I Don't Want You To Grow Old

I was sitting at my usual table and typing away on my computer...

Ace walked out from the bathroom, changed into his PJs and took a comb to comb his hair (he very hiao one.. going to bed still gotto comb hair one..)

And right after he was done combing his own hair, he came and sat behind me and started to comb MY HAIR.

I continued to type lah.. since I was used to him playing around with my hair. It is one of the reasons why I decided to cut my hair short.

Suddenly, he paused.. so I looked up from what I was doing only to see him pursing his lips...

"Why?" I asked him...

"You have so many white hair..." he said sadly... "I don't want you to grow old..."

Hai... no matter how many times i explain to him.. my son doesnt understand this... that everyone grows older.. every single second.. every day...

"Ace, there is no way to stop growing old.. you can grow old faster or grow old slower but you cannot stop growing older at all.. this is a fact of life.." I told him..

"I know.. but I still don't want you to grow old..." he said sadly as he put the comb back into its usual shelf...

Previous Post: I Love It Because It Is Made With Love

I Love It Because It Is Made With Love

WHen Ace was about 3 years old... if you asked him what he wanted to eat... his personal favourites will go in this order:

1. Sushi
2. Sauce Mian
3. Mac Donalds

Now that he is turning 8 and we are living in Dubai, his personal favourites are:

1.  Sushi
2. Mac Donalds
3. Subway

But I expected that he would still enjoy sauce mian lah.. so the other day, because I myself had craving for lor mee, I decided to make some..

I didnt have any recipe.. I just anyhow make.. based on my past year and a half experience in cooking and sort of made up my own recipe ;) wahahaha...

The end result was in my opinon quite nice:) And it quelled the craving I had for lor mee...

But leh, Ace wasnt very impressed. Apparently, he used to love Sauce Mian (that is his nickname for Lor Mee) because he loved anything that was sour! But now, he doesnt like sour food anymore and so he said he did not really enjoy it...

"Mummy, do you know how many marks I give this sauce mian out of 5 stars? Just ONE! Cos it is too sour! I don't like sour food!"

I pursed my lips and told him I am quite disappointed that he did not like it because I put in alot of effort to cook it.. thinking that he will enjoy and like it...

So my son ran over.. put his arms around me and gave me a big big hug and whispered into my ears... "But I still love it lah... because it is made with love..."

1, 2, 3, Awwww.......:)

I melt liao..

Previous Post: Old School Games

Old School Games

Sometimes I think hor, kids who benefit by enjoying the joys of ipads, iphones and what nots miss out on the joys of all the old school games we used to play...

Because we do not encourage Ace to use the iphone or ipad much, we have to come up with good ways to amuse him and what better way to do it than go back to our Old School Games that we played when we were in school?

So far, we have taught him how to play:

RUBBER
Remember that game that you play with erasers with alphabest or flags of diff countries? You flick the eraser and whoever can flick their eraser on top of the other person's eraser will win...


八仙过海
This is somewhat a game of actions. There are specific actions of each of the four words and you take turns to shout out the word of your choice and do the action. If it is your turn to shout and the person playing with you happens to choose the same action as you do.. they lose...

我家的我家的我家的CHECK
Another action game that ends in scissors paper stones...

Strings
Do you remember how we will tie two ends of a string up into a big loop and loop them around and the trick is to continue looping it around your fingers in various combinations to make different shapes...

5 Stones
Ace is not so good at this.. I tried to make bigger 5 stones for him.. end up it was a wrong move, i thought easier to catch but end up difficult because he has small hands..

Triangle
That is when you draw many dots on the notebook and you are to join them up to create as many triangles as possible

Pick Up Sticks
This game is not common now but it was alot of fun when we were playing with it:)

Cross Out Sticks
This one is where you draw sticks like this
    I
  I  I
 I  I  I
I I  I I
and you take turn to cross out any number of sticks..  whoever crosses the last stick loses...

Hangman
This one is introduced to Ace by Fayth Jie Jie who has gotten quite good at entertaining kids.. you underline the letters of a word you have in mind. The other person guesses the letters and tries to figure out the word. Every wrong word gets a part of the man drawn.. every right guess will show you where that letter fits. If the whole man is drawn and you havent guessed the word, you lose...

