20 April 2005 - 5:40pm

I love to watch "The Amazing Race" and I tried not to miss any episode though I did missed some. And this day, we truly experienced those moments when the contestants were competing against one another and going up the plane at very last min.

Yes, we were very late. Long story.

Imagine this. CQ carrying his camera bag and Jamie while me pushing the trolley with one hand munching a cheese burger, trying to swallow as much as I could. Dashing across units of DFS shops, squeezing through the crowd and running on the travelator to our departure gate.

Phew! We finally make it on right ON TIME. Yes, 5:40pm sharp when the plane supposed to take off. Strange feeling. Boarding staff were standing there as if looking out for us and beckoning us to hurry. The moment we entered the plane, door was closed immediately and shortly less than a min or two, the engine started and the plane took off! Wow... that was a weird experience and of course me being a lousy sportsman, was already trying to grasp for air and boy, I was sooo tired and worn out! That made me realised that I should go for some physical exercise to build up my stamina.

We were very blessed to have the entire row (3 seats) to us

So Jamie can have her own seat without paying for one! lol !!!

Home is where we belong

We finally reached Singapre Airport at 5:30am after a 5 1/2hrs flight by Valuair. Surprisingly the service was good, nice aircraft, comfy seats and guess what? Jamie need not have to sit on our lap throughtout the entire return trip as no passenger was allocated next to us (left & right 3 seats layout). So its a nicer experience for us and of course less stress indeed!!

Jamie was exceptionally tired and she fell asleep just before the flight took off. But thank God she somewhat managed to sleep during the journey except for once or twice wake up cry.

And I'm so glad that I managed to unpacked everything within an hour, back home! And we all went to bed around 730am before Chunquan woke up at 11am to report back to work.

Earlier on, I was busy downloading all the digital photos from the camera and oh boy, there's alot to view !! So it will take me a quite to put up some wonderful photos of Perth.

I found it!!!

Was at the bank to clear off some outstanding bills before our trip. When passing by NTUC, I was particularly drawn by the cute little Hush Puppies panties and briefs on offer outside at the wagons. To my pleasant surprise, I finally found the right size suitable for Jamie!! (For many mums out there will know that its so hard to find a decent looking , non "cheap-poh" panty for kids under 2)

2pcs

Found this swimwear from the wardrobe while packing the luggage for our first family trip to Perth 2 days from now. I bought it from auction last year. And now she can finally put on except the top which is still a little bit loose for her.

New Toothbrush

I started to realised that our previous confinement lady indeed did a very good job! And one of the good habits that she practised was to ensure that she cleaned Jamie's mouth, tongue and gums every night.

And becos of this, this habit has continue still she left 19months ago. So Jamie does not have any problem brushing her teeth except knowing how to brush the right way.

This toothbrush was bought some 2weeks ago at Toys"R" Us. And since then, every night without fail, Jamie has lotsa fun playing and brushing her tiny little teeth! And she also gets excited whenever I tell her that it's brushing time.

Aviator, Power & Technology

Jamie has her 1st Science Center visit this afternoon. She was very fancinated by the talking machines, lighted flooring, fishes, sea creatures, buttons that moves things amazingly. We din have enough time to explore the entire place as there's simply too many sections to complete. But it was definitely an educational trip for both of us!

Probably will sign up as member since we will come back more frequent.

Pink Machine

This toy was bought months ago during the last Christmas sales. And I gave it to Jamie this morning to see if she truly knows how to play with it. And now it has becomes her fav toy! She will put her mouth near to the microphone and repeatedly says "Mama, mama" ....

1 Week later....

This is Jamie up and well again!! Luckily her face din sunken too much :D

Instrument to heal??

Got this nebuliser from Lisa and will be using this to nebulise Jamie twice a day till this Sunday. Initially she struggled alot with tears while doing it for the first time at the Paed's clinic. Was told that with the help of this nebuliser, it supposes to dry up the mucus and open the airway. Hence her road to recovery will be much easier. Here back home, after demostrating it on a bear and doing it in the comfort of our home, she's now able to quietly sit down on my lap while nebulising and watching her fav Hi-5 show!

