Moments in My Life

Thank you for all your concern.  Brandon is much better now.  He had diarrhea on Sunday and Monday.  It stopped after that.  But he still has loose stool but only once a day (twice if he had more to eat that day).  The area has also healed and no longer ed.  Wiping the area doesn’t cause any pain anymore.  He is back on consuming our local food, like dry pork noodles, chicken rice and others. 

I actually made some tuna pasta for him on Monday.  He ate it for the next two days.  He drinks the Dutch Lady UHT Low Fat Milk three times a day.  He eats snacks in the morning and in the afternoon too.  He also likes the Nestle yogurts.  I also giving him some Scott Emulsions (Orange flavor) because I heard him coughing a little on Monday evening. 

His sleeping pattern is also normal to our time now.  He naps once a day for about 1 hour, usually around 1pm to 2pm.  Like today we went to One Utama for lunch at Wong Kok, he napped after lunch until we were going back when I had to pick him up from his stroller, about an hour nap.  At night, if we are at home, he sleeps around 9:30pm.  If we go out, then it may be later.  We usually eat out for dinner quite late here compare to our regular dinner time.  This evening we went out at 8:30pm and returned at 10:30pm.  He didn’t sleep in the car.  I told him we were going home and had to brush teeth before we go sleep.  And we did just that.  He fell asleep after I washed him up.  I better go join him soon.  I rather tired myself too.

Upon our discussion last nite, my sister is like 80% confirmed that she and her family will be visiting us in LA next year. She wants to make sure the weather will be nice, so I suggested mid April to May. They are a family of 3 and we are a family of 3, so we definitely need a car that can fit 6 passengers. It is unlike in Malaysia where kids are allowed to sit on the adult’s lap. All toddlers and children in US are required to be seated on a car seat, which take up one space by itself.

I actually started to look around for a minivan (that can sit at least 7 passengers) about a month or two ago. I like to check around the prices and may decide to get one. We will definitely find a car loan as we can’t afford to pay the full in cash. Prices of a Toyota Sienna range from $20K+ to over $30K. We may able to come up with about 30% downpayment for this price. May be if I search around more, I may get a slightly used minivan for a good price. If the price is less than $20K, we may not need to get any used car loans for it.

At this time, we don’t really need it for our daily use. So I may end up renting a minivan instead of purchasing one. I am worry about the rising gas price. A minivan may actually consume much gas. My hubby had just told me the gas went up over $4.50 per gallon now. It is crazy. I don’t know if I will ever see the gas price to be as low as $0.99 per gallon again.

Poor boy, Brandon is having diarrhea.  Wet several diapers already during the last two hours.  He is back sleeping now.  Don’t know if it was the lunch or dinner he had.  I am wondering if the whole lot of mushroom he kept asking for during lunch was the culprit or the bak kut teh soup with rice he took during dinner.  I had a lot of bak kut teh soup myself too but I ate very little shitake mushroom during lunch because he wanted most of them.  But my other relatives had a fair share themselves with no problem. 

The area is very red now and he didn’t want me to wipe him down after each accident he had.  It may be hurting much when pressure is applied on it.  Guess no more mushroom for him for a while.  I better go easy on his food for the next few days.

We arrived in KL safely.  There wasn’t a lot of havoc of my son in the plane as I was expecting.  They were playing Monsters Inc. which was great as my son was watching it over and over again.  The ride wasn’t that long, he did sleep a few hours in the plane but not a whole lot.  At least it was much better than our last trip, where both, me and Alan hardly slept at all. 

Anyway … it is so nice to be back here.  So many food to eat … so many relatives to see.  Every morning we wake up to a big crowd at home.  Brandon easily adapted to this new environment.  But one thing, he still looks for me a lot.  He doesn’t let others carry him unless there is a threat to it (like going to the car to drive on the steering wheel). 

As for the weather, it has been raining everyday.  I love the rain.  Cooling down the heat here also cleaning out the dirty air.  It usually rains in the evening.  I see some dark clouds in the sky now, it should be raining again soon. 

Will try to get some time to blog again but not a guarantee.  When Brandon is awake, he is busy walking around, up and down the stair so I had to watch him rather closely.  He is napping now and so I am stealing an hour to go online to check emails and blog.  Every minute here is so precious and I would prefer to spend more time chatting with my families and relatives.  Till next time … thanks for coming by.

It is 3pm now.  It is about 10 hours to our flight leaving LAX heading to KUL.  Am I done with packing?  Nope.  Mostly done but not 100%.  We still have a few last minute stuff to pack up before leaving the house.  We are planning to go around 1030pm.  SIL will be giving our luggages a ride.  Our Toyota Camry is not able to carry the passengers plus the many many suitcases plus bags we have to bring.  We probably need two trolleys when are at the airport.

Want to see how much luggage we have?  Read the rest of this entry »

Surprisingly we had a smooth haircut for Brandon this evening.  Usually he would fuss and cry and scream during the haircut but today he has been such a good boy, sat rather quietly while watching his favorite Hard Hat Harry Helicopter DVD.  The washer was on as well, may be that helped to reduce the noise from the trimmer.