Pencil Chess/Soccer
THere are a few variations for this and Max taught Ace the simple one. Each person has four circles drawn on their side of the paper and you shoot the pencil away towards your opponent.. if you cross them, they are dead.. your game is to eliminate all four soldiers your opponent has:)

Max and Ace having fun playing Pencil Chess...

In return, Ace has also taught me some of the new age games he plays in school.. I don't know though if these games are similar to those that children play in Singapore but they are apparently common in International Schools...

Bunny Got Shot By The UFO
Tic Tac Toe
Give me a high
Give me a low
Give me a three in a row
Bunny got shot by the UFO (when you say tat you got to do scissors paper stone, loser gets his or her cheeks pinched.)

Chopsticks
You are supposed to hold out your hand and say CHOPSTICKS. This game is related to math and you supposed to count how many fingers, add them up and cross out the other person's finger or something... the last one left with a finger still in the game wins....

Previous Post: Ace's Guitar Performance 2

Ace's Guitar Performance 2

The other day, Ace said he already finished learning his 2nd guitar song and so he asked if I would like to video him so that we can post it on his blog...

I asked him to practise till he is very confident...

After practising a few times, he says he is ready..

Just when I whipped out my camera, he says, "Tomorrow then video lah.. my fingers pain already.."

Wahahahaahhaah....

So we videoed it the next day lor:)



Previous Post: The Whole World United Together Is Strong!

The Whole World United Together Is Strong!

Ace likes to tell me about things happening in his school when he is back home and eating his lunch after he comes back from school.

Sometimes, I am two minds about whether to engage him in conversation. If I do.. it means he eats very slowly and have very little time left for homework.. if I do not, well, what the heck, there is very little time left to talk also after he finishes eating, homework, bathing, having dinner, reading story books...

So I try to engage him on alternate days lah... this one day, he was telling me about how he and a schoolmate of his are playing with "swords" because they were pretending to be knights..

I didn't want to cut in but I wondered then what they were using as swords...

Ace continued with his story.. and told me that Z, his friend used a ruler as a sword and then cut him on his face and it hurt alot and so he asked Z to stop..

To which Z just laughed and said, "Muahahahahaha! I am the world's strongest person.. you are weak!"

So Ace got fed up and asked Z, "Why must you always be strong? Do you know my face hurts?"

Z said, "Because I am strong! MUAHAHAHAHA!" and continued on laughing and saying that he is the strongest person.. that is.. according to Ace lah..

At this point of the story, Ace asked me, "Mummy, how can Z say he is the strongest person in the world? How can a person by himself be strong? Doesnt he know that if a group of people come together, they will become even stronger than the strongest man? If the whole world united together then is strong!"

I was sort of impressed and asked him who taught him that...

"You lah!"

Hahahaha.. I forget what I tell him sometimes..

I told Max what Ace said and he is suitably impressed...  he asked me why Ace never says this kind of chim things to him..  I guess it is because they talk less to each other and play more bah:)


Previous Post: The Two Of You Same Fatness

The Two Of You Same Fatness

The other day, I was making dinner for Ace.

"Mummy, what you cooking for dinner?" Ace asked.

"Today you are eating fried rice..." I replied.

"Then you leh?" He asked.

"I am drinking soup..." I replied.

"Why are you not eating the same thing as me?" He asked.

"I want to lose weight mah... 减肥.." I replied.

Wah lau.. then I dio nag...

"I already ask you to exercise already mah.. you dun want to exercise.. and then you dun eat, what will happen? You will feel very hungry.. and if you feel hungry, it is not good for you and then you will eat more and then you cannot lose weight. Exercise is the best mah.. you already set your prayers, mummy, you have to CHALLENGE YOUR PRAYERS (goal) and go all the way, go and exercise everyday and then you can lose weight like your prayer says..."

Since when hor is the son nag the mother one... SIGH...

Anyway, a few days later, I related this incident to Max.

"Yah, ask mummy to exercise she don't want.. that is why she fat.." Ace said when he overheard.

So Max wanted to rub salt into the wound and say, "Yeah lah.. not like me.. I always exercise.."

To which Ace replied.. "Haiya, you all same fatness lah... "

LOL.. Max din know whether to laugh or to cry.. so gave Ace dagger eyes and "oi oi oi!" him...

