chen Rui used to tell us that she doesn't like Yung Jian because he coughed while facing her. Apparently Yung Jian also knows about it. So it seems these two cousins are off to a bad start in getting to know each other. Yesterday at Michelle's parents place they both surprised us by playing together. Yung Jian is older now and is able to communicate with and play together with his older cousins.

Ma says Chen Rui speaks much more than before. The last time we were in KK was only less than two months ago, but Ma felt the difference. Michelle and I speak to Chen Rui everyday so we don't notice the change. What I do notice is sometimes when in front of her teachers, or in front of other adults, Chen Rui is shy and isn't as talkative as when with us.

Chen Rui draws a lot, and many of her drawings impress me. Not because of any outstanding skill, but because of what she tries to express and communicate. Here's an art gallery of her works.

Chen Rui often draws heart characters. There is definitely a story in this drawing. Looks like the mummy heart is scolding the daughter heart, but I'm not sure for what.

A little girl holding a microphone and singing. This was drawn before Chen Rui started her piano lessons.

Fairies, the one in the middle being Tinkerbell.

Family of hearts. Notice the pencils in daddy heart's shirt pocket, and also how intricate the shopping baskets are.

I notice that lately she started adding words to her drawings. One girl singing, and one girl dancing under a spotlight.

Two hearts dancing under a spotlight?

The sun looks like it is still sleepy and is yawning. The clouds consist of 8 curves, which is the same formula as Shee Yun's.

Another drawing with words. Notice the girls wearing high-heeled shoes.

I wonder what she is trying to express. The upper half looks like the perpective of someone reading a book at a desk.

A teacher teaching little girls to dance? Notice how the teacher is drawn to be behind the girls.

She used a ruler to draw those squares on the right. Are those windows or presents? Or something else?

蔡健雅－说到爱

2012-01-22T10:13:00.003+08:00

我比较少会在radio听到自己喜欢的流行歌，尤其是新歌。上一次听到让我有感觉的歌是谢安琪的《喜帖街》。歌词：

作曲：Erik Kwok
作词：黄伟文

忘掉种过的花重新的出发放弃理想吧
别再看尘封的喜帖你正在要搬家
筑得起人应该接受都有日倒下
其实没有一种安稳快乐永远也不差

就似这一区曾经称得上美满甲天下
但霎眼全街的单位快要住满乌鸦
好景不会每日常在天梯不可只往上爬
爱的人没有一生一世吗大概不需要害怕

忘掉爱过的他当初的喜帖金箔印着那位他
裱起婚纱照那道墙及一切美丽旧年华
明日同步拆下
忘掉有过的家小餐枱沙发雪柜及两份红茶
温馨的光境不过借出到期拿回吗
等不到下一代是吗

忘掉砌过的沙回忆的堡垒刹那已倒下
面对这浮起的荒土你注定学会潇洒
阶砖不会拒绝磨蚀窗花不可幽禁落霞
有感情就会一生一世吗又再婉惜有用吗

忘掉爱过的他当初的喜帖金箔印着那位他
裱起婚纱照那道墙及一切美丽旧年华
明日同步拆下
忘掉有过的家小餐枱沙发雪柜及两份红茶
温馨的光境不过借出到期拿回吗。
终须会时辰到别怕。

请放下手里那锁匙好吗。

最近听到一首有感动的歌是蔡健雅的《说到爱》。这两首歌我觉得不看MTV比较好，合上眼睛细细聆听就好。《说到爱》歌词：

作曲：蔡健雅
作詞：葛大為

世界收起了笑容似乎想　提醒我些什麼
電視喃喃自語著為什麼　我卻變得沉默
永遠都追不上那些人那事物消逝的速度

說到愛　如果你感覺到寂寞
Let's sing it out of love

有多久時間忘了去擁抱　身邊愛的朋友
懷疑幸福的存在那瞬間　其實早就擁有
多盼望有一段旅程拜訪每張熟悉的笑容

說到愛　就算是還似懂非懂
Let's sing it out of love

subaba lubaba lubaba dududu lubaba lubaba lu
Sing it out of love~love~love

眼前飛過的蝴蝶也許是　誰在想念著我
那句我愛你雖然難開口　我想現在就說
生命太多遺憾每一分每一秒我都會緊握

說到愛　當你需要我陪著你
Let's sing it out of love

这首歌，点给好朋友。

Happy Year of the Dragon 2012

2012-01-21T21:48:00.001+08:00

Here's wishing for good health, good luck and happiness in the new year!

will you hold my hand?

2012-01-21T14:50:00.002+08:00

Michelle is quite worried about Shee Yun after the BM teacher scolding incident. She worries that Shee Yun won't be able to cope with the fiercer teachers at primary school and will resist going to school. I hope it won't come to that.

However when Michelle taught Shee Yun to copy the notes she missed from her classmate during recess time, Shee Yun didn't do it. Shee Yun said she needed the time to finish her recess snack. Shee Yun sometimes doesn't set her priorities right. Also sometimes she finds all sorts of excuses when she doesn't feel like doing what she is told to do, like saying she's tired or she's sleepy or she has no energy when told to do her homework, intentionally being slow, unfocused, weak and clumsy when told to change clothes, allowing herself to cough and vomit when made to take the cough medicine that she doesn't like. She doesn't flatly refuse or object, she delays and makes pained expressions and dilly-dallys. This frustrates Michelle more than how Chen Rui behaves. Chen Rui usually refuses in a straight-forward manner and Michelle can simply tell her sternly to do it (and she will).

It is me who is more easily frustrated by Chen Rui. She is more defiant, more disobedient, at least in a more direct way. Sometimes it drives me nuts. With Shee Yun's softer way, I don't get frustrated so easily and I can still patiently reason with her and persuade her.

So Michelle and Chen Rui are the hard style and Shee Yun and I the soft. Michelle handles Chen Rui better, and I Shee Yun.

15 Jan 2012. Shee Yun now eats this fish roe sushi too, in addition to her standard two plates of scallop sushi.

In the past week that Shee Yun has been ill, when going upstairs she often asked me to hold her hand and to walk slowly. She wanted support. She was being manja. At those moments of holding her hand walking up the staircase I thought of one day I may be bringing her down the same staircase as a bride to hand over to the groom. I sometimes have these emo moments.

This trip back to KK Shee Yun again didn't bring Tubby and instead brought the baby seal toy (currently called Daisy I think). Now Tubby is delegated to just sleeping by her side. She doesn't play with Tubby now but she does play with Daisy. Now there is a more-or-less permanent Lego Quattro house built for Daisy in the children's room. Shee Yun and Chen Rui built it together. Usually Daisy, teddy and totoro sleep in it. Coincidentally all three of them are white.

teacher scolded

2012-01-20T01:13:00.003+08:00

Shee Yun has been having sore throat and fever for a few days. It started on Monday. She didn't go to school on Monday. She said she felt better on Tuesday so she went to school. She came back feeling sick, so we got her to stay home to rest on Wednesday. On Thursday she came home feeling rather sad. She told Michelle that her BM teacher scolded her for being slow in copying the writings on the whiteboard. Shee Yun is still easily upset whenever she gets scolded. She said she couldn't see the whiteboard properly because light was reflecting off it. Michelle told her she needed to raise her hand and let the teacher know. We need to teach her to be stronger. I think she felt 委屈 because the teacher (although being a Chinese) spoke Malay to her (since it is BM class), and she doesn't speak Malay well enough to be able to answer him or to explain why she had difficulties with copying the content on the board.

Primary school teachers will be tougher than her kindergarten teachers. Primary school classes are bigger and the teachers are more stressed. Shee Yun's kindergarten teachers all knew her well. They knew she was fragile and treated her gently. I think they all liked her, because she was obedient and attentive, and she learned well. However they probably also spoilt her a little. I thinks she needs to learn to toughen up a little now that she is in primary school.

Shee Yun doesn't like the cough medicine, and says it's bitter. But she is cooperative when taking the fever medicine and the antibiotics. When she feels weak she tells us "我很晕". Thankfully she is almost fully recovered now.

I like seeing Shee Yun and Chen Rui play together. They can spend a lot of time together playing games they create. Sometimes they fight. We try to let them settle those by themselves. Sometimes they can't and come running to us. Just recently I watched them do a rather different race. It was a slow race. To win you need to be as slow as possible. I saw them stand against a wall, and then start walking in slow motion. I wonder who came up with this idea.

They still speak English to each other. Maybe after they are both in primary school they will gradually switch to Mandarin.

15 Jan 2012. Shee Yun and Chen Rui at Sushi King.

我觉得我很high

2012-01-18T22:12:00.003+08:00

那天我在折衣服，晨睿在旁边玩。她跟我讲，“我觉得我很high”，吓了我一跳，为什么她会用这样的一句话。我看她在奔奔跳跳，真的有点high的样子。后来我才明白，原来她的意思是她觉得自己跳得很高，不是精神亢奋或上脑的意思。

2012年1月15日。晨睿。

one-tooth Shee Yun

2012-01-17T10:09:00.003+08:00

Shee Yun lost her 7th tooth yesterday. She only lost her 6th a few weeks ago, after it had been wiggly for a long time, and I didn't expect the 7th to come off so soon. The 6th was one of the front teeth, the 1st on her upper right quadrant. The 7th was the 2nd tooth on her upper left quadrant. That means these two teeth were on both sides of her other front tooth (1st on upper left quadrant). That front tooth has grown big and healthy for some time, so now she has gaps on both sides of it. At a glance (when she is not grinning or trying to show her teeth), Shee Yun looks like she only has one tooth, which is funny.

24 Dec 2011. This was before Shee Yun lost those two teeth. This is her Christmas present. You can feed the pets water, and they will pee. I wonder whether Shee Yun still wants to be a vet when she grows up. In the background, it looks like Chen Rui's new Barbie car has just run down Barbie.

I am still often amused by how Chen Rui speaks Sabahan slang Mandarin, e.g. the use of "meh4" and "la2". "Meh4" is issuing a challenge, or questioning what isn't something done such-and-such a way. E.g. "不是浆（这样）子的meh4?" (shouldn't it be done this way?). "La2" is telling you you are wrong, e.g. "不是浆（这样）子的la2" (this is not the right way to do it). It's amazing how one word can change the meaning of a sentence so much.

Michelle has successfully instilled in the children the importance of eating fruits. Once Shee Yun declared to us at the dinner table, "我吃很多fruits所以可以大便" (I eat a lot of fruits so I can poo). Thank you very much for mentioning it when we are having dinner.

3 bubbles at the same time

2012-01-14T21:41:00.001+08:00

Chen Rui showed me the way she makes three bubbles when taking a bath. These are not really bubbles per se, but are soapy membranes that she makes with her body parts. I taught the children how to play with these, but they brought it to newer heights. 青出于蓝. The basic technique that I had taught them was just to make one bubble using the both arms and the chest to form a circle. When Chen Rui made her three circles, she sat down on a stool (with soap all over her body, of course), and made the first bubble the way I had taught her. Then she rested her left foot on her right knee, forming a triangle between her left knee, right knee and groin. That was the second bubble stretched within this triangle. The third triangle was when she split the first bubble using the lower half of her left leg, which was horizontally in front of her. Three bubbles.

Recently Michelle discovered some hair on the floor, and after investigation, we found out that Chen Rui had helped herself to a pair of scissors to cut her own hair. She said it blocked her view. I told her she needs to make sure the cut hair goes to the dustbin.

24 Dec 2011. Chen Rui and her birthday present - a Barbie car.

Today Shee Yun started learning butterfly stroke at her swimming class. I was shocked. I didn't expect the teacher to be teaching butterfly. Shee Yun's back stroke is finally showing some improvement, but still needs work. Learning butterfly stroke was probably quite taxing. Shee Yun had a big appetite at dinner time. Even when taking her bath she kept saying she was hungry and "我有很多胃口" (must be because sometimes we use the phrase "没有胃口"). Michelle cooked two medium sized fishes for dinner, and after eating the back half of one of them (i.e. the half with more meat), Shee Yun asked for more, and finished the other back half that we gave to her. She also asked for extra rice, and finished it.

Shee Yun was a little disappointed that her class teacher did not appoint her to be class monitor or group leader. She seems keen to take on responsibilities and to be helpful assistants. I hope she will get her chance later, after her teacher gets to know her better.

sharing

2012-01-11T14:06:00.003+08:00

The children often share their things with their classmates. It's happening at kindergarten for Chen Rui, and it's also happening at primary school for Shee Yun. Their classmates borrow their pencils and colour pencils, and sometimes even share their food. I guess it's good that Shee Yun and Chen Rui and big-hearted and generous. But sometimes we wonder what the other children's parents have been doing not making sure their children are properly equipped for school.

Shee Yun's school bag is quite big and looks very bulky especially when she is the one handling it. She told us that at school two seniors ("两个姐姐") offerred to help her with it, but she declined. How kind of them. They called her "小妹妹". We told her next time she should remember to thank them.

17 Dec 2011. At Fraser's Hill. Chen Rui playing with the bubble toy after dinner time.

18 Dec 2011. Still playing with the bubble toy before we left Fraser's Hill. However after coming home, they seldom play with these toys. I guess there are too many other toys at home.

Chen Rui is starting to eat rice again, after Michelle told her that a monster may come to take Michelle away for not being a good mother to Chen Rui. Chen Rui just eats rice with tomato sauce, which is basically where she left off last time. She is also very particular about the bargain she had struck with Michelle. Only three scoops, she always insisted, and only child-sized scoops, not adult-sized scoops. Now the next step is to get her to eat normal dishes like vegetables and meat.

Shee Yun, like me, enjoys Michelle's cooking very much. She always praises how nice the food is, which makes Michelle happy. She cheers joyously when she sees soup. She loves fish with black sauce. She says broccoli is her favourite vegetable.

first piano lesson

2012-01-09T17:41:00.003+08:00

Chen Rui had her first piano lesson today. She enjoyed it. She was timid and quiet in front of Ms Chong. I think she's always like that in front of her teachers. Quite unlike her playful and mischievous self. But I think sometimes she is talkative at school and at least some of the teachers know, so they don't seat her near her "gang", like Annabelle.

The kindergarten has started teaching Chen Rui to write her own Chinese name 邱晨睿. As I watched her write, I feel a little guilty for having picked this name for her. So many strokes. Well, Michelle is equally to blame. We picked the name together.

17 Dec 2011. Shee Yun took this photo of Chen Rui, asking her to pose. This was at Fraser's Hill.

Shee Yun's back stroke is finally seeing some improvement. She told me so enthusiastically last Saturday after her swimming lesson.

I brought them to Meeples Cafe, a boardgame cafe near Sunway Pyramid, on Sunday. I went there mainly because of the Members Day Sale. They gave me a free membership because I'm a blogger, and the discount for that event was good. We played children's games, and they enjoyed the games. Chen Rui asked me when we would go again. I said to her but tomorrow is Monday, and both she and Shee Yun need to go to school. She said we can go after school mah. Then I remembered that Meeples Cafe is closed on Mondays, and I told her so. She would not be discouraged. She just asked me what day comes after Monday? She was quite determined.

