My Little Terrors

Daddykhong is very spontaneous nowadays. Last month, without any notice, he told us that we’re off to Avillion Admiral Cove.

We left after lunch on Saturday and decided to not take the Seremban-PD highway but instead exit the NS highway at Pedas/Linggi and take the trunk roads to PD. What an enjoyable experience it was - to see the small towns and kampungs - though I did hear daddykhong mumble something under his breath along the lines of how much more fun it would have been for him had he been driving the new Audi A4!!!

We arrived at the hotel and checked ourselves in. The place is a disappointment when compared to Avillion Resort in PD. A classic case of eating the juicier apple first! It’s a nice place nonetheless but apart from the marina (which is out of bounds to us common folk), there’s nothing else to see there. Just perfect for a relaxing weekend.

The view from our hotel balcony. It looks better in the picture.

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We headed off to Melaka the following weekend after we returned from Hong Kong. This trip was booked many months back as a family trip for the 4 of us. It was just that the Hong Kong trip was slotted in the preceding week as the extended Khong family were all available then.

We left KL Friday evening and arrived at 10pm, in time to make it to Jonker Street for supper. We stayed at Hotel Puri behind Jonker Street. The hotel takes up 3 adjacent pre-war shophouses and it is very rustic in feel. So rustic that even the mattress in the room creaked whenever we sat on it (so much for bedtime acrobatics without waking the neighbours ;)). Never had such a lousy mattress offered in a hotel before.

This time, it is daddykhong’s 1st visit to Melaka and my 2nd.

Decorations on a trishaw

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Day 3 - After a delicious Dim Sum breakfast (the only food that is cheaper in Hong Kong than in Malaysia), we headed towards Hollywood Road where you can find a lot of high class antique shops.

One of the antiques that Mummykhong found dumped in front of a junkyard at Cat Street.

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The week after our go-kart session, we brought Braedyn and Shayanne to Hong Kong together with daddykhong’s family. He and his brothers thought it would be good to bring their mum for a holiday to celebrate her xx birthday (can’t reveal it here - she’ll kill me if I did) instead of opting for a massage chair or some La Mer cosmetics!(Sidenote - daddykhong made the biggest mistake of his life when he bought her La Mer for her birthday last year. She’s been bugging him for more ever since!)

Embarassed to say, it was my first trip to Hong Kong. Kampung mummykhong was eager to see Hong Kong for the first time and when I set my eyes on our lovely hotel, I knew it was going to be a memorable trip.

The facade of the Peninsula. Wait till you see their fleet of limos.

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After hearing many things about this place from Chin Nee, Jazzmint and Sue, I pestered my Mr Garmin to bring us (or me?) there. I even sent Sue’s directions link to him. He glanced at it, and said he already knew where it was (hmmmph….and he never took me there).

2 weeks back on a lazy Sunday morning, we headed to Ampang for Yong Tau Foo. On the way back, Mr Garmin decided to detour to Menara Tinjau using the back roads linking old Ampang to old Cheras

Fortunately, the weather was nice and cloudy even though it was only 2+ pm then.

So here are the photos:-

Braedyn & Shayanne all grown up

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Braedyn learnt his ABCs very quickly. In fact, he could recognise all the 26 letters since he was 2 years 4 months old. However, he only recognises the uppercase letters since we only had uppercase letters to use.

His secret?

• Leap Frog Learning DVDs

We bought this set of 5 DVDs from Amazon.com after reading this and this. Brae watches the whole show over and over again. He just loves it! After a while, he will follow the phonics sound from the alphabets. We bought a lot of educational DVDs on alphabets but none of them seemed to catch his interest except for this one. No regrets buying it.

• Wooden alphabet board from Melissa & Doug

After watching the DVD, we will have our ‘alphabet game’ just before bedtime. I will take four letters, e.g. A-B-C-D and jumble them up. Then I will ask him to take the letters and arrange them in order. After all the letters are in place we will sing the ABC song together while pointing at the letters.