Realizing now that anything he say will be wrong, the little PR expert said.. "Well, actually you all is the same amount of fatness.. but because daddy is tall.. so he doesnt look so fat.. and because mummy is shorter, so she look a little fatter.. but actually, both the same fatness lah..."

WAHAHAHAHAHA...

Really PENGZ I tell you!

Previous Post: Uncle Ryo's Again!

Uncle Ryo's Again!

Was the last day of Ace's school holiday and so last min while we were out, Max decided we will go to Uncle Ryo's for sushi:)

As usual, lovely salad!

This time round we had something new.. The brinjal hor is very very very very nice.. when I asked Ryo how he made it.. he said you deepfry the brinjal.. and then you cut slits in it and boil it inside broth.. and then cool it down as a cold dish.. very nice lor:) Even the bambo shoots are also very nice.. I love eating here because not only the food is nice, it is very fresh too:)

This reminds me of the fried veggie tat Yati taught me how to make:) Jap food so simple. just a fried veg wiht rice also a very nice dish..

THe other day, I went to a jap soka member's house for gathering.. and then she made some "lunch" for us.. it was just white rice sprinkled with fish eggs... and miso soup.. DAM NICE LOR:) and so simple too!

As usual, Ace followed Uncle Ryo for some ice cream.. For me, Ace chose strawberry and watermelon ice cream. Very interesting taste actually....  and I think all these ice creams are handmade because they are super smooth and tasty!

Max got apple and coffee...

Ace chose for himself mango and chocolate:)

Hai.. UNCLE RYO IS STILL THE BEST!

Previous Post: Baby F

Baby F

Anyone who knows my father in law will know that he has been dying for a daughter all his life... and he got two sons :) So as a result, Max says that he will love me more than him after we get married.. hahahaha...

This also means my FIL passes the HOPE and DESIRE down to me.. that I will give birth to a daughter. Alas, I gave birth to a son.. whom he of course loved to bits anyway. But he will be so fascinated with little girls and will keep saying they are very cute lah.. sometimes he see a little girl, he will keep following behind to wave to her...

Perhaps hor, this is hereditary as well.. hahahaa:)

We first met Baby F at a charity party in the Singapore Consulate. She was the daughter of one of our friends and had been in Dubai for a visit. Somehow when Max saw her, his face morphed into that of my FIL when he sees cute little girls and he tried to play with her.

Though Baby F was a little slow to warm up, she did eventually warm up and because once she is warmed up, she is very friendly and smiley, Max adored her even more!

His theory is that children who are between 2-3 are the most fun and he especially likes it if the toddler is friendly :) He hasnt had much success with our god daughter who sees us twice a year and has a stronger personality and a much longer time to warm up to people (even though she see botak  she will point and tell her dad that is GANDIE.. and she sees Angel fish, she will say tat is ganma fish.. cos she knows Ganma's name is Angel...

Anyway, there was a baby shower for one of our friends and Max found out that Baby F is going...

Wah.. excited liao lor..  the baby shower was on a friday.. so thursday night, right after dinner, he announced that "WE ARE GOING TO DAISO!" Because he wanted to buy something for Baby F! In my so many years together with Max, I have never ever seen him EXCITED about DAISO lor!:) wahahahaha...

He searched around a bit and decided he wanted to buy a sticker set for her... While me and Ace walked around and look at other things, this old uncle hor, took his own sweet time to pick and choose lor.. he even took out the WHOLE STACK of stickers from the hook (At least 50 pieces) to search through and get the design that he wants (cos he say that design is the cutest!)

Then come Friday when we were going out, he kept asking me if I remembered to bring the sticker along.. I say I am going to tell F's parents and he tsk me and said, "Don't make me out to be like some psycho lah..."

Wahahaha.. BUT I JUST TELLING THE TRUTH MAH:)

Anyway, the GIVE A STICKER SET strategy worked lor:) F eventually allowed Max to carry her around and walk around the whole house with her..