如果

2012-01-07T08:06:00.003+08:00

讲话发音错不是晨睿的专利，煦芸也是会发音错的。她把“如果”讲成“罗果”（其实比较接近"lo2go3"）。

我现在要学习帮煦芸绑头发，因为现在暂时都是我帮她准备上学，因为早上我在家。要给她吃饭（Michelle很早起身煮好午餐，我只需要弄热和煲饭）、给她换衣服。目前还是Michelle中午来接她去上学，所以可以帮煦芸绑头发，可是如果Michelle要去client那里做audit，我就要全权负责了。我发现原来绑头发那么难。我绑得很乱，有时候又会歪一边。绑了比还没绑更乱，披头散发的感觉。我需要恶补。

现在孩子们在一起的时间少了很多，因为一个上午班一个下午班。我这个月都会在家做工，早上有的时候看到煦芸好像很闷的样子，好像没有人陪她玩很无聊。晨睿暂时还不会，她还找得到东西可以自己玩。可能煦芸比较需要新鲜的事物，而晨睿有的时候会自己创造新的事物。昨天晨睿拿剪刀和一张纸，把纸剪成一片一片很小片放进红包里。如果我没有误会她的意思，她是要把碎纸当成米（她用的字是"grain"）然后拿来撒，还是拿来存。我还真服了她，剪纸也可以玩那么久。

2011年12月28日。煦芸刚刚掉第二个门牙的时候。

煦芸作那首 Spring Song 2 还可以伴舞。那天我帮她录了下来，重播的时候，她立刻开始翩翩起舞。我看她无论听到什么喜欢的音乐都可以用来跳舞。

晨睿近来很不肯吃东西。现在又不吃饭了（以前还有饭送tomato sauce），干捞面又不要吃，米粉也不要，只是饿的时候吃饼干，或吃香蕉（如果有买到）。Michelle听同事的建议，跟晨睿说如果晨睿还不吃正餐，会有monster把她捉走，因为她没有做一个好妈妈。结果还真的是说服了晨睿要开始吃饭。她们讨价还价，说今天吃两口饭，明天吃三口饭。

minor renovation

2012-01-05T15:57:00.004+08:00

We recently did some minor renovation around the house. The main change was putting tiles on the driveway. We have been thinking about doing it for some time, but never got around to it. Only when we saw the Indonesian contractor doing tiling for the kindergarten next door, we decided we should do it. So we asked the same guy to do it for us. He is the same guy who painted the children's room for them, and has also helped fix other things before.

1 Jan 2012. We changed the kitchen tap to a double tap. The old tap has been dripping water for a while, and we always put a wash basin under it to catch the water. It's more convenient to have a double tap.

The piping under this downstairs toilet sink was broken, and I had previously put a temporary fix, making a funnel out of half a plastic bottle. That lasted quite a long time. Now finally we have a permanent solution.

A new power point, for our energy saver / voltage stabiliser. It is supposed to help reduce energy consumption. Let's see how effective it is after a few more electricity bills.

An external tap.

Tiles at the front of the house.

The front door.

One of the hinges of our front gate was damaged. We got it fixed. The contracter cut out all four of them and re-welded them, to position our gate slightly higher.

The driveway. This was before it was cleaned up.

Now Shee Yun waters the plants almost every morning.

I think I have managed to convince Chen Rui to start taking piano lessons. I have been trying a few times, and she has always tried to delay. But I think today we reached an agreement. To make sure she keeps her word, we even did 勾手指. Am I being childish?

Next: swimming lessons.

Shee Yun likes her Saturday afternoon swimming lessons because she has made friends with the other children in that group, and she likes being with them. She feels disappointed if sometimes we need to switch to another time slot, even if it is with the same teacher, Zoe. She is still not doing the backstroke well yet. I think it is because of her fear of water getting into her nose. Maybe I need to bring her to the pool some day and try to teach her. Perhaps a different approach can help her learn.

first day of primary school

2012-01-04T14:13:00.002+08:00

Today is Shee Yun's official first day of primary school. She is in the afternoon session. All Primary 1 and 2 pupils are in the afternoon session. She looks forward very much to going to primary school. I hope she has a great first day. I work at home today (well, in fact will be doing so almost the whole of this month), and helped her change into her school uniform. The most challenging part is tying her hair into a ponytail. Even after a number of attempts, it still didn't look quite right. So Michelle had to redo it when she picked Shee Yun up to send her to school.

This year Shee Yun studies in the afternoon session but Chen Rui is still in the morning session, so arranging our weekly schedule is a challenge. Many extra-curricular activities need to be moved to the weekend or evening, e.g. ballet and BM tuition (which both of them attend). Shee Yun's school extra-curricular activity is not confirmed yet. She seems to want to participate in many of them, e.g. dancing, drawing, gymnastics, but I think the school mandates one activity for every pupil, no more no less. We will probably finalise that before arranging other regular tuition, e.g. English tuition. Shee Yun and Chen Rui's English is good, but we want them to be exposed to more, because Naam Kheung only has 5 English lesson per week, as opposed to 12 and 10 for Chinese and BM respectively. I thought all languages would be emphasised equally.

4 Jan 2012. Shee Yun in primary school uniform.

With her school bag.

This afternoon Chen Rui played with angpow. She asked me what was meant to be inside. I told her money. Then she said she didn't want to put money inside. She starting cutting out rectangular pieces of paper and writing "100" on them, and then putting them into the angpows. She is making counterfeit money.

Sailing With My Friends

2012-01-03T14:06:00.006+08:00

Sailing With My Friends is the new song that Shee Yun is composing now. This morning when she played Spring Song 2, I used my iPhone to record it. I did it without telling her, so that I wouldn't interrupt her, and she won't feel nervous because of being recorded. I only started recording halfway through, so it was an incomplete recording. Later when I played it for her, she asked me to record it again, this time the full song. She didn't feel nervous at all and just played the whole thing all over again while I recorded. I shouldn't have assumed an adult mentality in her. In fact she was excited about the recording ability of the iPhone, which she hadn't known about.

She said to me that now that the song was recorded, she can play it for Teacher Chong at the next lesson. I suspect to her the song is just a general feeling and some sets of sequences, as opposed to a structured song that is written down neatly on a musical score. I think the song will vary every time she plays it. I certainly couldn't make out any structure to it, only some familiar recurring passages here and there.

Spring Song 2. This is the shorter, half-a-song version. Turn the volume up so that you don't miss anything.

imagining the future

2012-01-02T15:35:00.003+08:00

Sometimes I try to imagine what Shee Yun and Chen Rui will look like when they grow up. I tend to imagine the same faces on taller bodies, which is very very weird, even downright disturbing. Of course the face will change, but it's hard to imagine. When I look back at their photos of when they were younger, based on those faces I would not have been able to imagine how they look like now.

16 Dec 2011. Chen Rui and Michelle at Fraser's Hill. It was raining so we took a tea break at this open air cafe. Hot Milo tastes especially good in cool weather.

Another series of Chen Rui's rich expressions.

17 Dec 2011. We brought binoculars so that the children could watch birds and other animals.

Now that we have a tap installed at the driveway, the children often like to water the plants in the small garden. We have a blue plastic watering can.

Chen Rui often leave her things lying around and doesn't tidy up. Toys, drawings, books, paper, scissors, hajimat, all sorts of things. One thing that she usually remembers to throw into the rubbish bin is food or drink packaging. However despite her bad habit, she sometimes likes to help tidy things up, e.g. arranging our shoes at the front door neatly, helping put her clothes back into her cupboard. I think she is just easily distracted, so when she is halfway playing or drawing and she gets distracted, whatever she is using gets left lying around.

Shee Yun asked Michelle and I whether Italy has no streets. We were puzzled. Of course Italy has streets. She tried to explain to us, and only then we realised she was asking about Venice, which has lots of canals instead of streets. She learned this from TV, I think.

I asked her whether she could show me the song she composed. She said it needed more work. Whoa...

composer

2012-01-01T17:08:00.004+08:00

One day Shee Yun spoke to Michelle and I about a Spring Song that she has been playing on the piano, and how she is changing it, and there is now a Spring Song 2. It took me a while to realise that she meant she had composed a song, based on the Spring Song, which she named Spring Song 2. I was very surprised she has thought of composing a song. I asked her to show me the song, but she declined saying she hasn't written it down yet. She is probably not so good at writing down a song into a musical score.

When Shee Yun plays songs on the piano, she doesn't rely on musical scores much. She only needs them when she starts learning the song. Once she gets familiar with the song, she remembers it by the keys on the piano and not by the notes on the musical score. Michelle is quite amazed by that. I think it's good, to get past the notation on paper and get straight to the music.

11 Dec 2011. Photos taken by Kok Man and Ai Shiang, Chee Ying's parents, at iCity. Actually now Shee Yun calls Chee Ying "Christina" instead. Only Michelle and I still use the name "Chee Ying" when speaking to Shee Yun and Chen Rui.

Inside the double-decker merry-go-round.

One thing that Shee Yun sometimes does when crossing a road is she makes a stop gesture (palm facing out) at the oncoming (but slowing down) car, and when she sees that the car is slowing down, or even just being slow enough anyway to give her ample time to cross the road, she makes a good sign (thumb up) at the car. She's like a boss or what...

It seems that now that the children have started BM tuition, Shee Yun likes to use Malay when she sees Malays. An Indonesian contracter has been helping us do tiling for the driveway, and once when we came home and met him, Shee Yun said to him, "Saya panas" (I feel hot). Then yesterday at the library when she found the date checker guy (who checks the due date stamp of every book before you can leave) missing, she wondered aloud, "Di mana?". These are not full sentences, but I think they are a good start. I think Shee Yun simply enjoys making use of what she has learnt.

Michelle told me that Chen Rui likes to bully Cikgu Rokiah their BM tuition teacher (also their kindergarten teacher). During tuition Michelle keeps hearing Chen Rui say "I'm tired" when Cikgu Rokiah asks her to write.

And Rose just died today. The 5th incarnation of their baby seal toy is called Daisy. Well, Rose is the longest lived so far. I think they kill off a character whenever they want a new name for the baby seal. Maybe I need to advise them to simply rename it. When Shee Yun told me the news, and I asked her how Rose died, she said she didn't know. I suggested whether it was because Rose played with the electric socket and got electrocuted. She nodded and said that was how it happened. Is this sublime message about not playing with electric sockets a bit too graphical (not that they children ever played with sockets)? I even acted out the shuddering of an electrocution.

card designs 2011

2011-12-31T07:00:00.004+08:00

Card designs for 2011. The theme is various unique birthday celebration customs around the world.

Chinese New Year - the Year of the Rabbit. A feisty little rabbit this one is. Or is meant to be. Some say it looks fierce.

In Argentina, the birthday child receives a pull on the earlobe for each year of his/her age.

In Canada, the birthday child is ambushed and his/her nose is greased with butter or margarine for good luck, the idea being that having a greased nose makes it too slippery for bad luck to stick.

In Denmark, the birthday gifts are placed around the child's bed when he/she is asleep, so the child will wake up surrounded by presents. And there’s no way that you can keep your birthday a secret. Every household in Denmark places a flag outside their home whenever they have any family member’s birthday.

In Germany, if a man reaches the age of 30 and does not have a girlfriend, the birthday tradition is to have him sweep the stairs of City Hall. Friends are invited to throw rubble on the stairs and when he’s finished, they'll throw more rubble. This is to show every girl that this man can clean a house very well.

In Ireland, it is customary to hold the child upside down and "bump" the child on the floor for every year of his/her life, plus one extra "bump" for good luck.

The Vietnamese do not acknowledge the exact day they were born. Instead everyone celebrates becoming a year older on New Year's Day. Adults congratulate children by presenting them with red envelopes containing lucky money.

Christmas.

practice exercise

2011-12-30T07:00:00.001+08:00

When Michelle brought Shee Yun to Naam Kheung Primary School yesterday for the Primary 1 orientation, she asked Shee Yun to practice walking from the school gate to her classroom, just to make sure she remembers her way. When Shee Yun did it, she had one hand holding a fist behind her, pretending to be dragging her school bag. Her school bag is the type with wheels and a handle which can be used to drag it. At one point when Shee Yun approached stairs, she avoided them, and instead took the ramp. Naturally when you are dragging a school bag along you need to use the ramp. She certainly took the simulation very seriously.

11 Dec 2011. We visited i-City again. There's a Ferris wheel in the background, but it is not in operation yet. We got there before it was dark.

The double-decker merry-go-round, which is new. It wasn't there the last time we visited. The children took a ride but we didn't join. Chee Ying's mum Ai Shiang and Chee Ying took a ride together with them.

Chen Rui is often 马后炮. When we tell her something, she often replies that she already knows, or she has already seen it. I'm not sure whether it is always true, but this happens so frequently that I suspect at least sometimes she is being 马后炮. One surprising thing about her is although she is always cheeky and playful at home, and has lots to say, she seems to be rather timid and soft-spoken outside. Now that the children are having BM tuition at home, I often hear her being very soft-spoken to Cikgu Rokiah. Actually even when using FaceTime with Ma, she speaks softly.

orientation day

2011-12-29T14:51:00.004+08:00

Today Michelle brought Shee Yun to orientation day at Naam Kheung Primary School. It turned out that one of Shee Yun's classmates from kindergarten is also her classmate at primary school. So at least there is a familiar face, but not that I need Shee Yun needs that. Shee Yun likes her school and looks forward to starting school. The only thing she doesn't like is the toilet, which she finds smelly. I think all school toilets are like that. The toilets are squat toilets too, which Shee Yun almost never uses, but she seems to have no problem using them.

17 Dec 2011. Shee Yun at Fraser's Hill. Photo taken by Chen Rui I think.

16 Dec 2011. Flowers at Fraser's Hill.

18 Dec 2011. Chen Rui and I with the small clock tower at Fraser's Hill. Photo taken by Shee Yun.

When Michelle took this photo, both the girls struck poses. They look like doing some taichi sword movement. 华山论剑。

It's Michelle and my 10th anniversary today. It's 20 years if counting when we first met.

17 Dec 2011. Lunch at Fraser's Hill.

the other front tooth

2011-12-28T19:00:00.002+08:00

Shee Yun lost her other front tooth today. It has been loose for quite some time, and in the past few days she was able to wiggle it by big angles. It came out this morning when she was about to have her morning bottle of milk. As usual, I washed it and put it away in a small plastic ziplock bag, with a note stating the position of the tooth and the date. I don't know what I will do with these teeth I have been collecting.

Shee Yun came to me today and told me that it was convenient to have a gap in her teeth. Then she showed me how she put a straw through the gap while she drank 100PLUS. I can see her new tooth already growing from inside the hole in her gums. It will be fully grown soon.

16 Dec 2011. Photo taken at Fraser's Hill.

Ballet stance.

At the post office in Fraser's Hill.