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And while I was packing Jamie's room, saw this deflated toddler basketball gym. Thought this may brighten up her mood in the mist of her illness. But never did I know that it took me almost an hour to inflat this gadget!!

Sleepless Nights

Have you ever seen any young toddler literally dozing off in sitting position??

Well, that's what happened to our dd last night. In order to keep a close watch on her, I decided to sleep on the sofa bed in her bedroom. And while I'm sleeping, subconsciously, I could hear the constant coughing. It was like once every 10-15mins or so. Then another strange thing happened, she suddenly (with eyes closed) sat up in her crib! Refusing to lay down, I supposed it must be the coughing (cos the moment she lies down, she will cough) that was so disturbing that she prefers to doze off in a sitting position!! Poor girl!!

So again, this morning I brought her to the Paed's clinic after giving her a bubble bathe & medicine as her temperature has shot up to 38.5 after a supporsitory was inserted at 4am.

This time, she went for an X-Ray to ensure that she's alright, no pneumonia or asthma. Her lungs are cleared. Next, she was given a dosage of nebuliser whereby she has to put on this mask which emit out steam (with some medication suppose to work on clearing her airway and drying up her mucous).

And the Paed didn't forget to prescribe some medicine for me as well!! Yes, I'm now down with flu and cough. Thanks to Jamie!

I must say this has been a worst & tiring period for me as I have to put up all her nonsense (she gets frustrates easily and has been throwing tanthrum), cleaning off the mucus from the corner of her nose as well as her saliva (she is currently not capable of blowing her nose and when all the mucus blocked her airway, she used her mouth to breathe instead which that's explained why the drooling from her mouth). And as she has recent history of febrile fits, I have to closely monitor her body temperature, ensuring that it doesn't hit beyond 38.5. So you can imagine, how stressful I am!!

Haiz.... and she has very very poor appetite too! And now I have to resort to those ready made baby's instant food like sweet corn, carrot, potato... anything soft, I will try!!! Many a times, while eating halfway through, she has the tendancy to cough! So cleaning up the mess is a chore too!!

Hopefully as the paed's said, she should be getting better by end of this week... I truly truly hope so. Pls pray for her speedy recovery.

Paediatrician's Visit

I was sleeping on the sofa bed in her room the night before and have have witnessed her occasions waking up, sitting in her crib in order to grasp some air as she has been coughing real bad whenever she lies down.

That made me decided to bring her to the paed's clinic for further checkups as well as in hope of getting better medicine to ease her discomfort.

Here's what she will be taking vs those 6 bottles from a GP!! And I only need to feed her thrice daily. I suppose thats why the price diff we are paying for!! And also thank God that her fever has stabilised since this morning without any medication and probably need not have to take fever medicine unless she develops fever again.

From left : For flu, cough & Anti-viral for flu

Days of Colors

These are Jamie's medicine for now.... And I have to feed her 4 times daily. From left : Flu, cough, antibiotic, fever (>38), phlegm & fever

7:30am

It's been a long time since I get up from bed at 7.30am. CQ who was carrying Jamie, came to the bedside. "...Jamie is having high fever" woke me real hard from my sleep!! I shall not discribe how we spent the rest of the day.... use your imagination.

Voila!!

Was doing my marketing at Sheng Shiong and I saw those raw "la-la" ...... WITHOUT ANY HESITATION, I bought a bag, cooked (my first time) and ate it all up while Jamie was having her afternoon nap *yummy, yummy!!!*

Pretend Play

Nowadays Jamie likes to pretend play. This morning, she began to feed her fav Elmo water from the bottle *toy* and not only that.... she will make "sip sip" sound as if Elmo really drinks! lol !!

Yea!!!

Earlier the night I hinted to CQ *again* on our long awaiting holiday trip. I guess its more of MY holiday trip instead of ours cos' I don't think he would want to put down/rush out all his piling up post production work here and "wasting money" away somewhere else.