F, Max and the CAREFULLY CHOSEN STICKER SET:)

Ace was not doing too badly as a GOR GOR as well. He showed exemplary behavior as big brother and I was sort of surprised that he actually knew how to play with a much younger kid. I must say indeed he will make a very good elder brother:)

 At the end of the day, F already liked and trusted Max enough to hold his hand and walk down to the lobby even though her parents were still chatting away at the door of the host!:)

Hahahaha.. looks like if I do get preggy again, there will be two votes for girls and only one for a boy (Ace.. cos he says he wants didi to play boy games)...

Previous Post: Jumeriah Beach Again

Jumeriah Beach Again

Since we bought new goggles, new beach shorts and new floats, we decided that we most certainly have to go to the beach AGAIN!:)

Alas when we reached the beach... THERE WERE NO UMBRELLAS AVAILABLE FOR RENT!

Can die lor.. I sit there wiht the cap as my only shade.. even my picnic mat feels HOT TO TOUCH after 5 minutes under the mid day sun!

I quickly tok out my UV protection Umbrella.. BUT only can protect me...


I was seated there and then when there was finally a free umbrella, the umbrella man gave it to the arabic family that came AFTER US.. just because they had a little boy with them.. but hell, their boy came in a pram and was in shade lor.. me was in the sun lor.. I think I need the umbrella more lor! Hahaha.. but ok lah.. granted the little boy is very small.. only 2 years old or so I think.. give them priority lor...

I was quite pissed though that the father actually started smoking in front of his son.. cannot let the son come under the sun can let him smell second hand smoke that will rot his lungs.. dunno wat logic he has in his warped mind...

Thank goodness, after about 10 min, another family left, I quickly cheong to set up my mats under the shade.. wah.. SHIOK to hide under the cool umbrella

Meanwhile.. Ace and Max went out to the beach and started having fun... while I just enjoy the breeze under the shade..

Suddenly, I heard someone shout, "HOLD ON TO THE BOARD!" At once I looked up and see what happened cos that was obviously Max lor...

Turned out that at the far end where the rocks are, there are actually fishes, corals and sea porcupines (sea urchins)! So Max brought Ace there on the board.. but because Ace was very frightened when he saw the prickly sea porcupines, (which he knows from learning in school are poisonous) he started to wobble and almost lost his grip on the board...

Well, the good thing is that they managed to see also some of the blue fishes.. you know.. like the fish named Dory in Finding Nemo?

Time for a family photo:)

Did you see the couple on the left side of the picture? The half naked one is the idiotic father who smoked in front of his young child. They had wanted to bring their child swimming but the little one cried the moment he touched water and so the mother had to carry him while standing in the sea...

Then Max and Ace decided to play frisbee for a while:)

Me and Max:)

I remember F told me how the beach near her place always has a row of indian workers sitting there to watch free show... cos the ladies on the beach were all in bikinis...  saw these indian workers seated on the breakwater and watching from afar...

At least they watching from afar lor...

We saw a group of Arabic young men who walked around and took photo using their phones... SO THEY ARE WORSE! I found out later it is illegal to take photo of any woman in Dubai without her permission.. they could have been arrested lor.. 

I decided to go waddle in the sea for a while lah.. saw this green lump.. dunno wat is it.. but took picture cos very fascinated.. reminds me of a cartoon I watched with Ace when Ace was much younger called 宇宙小毛球..

Then hor, Max asked me if I wanted to go and see the corals. I figured since Ace has the board, I can use the board and float over there and float back lah, doesnt seem like very far mah.. and if Ace can do it, I can do it for sure right?

WRONG!

It was one of the most horrifying experiences of my life!

Firstly, you know it is the sea right.. so there is a current.. and I havent been swimming for maybe 20 years.. so I have forgotten how exactly to even kick using the board.. so no matter how I kick, I felt like I was not moving or if not, I felt like I was moving furthur and furthur away from my target... Max was initially swimming alongside me and as he got furthur away, I will start to feel very frightened.... It did not help that I was using Ace's very small KIDS SIZED goggles tat limited my vision considerably.. the world is just a blur... and in the panicky state where I tried to calm myself down, the only sense I could feel was just my GUT FEEL!

I held on to the board for my dear life!  And thank god Max was there to sometimes pull me along.... I kicked and kicked and held on hard to the board and instead of moving forward, I felt like I was moving backwards!