Over the past weekend we have bought Shee Yun's primary school uniforms. Tomorrow will be orientation day and Michelle will be going with her. Michelle is more nervous about it than Shee Yun. Shee Yun is very much looking forward to it.

part 2

2011-12-27T19:00:00.002+08:00

Now that I have restarted story-telling with the children, they sometimes ask me to tell them Part 2 of stories that they like. Somehow they expect good stories to be like Hollywood blockbusters - if they do well, they'll get sequels. One such story is the one about Detective Ant, who investigated the case of the Butterfly's missing coin. The suspects were Caterpillar, Spider and Fly. Detective Ant found footprints, but the footprints showed five feet. Eventually Detective Ant discovered that the thief was Fly. When Fly stole into Butterfly's home, he came in from the toilet and accidentally stepped on poo, which stank, so he had to use one foot to cover his nose. The children found this hilarious, so they asked me whether I could tell them another story about Detective Ant the next day. But there is no other such story. This was just a story I built from a silly joke riddle.

Another story I told them about was the Leaky Bucket story. Leaky Bucket always felt bad because by the time its master brought him (and the Perfect Bucket) back from the river, half its water had leaked away. It felt it had not done a good job. Its master asked it to look at the flowers growing on one side of the path. The flowers had grown beautifully and cheered the master, because of the water leaking from the Leaky Bucket. The moral of the story is everyone has differents strengths and different ways to contribute and to help others. The children wanted Part 2 for this story too. This is even harder to make up.

11 Dec 2011. Shee Yun at the Cultural Village at KL Tower.

Shee Yun and Chen Rui.

Chen Rui eats too much tomato sauce. She is willing to eat meat now. To be precise, it's only chicken nuggets that she is willing to eat. She uses a lot of tomato sauce when she eats nuggets. She's eating tomato sauce with nuggets, and not eating nuggets with tomato sauce. She keeps finishing the tomato sauce we put on her plate and keeps asking us to add more. She is sometimes very very slow in eating, sometimes because she is distracted by TV, or she wanders off to play. Once she spent more than 3 hours to eat 4 nuggets, from around 1pm to after 4pm. 晕倒...

art exhibition - bears from around the world

2011-12-24T22:37:00.002+08:00

On Sat 24 Dec 2011 we went to Pavilion to see these bears. See this album on Facebook.

然后

2011-12-24T21:59:00.005+08:00

晨睿除了“这种”讲成“这hong3”、“刚才”讲成“刚孩”，也把“然后”讲成“拿(na2)后”。

有一天晨睿无端端提起说她很miss kakak，还讲以前她玩plasticine的时候kakak会帮她。我很惊讶她还会记得。都已经那么久了。

2011年12月10日。PJ, Jaya One的圣诞装饰。和煦芸的衣服、拖鞋都很配。

curtsy.

晨睿的粉红色衣服也很配她的粉红色拖鞋。

2011年12月24日。这是在KL Pavillion外面的圣诞树。

Mid Valley的圣诞装饰是以迷宫花园为主题，我喜欢。

自从去Fraser's Hill的时候给孩子们拍照任务，她们现在喜欢拍照了。现在要带两个相机出门。晨睿在看煦芸拍什么。

有的时候晨睿会这样把手伸进自己衣服里。很像“Ah Pek”(阿伯)。

Michelle拍她们的时候我在旁边拍。

小舞台。

这是西洋棋的bishop。

这是Mid Valley The Gardens的圣诞装饰，我觉得反而没什么特别。

在The Gardens有喇叭表演圣诞歌，很不错。

photos - Chen Rui's birthday

2011-12-22T19:00:00.001+08:00

Chen Rui is 5 years old now. We are going to try to use this as a justification, or even mandate, to get her to do various things, like starting to learn swimming, starting to learn piano, etc.

Chen Rui specificallyi requested for this cake design.

She also requested for these candles to be used at her birthday when she saw them. So Michelle bought them and kept them until now. But these candles are a nightmare. They burn very quickly and the wax drips onto the cake. By the time we lit the last candle, the first candle lit had mostly burnt out, so we never managed to have all candles lit up at the same time. 中看不中用.

Chen Rui is always slow in doing things. She takes her own sweet time. Michelle often calls her "阿摸". By the time we were done with all the singing, candle blowing and cake cutting, a lot of the surface of the cake had melted. Chen Rui said the cake was not beautiful anymore so she didn't want to eat it. It was a chocolate ice-cream cake with a chocolate cake base, i.e. very very chocolaty. Michelle doesn't like too chocolaty. Shee Yun doesn't want to eat cake (as is usually the case). So I'm the only one eating the cake now. This will be my dessert for the next few days.

Look at her expression.

两只手一起来……

photos - flowers and scenery at Fraser's Hill

2011-12-22T07:00:00.005+08:00

Taken during a tea break at an open air cafe by the road side. Warm Milo is especially good in chilly weather. Michelle, Chen Rui and I had that. Shee Yun had 100PLUS because she didn't like Milo.

The waterfall. Thankfully the path to the waterfall is a cemented walkway, and not a jungle track. Else it would be a long slog and a nightmare getting Chen Rui to reach this waterfall.

Michelle caught all three of us on camera eating junk food.

A view from the verandah of our studio apartment. Very foggy.

A lake / reservior named Allan's Water. Usually there's boating, but it was not in operation when we were there due to the high water level and flooding in some parts.

Very foggy on our second visit the next day.

Many of these photos were taken by Shee Yun and Chen Rui. To keep them occupied we gave them a mission of taking all beautiful flowers in sight.

I think this is called a lipstick flower.

"Christmas flower".

Key chains that I bought. RM10 for 3.

nevah

2011-12-21T19:00:00.002+08:00

Sometimes when Shee Yun asks Chen Rui to do something, or whether she likes something, instead of a simple "No", Chen Rui says, "Nevah!" (Never). I don't know where she learned this. It reminds me of the Michael Cain butler character in the Batman movies, when saying he would "nevah" give up on Bruce Wayne, his young master.

I started story-telling with the children again. After a period of no story-telling, I am now able to sometimes come up with new stories to tell them. I have told them about a 一休 story (the Japanese cartoon about a clever child monk). I told them about 诸葛亮 in 空城计. This one may have caused Shee Yun to have a nightmare. She had a nightmare that night when I told this story, and came to our room to look for us. Maybe it is because the story was a war story, despite the comical elements that I added myself, e.g. how the enemy generals were bickering among themselves in a silly manner, and how 诸葛亮 was playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on his 古筝. The next day when Michelle wanted to tell them the story about 诸葛亮 and 草船借箭, Shee Yun said she didn't want to hear it. Looks like I will need to look for non war related stories.

18 Nov 2011. Shee Yun at school wearing her dance costume.

19 Nov 2011. Whenever we take a lift, Chen Rui always wants to press the buttons. Usually Shee Yun lets her press the button outside the lift (which she usually can reach) to hail a lift, and then Shee Yun presses the button of the floor we want to go to after we get into the lift.

Sometimes Shee Yun wants to press the Door Open button and wait for all of us to go out before she gets out herself.

Both children sometimes call me "Silly Baba", because I often act silly to entertain them.

In our recent trip to Fraser's Hill, I played Catapult with Shee Yun again, and was surprised I could still lift her up with my legs. I sat at the edge of the bed, extending my legs straight. Then she sat on my feet, and I lifted her up, and threw her sideways onto the bed. I am not strong enough to catapult her over my head, and she might hit the wall if I do that. I used to play Catapult with the children when they were younger. They are much heavier now.

Fraser's Hill

2011-12-18T22:40:00.005+08:00

We have been planning many activities during the school holidays. We just came back from a 3D2N trip to Fraser's Hill. We often bring the children to beach resorts, so I wanted to bring them to mountains instead of beaches for a change. Fraser's Hill was colder than I had expected, and reminded me very much of Mount Kinabalu National Park. It was very foggy most of the time when we were there, and it also rained quite often. Not very heavy, and not too frequent that we found ourselves stuck indoors too much. I wanted to bring the children there for jungle trekking, to expose them to nature and wilderness. Shee Yun was eager enough. She saw it as an adventure. Chen Rui on the other hand was very 小姐, complaining about jungle trekking dirtying her shoes, and whining all the time when we trekked, being scared of (poisonous-looking) bright orange mushrooms growing on the remaining wooden poles of the long-gone hand rails. After the short trek Chen Rui told us she didn't like jungle trekking and wanted no more of it. Maybe they are still too young to appreciate this.

This small clock tower is the main landmark of Fraser's Hill.

I held the camera myself.

The clubhouse of Fraser's Silverpark resort, where the reception and dining area are. It was very foggy.

We stayed in a studio apartment here. This looks more like an abandoned building, doesn't it? I think it's the damp weather.

Foggy morning.

Chen Rui saw something.

What they really enjoyed was feeding fish at Allan's Water, a reservoir / lake there. Usually there's boating, but boating operations was closed because there was flooding and water level was too high. The path to the boating area was flooded. The other activity they enjoyed a lot was playing with bubbles. I bought bubble-making toys for them. A third activity which they also enjoyed more than trekking was playing Uno. I had expected some rain which would keep us indoors. We also had nothing much to do in the evenings, so I brought some boardgames, and also asked them to pick two each. I brought Uno because I thought it was simple enough for even Chen Rui to play. It was a good decision. The children enjoyed it a lot. Chen Rui had her share of wins. Forcing others to draw extra cards was funny, so was catching people who forgot to say "Uno" when having one card left. Sometimes in between games when I needed to shuffle the cards, Chen Rui lay down at the centre of the playing area (we played on the bed), so I did the riffle-shuffle on her forehead. She found that funny and afterwards kept asking me to do it again.

Playing Uno.

Feeding fish. RM1 for one packet of fish food, which I think is quite a reasonable price.

The little office next to Allan's Water. There was no sign indicating fish food for sale. It was Michelle who went to ask the guy in there. Fraser's Hill is a quiet and lazy town.

Lots of catfish, and other fish too.

Chen Rui feeding fish.

Playing with making bubbles.

I think with this toy you're not supposed to blow. You're supposed to just drag it in the air. Sometimes they blew anyway.

We saw birds, and monkeys, and many types of flowers. We visited a waterfall. I enjoyed the cool weather. The children enjoyed the trip. We played many games, with the children, as well as some two-player games between Michelle and I. Fraser's Hill overall seems to be a dying tourist town though. Facilities seem to be poorly maintained, service was so-so, there were some abandoned buildings. I like the environment though. The greenery and the cool weather. It's good for a relaxing trip. I don't mind the accommodation and the food. I think it would be especially good for big groups of youngsters, because they wouldn't mind those, and they can have fun just by being together with a big group of friends. This reminds me of my secondary school days, and trips to Kinabalu National Park. The fun is not really in the activities or facilities there, it's the company.

photos - fairy tale Christmas

2011-12-15T22:55:00.002+08:00

11 Dec 2011. We stopped by Viva Home Mall (formerly UE3) to see the Christmas decorations. They are good.

Chen Rui the fairy.

Chen Rui still stands and walks with A-shaped feet.

睿

2011-12-13T19:00:00.000+08:00

2011年11月6日。晨睿拍的。这是晨睿的脚车，放在屋子里面，因为煦芸的放在外面被偷了。

2011年11月15日。煦芸在学校做的寿司，带回来给我和Michelle吃，还不难吃。

2011年11月17日。晨睿都快五岁了，我才发现一直都写错了她的“睿”字。中间那部分我以为是一八八，原来不是。第二个“八”原来是有粘起来的，是“人”。

2011年11月19日。去餐厅吃西餐。近几个月常用Groupon和类似的网站找到很多不错的优惠。

2011年11月20日。煦芸做的reference sheet。这是Street Fighter IV里Zangief（苏联摔跤手）的招数。她做了让我参考。不过近来已经很少跟她对打Street Fighter了。

2011年12月9日。我的boardgame朋友请两个孩子做模特儿。这是海报。

calling Rose

2011-12-12T19:00:00.004+08:00

Sometimes Shee Yun pretends to call Rose using an imaginary mobile phone when we are outside. Rose is the children's baby seal soft toy, who is Shee Yun's daughter, and Chen Rui's younger sister, in their imaginary play world. When they play with the baby seal, one of them pretends to speak as the baby seal in a high squeaky voice, while the other conducts conversation with the baby seal. This applies when they call Rose from outside, checking on her to see whether she is doing alright.

So yes, Rose is still alive. There has been 3 previous incarnations of the baby seal, and each had its own name, and each died young.

We have not asked the children to pick up phone calls when at home, and they have never been interested in doing so themselves. When the phone rings they just call out to us to tell us it's ringing.

This past weekend has been a tiring one. We had many errands to run. We brought the children to both KL Tower and iCity. It was their first visit to KL Tower, and second visit to iCity. It surprised us that we could spend two hours at KL Tower. I think less than one third of the time was spent at the observation deck. The children, especially Shee Yun, seemed to have enjoyed themselves more at the Cultural Village, which is just a small area with many house fronts showing the different traditional architectural styles of Malaysia. It is an interesting idea. There is a traditional dance performance, although the costumes used and dances seem to me a weird mixture of various traditional styles. More prominent components are Malay joget and the Sarawak Iban or Dayak dance. At the end of the performance, I was one of visitors pulled onto the stage to dance the bamboo-poles-snap-feet dance, because we were sitting in the front row. There is also a mini zoo, which had many snakes, and also quite a number of albino animals. The children didn't like the snakes at all, but Shee Yun loved the rabbits.

11 Dec 2011. Michelle at KL Tower. When we were there the staff by default assumes we are foreigners and speaks English.

Petronas Twin Towers / KLCC from KL Tower.

Chen Rui trying to listen to the explanation that comes with this device. The device has both video and audio, and gives a background about KL Tower, and I think also explains what can be seen from various spots at the observation deck. I didn't listen to it.

Istana Budaya can be seen in the distance - blue roof.

From the base of the tower.

Chen Rui said she didn't want her little jacket (the type that Shee Yun was wearing).

Traditional house of Sabah.

I didn't ask her to sit there to take a photo. She sat there and expected me to take a photo.

I think the one on the left is Johor, and then the next two are Terengganu and Kelantan respectively. The rightmost bigger house is (I think) not part of the houses. It contains the staircase leading down to this Cultural Village area. These houses are actually quite small, and shallow. Inside each house, there is only very shallow room. In fact you can see the back wall of the house.

I can't remember which states these represent. I think the rightmost one is Melaka.

The cultural dance performers. There are 6 of them, but unfortunately my favourite, the guy dressed in Sarawak Dayak / Iban costume, was holding the camera and thus isn't in here. I kept hearing the lady dancers saying the children were cute.

Shee Yun and one of the rabbits at the mini zoo.

