Driving Test

Long, long day for you. We dropped you off at the learning center (the exam is held here) at around 7.40am. Then we headed to Kg. Jawa to eat the CKT and also to pack back for you, seeing that today is your last day in Penang for your December holiday.

We assumed you should be done quite quickly but it just kept on dragging on and on. At 10.30am, you had just completed the driving portion.. 1/3 of the test. Then you said that you were hungry. Had not packed any snack nor drink, thinking there was a vending machine there. Unfortunately, it was out of order! So we had to bring you some Panettone (CKT was rejected.. ) 

Snapped a quick picture as I passed you the food

Then we headed back home and waited again. At around 2pm, we went to wait for you, thinking that you should be about done. But in the end, we had to head home as you still had to wait for... something...

You were finally done at 3pm. Brought you home to eat 1.,5 packets of the CKT (despite all the remarks about it not being as good as eating there, the egg being too cooked.. bla bla). You rested a bit and we packed the car then off we went to KL. 

Grandma/Tou-Tou's 95th Birthday

The planned big bash was supposed to be on the 17th of the month. Unfortunately, many of the family caught Covid, including Tou-tou. So it was postponed to 1 week later. With that, it was a clash for daddy (golf December birthday celebration), Mei-mei (ballet rehearsal before the evening performance) and me (needed to send Mei-mei to USM). But in the end, ballet school requested for Mei-mei to arrive by 12pm. So Ah Ma, Ah Kong and Ko-ko headed to the restaurant, while I went later by Grab after dropping her off in USM. 

It was a long drive for me (heavy traffic), but by the time I arrived the luncheon had not yet started. And at long last at around 1.15pm, we were served the first course:

Four Season

Soup

Duck's crispy skin on sushi rice (with cheese)

Peking Duck 

Fresh water prawns with noodles

"Fa gau" dessert

The kiddies got to collect an ang pow from Tou-tou:

And before we had cake, birthday pau and red eggs, there was a photo session. Here is one of all the folks who made it for her birthday celebration:

Meal Trays for Covid Patients

It's not an easy task to prepare the trays for the 3 of you. As Mei-mei says.. Ah Kong's breakfast is a buffet spread! Some days, I am able to fit food for both Ah Kong and Ah Ma in one tray, and on other days, they need 1 each!

Their buffet spread

While we used to put the tray on the floor when daddy was in quarantine, we had to put a chair and clear some space on the side table to put their trays on it, as they have difficulty bending over to pick up the trays. 

Next, I'd have to wait for over an hour for them to enjoy their leisurely breakfast before they put the tray and dishes out for me to wash.. 

And very soon, we'd repeat the same process for lunch and then dinner!

By the way.. on the rare occasion, Ko-ko also got a breakfast tray:

Dinner in front of the TV

It was a simple meal, just the 3 of us and we wanted to finish up the movie Shang-Chi. So we parked ourselves in front of the TV to watch the movie and eat our Mr. Shawerma dinner. 

Covid comes a-visitng

And here we go again.. 

On Tuesday evening, you called me to ask where the test kits were. Reason being Ah Kong wasn't feeling well and had fever. Oh no.. just as we reached home, you called to say he tested positive and you will self-quarantine. We also asked Ah Ma to self-quarantine seeing that she was sitting with him (and you too) the whole day while he was already sick. You both tested negative and so we told you both that you can come out the next day if you test negative. 

On Wednesday, you called to say that your test came back positive.. sigh.. my heart dropped. You had no symptoms for the whole day, so your appetite was very good (read: always hungry). You also said you wanted to eat as much as you could before fever hits you and you lose all appetite. That night, the fever came...

On Thursday, your fever was very high. You barely had any appetite, but managed to scarf down the Kg Jawa CKT that we had bought in the morning. We were also getting suspicious of Ah Ma's status as we could hear her coughing a lot in the room downstairs. So after lunch, daddy had her tested twice and it came out positive. We debated on where would be a better place to keep her. In the end, we opted to move her into the room with Ah Kong. He said that he would move into the room downstairs once he's cleared.