Anyway, this time, he finally agreed! Yippy Hurray!!! I was d*** happy, over the moon I tell you! So now I am gonna be busy with all the checkings, flight, prices, hotels, places of interest etc etc. Hopefully this time, with God's grace, we CAN really go for a good and relaxing holiday (Jamie coming along of course).

Scrapbooking

I have been browsing thru' my laptop over Jamie's digipixs for my new found hobby.

Everything's in place. Album, acid free vellum, tools, stickers, eyelets, brads, snaps, embellishments, pattern papers, cardstocks ...almost everything you name it, I have it. That's me. I hate doing something halfway when I realise that I do not have them. So, I spent months in purchasing them from scrapbookingcove.com & another source who does it freelance. Seeing Jamie's bb photos made me realised that time really passes very fast. That's just a barely less than 20months ago when she came into this world. See the diff ? At birth & 6 mois old. And more to come.....stay tune!

T.G.I.F

Since this month Hsiu Chin is still doing her confinement , with Nigel & Karen's generousity and hospitality, we had our event held there. Honestly speaking, I wasn't quite well prepared for the event as compared to those years without Jamie. I mean, we usually will spend some time during the Good Friday week to ponder over God's mercy and His great love for us. Well from a perspective of a mum, I'm more caught up with Jamie afternoon nap (ensuring that she wakes up by 9am and take her nap by 1pm so that she can wake up by 3pm etc) & preparing her dinner early. My heart wasn't settled even though when we were there. My eyes were literally busy looking out for Jamie and making sure that she don't knock on things and is not "harrassing" anybody. I suppose this is what most mums are capable of !!! It was till when Chunquan's led the worship. Suddenly memories of the past flashed before me. Memories of those days when he led worship. It was so 100% God, 100% him...and I'm beginning to miss those days when he strummed and plucked the strings, producing such wonderful music. Above all else, I thank God for Chunquan. For his willingness & availability to lead worship though in the mist of his fire fighting schedules (something which I don't expect him to take up the responsibiltiy) And our dearest Jamie simply has so much fun playing with the IKEA plastic green bib and the 2 tins of potato chips instead of her fav hand puppets, Ernie & Big Bird! She just loves to play with things that I think she will not play with. But seriously, Jamie has at least rewarded 3 stars for her good behaviour & "co-orperative" spirit! :D

Taken earlier on... see how girl-girl Jamie has grown into!

Around the World

Thanks Elaine for the wonderful link!!!

Strangely the thought of holidaying lingers in my mind since many many months back. Infact I've been hinting to Chunquan months ago about our "soon next upcoming" family trip before Jamie turns 2!

Travel around the world has always been my dream way before I got married though I din manage to travel alot as I wish I would.

I'm really hoping that we can go for a good holiday, the three of us... else it'll be even more challenging for us to go when No.2 comes along in near future.....

NOW I'm really hope we can explore the "white spot" instead of the red ones...

Love God with Everything You Got

Deuteronomy 6:5 - And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. There are always two sides to a covenant—and both parties have responsibilities to fulfill their side. Now God's side said that He made an oath with mankind because He loved us. And because of His love for us, His covenant is to bless us in every area of our lives.

God has given us His all and He wants our all in return. He expects us to love Him more than anything else because He loves us more than anything else.Now this is not hard for us to understand. I mean this is the same way we want our relationships with other people to be. Take the marriage covenant for example. We want our spouses to love us until it hurts. We want them to be aggressive towards us with their love.Well God is the same way. He loves us with all He has and He expects us to love Him with all we have. Not only are we to love the Lord with everything that is within us, but also we are to teach our children to love God too. Some people think it's cute when their kids hip hop, sing worldly rap, or whatever. But, what's cute is when our kids know about and love their God and can lift their hands to God in praise and say, "hallelujah."If you teach your children now to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind, they will have the whole covenant working for them from day one.So, it's about time we get in on our covenant blessings. God wants to bless us coming in and going out. But, we have to love our God more that anything else. References: Deuteronomy 6:5-11; 10:12-13; Matthew 23:37-40

Hi-5

Recently I have been teaching and reinforcing numbers, colors and shapes to Jamie as I feel that she should pick up these basic before I move on with other stuff to teach her.