We went to iCity again because the children requested it. I myself am not such a big fan. I have been checking weather forecasts for the past week. We only told the children we were going on Sunday itself, so that we wouldn't disappoint them by saying we would go and then later cancelling due to rain. Chee Ying's parents also brought her there, and we met up there. There were new things, including some fun fair rides, and also a snow walk section (extra entry fees applicable). The children went for the double decker carousel ride. Chee Ying's family went earlier and went for the snow walk. We didn't do the snow walk. The main thing I remember from the first visit is how hot the weather was. This time it was not as hot, but I still sweated some. We went at around 7pm, before it was dark, and left before 9pm. By the time we left, we noticed many cars jammed up to go there. Luckily we went early, like we always try to do wherever it is we want to go.

story-telling

2011-12-09T19:00:00.000+08:00

Yesterday evening when Michelle went to check on Shee Yun at bedtime, she found Shee Yun crying. This came out of nowhere. Shee Yun said to Michelle that I don't accompany her and Chen Rui anymore during bedtime and that I don't tell them stories anymore. She hasn't asked me to tell her stories for quite some time. I didn't realise she still wants me to. Also since coming back from Oman, the children have been able to go to bed by themselves and do not need company. So I simply don't go to their room when it is their bedtime. I used to bring my laptop there and accompany them for about half an hour while they fall asleep. I'm really running out of ideas for stories. Maybe I will need to think of novels that I have read and try to convert some of those stories into children versions.

5 Nov 2011. Shee Yun was fascinated by this very very long straw. It was meant to be curled into loops. She had straightened it.

Now Shee Yun sometimes calls me Captain, because of the Sid Meier's Pirates computer game that I play and the girls watch me play. They are both my First Mates (although normally I think there is only one First Mate on a ship). The game is in English, and when I play, the children speak English to me. Now I have an urge to read Treasure Island. I used to have a comic book version, in Chinese, which has gone missing. In addition to the Treasure Island story, it also had interesting facts about pirates, like how they split loot according to rank, how they punish wrongdoers.

这种

2011-12-08T17:11:00.002+08:00

除了把“刚才”讲成“刚孩”，晨睿还有把“这种”讲成“这hong3”（同样的“那种”讲成“那hong3”）。现在我们听到要纠正她。

2011年11月19日。晨睿。

孩子们开始了马来文补习，是跟她们的幼稚园的老师Cikgu Rokiah补。暂时补着先，也许煦芸大一点就要找不同的老师。Cikgu Rokiah现在还是需要用英语和她们交谈，还没有可以用马来语。她们两个似乎觉得好玩。老师是上门来补习的，所以对我们来讲也方便。老师的家离我们的家不远，走路可以到。

Michelle很常跟我讲煦芸很懂事。我认同。煦芸是很会体谅别人，也很听话。有的时候有一些小细节令我觉得她又长大了，我会觉得意外，原来她已经会这样想。我问她在亚庇的时候是不是会不好意思给妈（她的阿嬷）知道她还用奶瓶喝奶，问她为什么会不好意思。她说她已经不是baby，所以会“embarassing”（尴尬）。我有点意外她会用“embarassing”这个字，会有尴尬的观念。这几天两个孩子常看我玩电脑游戏Sid Meier's Pirates，是一个当海盗的游戏。我是个大盗，抢了很多西班牙船。游戏中其中一个我很坚持要做的事就是寻找失散了的家人，第一个快被我找到的是我的姐姐。要间姐姐的时候应该是很兴奋的，我特地叫两个孩子来看感人的一幕。煦芸也很兴奋，可是突然间她问我一句：“Big sister 会不会觉得你是一个坏人？” 我一时答不上来。

school holidays

2011-12-07T19:00:00.000+08:00

It's school holidays now, and I find myself often spending a full day at home with the children. They play by themselves now and rarely interrupt me while I work. I also don't need to worry about fetching them from school, just need to make sure we eat lunch. Chen Rui is taking fewer afternoon naps now. She has enough energy to play the whole day. The children help themselves to their toys, and only Chen Rui sometimes asks for help because she can't reach a certain box or container.

I realise that I have stopped telling them bedtime stories. I have run out of ideas, and after a while they have stopped asking. Also now I don't need to accompany them when they go to bed. They are becoming more independent.

17 Nov 2011. Shee Yun playing with Michelle's pillow.

Chen Rui pretending to ride a horse.

If I remember correctly, this is an Ikea pillow case that we brought back from Taiwan.

Chen Rui is still not eating proper meals. For a while she used to eat plain rice with tomato sauce, but she doesn't want that now. Now Michelle is trying to get her to eat meehoon as her proper meal. This started when we had 斗湖生肉面 (in Tawau, of course). Chen Rui liked it. Chen Rui also likes the kuey-teow in soup at Old Town Kopitiam. She sometimes eats chicken nuggets (protein) now, but still not yet other types of meat.

The children still usually eat at their own child tables, often watching TV while they eat. I think Shee Yun is old enough and tall enough to eat at the dining table, but we have not switched to that yet. In KK she usually does eat with the adults at the dining table, and sometimes Chen Rui too.

Shee Yun thinks it is a little shameful that she is still using the milk bottle for drinking milk. When in KK, she seemed to want to avoid letting Ma know that she is still using the milk bottle. We have not really tried to get the children to switch to using mugs for their milk. Using milk bottles is actually quite troublesome - much more troublesome to wash, and to sterilise using hot water. I think we are so used to it that we forget to switch away from it.

photos - Tadika Dunia Ria

2011-12-06T19:00:00.001+08:00

Some photos taken by school teachers throughout this year. Some of them will be an exercise in "Spot Chen Rui" or "Spot Shee Yun".

Visit to the zoo.

Shee Yun often poses for photos, sometimes in weird ways. She looks like she needs to pee.

Chen Rui takes her dancing quite seriously. 很用心.

Chen Rui is sometimes chatty at school. Once Michelle saw her being warned by the teacher.

Birthday celebration for November and December babies.

So many cakes. No wonder Chen Rui felt left out when she didn't have a cake to bring to school to share with her schoolmates. She likes to share things with others, e.g. her biscuits. Sometimes she ends up not having enough for herself.

fireflies

2011-12-05T18:48:00.004+08:00

Yesterday we brought the children to Kuala Selangor to see fireflies. We have been thinking of doing this for quite some time, and decided to take the opportunity during the school holidays to do this, and other activities. It rains often at year end, so there is a big dependency on the weather. Since a few days ago I have been checking weather forecasts. All the websites that I checked expected no rain, until yesterday morning itself when some websites said it would rain, and some not. I decided to gamble that it wouldn't rain, or even if it did, it wouldn't be heavy, or long. When we left the house at about 6pm, it started raining, and soon after that it poured.

We had drive-thru dinner in the car. I was still hoping the rain would stop by the time we reached Kuala Selangor. Driving was difficult because of the rain, and because it was getting dark. Opposite headlights were glaring, and my windscreen being oily and dirty on the inside didn't help. We reached Kampung Bukit Belimbing after 8:30pm. Thankfully by then the rain had become very light. There are at least two fireflies watching places, this one and another one at Kampung Kuantan. I read a poor review of the other one, so decided to go for Kampung Bukit Belimbing. Upon arrival we asked the lady at the ticket counter whether the fireflies watching was still on, and she said yes. So off we went. It wasn't cheap. RM15 for adults and RM8 for children.

We enjoyed the tour very much. We shared a boat with 3 other young people. The boat has a silent engine, and does not use a pole like the other ones I have experienced. The boatman did two rounds with us, and the trip took close to half an hour. There were many fireflies to be seen. Shee Yun said the trees along the river were like Christmas trees. We caught fireflies and trapped them in our cupped hands to watch them closely. They were so small and light that we couldn't feel them fluttering in our hands. We couldn't really see the fireflies. We could only see their silhouettes when they light up. Shee Yun wasn't so keen about us capturing the fireflies. I think she was afraid we would hurt them. She asked us to let them go.

2 Dec 2011. Chen Rui and a real Christmas tree in KK.

The river was very tranquil. It was not completely dark. The sky was dimly lit. It was cloudy, and I think it was the light from nearby towns that lit up the sky, like how fog is lit up. After our eyes got used to the dimness, we could actually see quite well, a grey world, except for the yellow blinking fireflies. The rain stopped soon after we started the boat trip. There was a cool breeze, and no mosquitoes. It was quite nice.

The children fell asleep on the way home. We reached home at about 11pm.

photos - more from KK 2 of 2

2011-12-05T07:00:00.005+08:00

2 Dec 2011. Chen Rui a little shiny because Michelle ahd just applied sunblock for her.

3 Dec 2011. We brought the children to Tanjung Aru Beach on Saturday morning. Our flight was in the late afternoon so we still had time during the day.

Shee Yun saw many birds hovering.

As usual, Chen Rui collected hermit crabs and crabs. She lets them go before we leave.

Shee Yun looks like she stepped on something dirty.

Want to see what she's looking at?

Here it is. A bunch of hermit crabs, and one tiny crab.

I made the sand balls for them. The hermit crabs are all in the pink bucket now.

Chen Rui just made a sand crab.

The sand crab, which has a smiley face, and eight legs.

Shee Yun made this "sand man" the same way a snow man is made. It has a tiny shell as a hat. See that little white piece.

Michelle took this artsy photo.

Shee Yun struck this legs-crossed pose when she saw Michelle taking a photo.

The children with their Ah Gong and Ah Ma.

At the airport waiting for our flight, which was delayed by 20 minutes due to poor weather.

photos - more from KK 1 of 2

2011-12-04T14:49:00.004+08:00

26 Nov 2011. Ma and Shee Yun swimming together at Likas Complex. At first Ma wanted to bring the children to Golf & Country Club, but that day the pool was closed for a competition.

Chen Rui and I. She still says she doesn't want to learn to swim.

Shee Yun showing the victory sign.

27 Nov 2011. A beautiful Sunday morning at Tanjung Aru Beach.

We have one beach set in KK on standby.

Not wearing swim suits because we were there to play with sand only, and not to swim in the sea.

Not sure why she was frowning. Maybe she asked me to fetch water for her but I told her to get it herself.

I think that's Pulau Manukan in the background.

28 Nov 2011. The children often like to cut shapes out of paper.

This dress is getting a little short for Chen Rui.

30 Nov 2011. Shee Yun and Yung En.

2 Dec 2011. Shee Yun ready for another outing to the swimming pool.

photos - 3D movie glasses

2011-12-03T15:29:00.002+08:00

23 Nov 2011. Ma and Shee Yun, at the hotel in Tawau preparing to go for Fatima's wedding dinner.

26 Nov 2011. Shee Yun wearing 3D glasses. We were at the cinema at Suria Sabah watching Happy Feet 2.

Chen Rui and Michelle.

photos - Shee Yun then and now

2011-12-02T11:15:00.003+08:00

Michelle, Shee Yun and I, on 5 Jan 2007, almost 5 years ago. This was just after Chen Rui was born, still within Michelle's confinement period.

23 Nov 2011 at Fatima's wedding. How much my little girl has grown.

rules for eating rice

2011-11-29T18:38:00.003+08:00

Shee Yun follows some unwritten rules when she eats rice. Each spoonful of rice must be accompanied by some meat or vegetables, sometimes both. The relative quantity is that the rice must be slightly more than the meat or vegetable, about 70:30. These rules apply to noodles too, e.g. the 叉烧干捞面 that we often buy from the nearby Chinese coffee shop. If the rice (or noodles) runs out before the meat (or vegetables), she asks for more rice; and vice versa. Otherwise she tells us she has had enough and can't eat more.

24 Nov 2011. In Tawau with Ma.

At the hotel.

At the Tawau airport.

Yung En came for a sleepover. The three girls are having a lot of fun playing together. One game that they played is the school game. Some pretended to be teachers. Shee Yun pretended to be the canteen owner. She kept offering Michelle water, which Michelle had to pretend to pay for. Michelle drank so much (real) water that she felt full.

Ah Ma's home

2011-11-28T14:38:00.003+08:00

Ma has been playing with Shee Yun and Chen Rui a lot now that we are back in KK. The children love it. They always refer to home in KK as "Ah Ma's home" and not "Ah Gong's home". Ma often brought them to her garden to water the plants and flowers, which they enjoy a lot.

23 Nov 2011. Michelle and Shee Yun in Tawau.

Chen Rui often likes to stand in the car and I always have to tell her to sit down and fasten her seat belt.

We met Bee Bee and Xiao Ying at the groom's home. They are related to the groom. What a small world Tawau is. Shee Yun and Xiao Ying still remember each other, although it has been a long time since they last met.

Ma and the children at Ah Ni's home.

Look at what Chen Rui is doing.

Chen Rui again...

There's a book ship (or floating book fair) Logos Hope in port, and we brought the children to see it. Since it was drizzling, and parking space was scarce, I dropped Michelle and the girls at the entrance before I continued to look for a parking spot. While they were waiting for me, Shee Yun suddenly asked Michelle something which Michelle didn't understand. Shee Yun had to said it twice before Michelle realised it was in Malay - "Ayah di mana?" (where is father?). No idea why she suddenly decided to practise her Malay.

hard disk

2011-11-27T13:57:00.003+08:00

Ba says that Shee Yun plays the piano in the same way as Mei - very precisely, and that her style is different from mine, which is more stylised. I didn't know that's how Ba sees Mei and I piano styles.

Shee Yun is now eating more. Quite a few times she surprised us by finishing her food and asking for more. We need to adjust our estimation of the food she needs. At the dentist's on Friday, Lawrence said three of Shee Yun's teeth should be coming out soon. He suggested to extract them instead of waiting for them to fall by themselves, because if they don't fall soon enough, then can harden back and cause the new teeth to grow in an off direction. However the extraction process would involve an injection. So we preferred to let the teeth fall off by themselves. Shee Yun will need to wiggle them often to make sure they don't harden back and they will fall off soon. Now one of her front teeth in a permanent tooth, and the other one is still a baby tooth. Their sizes are very different so she looks funny.

24 Nov 2011. If you look closely you can see Shee Yun's two front teeth are of different sizes.

This morning we brought the children to the beach. They enjoyed themselves very much. We were there for about one an a half hours. They played by themselves and didn't ask us to play with them much. So we could just relax, enjoy the breeze, and watch them play. Shee Yun told us she built a crab hotel for the hermit crabs.

Shee Yun heard Michelle and I speak about the hard disk that we wanted to bring to Michelle's mum's place, and asked us what it was. She drew a round disc in the sand, and then drew a heart shape in it, and asked whether that was a "heart disk".

刚才

2011-11-26T22:45:00.004+08:00

晨睿讲“刚才”总是会讲成“刚孩”。

在斗湖的时候，煦芸晨睿参加婚礼觉得闷，我就跟她们玩一个找东西的游戏，就是以前我小的时候玩过的“I spy with my little eyes”。开始时我是讲明要找的东西，例如蓝色箱子、黄色建筑等等，后来跟煦芸玩的时候我就用更先进一点的方式，就是只给她那东西的英文字的第一个字母。这样可以顺便训练她的英文。有东西玩，她们就不吵着说闷，晨睿也不会吵着说要回酒店。

2011年11月23日。在二舅家等新郎来接新娘。

今天带她们去看Happy Feet 2，3D版的，她们都很喜欢。看住的时候煦芸讲眼睡，我就叫她靠着我睡，不过后来到了紧张的地方她又坐起来看得很投入。有些有争执的地方她会不喜欢，可是不会闹着要走。看玩了之后，她们两个都很开心，煦芸第一件事就跟我讲“是happy ending来的”。后来她还一直学Mumble跳tap dancing，也有唱那首 Dragos-la-dingdei（Chicken Little 里的歌）。

photos - fun with ah gong

2011-11-25T19:00:00.000+08:00

Tue 22 Nov 2011. Shee Yun playing with a boy at 二舅's home. I realised how much she has changed. When she was younger she was very afraid of strangers. She cried when we bring her to a friend or relative's home and didn't want to go inside. When she started school, she was a loner, always by herself and not mixing with other children. I think the most important thing she learned at her kindergarten is how to make friends.