Ah Ma also started her fever in the evening. This time we gave all of you 1.5 of the 650mg Paracetalmol. It worked better. Your fever was also running you down and you had no appetite for dinner with your fever hovering near 39 degrees. We gave you 1.5 of the paracetamol and once it was suppressed, you appetite came back with a vengeance. Daddy had to make you supper. But I'm glad that you could still eat.

It looks like it's going to be a long week... many more days to go. Hope that you'll all recover faster and have as mild symptoms as possible. 

Harmony of Hope

You were suddenly drafted into the musical ensemble for the Harmony of Hope performance in school. Luckily you only needed to be in school by 6.30pm for the 7pm performance.

As it was only 30 minutes, we decided to just hang around until the doors open to the MPH.

Quick photo before you headed to the gathering point

Our tickets (premium seating)

The event started late as we had to wait for the arrival of the Penang Chief Minister. But once it started, everything went smoothly. We were treated to the school orchestra's performance, primary music ensemble, guitar performance and many more. 

Ko-ko had to try a few times to finally get a photo of you. Good timing as you smiled so sweetly

After the performance ended, you went back to the music room to collect your stuff before we headed off. Daddy and Ko-ko went to collect the car, so we quickly took a photo of you with the Christmas nativity setup:

 Made a quick call to Via Pre to check what time their kitchen closed. I was told 10.30pm and since it was 9.30pm, we thought that we had ample time. Unfortunately, it was soooooo jam heading to the restaurant. But we made it on time to order our food and had a great enjoyable meal before heading home after a long, long day... 

My Baby...

Love taking random photos with you. 

Being silly while waiting for daddy to try out a his shorts:

Win-Done

Your message to daddy today.. to show that you've finally won!

 

Covid.. again

Daddy tested positive again yesterday. So we all had to take the tests several times. Again, my body decided to torture me. First test had a very faint line. And second test had none whatsoever!

Cancelled your tuition. No point risking other people's lives especially when they are quite aged.

You came back, had a shower before doing the test. All was good.

You told me that you didn't want to test again in the morning but later that night, daddy said best for you to test. You agreed to do it (giving me saliva sample with your eyes closed) when I said that you'd be exposing many friends in school, unlike me who is sitting at home. 

All is good. Thank goodness 💗

Lost Tooth

One of the last few teeth to be replaced by an adult tooth. Despite knowing that I'm the "Tooth Fairy" you still looked for the bag to put in your tooth before going to sleep. 

Didn't take a photo of your tooth (with a decay in it), but of your moolah:

Karate - Green belt grading

You proudly came back to inform me that you were the only one from school selected to take part in the green belt grading.

The exam location was the same as before. Only thing was this time seemed to be a larger crowd taking the examinations. We arrived on time (obviously.. when the location is just a 5 minutes' drive from home..) and headed to the back waiting area. There were still many children waiting for their turn to be examined. Group 2 green grading were just grouping and shortly after you gathered with the rest of the children in your group. 

At 10.30 am sharp, you all started the examination.

Once you were done, we waited a little and Ah Ma came to pick us up then go for lunch.

In the evening, Sensei Li Li messaged the parents to congratulate the children for a job well done and to inform us that you'd all passed the exams. Yay!

Makan Holiday

This whole trip back was just a makan holiday for you. To our surprise, despite the late arrival, you managed to crawl out of bed to join us in Kampung Jawa for early morning char kuey tiau. We arrived just before the crowd came and so it wasn't too long a wait before we were served. Daddy ordered 4 large CKT and you inhaled 2 plates, just like that. And then saying that you could even eat a 3rd plate! Walaueh.. 

You then went back and continued sleeping. Daddy and I went out to buy lunch, and thinking that you'd be too full from breakfast and have already eaten curry mee, we decided to buy something light from the Shark. To our surprise, you were disappointed to find that we did not buy you curry mee!!