Days ago, I was counting her fingers the usual way, saying "one, two,..." then suddenly she uttered "t-h-r-e-e" !! So nowadays, I will count the steps whenever we climb the stairs. Seeing her progressing gradually in recognising shapes, colors and number puts a big smile on my face, of course!!

Rest

Everybody fell ill since last week. Jamie was the first to have some coughing symptom last week. But she's recovering pretty good and by now her cough has more or less stopped.

Though I have faithfully taken doctor's prescribed medicine, my cough doesn't completely recover . And two nights ago, I suddenly developed high fever (39.2 degree celsius). Just seen the doctor earlier on to keep the medicine as spare just in case I don't recover well.

Chunquan also fell ill 2 days ago ... haiz.....

Bean Bags

I am crazy about making palm sized bean bags for Jamie. So I got up early this morning and brought Jamie to IKEA as I was told that IKEA sales has just started. I bought all the available colors, ie, red, yellow, blue and black, each half a meter for a mere $8! Thrilled and excited, I am now looking forward to Friday as I'll be going to Alice's house to sew them (with the help of Alice, of course!)... Hurray!!!

Zoo Visit

This morning was Jamie's first zoo visit with Karen and her 3 kids. As this week marks the start of the 1week holiday for the children, I thought it will be good if we can go out together with Karen's kids. So Karen and myself finally agreed to visit the Zoo this morning.

Instead of enjoying walking and seeing the animals, the kids enjoyed themselves the MOST at the Children 's World Playland all soaking wet including Jamie and Baby Jonathan!!

Off Day

I was exceptionally happy today as I went to Church, sat through the entire service ALONE! Yes, I AM ALONE... without Chunquan and Jamie, especially! It was such a looong time ago way before I got married when I went to church alone. It was refreshing and good.

Why? Well, I'm supposed to attend a seminar around 11am and if Jamie is to attend 8am service...then continue with the seminar, I doubt she will be able to sit through the 4hrs long stretch of time. Hence both of us have decided that I should attend the morning service first and while he will attend the next service (so that both of them can rest a little bit longer) and I will bring her along to the seminar. What a perfect plan! BUT, Chunquan having worked till almost midnight the day earlier, overslept (despite me SMSes and calling to his mobile) till my MIL had to go over to our place to wake him up! So, in the end I had another "freedom" at the seminar without her!! Luckily she wasn't there as its almost impossible for her to stay "kuay-kuay" for an hour with all the rest of the people in the small crampy room. I finally met Jamie while lunching with Daryl. Ya, Chunquan needs to meet his client. After our lunch, fed Jamie, we had another round of shopping till almost 5pm! (I had breakfast and my fav tea before the service commenced. Then had some light snacks with Prisc & Dave before we proceeded to the seminar. What a rare occasion when I can really enjoy my meals without having to feed Jamie ! )

Heat Again...

After days of rain, today seems to return back to its "humidity" ... I mean, hot, hot...hot & HOT!!!

Jamie dun seems to bother much though I'm already complaining away. I will never "feel" the afternoon weather so much as now that I'm a SAHM. And I think my cough and phlegm is back again as well :(

I have noticed that Jamie now enjoys dancing, stomping & clappnig in front of our blank TV while the music is on. She is so cute! And I have no regrets giving up my career for this little angel of ours.

Last night I met cousin's son, Michael, in the train and we were talking about renovation & kids. He will soon becomes a father in two months time. I was sharing with him the joy of being a SAHM and the struggles I have gone through. Though I think he is not convinced of giving up one's job for a mere new member to the family, but I strongly feel that it's a rare opportunity to be able to spend 24hrs with your own child while being able to control, make schedules & teach right value systems to your kid while they are young. What a priviledge!