It was not a total smooth process.  In the beginning, he didn’t want to sit on his booster seat but I pulled him into it and locked him down.  Put the cover over him and kept telling him it’s going to be fast if he sits still.  Turned on the DVD for him.  At first, he didn’t want me to use the trimmer and kept insisting on the scissors.  I told him that we had to start with the trimmer first.  Then he let me do it.  He moved a little here and there but as long as he doesn’t scream or cry, it’s good.  After trimming the back and sides bottom, I used the scissors to trim the rest.  It only took me 15 minutes total to finish his hair cut.  During the time, I praised him over and over again on how good he was sitting so quietly.  The result of this hair cut is one of the best I’ve done.   

This definitely by far is the most less stressful haircut we ever gave him.  Thank you so much Brandon.  I even gave him a thumb up sticker for his good job!

My hubby’s birthday is coming up in a little over a week.  Brandon and I will not be in Los Angeles on that day so he may have to celebrate this time by himself or with his friends from work. Since we will be away, I already gave him his gift unwrapped.  So what gift I gave him for his birthday?

My husband likes beef jerky and I seldom let him buy it at the store. It is not a healthy choice of snack so I don’t want him to eat too much. But two weeks ago I placed an order online for 3 boxes of Slim Jim Beef Jerky from Amazon. It was a very good deal. On top of the discounted price, there was a promotion with $25 discount if the total purchase of participating items is worth $49 or more. I bought 3 boxes and after discount, it is about $8.50 a box of 24 pieces of Slim Jim. He will have 72 pieces of beef jerky to enjoy while we are away … I think he may want to share some with his sister too. I may also steal some to bring back to KL to share with the people there.

I almost wanted to buy skis, snowboards and related products at cheap prices from Salomon, NILS Skiwear, Atomic, Patagonia, Burton, Columbia Footwear, Spyder, SmartWool and Sorel but luckily I didn’t place the order yet. I think my Hubby will enjoy this beef jerky pressie of his more than the skis or snowboards.

Brandon doesn’t nap on the same time everyday because he wakes up at a different time every morning.  And on the weekend, it is harder for us to follow any schedule as we are usually out from the home.  Sometimes he naps in the car for 15-30 minutes  and that’s the nap for the day.  He doesn’t get too tired even after short naps.  He still sleeps around 10pm at night. 

Yesterday he was able to nap at 1:30pm after his milk.  He requested his milk and then slowly dozing off while finishing up the milk.  That’s the easiest way for him to fall asleep and I am happy if he can sleep like that everyday but no.  Today, he woke up about the same time as yesterday and had his milk at 1:30pm.  But this time, he was all enegertic after the milk and was running around.  I told him to get up to his bed and rest his eyes.  He did it but after 2 minutes or so, he would come down from his bed and again I had to bring him to his bed again.  All the while I was sitting next to his bed.  This happened a many times and I decided at 2:30pm I needed to go wash his milk bottle and told him to stay in the bed.  And if he comes out of the bed and out of the room, I would close his bedroom door. 

 As I suspected, the moment I walked out his bedroom, he came down from his bed and walking towards the door.  I reminded him again to be on the bed that I just go out to wash the milk bottle.  He didn’t go back to the bed but continued walking towards the door.  So I closed the bedroom door and went out to wash his milk bottle. 

 He was crying behind the closed door.  I quickly washed the milk bottle and returned to open his door.  It was probably only 2 minutes the most I left him inside.  Why did I bother to go back so quickly?  Because I was afraid that he might throw up after crying too much.  But luckily it didn’t happen. 

I carried the crying boy to his bed, wiped his tears and face with a face towel and told him to sleep.  Less than 5 minutes … he went to lala land already.  Now I have to wash dishes … finish up typing posts which are pending … continue packing … and get ready for my dentish appointment at 4pm. 

That was my title before Brandon. CFO - Chief Financial Officer. Sounds cool rite? Then I was my household CFO. I manage the finance of the money coming in and out. Most of the months we have a little savings except for December and April when the property tax installments are due. It is good to keep track about your family finance so you can plan for future. Now this title has been taken over by my Hubby because I am not able to allocate time to this task anymore. So for more of our big expenses, I have to ask the new CFO before I made the purchase. Usually he will give a green signal.

I know many families don’t manage their finance well enough and they will borrow more and more money to cover the debt. And when this happens, the family may become distress and may be broken apart. If you are in debt, you may want to look into ACA to help stop debt. They can help with debt settlement, credit counseling, debt consolidation and if you need, they can help with bankruptcy too. They have a toll free number that you can call to speak to a representative to find out more about how they can help with your debt relief.

So how far along I am in my packing? Not much. I still have more to pack because of the laundry. We need to wait till almost the last day before I can finally pack all clothing necessary for the trip.

Anyway flying with MAS Airlines, each passenger is allowed 2 pieces of checked-in luggage. Each luggage should weigh 70 pounds or under with a maximum linear dimension of 60″ (height+width+length). My brother brought two suitcases with him, so he will be bringing two suitcases back. And between me and Brandon, we will be allowed 4 pieces total.

This below here is my brother’s suitcase which I already helped to fill it up and it is 55 pounds now. The items in this suitcase are not for me but for other people including 10 boxes of 1 pound See’s Candies chocolate. This suitcase is all done packing now.

This is another bag which I almost done packing. A car seat bag. I will be packing in this bag the Portable Fisher Price Booster Seat too which will be packed on the last day.

We probably have a total of 5 checked-in luggages and one car is definitely not enough to fill up the passengers as well as the luggages. We may need my SIL assistance to help driving some of our luggages to the airport on that evening.