Dinner was a heavy meal of steamboat. Which you (obviously) thoroughly enjoyed. Our meal lasted a long while and only towards the end that you started to lie abit on the sofa in between stuffing yourself. 

On Sunday, we headed to the Shark again to buy the curry mee. Sadly, the CKT was sold out! You were so disappointed. And it was only 11.30am! But you did get a packet of Kuey Tiau Th'ng which you said was nice.

Dinner was in BM. As you had so many things on your makan list, we decided to cook carbonara in BM. 

Ta-da.. carbonara with crunchy lard

Monday's lunch was unplanned. In the end, we thought to try our luck with the famous Lorong Selamat CKT. To our surprise there was table to sit at and not a long queue. It looked like it was the assistant frying. That was probably the reason for the lack of wait. Your verdict: meh.. ahaha.. so we can strike this place off.

Monday and Tuesday's dinner was Ah Ma's cooking. She said that you had mentioned about missing seafood. So there was big prawns and steamed fish (*lol*). 

Tuesday's lunch was with the 2 oldies as we had to go to work and Mei-mei had school.

And before leaving Penang, you packed 1 large box of fried rice from Ah Ma and 2 boxes of CKT from Super Tanker (combined 3 large packets). Oh and you also ate 1 packet of CKT before dinner.

P/S: I think even you started to feel CKT overdose after this trip

2023 Christmas Tree is Up

Since Ko-ko is back this weekend, we decided to put up the Christmas tree. It's not too early.. in fact, may be a little later than usual. Anyhow.. Mei-mei determined the theme this year to be blue and silver as she had done a quick check to validate that last year's theme was red and gold. 

Before we got home to start the "project", Ko-ko informed me that there was a typo on the name when he tried to do check in. Walaueh... so I had to get onto a call with Firefly to determine what needed to be done. In the meantime, Mei-mei and daddy started to set up the branches. 

By the time I was done, the tree was ready. So we quickly opened up the branches and I set to putting up the lights. 

This is what she was up to while waiting for me

Once I was done with the lights, my job was about done! Lucky me. I got to sit back and watch the two of you put up the decorations. You're both tall enough to decorate the whole tree. 💕 Sometimes Mei-mei would ask for help to put an ornament at a certain high point. 

And finally, it was daddy's turn to put the angel. 

Et voila.. we're done!

Melts the heart

Hard to get a photo of the two of you together with no shouting. 

What are you both up to? Cracking the 12 eggs and adding (a lot of) cheese to the mixture for the carbonara.

Long ride home

You had come home after the bout of food poisoning. And while the initial plan was neither for us to travel to KL nor for you to come back during the 4-day Deepavali break, you requested to come back during this break. My guess is that you did not manage to eat all the Penang food to your heart's content that trip since you had not fully recovered by then. 

So the deal was that you'd be able to come back only if we were able to buy you an Aeroline bus ticket. By the time you'd asked to come back, the plane fare was way too expensive. But luck must have been on your side. There was ONE LAST seat available on the bus. Only thing is we had to sign up for the card (putting in a RM200 deposit into the card) and utilise the PAP (some sort of priority booking) to purchase this seat.

The days leading to your return trip, we kept reminding you to pack some snacks and food, knowing that you were such a big eater. 

You decided to leave your duffel bag at Denisse's place in the morning so that you did not need to make another trip back to the hostel, nor drag it all around the whole day with you. You even had lunch in Sunway Pyramid so that you could locate the new pickup point. 

When the time came, the bus was late. They informed you and in fact even called me (the booking was under my account) to inform of the 30 minutes delay.

At long last at 2 minutes pass 6, the bus departed. At that time you told us that the ETA per Waze was 11pm. Shortly after that you said "the dinner is SO SMALL". Oops.. then we found out that you had bought ONE bun for the ride back! Oh dear.. and we had reminded you so many times.. Ah well.. you'll have to learn the hard way then. You then mentioned that you had an energy bar with you to which daddy quickly told you to EAT LATER.. or else you'd be super hungry!