Or if not, as I tried to move towards Max, I felt like I was actually floating furthur away, which made me even more panicky.. after alot of hard work.. finally arrived at the place where I was supposed to look at the amazing sea creatures.. saw a coral that looked like a brain.. (Big deal, saw this in aquarium liao...) saw some sea urchines (big deal, also saw those in aquarium liao), saw some silver fishes which I have already seen as they also swim towards the shallow water in schools... where is DORY? KNN, I guess I was just unlucky.. come this far, after so much struggle, that was all I saw...

I decided hor.. been there, done that, time to go back to the shore...

ONce and again, I kicked hard but felt myself moving backwards... Max kept laughing at me and saying that I was even more of a trouble than Ace. 

And then came the epic part... Max told me "OK lah, reach the part where your legs can touch the ground liao.." This is my husband talking.. and I would naturally trust him right? So I trusted him and put my legs down and let go of the board...

WAH LAU EH, MAX FORGOT I AM SHORTER THAN HIM LOR! MY LEGS CANNOT TOUCH THE GROUND!!!!

So into the water I went... And at that moment, I remembered this video I watched about how children are taught to float till they are rescued... and I was about to roll over and float like what I saw the baby did in the video when I realized that my body was floating and I could reach out for my float again...

By the time I was back on shore, I was exhausted.. my legs and arms ached for the whole night that night lor...

Well, at least, BEEN THERE, DONE THAT! FOR SURE!

Previous Post: The Legendary Fried Fish

The Legendary Fried Fish

According to Aunty WL,many people have been telling her about this legendary FRIED FISH somewhere in Jumeriah...

So we tried to make an excursion with the whole jim gang.. but alas when we arrived, it was too crowded and so we decided to go another day...

Finally arrived at this little shop hidden along a small small road.. diagonally across Burj Al Arab...

Poor Max and Ace could only eat curry and parata.. cos the shop only sell fried fish, fried seafoods and paratha with curry...

When I stared at the fish and asked.. "How to eat ah?" My malaysian friends laugh at me and said, "USE HANDS LAH!"

Hahahahaa...

The fish was really fresh.. wat a waste tat the deep fried it.. would have been dam good if it was steamed...

Anyway, special thanks to Lily for making and bringing her super GENG chilli sauce.. PERFECT!

But will I go again? Considering that I am not much of a seafood person and my darlings have nothing much to eat... I think it goes on my Been There, Done That List...

Previous Post: Best Of Children's Muscial At Burjuman

Best Of Children's Musical At Burjuman

The shopping mall near where we stay is having some sort of renovation. Once the reno is done, there will be carrefour and a movie theatre here!

Because of the reno, half the mall is closed, and I think they wanted to continue to attract people to visit the mall and so they are having performances every now and then.

This time, they are having a BEST of Musicals performance with a lucky draw for 10 lucky kids to win 500 dirham vouchers.. so Ace said that he wanted to go...

From the pictures, can you guess what musicals were they??:)

ALLADIN..

TOY STORY... You've Got A Friend In Me.. this is supposed to be Woody and Ace says it is his fav part of the show.. strange.. given that there is only singing...

Beauty and the Beast... Be My Guest....

Pochahontas.... Colours Of The Wind

This one I also dunno.. wahahaha..

I think this is quite obvious right...

Lion King.. Circle of LIfe:)

Hahaha.. I din know this one until I watched the cartoon a week later.. it is TANGLED:)

The Little Mermaid.. Under The Sea

School of ROck:)

And this is how Ace is when he was watching the show.. really bTH him.. always sit like he really dun like the show like tat.. but you ask him.. he will say very nice, he enjoyed it... Ask him why he sit like tat and look so xian.. "My back is very tired.. I want to rest my back mah..."

Reminded him it is bad manners to sit like that when you watch a performance on stage.. because if you were performing, how would you feel if the audience are all sitting like tat?

"Don't feel good lor.." he said.. "Yeah, you will think they dun enjoy your show right?" But hor, repeat and repeat.. he still likes to slouch.. already the Nth time I nag him about this.. next time he perform I will sit like tat and watch and make sure he can see me.. sigh...

This one is High School Musical lor:)

It was a wonderful half and hour show.. went to youtube to see if anyone posted video of it but no leh.. too bad then...

Previous Post: Popo's 60th Birthday