Chingay Parade

This week's special.

All the trees along my estate's main road were brightly decorated. I was very thrilled right in the beginning of the week! There were road blocks and one can easily identify the policemen and guards here. In fact it was a 3hrs+ long Chingay programme tonight! Yup! What was performed weeks earlier at downtown can be seen right here at our heartland !

Chunquan was home around 5pm after a long hours of wedding shoot. After he had a short nap, we took Jamie down, awaiting for the parade to commence.

As expected, it was simply too crowded that we couldn't really see anything except trying to cut through our way to the main road to catch a glimpse of the performers. After an hour into the performance, I decided to catch a helicopter view from home.. hence we left Chunquan continued to snap some photos.

Hospital Visit

Just came back from a hospital vistation. Yes Hsiu Chin just gave birth to a healthy little Esther late last night.

Looking at baby Esther just flashed back fond memories of those days when Jamie was born. Those were the days when we held her fragile warm body, holding her tiny little hands and enjoying quiet moments when she sleeps. Time really flies!

Late Nights

Jamie has been going to bed passed midnight for the pass 4 days. Tue & Wed at Church, Thurs at Maggie's dad's funeral wake and tonight from Church after late night supper at Pasir Panjang with Daryl, Meilian & Iris.

I'm very certain that she has enjoyed herself alot outside with all the aunties and I'm so amazed by her full burst of energy as not even a sign of tiredness was shown even back home!!

Santification Week

Tonight am bringing Jamie to Church for our following days of Santification Week's program.

Though not expecting anything out of it as a matter of fact that my attention span is also shared with Jamie. But my heart still yearns to go and hear from God. Let God speaks to me...

Should I??

It's getting late and I should retire to bed but I aint yet. There's alot of stuff on my mind... my parents, my godmum, about in-laws, friends .... my life, Chunquan's and Jamie....

Just now was another battle I had with Jamie. She just not dozing off to bed for almost 2hrs!! And me being with her, from being awake to dozing off into The Wonderland, the remaining hour was a full wakeful tiny weeny brain thinking and pondering over life and issues. There's simply too many thoughts running wild right through and am not sure now what I should say?? I think I shall go to bed before I start to utter nonsensical stuff here.....

Our First Attempt

Have never thought of letting Jamie feeds herself. Its just me... yup my problem or rather my mental block.. thinking that she will sure to make a whole lot of mess and probably be wasting part of the food rather than eating all up?!!

But yearning to train her (just like potty training) to self feed has always been my agenda long long time ago. So today, without much hesitation, I simply placed the bowl of cereal in front of her and helping her to scoop bit by bit into her tiny little mouth. Yea I finally overcome it!!! Of course she stumbled alot but its alright and ultimately I succeeded by encouraging and helping her to finish up her lunch. Give me 5 man!!!

Quiet Moments

Jamie loves to read though I seldom really spend enough time sitting down with her to read. This morning, while I busy preparing my breakfast, I suddenly remembered her stacks of board books... so there she is... busy flipping and blabbing to herself.

In fact few months ago, I was quite obsessed with board books (and I still am!) that I bought quite a handy for her which probably will occupy the entire 2-3 tier children bookshelf ! Now I am busy with sourcing for a suitable bookshelf for her!!

Bubble Bathe

I have decided to give Jamie a little more incentives for her since the weather is so hot... bubble bathe of course! It's her fav past time!

bubble bathe!!

Hot Weather

The weather has been killing me especially this week!

I can't believe that it's so humid and sticky even while staying at home!!! Hence blogging has somewhat slow too .....

Surprised Guest

It's almost a year since Ivan & Boon Yuen's visited us. It has been real nice to see this couple again. And thanks to Boon Yuen who has graciously cooked some delicious food over for dinner. And time really flies and Jamie already grown so much since the previous year when they were here, she was barely about 7mths old!

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Jamie has been obsessed with the moon for the past few weeks. Every now and then she will sure to pester someone to carry her to the window in search for it !