Wed 23 Nov 2011. Chen Rui dressed up for Fatima's church wedding.

Both Shee Yun and Chen Rui like this tall chairs at the hotel.

These were the flower girl dresses they wore during Mei's wedding. One of Fatima's friends thought they were the flower girls this time too.

You can count on her being mischievous.

Showing off a new watch that Ma bought in Shenzhen for her. The strap is made of a special material. If you tap the watch against your wrist, the strap will snap around your wrist.

Ba always likes to play with Chen Rui.

Chen Rui slapping the watch on to Ba's wrist.

Boo hoo...

Fatima's wedding

2011-11-24T21:17:00.005+08:00

Fatima's wedding day was on Wednesday 23 Nov 2011. We were back in Tawau for three days for the whole event. When we reached 二舅's home, Shee Yun kept playing the piano. She really enjoyed it. When Ma arrived, she was even more enthusiastic in showing off her skills, but she was a little over-anxious and made some mistakes.

We visited Ah Ni who had just given birth to a baby boy. When Shee Yun saw a photo of a puppy at 姑丈's home, she said she wanted to see the puppy. When we reached Ah Ni's home, we all went to play with the two dogs before we saw the baby. One of the dogs was very active and Chen Rui was afraid of it. Shee Yun was a little afraid too but she was also keen to play with the dogs at the same time. She insisted she was not afraid. I gently scratched one of the dog's chest to calm it down, so that the girls could pat it, and they did.

Chen Rui got easily bored during the various ceremonies, and kept bugging us with "我要回hotel" (I want to go back to the hotel). Michelle brought a drawing pad, colour pencils, and a sticker book to the wedding banquet, and thankfully that kept her occupied enough that she didn't complain at all about leaving.

23 Nov 2011. Both Chen Rui and Shee Yun were bored to the extreme during the church ceremony, which was only a half-an-hour affair.

Chen Rui kept saying to me that she wanted to go back to the hotel.

There was much karaoke singing at the wedding banquet, starting from the entrance of the bride and groom. Shee Yun enjoyed the singing, and sometimes danced to the tunes, or rocked her head side to side to the rhythm. One song she particularly liked was Endless Love. Michelle told her she has the CD and would find it for her. Shee Yun listened to the lyrics of some of the songs and asked Michelle what they meant, e.g. "took my heart away".

Chen Rui grumpy because she was hot and she was not allowed to go back to the hotel.

At the hotel preparing to go to the wedding banquet.

Michelle and I.

Shee Yun and Chen Rui with "Fatima 姑姑".

二舅 and I.

thumb wrestling

2011-11-21T21:33:00.003+08:00

One day at a restaurant while waiting for our food, Shee Yun said she was bored, so I taught her thumb wrestling - the game where you lock hands with your opponent, and try to use your thumb to catch and hold down your opponent's thumb and then count to ten. I'm much stronger than her and my hand is much bigger, so if I play seriously I would beat her every time. So I let her win sometimes. She finds it very exciting and fun. Her favourite technique is hiding her thumb out of reach of mine immediately after the game starts. I have to leave my thumb in a vulnerable position to lure her into attacking. Sometimes she nails down my finger with just the right posture, using the second segment of her thumb to lock down the first segment of my thumb, and it is actually very hard to pull my thumb free. Sometimes she cheats a little and bends her arm such that the grip of her fingers come loose. It's all in good fun. She laughs so loudly.

30 Oct 2011. Shee Yun wearing her current favourite pair of shoes. I remember this pair of shoes was initially spotted by Chen Rui, but unfortunately the shop didn't have the size that fits Chen Rui.

The baby seal doll died again. The third incarnation called Lily just "died" today, and now the fourth incarnation is called Rose. So we now have Sally, Jolosa, Lily and Rose. At this rate the children are going to run out of names soon. Today both Michelle and I asked them when Rose will die. They said they didn't know. Okay, at least they didn't explicitly planned for it to die. When asked, they also said they didn't know how the baby seal died today.

This trip back to Sabah the children want to bring the baby seal. To my surprise, Shee Yun said she didn't want to bring Tubby, her favourite doll since she was a baby. I was quite surprised. Shee Yun explained to us that she is a big girl now. Now she still sleeps with Tubby. She puts Tubby on a small pillow next to her, and also covers Tubby's body with a blanket, which is a handerchief.

photos - school activities

2011-11-21T19:00:00.000+08:00

Shee Yun's classmate Chuan Huey's mother gave her a CD with some photos of Shee Yun and Chen Rui. Some were from last year. It's fun to see some older photos of the children and realise how much they have grown.

16 Nov 2010. Chen Rui joined the birthday celebration at school for all November and December birthday kids. She was wearing the school concert costume.

28 Jan 2011. Chuan Huey and Chen Rui. I like this photo of Chen Rui. She looks very girlish and sweet. This is not like her usual crazy self.

Chuan Huey, Shee Yun and Chen Rui.

26 Aug 2011. On the right is 禅子盈 (not sure of the characters, this is based on how Shee Yun pronounces it).

Do-Re-Mi

2011-11-19T15:53:00.003+08:00

Shee Yun asked me to play Do-Re-Mi (the song from The Sound of Music which goes "Do, a deer, a female deer") on the piano. She wanted me to play only using my right hand. I found that a little odd. I didn't think much about it, and I decided to play with both hands anyway, because it sounds nicer. She paid close attention and enjoyed the song. Afterwards, Michelle told me that Shee Yun had figured out by herself how to play the tune of Do-Re-Mi. She probably asked me to play it because she wanted to see whether I played it the same way as she did, or whether she played it correctly. Michelle has never printed any musical score for Do-Re-Mi for Shee Yun. Neither has the piano teacher Ms Chong. I was quite surprised. I think now I am starting to appreciate why Shee Yun's school teachers keep saying she is a genius.

The children's baby seal (toy), the one Chen Rui named Jolosa, died again. This was the second time they made their baby seal character die. Now the (third) baby seal is called Lily (pronounced with a very guai-low accent "Lil-lee"). I asked them how Jolosa died. They mentioned something about bad people. I suspect it has something to do with them leaving Jolosa downstairs overnight. I hope Lily will survive longer. The children are like the writer George R R Martin, who tends to kill off key characters in his books in the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Chen Rui has not been taking afternoon naps lately, because she plays with Shee Yun in the afternoon. They enjoy themselves very much playing pretend. Role-playing.

21 Oct 2011. Photos taken by Shee Yun's classmate Chuan Huey's (spelling?) mum. Shee Yun in her graduation robe accepting her cert from the headmaster.

Chee Ying, Chuan Huey, Shee Yun.

The toddler is Chuan Huey's younger sister.

Jolosa

2011-11-17T19:58:00.002+08:00

Jolosa is the name that Chen Rui gave to the white baby seal soft toy that she and Shee Yun have been playing with a lot. Chen Rui played the elder sister of the seal, and Shee Yun played the working mother, who carries a blue work file to work. I have no idea how Chen Rui came up with the name Jolosa. Mei used to give unique names to each of her dolls too. Jolosa is not the first baby seal though. In the pretend family there was a previous baby seal (using the same baby seal toy of course) named Sally, but it had died, so Jolosa is the second baby seal. How tragic. I hope Jolosa doesn't die soon. Chen Rui asked Michelle how to spell Liz. I hope she was just listing the options for names for Jolosa before she (yes, it's a girl seal) was named, and not planning to name a third baby seal.

13 Nov 2011. Chen Rui at the Tesco playground.

Shee Yun.

Today Shee Yun told me she has changed her mind about where she wants to work when she grows up. She now wants to work in KL. She explains that it is because she wants to be able to visit me without taking a flight. How sweet.

Now the girls can play by themselves the whole afternoon without bothering me at all. I think I miss their interruption a little, because I find myself checking up on them now and then, asking are you okay? Now they are probably the ones thinking of me as interruption to they play time.

frankincense

2011-11-16T19:01:00.000+08:00

I brought some frankincense back from Oman. It is one of their specialties. You burn it and it gives off a nice fragrance. The smell is not very strong. Michelle says she feels like she's at a beauty saloon / massage saloon. Shee Yun commented that it makes her feel relaxed, and both Michelle and I feel so too. The fragrance is a bit too strong if we put it in the bedroom, so I put it atop a bookshelf in the upstairs foyer. The fragrance comes into both the children's bedroom and ours. The equipment required to use the frankincense includes a small clay cup and disc-shaped coal. The coal is easy to light. Once lighted, it is put into the cup, and then a few small pieces of frankincense can be put onto it, and they will burn. The coal can last for maybe half an hour, enough to burn 2.5 batches of frankincense. The frankincense I bought was not expensive. It's probably just medium grade, but it smells nice enough.

Shee Yun told me she prefers hot weather. She said she doesn't like cold weather because it gives her a running nose. Chen Rui said she prefers cold weather. I had thought Malaysian would mostly prefer cold, because the weather here is so hot.

28 Oct 2011. Chen Rui used my iPhone to take photo of her shoes while in the car.

Chen Rui has yet another funny expression. When she feels mischievous, or when she is caught doing something naughty, she says "Heh.... " (sounds like a long "hair"), and while saying that she puts the tip of her tongue in front of her front teeth.

Chen Rui has been playing with a toy flute a lot (it's probably a recorder and not a flute). She says she wants to learn to play the flute. I tell her a real flute / recorder is still too big for her hands, and suggested that she learn the ocarina first. We have an ocarina bought in Taiwan. She didn't commit to it. Let's see whether her interest lasts. She said that she wanted to play in a band with both Shee Yun and I. Hopefully this means we will eventually be able to convince her to learn piano.

The King's Speech

2011-11-16T19:00:00.000+08:00

I watched The King's Speech on the flight from Muscat to KL, and liked it a lot. I knew it was a drama. I always have a weird relationship with dramas in general. I know I will likely enjoy such movies, but I have an instinctive urge to not sit down to watch them. Maybe it's because they command some emotional commitment. I am much less resistant when it comes to well-made comedies, like animation movies by Pixar. In general I tend to not watch much TV or movies. Somehow I don't have much interest in doing so. I tend not to seek out good movies to watch.

The King's Speech is about friendship and courage. There is some humour. The acting is excellent. No wonder it won so many awards.

bathing

2011-11-15T22:06:00.003+08:00

In the week that I was away, both Shee Yun and Chen Rui started bathing themselves. Now that I am back, they continue to do so. That's a good development. We fill the pail with warm water, and they sit on a low stool and bathe themselves. The water heater is too high for Shee Yun, but I was surprised to see her stand on the stool to turn off the water. I am happy the children are becoming more independent. Chen Rui still sometimes asks for help, e.g. to wash beh-bet, to dry her. Sometimes she takes a very long time. That's typical of her - doing things slowly.

This afternoon when I was working the girls play by themselves and did not need to trouble me at all. The played games they made up themselves. Shee Yun pretended to be a working mother of the white baby seal doll, and Chen Rui pretended to be its sister, which I guess would make Shee Yun her mother. Shee Yun even had a pretend work file. When I was working I saw them holding hands walking downstairs to do shopping. That's sweet. Only one thing makes me uncomfortable - they speak English to each other.

Michelle told me she took the opportunity of my absence to train the children. She told the children then when I was away, she still had to work while doing all the housework and taking care of them, so they needed to help her by taking care of themselves as much as they could. Shee Yun was considerate and said all these to Michelle. She said she would bathe herself. 很懂事.

Even in the evening Michelle did not accompany them as they went to bed. Chen Rui still asked Michelle to scratch her back, but after that Michelle left them to sleep by themselves. Now that I am back, we try to do the same, and I think this will work out.

7 Nov 2011. Michelle and the girls, Leisure Mall.

back from Oman

2011-11-14T17:23:00.003+08:00

I landed at KLIA at about 8am today. The flight was slightly delayed. I managed to sleep a total of about 3 hours on the flight. It was an interrupted sleep. So I still feel a little tired. I had thought about catching up with some sleep during the day, but I have been busy with various things that I only managed to take a nap at 4pm. I did the unpacking, did my laundry (one week worth of it), some admin work, and various errands.

I picked up the children after their art class. Michelle worked a full day at her office today. The children were very looking forward to me fetching them when Michelle told them about it. The first thing Shee Yun said to me when she saw me was how she missed me. Chen Rui kept accidentally calling me "Mama" today and then quickly correcting herself.

They liked the two small treasure chests that I bought for them in Oman. I bought different designs. One had red and green jewels on the cover (for Chen Rui), the other had a pattern of holes (for Shee Yun). Shee Yun seemed to think Chen Rui's is nicer, which I guess is not surprising because it has the "shiny" factor, as opposed to Shee Yun's which is the "elegant taste" type. I had to make something up. I explained that the jewels on Chen Rui's treasure chest look like sweets, and Chen Rui is the one who likes sweets more. The pattern on Shee Yun's treasure chest look like musical notes, and Shee Yun is the one who can play the piano, i.e. knows music. Shee Yun accepted my logic.

The one on the left is for Chen Rui, the one on the right for Shee Yun.

I have uploaded more photos taken during my trip, and they have captions. When I was there I asked Michelle to show the children the photos. Today I asked them which was their favourite. It turns out that their favourite is the one with orange juice, i.e. this one below.

They said they saw my foot in this photo. Of all things, a photo of the interior of a plane caught their attention more than any other photo.

The evening before my last day in Oman I went for a second round of souvenir shopping, and came across a postcard that really made me laugh. See this photo which I took on Tuesday 8 Nov 2011, followed by the postcard which I bought on Saturday 12 Nov 2011.

I must say I have some photography skills, having picked an almost exact same angle as a professional photo that was good enough to be made into a postcard.

And here are some photos taken with my Omani colleagues.

The white dishdasha robe and the hat are very commonly worn in Oman.

Krishnan is an Indian guy, not an Omani. There are many Indians working in Oman.

499/500

2011-11-13T01:53:00.003+08:00

I am not in KL, so I couldn't go for the children's report card day, which is today. Both of them scored 499/500 for their final exams, and were top of their classes. Michelle is very happy. She spends much more effort than I do in making sure they study, do revision, complete their homework, do extra exercises etc. Michelle had told Chen Rui that if she finishes her exam paper early, she should re-check her answers. Chen Rui remembered and did so during her exams, and her teacher was very surprised. No other pupil did this.

The school teachers were all very impressed with Shee Yun and Chen Rui. They think Shee Yun is a genius. I think it's because Shee Yun know many things which they don't expect her to know, e.g. knowing "hexagon" when she was still three (the principal Mrs. Ng still remembers that). Shee Yun likes learning and seeks out new things to learn, so it doesn't surprise me that she knows more things than her peers. I guess it's natural that the teachers are surprised by her knowledge. Mrs. Ng's daughter studied child education at university and had analysed Shee Yun's behaviour before, when Shee Yun just joined the play group (i.e. 3-year-old class). She said that Shee Yun often spoke to herself, and was selective about who to befriend, and did not mix around much.