• Upper and lowercase alphabet set from Melissa & Doug

Recently, we bought a Crayola easel from Toys R Us and the above alphabet set (that comes with lowercase letters as well). To our utmost surprise, upon opening the casing, Braedyn took all the letters out and started arranging them one by one, referring to the uppercase letters as either “Daddy” or “Mummy” and the lowercase letters as “Baby”! Gosh! We never taught him any lowercase letters and he did not learn it at school because they are only on “L” currently.

Side note, Brae can recognise numbers 1-10 as well. Errr..not really…he will say ‘one’-'o’ for 10! Haihhh….

Well, we are definitely proud of him!

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Daddykhong always reminds me to speak Mandarin to our little boy because he does not want the children to turn into a banana like him! But my Mandarin is ‘bun tong sui’ (half past six)…how to speak? I used to speak a lot when I was working in Gerakan. Since I haven’t been working for donkey years and I don’t speak Mandarin with my friends, my Mandarin has all but rusted.

Now we are having problems with Brae not allowing us to speak in Mandarin.

Scenario 1:
On the way home from Brae’s playschool, Daddykhong would sing a popular Teresa Teng song.
Daddykhong: 忘不了…..忘不了…. (Mamakhong: He only knows this part. )

Braedyn: No..no..NO..NO…Daddy!!! Drive!! Drive….!!!

Brae is not telling Daddy to concentrate on driving but to tell him to stop singing in Mandarin! LOL!

Scenario 2:

Back home, Daddykhong related what happened to me. This was what I did to Brae…

Just so happened that Brae brought home a muffin that he baked at school.

Mummykhong: Brae, 你的 muffin 好吃吗？(Translated: Brae, is your muffin nice to eat?)

Brae: No Mummy!! NOOOO!!!

Haihhh…how to get him to speak Mandarin? Hmm..I think I must get a Mandarin speaking playgroup for him already.

Separate issue:

Brae is now associating 饼干 (Translated: biscuit) with 謝謝 (Translated: thank you).

It is all started when Brae followed us to Daddykhong’s office. Aunty Jac (one of the staff there which Brae adores) gave Brae a peanut butter cookie. She taught Brae 饼干 and 謝謝 after she gave him the cookie. Therefore whenever we tried to ask Brae to say 謝謝 when we gave him something, Brae would say, “No! 饼干…. 謝謝!!! Daddykhong and Mummykhong are speechless!

p/s: Thanks Jesslyn for teaching me the chinese characters

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What a busy period it has been. 2 holidays, many events and dinners, very tired parents, and very ecstatic kids.

The posts will come in slowly. Lucky first will be our go-kart session in Shah Alam with daddykhong’s cousins.

It was our first time at a kart track. Daddykhong was initially afraid of crashing his kart but towards the end, he kept going for more sessions and even ended up in the bigger-engined karts for the last race.

Braedyn, Shayanne and myself were his cheerleaders and each time a kart passed, Braedyn would shout “Go, Go, Go”. He could tell where daddy was even though I couldn’t. Maybe if he could express himself better, he might say “Easy lah mummy! Daddy is ALWAYS the slowest one lah!”

More photos HERE.

Stay tuned for the write-ups on our Hong Kong & Melaka trips…

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To answer Mumsgather’s meme (errr..a bit too late hor?), there’snothing much that I wish to do on this particular day. Just hope that our little terrors will grow up healthy and happy. I would like to take this opportunity to wish other mummies “Happy Mother’s Day”.

Daddykhong brought us to Bubba Gump on their opening week for an early Mother’s Day celebration. Food was ok but they imported a team from Philippines to train their Malaysian crew and we couldn’t understand what they were saying even though we’re sure it was English!

More photos HERE.

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1. We met in year 2001.
2. We registered in year 2003.
3. We had our reception dinner in year 2004.
4. Our first baby - Braedyn Khong Jian-Wen was born in year 2005.
5. Our second baby - Shayanne Khong Xue-Yan was born in year 2007.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, DEAR! Thanks for being a good father of our two lovely little terrors.

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