Shifting Gears

I have driven stick shift for the first 6 years of my driving life. And now after so long, I have been given the opportunity to shift gears once again, thanks to a dear friend. Fact is, I did not know its a manual geared car until I put my hands and feet on it, and it was such a surprise.

The real challenge was in proving myself that I can still survive stick shift, instead of being one of those who completely swear off stone age technologies. Gladly enough, driving a stick shift seems to come as natural as breathing. Instead the real culture shock comes when I shift to auto geared car and suddenly I press the brake with my left feet and sense something wrong before changing to single feet driving.

Coincidentally, little did I know that life was about to change gears in more ways than one. I am talking about BIG change. After almost 2 years of being a Stay-At-Home-Mother, almost 3 years of not attending office (I worked from home for the last chapter of my work in 2011) deciding to continue being SAHM, I suddenly got an offer that made me reconsider.

It was going to be a huge change, as Jeev was fully under my care, and had never left me longer than 2 hours. At one point it did seem like it was me who would find it hard to let go, instead of him.

As we geared for this new change, we started Jeev to attend half-day kindy together with Sanju. First two days was a jiffy, and we could not believe ourselves. Too good to be true, oh yes!

The next week he started crying and would refuse to let me go at the gate. By the third day of crying he caught the flu bug, just after two weeks of recovering the nasty bug earlier!

It felt like things were falling apart for me to even give a try at the offer at hand. Once he recovered we continued sending him despite wailing and crying. It did occur to me to just give up, and let me continue staying home with him. But then I was reminded of how Sanju behaved for the first 2 months of school. He was crying and resenting walking to school daily. But we still sent him for his benefit and see how he turned out. Taking a leap of faith, we continued preparing Jeev with school talks. Also he has Sanju with him in school, things are pretty familiar to him as well since we spend our evenings at kindy playground sometimes.

Something told me that going through these obstacles might just make us stronger and the whole change worthwhile. Anything that comes easy is easily forgotten, and taken for granted. This thought made me hold on with tonnes of patience, every night hoping for tomorrow to turn out better than today.

Fast forward to third week of attending kindy, Jeev happily hops out of the car into the arms of his teachers. With the company of his Ironman, who by the way attends school free of charge. Somehow his presence makes a positive difference. Now Sanju and Jeev both tell me, 'ma go work, baby go school'. They both refer to each other as 'baby'. Ironically, both the boys are not such babies anymore. In ways more than one.

Morning happy mode for school. Their smile makes my day at work.

In the meantime Sanju has acquired the liking to play 'masak-masak'. Despite going to the toy store and picking out the transforming Ultraman, he was more excited to open up the cookery toys and start cooking goodies for me. And I also get milk and tea made by him occasionally.

Till the next change, I will be shifting gears on and off to work. While the kids have fun at their half-day kindy with their friends and Ironman in tow.

The Great Escape But We Got Caught

We were among the people who got wooed by Groupon's deal for the Grand Lexis villas in Port Dickson. Hubby had just completed a super duper hyper busy project schedule and so this deal was just the perfect timing for us to escape from it all, even if its just 1 hour 20 minutes away. The main attraction has got to be the private mini pool. When you have two active kids, anything within short reach is always more than welcome.

We wanted to get the kids excited for the coming holiday so we told them about the private swimming pool. Hell broke loose and exactly after I picked Sanju from kindy on Friday, he started demanding for swimming pool. As I turned the car into the street leading to the house, he screamed 'No go home! I want swimming pool!'.

It took me a while to explain to him that the trip is only on the next day, and we got to wait for Papa to bring us there. There was a point when he said 'no, Papa stay home' and then changed his mind as he knew we would not take a road trip without the Boss.

From then on we had Sanju asking, reminding and telling and yelling about SWIMMING POOL! countless times. Even as the five of us left the house in the morning, stopped by our favourite char siew shop, had a scrumptious lunch, he spoke about nothing but swimming pool. Oh yea it was the five of us, because Ironman came along, as always. But he is a cheap fella, does not eat or demand for toys/snacks, so its fine.

Finally as we got on the road, the excited boy got singing with Jeev, they were like this 'Non stop Nursery Rhymes' radio station. And fortunately, all the eating, singing and road trip made them sleepy and gave us some rest.

We had the Garden View Villa with mini pool. The room was rather big, and it came with two king sized beds. We even had a buggy service from lobby to our room as it was quite a distance. The kids enjoyed the initial ride, but later on we managed to get a parking right opposite our room.

This is our private mini pool.

 

The bathroom.

 The changing area.

The little living area.

The kitchenette.

And so once entering the room we had Sanju bugging us to dip into the pool. He has become such a chatterbox that he never stops. And Jeev only seems to follow suit. Whatever Sanju says now, is bound to be repeated by Jeev a few seconds later. We call him the repeat broadcast.

Sanju did all the pool dipping with Papa.

Jeev just watched from the side, playing with the water gun.

Right after that he took a rest with his milk bottle.