26 Oct 2011. We went for a dinner at the Palace of the Golden Horses, and Shee Yun wanted to wear this, her dance costume for the school concert. Notice that she wore jewellery, a toy necklace and a toy bracelet.

There was a birthday celebration at school celebrating birthdays of November and December. We hadn't prepared any cake for Chen Rui to bring to school to share with her classmates. Chen Rui told Michelle that she wished she had a cake to bring to school. Michelle said she was sorry for not preparing a cake. Chen Rui consoled her and said never mind, that she could do it next year.

Shee Yun is learning back stroke at her swimming class now. She finds it difficult. Michelle told her it's easy, saying that even she knows it. Shee Yun was surprised.

The 1/500 marks that Shee Yun and Chen Rui lost were both because of incorrect Chinese characters.

Naak

2011-11-10T00:46:00.003+08:00

One thing that Chen Rui often does that annoys Michelle is the Naak expression. She winces her eyes and says "Naak" in a defiant manner. She is trying to express something, just that instead of using words, she finds this a better and more accurate representation of what she wants to deliver. One scenario in which this happens is when she has done something wrong but not too serious, and we chastise her for it, e.g. she has left her toys scattered about and has not tidied up. She knows she is in the wrong, and that she is in no position to object, but she doesn't want to meekly "admit defeat". So, "Naaak!".

Michelle tells her not to do that, saying it's ugly.

5 Nov 2011. A series of photos showing the various faces of Chen Rui. 千姿百态.

Muscat, Oman

2011-11-09T00:35:00.002+08:00

I'm on a business trip in Muscat, Oman, and here are some photos taken during the trip.

iced lemon tea

2011-11-08T03:16:00.002+08:00

Shee Yun just discovered that she really likes iced lemon tea. I often drink iced lemon tea, making it using instant packs. Recently she said she wanted to try it, and she liked it immediately. So for the past few days I made some for her.

Shee Yun is now playing Sid Meier's Pirates on the iPad, and enjoying it a lot. It's a very open game when you can play pirate, adventurer, trader, romantic, revenge-seeker, or all at the same time. When Shee Yun picked her character strength, she decided to pick Wit and Charm, i.e. the ladies in the game will be more easily attracted to her (the main character in the game is a man). She got to know many governor's daughters in the game, and all of them liked her, to different degrees. She danced with them, charmed them, and even bought a ruby ring for one of them, and completely swept her off her feet. (Shee Yun at first pronounce "ruby" as "rub-bee", since she didn't know the word) Then once when I watched her play, she visited one of the governors' daughters who was deeply in love with her, and the governor's daughter hinted at Shee Yun to ask the governor for her hand in marriage. I explained to Shee Yun what the dialogue in the game meant. I said if she proposed, the governor's daughter would be very happy, but her other girlfriends would probably get rather upset. Shee Yun seemed to feel uneasy about having to make this decision. I think she felt bad about rejecting the lady, and at the same time she didn't want to upset her other love interests. She didn't want to commit to marriage, and decided so, but she probably felt bad about rejecting her lover (her character said, "Sorry, got to go!"). As expected, the spurned lady got angry with her.

Afterwards Shee Yun kept asking me why the governor's daughter wanted to marry her. I explained that it was because she was very in love with her.

Shee Yun says "爱" very easily. To her "爱" and "love" are the same thing. To me, "love" is much easier to say than "爱". To children, there is no difference. I can say to the children "I love you", but it feels awkward saying "我爱你". However, Shee Yun has no hesitance or shyness in saying "我很爱你的", "我爱你", "她们都很很爱我的" (this third phrase is referring to the governors' daughters in Pirates).

23 Oct 2011. I told Shee Yun I wanted to take a photo of her, and this was the pose she immediately struck.

I told her to just stand like normal, so she toned down a bit.

I am on a business trip to Oman now. Michelle told me that after I left, both the children said they missed me and both looked like they wanted to cry. I hadn't expected them to be that sentimental. When Michelle's mum returned to KK after a short stay, Chen Rui said she missed her too. I guess the children do miss us when we are not around.

Xi4 Yoon2

2011-11-06T11:12:00.003+08:00

That's how Chen Rui calls Shee Yun sometimes - "Xi4 Yoon2!". Sometimes it's "Shee4 Yoon2!". She never calls her sister 姐姐. Sometimes I remind her, but she doesn't bother with it. Maybe it's because Shee Yun calls her by her name anyway, and both Michelle and I call Shee Yun 煦芸, so calling by 姐姐 probably feels strange to her.

26 Oct 2011. Shee Yun and Chen Rui waiting for their food at a restaurant.

Since Shee Yun said she was not interested in the library books anymore, I tried a different tact yesterday when we were there. Instead of story books with creative drawings, I tried non-fiction books. I asked her whether she wanted "science books", and she was immediately interested. When I picked one and offered it to her, she was instantly absorbed in the book. These are still children's science books, so they do have many photos and pictures. So this time I borrowed quite a number of non-fiction books for her.

This morning Shee Yun did some bird-watching again, from the computer room window. There were sparrows chirping, perched on a window sill or on power (or phone) cables. She used her toy binoculars, and even tried to take a photo using the (non-toy) digital camera. Too bad the zoom power is low. She didn't manage to take any photo.

bathing

2011-11-04T19:00:00.002+08:00

Suddenly Shee Yun started bathing herself. She asked us to just fill the pail with warm water, and she'd do the rest, i.e. including drying herself. It's actually well past time that she starts bathing herself. She is definitely old enough for it. Admittedly it has only been two days in a row, so I can't even call it a trend yet, but hopefully this will be permanent.

I am also hoping to stop having to accompany the children at their bedtime. Shee Yun doesn't really need it, but Chen Rui always wants someone to accompany her for a while, even if it is just 10 minutes. I don't need to wait for Chen Rui to fall asleep. She'll let me go after she feels I have accompanied her long enough.

I lost my temper with Chen Rui when she wanted to bathe herself. I was reading something and she kept interrupting me every few minutes, asking for this and that. She wanted me to wash her "beh bet". I told her to wash it herself. If she wanted to bathe herself she should wash it herself. Then she said to me she didn't want her hand to become smelly. What?! Eventually she started crying in the bathroom and I had to wash her and dry her and get the rest done anyway. I told her if she wanted to bathe herself next time, she must do everything herself and not play and dilly-dally in the bathroom and expect me to attend to her every few minutes. She has bathed herself in the past, after asking Michelle's permission. Michelle tells her no playing or wasting time in the bathroom, and doesn't have to attend to her all the time. Michelle doesn't have much problem with Chen Rui, but Chen Rui often makes me lose my temper. I told Michelle 你生了晨睿是来尅我的.

But Chen Rui often likes to run to me and hug my legs, which is sweet. Managing her can be quite a roller-coaster ride.

23 Oct 2011. Chen Rui usually wears long pants with this short dress.

Special Move Assist on

2011-11-02T19:00:00.002+08:00

Shee Yun has been enjoying Street Fighter IV on the iPad a lot, learning more and more characters now. In addition to Chun Li, she now knows how to play C. Viper, Cammy and M. Bison too. It's no surprise that she learned all the female characters first. She often likes to challenge me to a versus game. Nowadays I can beat her more easily. Sometimes I let her win, to give her some confidence. If she loses a few matches in a row, her play style becomes too timid and defensive, and she doesn't release her potential.

One thing had been puzzling us for some time. Some time ago we found that the combinations (of joystick movements and button presses) to make special moves had changed to become much easier. It was good for casual play. It was fun, although it was also less challenging. However, after some time the combinations for the iPad reverted to the original harder ones, and Shee Yun struggled with it because she was used to the easier ones. I had thought it was due to updates to the application, or some built-in logic that decided whether you should be ready for the harder combinations. Eventually it was Shee Yun who found out the true reason. The type of combination actually depends on a setting called Special Move Assist. If it is on, the easier combinations are used. I'm quite proud of Shee Yun for having solved this mystery.

23 Oct 2011. Shee Yun and Chen Rui. Shee Yun is wearing a hair band used during her school performance.

One thing that I play with Chen Rui is the pencil game. I carry her upside down and use her like a giant pencil to write imaginary words in the air. She finds it very funny. She always likes doing crazy or unusual things. Yesterday when she felt lazy and didn't want to get up from the floor to go to her bed, I said if she didn't get up, I'd drag her along the floor to her bed. When I grabbed her legs, at first she said no, but immediately after that she realised it was something crazy to do and she said she wanted me to do it. Chen Rui is very playful.

photos - asleep in the car

2011-10-31T19:34:00.004+08:00

16 Oct 2011. Chen Rui fell asleep in the car.

Shee Yun.

17 Oct 2011. This was a book that Shee Yun asked us to buy for her at the Big Bad Wolf book fair recently. It's a book about the moon, about myths and legends, science related to the moon, the history of sending astronauts to the moon, even the geography of the moon. We were quite surprised.

This is definitely not a children's book. Lately Shee Yun has been telling us she has no interest in the book we borrow for her from the library. I asked her why, and she said she liked this moon book.

The book also mentions the legend of Chang Er (嫦娥).

A map of the moon.

23 Oct 2011. Our front garden is overgrown with this climbing plant. It produces tiny fruits, which are light green in colour and look like cylinders.

26 Oct 2011. Recently both the girls have been playing with wooden blocks a lot.

A house they built. It even has furniture.

We had Japanese dinner at the Palace of the Golden Horses (a hotel), and we explored the hotel a little after dinner. When Chen Rui saw this comfortable-looking, this was what she did. She even took off her shoes.

29 Oct 2011. Chen Rui fell asleep in the car again. This usually happens in the late afternoon if she doesn't nap.

self-conscious

2011-10-29T17:46:00.001+08:00

Yesterday Chen Rui did nap in the afternoon, and by the time we were on the way to the ballet class, she was tired and fell asleep in the car. She didn't want to get up when we arrived, and Michelle had to carry her. She was already awake, but still groggy. However, the moment that we reached the front door of the ballet school, she was suddenly alert and wanted to walk by herself. I think she didn't want to be seen being carried. She'd feel ashamed. 原来也会有自觉。

14 Oct 2011. Chen Rui after ballet class.

Chen Rui often sticks her tongue out when she feels defiant or mischievous. We tell her that's ugly. I said I'd tell Fu Shee Wen (her boyfriend) about it. I asked her why she liked him. She said he's silly. I guess she means funny.

Shee Yun's swimming teacher has started teaching her diving. She drops her goggles and asks the class to dive down to the bottom of the pool to pick it up. I think that's good. That makes the lessons interesting and fun. It is also good for getting Shee Yun comfortable with being in water.

I hope Chen Rui will not give us trouble when I want to get her to start swimming lessons and piano lessons. Shee Yun has always been keen to learn new things, but so far Chen Rui always says no when we tell her we will start her on those lessons next year. She is only doing ballet lessons now (other than the extra lessons at school).

Fu Shee Wen

2011-10-28T19:00:00.000+08:00

Today when I fetched Chen Rui from school, she showed me a sticker that her schoolmate Fu Shee Wen (may not be exact spelling) had given her. She told me he's a boy, and that he is tall. I asked her why he gave her the sticker, and whether it was because he liked her. She said to me simply that he's her boyfriend. Wow. That's direct. Chen Rui's criteria for a good boyfriend seems to be just height.

11 Oct 2011. Chen Rui on our bed.

Shee Yun has been telling us many times that when she grows up she will work in Australia. I am not sure why she is always so sure about it. I guess she is already assuming that she will study in Australia when she is older. She speaks about working there more than about studying there. She seems to like the idea of working and earning money herself.

I just discovered that the Civilization Revolution game English version is now available on the iPad. I bought it for Shee Yun. It's quite amazing that she enjoys such a complex game. It's much simplified than the PC game version, but still there are many aspects to developing a civilisation from the bronze age to the modern age. Maybe the interface is simple enough for her to explore the game herself at her own pace. The first time I played a Civilization game was when I was 25 or so. Shee Yun started at 6.

chore list

2011-10-26T10:26:00.002+08:00

Shee Yun recently created a chore list and stuck it to the wall in her bedroom. The list shows a number of household chores, and the corresponding fee for performing them. She saw this in one of the exercise books, so she made one for herself. I'm not sure whether it's exactly the same as the one in the exercise book, or she made some changes. Only one of the chores is applicable - making our bed for 50 sen per service. We don't let her do dishes (which is an RM2 chore) yet. Michelle had promised her and Chen Rui before that she would give them 50 sen each every day as pocket money. Shee Yun usually remembers to collect her due, but Chen Rui usually forgets. Shee Yun says that now that she can earn money by herself, she doesn't need the pocket money anymore. So the net result is we are still giving her 50 sen per day, but we get an extra service of having our bed made for us. That's a good deal isn't it? Well, it's actually no big deal, because we don't make our beds anyway.

Now Shee Yun has about RM42. She enjoys collecting money. I wonder whether she learned to enjoy this from the iPad and computer games that she plays. This is real-life money, so of course it's even more fun. She is looking forward to reach RM50, so that she can "upgrade" to a single RM50 note by exchanging with Michelle her smaller notes and coins.

15 Oct 2011. Shee Yun knows how to tie a butterfly knot now.

今天有没有去school o？

2011-10-25T19:00:00.000+08:00

晨睿还是时常会这样问，尤其是在周末。“今天有没有去school o？” 我就会反问她今天是星期几。她会知道是星期天（或星期六），然后我就再问她星期天要不要去school，这样她就自己回答了自己的问题。

晨睿虽然比煦芸凶、不像煦芸那样“弱质女流”、也比较粗鲁，可是她也是很容易哭的。有的时候为一点小事就要哇一声的喊（很烦），然后如果不顺她的意的话就会发脾气、会哭。她时常很本能反应的因为小小事就举手打煦芸，然后煦芸也很本能反应的来跟我或Michelle打小报告。晨睿跟她讲sorry，可是煦芸还是会来求救，这样晨睿就会觉得很委屈，会开始哭。煦芸虽然是很“弱质女流”，可是有的时候是很霸道的，如果她自己做一些事做不好，晨睿又在旁边多事、烦她，会被她骂。不过还好煦芸不会打人。煦芸虽然被骂容易哭，可是她通常是很执着的，叫她做一件事如果她不想做，就算是哭，她还是坚持不做，或一问再问可不可以不做。

这些就是孩子会让人头痛的时候。当然有更多开心的时候。

现在晨睿时常在睡觉前要我们帮她抓背。她觉得很爽。有的时候会要massage。睡觉时间，我还是会带着laptop去她们房间陪他们一下，不过往往过了一下子如果她们还没睡着，反而是她们问我怎么还没有出去。我会帮晨睿盖被，然后big hug、big kiss。煦芸睡上格床，就比较难一点。

2011年10月21日。晨睿和Michelle。

我叫晨睿把腊纸袋拿开再拍一张，不要遮住她的旗袍。

煦芸的同班同学。

还有同学的妹妹。

晨睿喜欢这扇子。

midnight pee

2011-10-23T20:54:00.003+08:00

Michelle's mum is in town and she shares Shee Yun and Chen Rui's room. One night, in the middle of the night, she was awaken by Shee Yun getting up to take a pee at the potty. Shee Yun was half asleep (well, probably more than half). After she was done, she lost her sense of direction, and instead of going to the ladder leading up to her upper bunk bed, she went to a wall and tried to climb it. I wonder whether this happens all the time, just that Michelle and I aren't there to see it.