Traffic on the highway was horrendous, as expected. We waited and waited and in the end.. you only finally arrived at Queensbay at 12.45am! You had informed us that you were getting onto the second bridge and we got ready to go pick you. Daddy said that we'd be waiting for you at least 10 minutes, but I said that it's better for us to wait than for you to wait again (yala.. miss my son too ma...).

You spotted the car as the bus drove pass us to make a U-turn at the roundabout. 

We headed home for you to have a quick shower and then eat a bowl of the curry mee Ah Ma had cooked before going to sleep.

Return of Letchumi Ban

 We were trying to recall your "Indian" name. Found it in last year's post. This morning was a mad rush to tie up your hair into two braids (didn't do a good job though.. ). Reusing the same lehenga this year. Looks like we will need to get you a new one next year. It's getting shorter... 

Coincidentally I was also dressed up in my Indian costume as we were having a celebration in the office too:

Creative Writing

I'm so happy that we came across this program while browsing the Penang Science Cluster webpage. It's called "Pow Pow Earth". It's a free program run by a lady and her mother. She is based in the US. Every Sunday, you would wake up and quickly eat your breakfast in order to join the class. Every week, she will talk about nature, science and the environment. You will then have to write a short story relating to the learning for the day. 

This was the first one you shared with me.. I was amazed at your writing:

The learning was Jane Goodall

This was the hybrid car session:

I checked that the learning was about "Wangari Maathai", but I'm not sure what the coconut story and the Maldives are related to her. 

This is the latest from this week. The session was about the dam:

Longest Wait Ever!!

Today was supposed to be a photography session for the dancers participating in the year end event. Well, I had checked with the studio and they informed me that lessons will go on as usual up till the time to get ready for the session i.e. 3.40pm. Since you'd be having lessons first, it didn't make sense for me to put on the makeup for you in advance. 

Well, turned out that everyone wanted to have their makeup done by the teachers in school. On top of that, your group only started having their makeup done from 5pm! This resulted in a backlog... a very long and delayed backlog!

Daddy and I had gone grocery shopping and there was heavy traffic on the way there, and we'd thought that we were late. In the end, we waited another 1.5 hours before you were done with the photoshoot!

Here are some shots of our little Thai girl:

I had provided you with the makeup stuff and one of the request was for glittery brown/gold. Guess where we finally got that color from? Haha.. it was your toy makeup set. Ah well.. it was put to good use. Many of your friends used yours too. 

Luckily too we had a change of plans to have sandwiches for dinner at home. So when we got home, we prepared the ingredients while you took a shower. 

Children's Day - Mayura

For this year's celebration, you asked to have a Mayura costume. It's obviously not a very famous character. In fact, she is the second antagonist in the cartoon Miraculous Ladybug. 

So we worked to look for the parts to make your costume. We initially bought a piece of fabric with a peacock tail, but could not make it work. So did a little more Google-ing and found some DIY ideas. Luckily I ordered the felt and other materials earlier before we had to make the sudden trip to KL. 

Last weekend, we proceeded to cut and assemble the parts of the dress. We drew the outline of the 4 layers of felt, cut them up and hot glued them together and then I sewed the "feathers" onto the black dress:

We also found a brooch similar to what Mayura has to house her Kwami:

I'd also ordered a purple fan and orders some white and blue boa to be added to the costume. On top of that I also made the headpiece for you. 

The last part of the costume were the purple legging which stressed me out a lot as the online shop delayed in sending them out to us. In the end, it arrived just on time on Wednesday. 

Daddy's right.. I do enjoy making these costumes with you. *grin*

Here is what Mayura looks like:

And here is my little Mayura (sans the big split up the front of your dress!!) And as a last minute addition, you brought along your ballet character shoe to complete the costume.

I'm glad that the allergy did not stop you from attending the last of your Children's Day celebration in school. Hope that you had fun in school. Some of your friend's parents had share photos of them in their costume. So cute.