Melaka Last day

The last day of any holiday is always a short one, what with the time hubby and the kids wake up (me, my body clock wakes me up earlier) and the noon check-out.  I totally forgot the pool was closed despite a few reminders.  Went with SE (JE couldn't be persuaded to go) and just took some photos before leaving.

Pool is closed

Just pose for pictures

Last item on agenda was lunch at Tong Sheng.  There are all these places I want to eat at but they are far from where we are, have long queues, not suitable for some of us etc.  Finally can cross this one off the list.  Found the cheese prawn bihun not really special as it's not very different from normal sang har meen.  The crab requested by SE was big but not super-fresh.  The garlic squid was all right.  What I really liked was the rojak sauce pork - basically like Penang rojak with added fried pork and lots of peanuts (also available with chicken).  My maid has already replicated it once at home, to my mum's approval. :)

Big dish of crab too

Melaka Next

JE likes satay celup so that will be one of our meals in Melaka.  We tried out a place new to us, McQuek's main branch.  Good thing is, it's out of the busy town area and parking was a breeze.  But.... there is still a queue heh.

Stand or squat, up to you

This place is more spacious than the others in a shoplot.  Hmm but I don't like the sauce as I find the cinnamon in it too strong.

Subway sandwich for SE, satay celup for others

The next day... we hit Jonker street again.  Stopped at Kee Nguyen for coffee and avocado ice cream, good stuff.

Peeps waiting for coffee

Take photo while waiting

JE likes 'tanghulu' aka fruits on a stick with a crispy sugar coating.  SE used to like these too... in her current state with an eating disorder she doesn't take these things.  Funny that in the past I didn't like the girls being so into cotton candy, tanghulu, marshmallow etc.  Now I would be ecstatic if SE could start taking these again.

Pose with Jojo's tanghulu

Halfway through our walk, the heavens opened up and we had to seek shelter at the shops for quite some time. Eventually got our wet selves into the car.  Drove off, and the rain stopped in oh, 10mins.

Melaka Next day

Between the convenience of Jonker St vs the better value-for-money accommodation further away, the latter won this time.  No regrets as our apartment at Silverscape was nice (pretty sure rentals will increase once the attached mall is in operation!  It has apparently been closed since MCO but there is a ZUS coffee outlet where I happily went for breakfast while everyone was still sleeping)

SE having breakfast with a view

We headed to The Shore for lunch at Cafe Chef Wan.  I was excited... been wanting to come to this place for a while now.  There was a 40% discount lunch promotion for Ramadan month - perfect.  

Love the cafe deco! 

Us with 'Chef Wan'

The food... not so much.   At a price point of RM36, the cucur udang was huge and the fried 'nest' was lovely to look at and eat.  But the prawns were so far from fresh that the flesh was mushy.  Mee rebus and seafood horfun at RM38 each were ok, nothing special.  There are loads of interesting items on the menu though so maybe another time.  At least portions are large.  All our dishes came with multiple whole cili padi which I wiped off and brought home haha.

Us with the mee rebus and giant cucur udang

Cannot believe this huge bowl

Our visit to The Shore had another objective - the aquarium!   We went there when it was newly opened 6 years ago.  Things have gone slightly downhill - deterioration in the condition of the exhibits, less specimens in the touch pools, no more interactive game nor included souvenir.  Oh well.

Many small fishies

Big fish

Save the ship!

Got a takeaway from Subway for SE's dinner, got lost trying to find the car, then it was back to our apartment.

Melaka 2024

April 2024 Melaka

Better blog before I forget.  :)  JE requested to go to Melaka for the school holidays, so why not.  We always enjoy messing about in Jonker Street.

It was straight from KL to The Daily Fix cafe for lunch.  I do like this place *happy*.  

My fav - pancakes, ham, sausage, banana, maple syrup

This time we checked out the upstairs.

Instagrammable stairs

Instagrammable windows

Then we proceeded to the messing around in Jonker Street.  

Hehe

Old doorway

'Jemput masuk' This is actually a hotel

Check out my muscles!

Tired ourselves out nicely and timing was then good to check into our accommodation.

Refeeding

Definition:  Refeeding is the process of reintroducing food after malnourishment or starvation.

The ideal weight for her height is 38kg - she was at least 35kg before this eating disorder.  She hit a bottom of only 25kg.  How can a growing child drop over 10kg... :(

Weight, and thus health, recovery was critical.  The 'prescription':

1. 3 meals and 3 snacks a day

2.  Lunch/dinner - 90g protein, 2 spoonfuls of veg  and the equivalent of 150g rice.   

3.  Milk powder 3 times a day

4.  A scoop of protein powder once a day

5.  Medication to help on weight gain and the phobia of food

And I'd thought going back to her normal diet would be enough.  This 'prescription' is definitely more than what she was consuming.  

I am thankful that refeeding was relatively trouble-free.  There were some hiccups and resistance.  But overall she was able to follow the refeeding prescription.  

I quite like this

She is 33kg now.  Other symptoms of the eating disorder are still there.  At least she is no longer on the brink of starvation.

 

Did well

Awards Day was held at SE's school.  SE said everyone got an award for something so I didn't need to to attend.  

Later she found out students were allowed to go home after the event.  Since hers was the morning session, it would be many hours before the transporter arrived.  So she asked me to attend in order to 'rescue' her.  So... ok lah go.

The hall was set up with pomp.  Nice.  The playing of Negaraku always invoke feelings in me now that I seldom hear it.  As the event progressed I realised... SE had done very well indeed!  She received awards in English and Moral for being the overall best in her whole standard.  And one for being second in class.

I was overwhelmed.  My little girl, who had been struggling with anorexia.  Whose health resulted in her having to be kept away from school a whole month, in almost everything else being pushed aside.  I had to hold back the tears.

Proud mama was there!

With my awards

Kudos also to my parents who had been helping her with study-time.

With Ah Mah

Ah Kong shaking my hand

Exercise problem

Anorexia comes with other symptoms besides drastic weight loss.  

For SE, another problem became obvious - obsessive exercising.  She was exercising every moment possible - jumping jacks, planking, leg lifts, running in place... you name it.  Some examples:

1. Before we went to the doctor and found exercise was to avoided in her case, when we was still going swimming together:  

a.  She would swim lengths non-stop until it was time to go

b.  In the shower after the swim, jump up and down

c.  After getting home and having dinner, still request to go for a walk

2. Her teacher called me for a 1-1 chat.  She told me SE had been going missing from classes for long periods at a time and her classmates reported seeing her exercising in the toilet.

3. In the middle of the night, she would wake up and go to the toilet.  Sometimes that wakes me up as well - I would check on her and inevitably find her in the toilet exercising.  

4.  Every time we notice she has been gone a while, we look for her and usually would catch her exercising. 

It was doubly difficult.  Due to her extremely-low weight, exercise would cause stress to the heart and could result in dire consequences.  It would also sabotage the objective of quickly bringing her weight up to a healthy level.

Besides her weight, this was what convinced me she was suffering from anorexia.  I made sure to talk to her at length after catching her exercising, explaining why she cannot be doing that, trying to get her to stop.  But literally the moment I turned away, she would resume.  :(

No I was not doing