That night we had a very heavy, and for once, a dinner spread that was too much for us BIG eaters, at the Chardin Sea View Seafood restaurant. Food was nice though, just we did not have sufficient capacity inside us, thanks to the all day long eating. Missing from the photo are fish and tofu dishes.

After escaping a busy work and life schedule, we were still caught in between two chatterboxes. And when they are not nagging they are singing. A great escape, but yeah, we got caught! And something tells us we are gonna be caught for a while, but hey on the bright side, the kids are developing, growing up and learning together with us. Things like this reminds us how life's little ups and downs make a party!

Lost In The Big City

We are not such KL city people and it is not our fault. When you live in a town like Klang. We have most amenities, entertainments and most importantly yummiest food all around us, or at least just a (KESAS) drive away. Driving all the way to KL means rather a roadtrip that happens occasionally when really needed.

As a result, taking a drive to the city becomes an unwelcome chore. But this time we had a good reason to take the trip. We were looking to celebrate a few little good news and naturally I found the perfect place to eat our perfect favourite food. Two words. Pork ribs. In plural form of many ways.

As always I did some research on the best ribs in KL and one name came up. Morganfield's in Pavillion KL. At the risk of sounding like such an oldie, we kinda had no idea where Pavillion was. And after getting stuck in traffic for an hour at just a small stretch into Jalan Imbi, it felt like forever, and we began asking 'why are we doing this again?' and we gave this trip the ultimatum, it better be worth it!

After driving with vague directions, we spotted the Pavillion Mall, and somehow managed to find the right carpark entrance (believe me, it is as hard as it sounds). We found the restaurant to be packed with patrons, not a surprise as it had good recommendations online.

There was a waiting list to be seated but seeing us with two adorable (and so excited they started playing with the props at the entrance) the waitress was so kind to offer us priority on the available table. And the best part about these diners is that they have free food for the little ones. And before that some papers and crayons for them to doodle away. The kids can never be happier. Happily occupied kids make happy parents. Or rather happily busy eating parents.

As we were there purely for ribs, we steered clear of other yummy distractions (keeping them for subsequent visits) and went ahead for the sampler platter with all three flavours of BBQ, garlic and black pepper.

Even Sanju could not help but advance himself to the gigantic platter.

Despite the busy day, we had satisfactory attention from the waiters and it is somewhat one of the most important factor of a good restaurant. Especially when the kids demanded different colors of crayons, more papers, etc, they were so kind to oblige.

The verdict, the ribs were oh-so juicy, gently falling off the bones. And something different from our previous rib experiences at Tony Roma and Chicago Rib House, this one came with some soft bones on one end of it. Ok pardon the lack of anatomy knowledge, but saying that it was amazing does suffice. Period.

We oldies had a hard time driving out of that city area towards our destination. We made three rounds at one large roundabout being lost big time. We are still not sure whether was it the intoxication or just lazy brain cells that caused it. Good news is we reached home safely with sleepy kids.

From our gastronomical and service experience, we are sure to dine in there again, even if it means taking a trip alllllllll the way into the city. Oh yes, it was well worth it.

Product Review: Kao Merries Baby Diaper

Two months ago I got an email from Kao Merries to review their brand new baby diaper in the Malaysian market. Kao Merries baby diaper is Japan's No.1 selling diaper and has already been spread across Asia!

Luckily for me Jeev is still on disposable diapers for night use, and I grabbed this opportunity to be among the first in Malaysia to try it on my baby. I received a pack of Kao Merries Diaper Pants size L with 27 pieces, which retails at RM45.

Design and Appearance
First things first, the packaging was impressive as it is easy to slit open on the top instead of making a random tear that I usually do. And it also comes with plastic handles that makes it convenient to lug around.

The body of the diaper is very soft and gentle to the touch. It is very assuring that my kid's waist and thighs are well protected from marks and abrasions. The diaper comes with a yellow line on the outside that turns into green colour to indicate complete soiled diaper and reminder for diaper change. This can be very convenient on busy days or outings when we want to be able to just look, and know
its time!

One interesting feature is a tape on the back of the diaper. When I checked the product information further, it is meant for convenient disposing. Upon the diaper being soiled, we can clear the poo down the toilet, fold and tape the diaper before throwing it into the bin. This ensure impurities and odour from the soiled diaper to stay inside.

Ease of Use
As the diaper is very soft, and has gentle gathers with well stretching elastics, it is very easy to slide on and off my kid, especially when in a rush as my kid is always running and moving away when I dress him.

Functionality and Fit
My favourite feature of the Kao Merries diaper has got to be the flexi-fit "W" shape at the crotch providing my kid a comfortable space of walking about.

 

The absorbancy works well for overnight use for my medium wetter with no leakage. Ever since my kids sleep through the night, waking up in the middle of the night to change diapers is not our favourite thing, hence absorbancy for night time matters a great deal!

Overall Rating 

On the whole it is a very good diaper for day or night use, with good fit and comfort for the kid.  It also helps that Kao Merries has a good breathability system.

Get yours from the selected AEON outlets, available in tape type for newborns and S size, and pants type in M, L and XL. Retails price is within RM25 to RM45. Check out the facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MYMerries