21 Oct 2011. Chen Rui the little China doll with her trophy.

Shee Yun with Chee Ying.

Michelle's mum was in town so she could attend the concert.

Lately I am doing better than Shee Yun in Street Fighter IV. I wonder whether it is because I have improved or she is doing worse. It may be the latter. She seems to be less aggressive and less confident in attacking, the more so when she starts losing more games to me. SF4 is still a special time for the two of us. We don't play every day, sometimes just once in a while, but it's fun to engage in something fun and exciting together.

school concert

2011-10-22T14:28:00.004+08:00

This year the school concert is earlier than in past years, and it's on a weekday evening, as opposed to in the afternoon on a weekend. The school had difficulty booking the hall. The children did well in their performance. Chen Rui's class did a Chinese fan dance. Shee Yun's class did a 60's twist dance. Both of them did win awards. Both were top of their classes. When Chen Rui's name was read out, she was so happy that she hopped gaily to the principal to accept her award. Michelle and I suspect that the awards are of the 分猪肉 type, i.e. the school tries to give awards to as many children as possible and doesn't 100% follow the actual results. No child received more than one award yesterday. Chee Ying got an award for doing the speech, and Michelle and I suspect she probably should have won one of the overall excellence awards, because she's usually the top few of the class too. Shee Yun and Chen Rui probably should have won others like ejaan, 听写, spelling. Perhaps many children got full marks (it's kindergarten afterall), so the teachers decide to give the awards to one of the full marks pupils who doesn't have any other award yet.

Both Shee Yun and Chen Rui received their RM10 from Michelle, as Michelle had promised. When we were in the car, Chen Rui said she wanted RM5. We were surprised. Then she clarified. She meant she wanted RM5 and also RM10. Of course we said no. A deal is a deal.

21 Oct 2011. Shee Yun all dressed up for her school concert (except for make-up).

Chen Rui was unwilling to have her photo taken. But she looks good in 旗袍 right?

Chen Rui likes her Chinese fan dance very much. She enjoyed herself very much when on stage.

Shee Yun on stage.

With Chee Ying. Notice Chen Rui 翘脚.

$10

2011-10-20T19:00:00.000+08:00

Michelle saw Shee Yun checking the cash in the petty cash purse. At first Michelle thought she wanted to change her accumulated money into a bigger note. Shee Yun told Michelle that Michelle need to prepare a $10 note. She remembered what Michelle had promised her earlier, that for each trophy that she (or Chen Rui) wins she will be given $10. Michelle asked her, how would you know that you are going to win a trophy? Shee Yun smiled and gave her a conspiratorial wink and said, "I think 我有 lo4".

I guess we will find out on Friday, the school concert.

15 Oct 2011. Shee Yun.

Michelle's mum is in town and will be watching the children perform. For the past few days they have been playing with the wooden blocks a lot. Chen Rui built a stage and used the wooden cylinders as performers. They have been rehearsing a lot for the concert lately.

how to mix blue

2011-10-18T19:00:00.001+08:00

Chen Rui asked me how to mix blue. I had no idea. Isn't blue a primary colour? Then Shee Yun told me the solution - you need dark blue and light blue.

Chen Rui came up with another solution. It was even more elegant. You just need blue and blue.

Never underestimate children. They have the ability to see things adults don't see.

15 Oct 2011. Chen Rui was watching Shee Yun play with my iPhone when she realised that I was taking a photo. So she did this.

The children speak Mandarin to us, but they still speak English to each other. I had hoped they would gradually switch to Mandarin, but instead they are speaking English more fluently. I am a little disturbed by that. Does that mean they will grow up marrying foreigners? I'm crazy.

Shee Yun has created her own ID and password for a children's website about horses. I was surprised when I found out.

photos - for the wall

2011-10-17T19:00:00.001+08:00

13 Oct 2011. These are what Shee Yun currently have stuck to her wall. There are three rectangles of present paper, leftovers from when Michelle used present paper to wrap storage boxes for the children to put their things. On the left are dress-up stickers from Gillian. You can stick and change clothes for the girl stickers. Shee Yun still has one main doll - Tubby.

Chen Rui also has two squares of present paper on her wall.

Chen Rui asked me to draw princesses with elaborate dresses, so that she could colour them. Now I'm a fashion designer too.

By Chen Rui. Such looooong bodies!

That is the little Lego caterpillar. Chen Rui creates some exam questions for it. Caterpillar got all of them right, and Chen Rui marked the exam paper for it, just like a real teacher.

14 Oct 2011. Chen Rui made these. I wonder whether they are meant to be us - the whole family.

16 Oct 2011. Shee Yun and Chen Rui made this house together. Those blocks inside are supposed to be furniture I think.

Shee Yun took this photo of Chen Rui.

Shee Yun tells me this is Clock City. It has many clocks. Both girls built this together.

sharpening pencils

2011-10-15T19:06:00.003+08:00

This morning Shee Yun and Chen Rui took out a whole bunch of pencils which Michelle had bought for Yung En and sharpened them. They like sharpening pencils. I have no idea why.

Recently Chen Rui started to want to bathe herself. There has been quite a number of days when Michelle prepared a pail of warm water for her, and she bathed herself, and only asked for help to dry her after she is done. I didn't know about this earlier, and one day when I applied shampoo to her hair she got upset with me. She said she wanted to bathe herself.

We have tried to get Shee Yun to start bathing herself before, but somehow we lapsed back to bathing her. It's not that she doesn't have enough determination. It is us.

Shee Yun is quite friendly. Yesterday when we brought the children to ballet class, she waved happily at the jaga at the car park. Sometimes on weekdays when I bring her to buy lunch at the Chinese coffee shop, she says bye-bye to the uncle or aunty of the 干捞面 stall.

2 Oct 2011. Chen Rui made a house for the little caterpillar, that little green and yellow Lego thing with two eyes in the middle, surrounded by its friends / visitors.

Chen Rui took this photo. You can see her hair and her hand in the mirror.

This photo was taken by Chen Rui too. The children's bookshelf is getting rather full. On the left you can see the potty, the rubbish bin and the laundry basket, which look like Russian dolls side by side. No wonder Shee Yun had once sat on the rubbish bin by mistake when she was half-asleep.
That laundry basket is actually a soft toy storage container from Ikea. It is not actually intended to be a laundry basket.

Chen Rui's army of soft toys (and pillows) on her bed. This reminds me of Mei.

horror story

2011-10-14T19:00:00.003+08:00

One night around midnight, as I was squatting next to the bedroom door plugging in my iPhone to the charger, I heard a sound outside the door. It was the door of the children's room opening. I knew one of them must have waken up and was coming to our room. When our door opened, it was Chen Rui, with blood all over her mouth and neck, and some on her pyjamas. It was quite a shocking sight. She would have scared me if I hadn't heard her coming. She had had a nosebleed while sleeping, and it didn't wake her immediately. Some of the blood had dried. I brought her to her bathroom to clean her up. She starting crying, which woke Michelle, but surprisingly didn't wake Shee Yun who was much nearer. It was quite a big mess and it took quite some time to clean up all the dried blood on her face and neck. Michelle discovered that she had also wet her bed, so Michelle had to change the bedsheet. Chen Rui had not wet her bed for a long time. She probably panicked when she woke up finding such a severe nosebleed, thus causing her to wet her bed.

This incident reminded me of how Shee Yun used to vomit in the middle of the night quite often.

11 Oct 2011. This is how Chen Rui sometimes makes our bed for us. Notice Michelle's smaller, thinner blanket underneath. Chen Rui has the main blanket incorrectly rotated 90 degrees. But now that I take a closer look, I wonder whether I'm the one who has it incorrectly rotated all this while. Hmmm...

She usually doesn't tuck herself in like this. She just lies down on the blanket, or dance on it, or jump on it. When I asked whether she wanted to take a photo of her work, she did this.

Shee Yun likes garlic. When Michelle cooks something with garlic, she can smell it and she happily shouts "Garlic!". Shee Yun says that being fond of garlic means she is not a zombie. In the Plants vs Zombies game you can plant garlic for defense. The zombies hate it. They take a bite and go blaarrghh, and then switch to a different lane.

I started playing Civilization Revolution on the iPhone recently, a USD0.99 purchase. It was a Chinese version though. Still no English version for Malaysia. It is a much simplified version, but still interesting enough. Shee Yun was very interested when she saw me play, and she is now playing it too. However there is too much Chinese text that she can't recognise, so she needs to keep asking me to read and explain to her. It's quite a complex game to teach, but she likes it.

Yesterday afternoon when I was home with the children, Shee Yun suddenly disappeared. She was upstairs and Chen Rui was downstairs. Chen Rui came up to ask me to open something (some food) for her, and after she returned downstairs, I turned around to find Shee Yun missing. I called her name, but she didn't respond. Afterwards she came out from hiding from behind the computer room door. I asked her why she hid herself. She whispered that she mustn't let Chen Rui see her, or Chen Rui would demand her company downstairs (我不要晨睿看到我不然晨睿要我陪). That is quite true indeed. Chen Rui often wants someone to accompany her.

Spiderman

2011-10-12T19:00:00.000+08:00

The children still sometimes ask me to tell them bedtime stories, although lately I usually say no because I can't think of any new stories to tell them. Once I told them about the origin story of Spiderman, how he became very strong and could climb walls because he was bitten by a spider. I told them about Spiderman being unhelpful and not helping some policemen stop a robber when he could have done so easily, and then later on it was the some robber who robbed and killed his uncle. I wonder whether that was a bit too grisly for the children. They were very absorbed in the story. In order not to scare them too much, I try to end every story on a positive note. So the Spiderman story ended with the moral that one should always help others when possible. And of course I didn't forget the famous line: With great power comes great responsibility.

手帕

2011-10-11T19:00:00.002+08:00

跟煦芸冲凉的时候，她把手帕浸进水桶里，然后拿出来挂在桶的边缘。湿透的手帕在滴水。她说：“手帕在小便”。我记得这好像是Michelle教她们的。没想到她还记得。

2011年10月2日。煦芸在OTK玩游戏。

我跟晨睿复习英文，准备考试。问到zero的时候……

晨睿：“你是zero。”
我：“我是one hundred。”
晨睿：“你是zero，我是one hundred。”
我：“我是one thousand。”
晨睿：“我是one million。”
我：“我是one billion。”
晨睿：“我是one zillion。”
我：“我是infinity。”
晨睿：“我是infinity-boongboong。”

我忍不住大笑。Michelle在和煦芸复习中文，听到也大笑。原来有比infinity更大的东西。

undress

2011-10-10T19:00:00.002+08:00

Chen Rui still often asks me to help her take off her T-shirt or dress (but not her pants or underwear). I'm not sure whether she really doesn't know how to take off her T-shirt by herself. Maybe her head is too big and it's difficult for her. But then after I lift up her T-shirt (flip it inside out over her face), she can pull out her arms by herself, and then use her arms to pull the T-shirt off her head. It doesn't seem that hard. Perhaps she just struggles with the first step of the procedure.

Sometimes when we ask her whether her head is big, she smiles shyly and says just a little.

Lately Chen Rui has been fond of chicken nuggets and sometimes she asks for it. Unfortunately she is not yet willing to try other types of meat yet. Sometimes we need to control her a little. Nuggets are not exactly healthy food.

Shee Yun is finally fully recovered now. Just in time for her school exams which start today. She has been sick since last Monday evening. She is mostly recovered by Sunday evening. That's almost one full week.

2 Oct 2011. Chen Rui and Shee Yun taking a photo with the little plant by the roadside.

dancing

2011-10-09T16:54:00.003+08:00

Chen Rui often dances while watching TV. Sometimes she swings some object, or dances with her hajimat. If she is caught doing that, she feels embarassed and smiles and stops, sometimes even hiding herself out of view. She really enjoys herself.

Sometimes if she watches TV in our bedroom, she arranges our bed for us. We usually don't fold our blankets. She spreads our blankets flat to cover the whole bed neatly.

9 Oct 2011. Chen Rui playing with a balancing clown game. We didn't really know the rules. We were guessing that the objective was to place as many cylinders without the clown toppling, which should be not too far off.

flu virus

2011-10-08T21:16:00.001+08:00

Shee Yun's flu, which started on Monday evening as a fever, still hasn't fully gone away. Michelle brought her to the doctor again this morning, as the doctor had instructed if Shee Yun hadn't fully recovered. The doctor advised to do a blood test. When Michelle called and told me about it I really felt sorry for Shee Yun for having to go through this. Michelle was worried sick. She worried it might be something very very bad. I didn't expect it to be anything too serious, but I just pitied Shee Yun that she had to do blood extraction. Shee Yun was terrified of the syringe, and didn't want to take blood from the inside of her elbow joint, so the doctor used a different method and took blood from the back of her hand. He was only able to extract very little blood, and when Michelle brought the sample to the lab (at a different location) the lab people said they needed more. So they pricked Shee Yun's finger to get more blood. When the doctor took blood it didn't hurt so much, but the finger prick hurt. Thankfully itt wasn't too bad and by the time Shee Yun reached home she looked fine to me.

Her blood was fine. The doctor said it was just a strong and more-stubborn-than-average flu virus. He gave a stronger medicine for Shee Yun's cough to replace the other one she had been taking. Today she skipped her swimming class. This morning her fever came back and she seemed a little sick, but by the time she reached the clinic it had gone away. For the rest of today she seemed fine. Not tired like Thursday. She was weakest on Thursday and slept a lot.

We have been playing more Street Fighter IV. Yesterday's score was Shee Yun 5, me 1. Today's score was Shee Yun 2, me 2. I really need to play hard to be able to beat her.

Why am I teaching my daughter fighting games?!! *Facepalm*

2 Oct 2011. Shee Yun playing with some game compontents at OTK.

Chun Li vs Ryu

2011-10-05T21:39:00.004+08:00

Shee Yun is having a flu. It is mostly fever. A little running nose, sore throat. The doctor says she may start coughing soon. She has skipped school for two days, and will be skipping school tomorrow too. She is very obedient when knows she is sick. In the evening she tells us she wants to sleep early. She naps in the afternoons too. Some of the medication the doctor gave are optional. Michelle asked Shee Yun whether her nose was blocked. Shee Yun said yes. Michelle said then she would need to take the medication for the blocked nose. Shee Yun immediately said it was just a little bit blocked. She didn't like taking medication. But she doesn't give us any trouble with the medication that she does need to take.

The other day when I was eating ice-cream as dessert for lunch, Shee Yun very seriously told me I should not eat too much ice-cream, because it is unhealthy. Gosh... she is such a disciplinarian. She really is the do-things-by-the-book type of person.

Today I played two games of Street Fighter IV against Shee Yun. As usual, I used Ryu and she used Chun Li. She beat me soundly using mainly two special attacks - one medium-long range flip kick, and the grab-and-throw. I could not fight back at all. She attacked vigorously and I had little chance to counter-attack. She completely controlled the pace. I am amazed. Well, not that I'm a strong player in the first place, but still it is amazing how quickly she learns.

2 Oct 2011. Shee Yun noticed this little plant by the roadside and said she wanted to take a photo with it. It's the same type of plant that grew in our driveway earlier.

photos - extra homework

2011-10-04T19:00:00.001+08:00

27 Sep 2011. Last week I had some recurring stomach aches (no diarrhea and no vomiting though) that lasted for more than a day. Thankfully it wasn't bad enough to need a visit to the emergency ward like the incident a few months ago. When the children learned of my condition, they drew these get well soon cards for me.
This one is by Shee Yun. She never calls me "Daddy", but when she made the card she wrote "Daddy".

This one is by Chen Rui. Both cards were made using recycled paper, i.e. one-side used paper.

30 Sep 2011. Chen Rui in her ballet costume.

Chen Rui likes this type of hair clip nowadays. Sometimes she tries to put one on by herself.

2 Oct 2011. Michelle sometimes makes additional homework for the children to do, and sometimes she reuses exercises that they have done before. For Chen Rui, she sometimes copies previous exercises that Shee Yun has done. This is one such exercise.

This is the hand copied version. Sometimes Michelle gets me to do the drawings. I did some of the drawings on this page.

no unhealthy food

2011-10-02T21:20:00.004+08:00

Shee Yun often tells us that she doesn't want to eat certain types of food because they are unhealthy. She is the type of person who always wants to do the right things. Today we wanted to have a light dinner at home, and offered to cook instant noodles for her, the Indomie mi goreng which she likes (she calls it "black sauce 面"). She surprised us by saying she didn't want it anymore because it was unhealthy. Eventually she had bread and butter for dinner. We had bread too.

Shee Yun now challenges me to one-on-one fighting in Street Fighter IV, with her using the iPad and me using the iPhone. She uses Chun Li and I use Ryu. She can beat me. I don't really need to try to let her win. Sometimes I simply can't beat her. Well, it's not that I'm particularly good at this game in the first place.

Shee Yun and Chen Rui did some modeling today. A friend asked for help to get them to be children models for a brochure, which is related to how boardgames are used as educational tools. Michelle and I brought them to Jeff and Wai Yan's school / shop / boardgame centre this morning. This is also where I sometimes play boardgames on Friday nights. The children tried various games and enjoyed themselves. We liked one of the games, The Kids or Carcassonne and decided to buy a copy. Wai Yan gave it to us as a gift. So that's Shee Yun and Chen Rui's modeling fees for their first modeling assignment.

2 Oct 2011. Shee Yun and Chen Rui playing Spot It. Michelle has ordered a copy.

Posing for the photo-shoot. The boy is 5-years old, his name is Jun Xiang. Later the photographer did photos of them playing games for real.

This is where I sometimes game on Friday nights.

All three children know this game (Chicken Cha Cha Cha), so there was no need to teach them.

The girls nowadays help themselves to the painting equipment without asking us. In the past they always asked first. Now it is 先斩后奏. They often make a mess. That's why we usually want them to ask for permission first. After a few times of doing painting themselves, I think there's no turning back now. I guess it's also a good thing - that they become more independent. They usually pack away their own toys after playing now, although sometimes they need to be reminded.

Shee Yun has learned to be more patient now. In the past when she wants me to do something for her or to play with her, she wants me to do it immediately. Now, if she sees that I'm doing something, before I even tell her no or tell her later, she asks me whether I can help her or play with her after I'm done with whatever I'm doing. Since she is so considerate, it's hard to say no to her.

xylophone

2011-10-01T19:44:00.002+08:00

The tap in the master bedroom broke, and I had to fix it. Shee Yun and Chen Rui were curious and came to watch. Among the tools I used was a set of wenches of different sizes, neatly laid out in a row. Shee Yun said it was just like a xylophone, and started playing it. She played Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars. And then afterwards to played Mary Had A Little Lamb. She played them quite well. The tones of the wenches were not very precise, but were close enough that the songs she played were unmistakeable.

Today Shee Yun started learning free-style swimming. I'm happy that this new teacher is teaching her new things and continuously challenging her. Shee Yun enjoys learning new things. It keeps her engaged. Sometimes she whines when she finds her new tasks difficult, but eventually she will be able to do them.

In the car back from the swimming lesson, Shee Yun suddenly asked Michelle about Mei: "姑姑出了（liao3）baby没有？" (Has Gu Gu produced a baby?) What a term to use. She made it sound as simple as squeezing a pimple (挤暗疮).

30 Sep 2011. Shee Yun's new tooth is already grown halfway. Very fast!

Chen Rui still often plays "bubble" when taking her bath, which Shee Yun doesn't do anymore nowadays. This is something that I taught them to play, because I used to do this when I was little. Chen Rui creates a huge round membrane in the area between her torso and both arms (the arms form a circle). Sometimes she uses her fingers to make a circle so that the membrane is inside the circle. One variant that she created (I think) is making wings with both her arms - the triangle areas between armpit, the inside of her elbow, and the contact point between wrist and waist. She then flaps her wings and clucks like a hen. Pok pok pok.

Michelle will say I'm the one guilty of teaching the children all these weird stuff and encouraging them.

photos - drawings

2011-09-30T19:00:00.001+08:00

18 Sep 2011. By Chen Rui. I'm quite impressed with her drawings. SHe is very expressive. I asked her about this drawing. The creatures on the left are butterflies, and on the right dragonflies. There's a caterpillar on the ground. Notice that both girls are wearing high heeled shoes. I asked whether the two girls were her and Shee Yun, or her and a friend. She said they were just girls. Not anyone in particular.

Another photo showing how much effort Chen Rui puts in some of her homework. She only needed to draw 13 objects, and she had to draw these 13 girls. All of them are either redheads or blonds. Must be the influence of too much western cartoons or Disney characters or Barbie characters. Michelle asked whether that first one in the second row was dead, because she looked like she was lying down in a coffin. Chen Rui frowned and said it was a slide.

24 Sep 2011. Shee Yun playing Taiko no Tatsujin at Jusco. I told her she could just play it for free on the Nintendo DS, but she still wanted to play. Now that she has started learning piano, maybe such games will be helpful, for counting beats and for coordination.

25 Sep 2011. Sometimes Chen Rui is very lazy and can just laze around like this - lying on the floor watching TV. She is still holding a spoon which she has used for eating yogurt, and she's too lazy to bring it to the sink and to throw the yogurt container into the bin.

后羿

2011-09-28T19:00:00.000+08:00

孩子常会叫我在睡觉前讲故事给她们听，可是有的时候我想不到故事，有的时候又累或懒。有时候她们会建议我讲一些她们听过的故事。我们从A Famosa回来后煦芸有叫过我讲鼠鹿(Sang Kancil)和鳄鱼的故事，因为在A Famosa的动物园看过鼠鹿。晨睿就叫过我讲“Ten Suns”的故事，也就是后羿和十个太阳的传说。我有点懒得讲，就讲了这样的一个简化版给她们听：

从前有十个太阳，后羿就 shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot，shoot shoot shoot shoot，射了九个下来，剩下一个，the end。

当然，她们的第一个反应是，“蛤？浆（这样）快？”

2011年9月16日，A Famosa。我发现晨睿有的时候会有这样的动作，也不一定是因为要摆pose照相。

沙巴华语和标准华语对照：（晨睿讲的）
标准华语：妈妈在哪里？
沙巴华语：马麻eh4?

Barbie and Ken

2011-09-26T19:00:00.000+08:00

Michelle has been buying Barbie toys for the children. It is mainly Chen Rui who likes them, but sometimes Shee Yun plays with them too. I used to dislike Barbie toys, because I don't want them to make the children too girly. Girls should not be taught to be obsessed about buying dresses and assessories, putting on make-up etc. I'd rather the children play with toys that encourage creativity, like Lego. But now one good thing that I see in Barbie toys is they let the children role-play, which is part of creativity and expressing oneself.

Michelle recently bought a Ken doll for the children, and the first day that they played with him, they made him a sick man, made him lie down on one of their pillows, and covered him with a thin blanket. When I walked into their room, they told me to be quiet because Ken needed to sleep.

The children have a number of Barbie dolls (i.e. female dolls). Chen Rui told me in all seriousness that her Barbie was called Diamrand. It sounds like "Diamond", but it has the "R" sound in the middle. She is starting to give names to her dolls. Mei used to do that with her army of dolls, and I bet she still remembers all their names.

Shee Yun still sometimes gives Michelle or me a wink. We tell her not to do this to boys. She thinks it's funny, because we find it so "geli". 起鸡痳皮.

17 Sep 2011. We were at the fullmoon party of Chee Ying's baby sister. I don't remember what we were playing.

Street Fighter IV

2011-09-25T20:05:00.002+08:00

Recently Shee Yun saw me play Street Fighter IV (SF4) on the iPhone, and wanted to learn to play as well. She did it by herself on the iPad. It's a little surprising how she doesn't mind the voilence. She used to get upset when she sees fighting or quarreling or any kind of conflict on TV. Maybe she just sees SF4 as sports. She sees it as something new that she can learn. I always have a feeling that Shee Yun has a hunger for learning new things. Her brain seems to be underutilised. She finishes her homework quickly. Michelle buys some Primary 1 exercise books for her to do, and she does them quite quickly. She doesn't see them as work, and she enjoys them. Nowadays she sometimes discovers new iPad applications and if she thinks they are interesting, she asks Michelle to download them for her. She likes exploring new things. The SF4 character that she chose to play is, of course, Chun Li, the lady fighter from China.

Chun Li.

Shee Yun is eating more types of food now. She recently started eating pizzas with us. She used to be reluctant to try it. Today was the first time she tried half-boiled egg. She liked it so much that in the evening she asked for it again. Chen Rui is also improving in the range of food she eats. She eats chicken nuggets now. Not exactly very healthy food, but at least it is meat, and that's a start in diversifying the types of food she eats.

16 Sep 2011. At A Famosa resort. Chen Rui putting on her socks. We were preparing to go to the annual dinner of Michelle's client.

Shee Yun brings her Tubby, and Chen Rui her hajimat (and often Totoro too) when we travel.

“买”

2011-09-23T19:00:00.001+08:00

晨睿要在楼下吃东西，Michelle要上楼上。晨睿要吃饼干和喝豆奶，Michelle就先帮她开那包饼干，然后告诉她等下才帮她开豆奶。晨睿要Michelle马上也帮她开豆奶，就对Michelle讲：帮我弄“买”leh4！

够~ Sabah……

2011年9月17日。在A Famosa resort等动物表演开始。

晨睿很上镜ho?

她拿Totoro出来，因为Totoro也想看表演，可是我要拍Totoro她就把Totoro遮住，因为它怕羞。

眼镜

2011-09-22T20:20:00.003+08:00

煦芸：“Glasses是给盲人的。”
Michelle：“可是妈妈也是有glasses啊。妈妈盲了(liao3) meh?”
煦芸：“盲一点lo4。”

2011年9月11日。煦芸叫我陪她玩checkers。

怕什么屁

2011-09-21T19:00:00.001+08:00

煦芸的新游泳老师有点凶。煦芸第一次和她上课时，又另外两个同学，年纪比煦芸大一点。老师叫煦芸有的距离有点远，可是煦芸做得到，反而是那两个比较大的孩子不太行，讲怕。老师就骂她们“怕什么屁？”，讲煦芸比她们小都不会怕。有点粗鲁。不过煦芸觉得很好笑，有的时候会学她讲“怕什么屁？”

小孩子都是会模仿大人的。晨睿刷好牙后给Michelle看她的牙齿，Michelle会假装她的牙齿很洁白很发亮，甚至需要用手挡住光芒，因为太刺眼。后来有一次晨睿“咦”她的刚刷好的牙齿给煦芸看，煦芸也会避开视线，举起手来挡住灿烂光芒。

Michelle常说晨睿会古灵精怪都是学到我。

2011年9月10日。我和煦芸。那时候她的新牙齿应该还没有生出来，现在已经生出来。

晨睿知道我要拍她，所以已经在起身想逃走。

在死角，没得逃。

煦芸的新鞋子，这本来是晨睿选的，可是没有她的size。煦芸看到喜欢，就选了这个款。

晨睿不要被我拍到，躲在煦芸身后。

煦芸出卖了晨睿？

dispute resolution

2011-09-19T19:00:00.002+08:00

Dispute investigation and resolution are part of being a parent of siblings. Once when I was working in the computer room, I heard Chen Rui saying sorry loudly next door. I knew something must have happened and went over to check. Shee Yun had one hand on one side of her face and looked like she was about to cry. When Chen Rui saw me she told me that she had said sorry to Shee Yun. First, I had to find out what had happened, and I asked both of them. Shee Yun said that Chen Rui pinched her face. Then I asked Chen Rui. Chen Rui said that while she was reading a book, Shee Yun kept reading over her shoulder and singing aloud the poem in the book. So that was why Chen Rui became annoyed and pinched Shee Yun's voice. I told Chen Rui she should not have pinched her elder sister. I also told Shee Yun she should not have bothered her younger sister when she was reading.

Chen Rui often comes up with violent solutions to problems. Recently at Chee Ying's baby sister's full moon party, a little playful boy kept trying to grab some balloons which Shee Yun, Chen Rui and Chee Ying were playing with. Shee Yun tried to keep the balloon out of reach, but the little boy (probably closer to Chen Rui's age) just kept smiling and trying, thinking it's part of the play. Chen Rui got upset and she shoved the boy away. The boy almost fell down. He was still grinning when he regained his balance. We quickly stopped Chen Rui. Thankfully the boy's mother also came to stop him and lead him away. Chen Rui is protective of her elder sister.

Shee Yun is also protective of her younger sister. During the A Famosa trip, a little girl, may a year younger than Chen Rui, kept taking Chen Rui's backpack and playing with it. Chen Rui didn't really mind, but Shee Yun tried to take it back for Chen Rui, saying to the little girl that the bag belonged to Chen Rui (那个是我的妹妹的).

When there is a dispute between Shee Yun and Chen Rui, Shee Yun's first reaction is usually to come to us for help, especially after Chen Rui has mistreated her. Chen Rui is the type who takes matters into her own hands. Maybe Shee Yun is the 打小报告 type. Once Shee Yun came to me pleading and explaning that Chen Rui had taken her pencil. They have lots of pencils in their room and there was no need at all to fight over any particular pencil. I went to Chen Rui and asked her what was up. She said that it was her pencil. Shee Yun objected, saying it was theirs. I told Chen Rui that the pencils were shared, but just to resolve the matter, I gave another pencil to Shee Yun, and Shee Yun was contented.

10 Sep 2011. Waiting for Sushi King to open.

Chen Rui trying to hide when I'm taking photos.