Breakfast for hubby

One reason hubby is not an easy 'patient'...  he is always anxious about not getting enough nutrition.  I captured this pic when almost done preparing his standard breakfast.  

1.3 kinds of vitamins

2. Fizzy vitamin C

3. Cup of cold water for vitamin C above

3. Kinohimitsu collagen drink

4. Oats with marmite

5. Appeton recovery milk+Health powder mix (to be in shaker)

6. Bread with peanut butter (to be in bowl)

7. Two half-boiled eggs (not on table yet)

Hubby's breakfast setting

With my complete breakfast for comparison

Utensils have to be there for him - plate, knife, cup, tissue.  And he eats multiple times a day - midmorning, tea-time, a protein shake after exercising, random snacks - so it's also a job clearing and washing up, then replacing utensils for his next makan. With all these, he still has the cheek to lose weight haha.

 I'm so glad we have a maid else... *faint

Ice-cream in the car

This post is a reminder to myself... no more letting the kids have ice-cream in the car!  

Ice-cream! Yum yum

I thought it'd be safer from a health point of view to finish off eating in the car, as compared to eating outside with masks off.  Also it would be comfortable to eat while seated in the car.  Then...

Dripping sticky ice-cream all over clothes and self

Mummy, you want?

All the while complaining that her flavour of ice-cream was no good and melted too quickly.  And no, I didn't want that soggy sticky mess of cone!

JE finished hers without problems.

Assessment test

After 3 years in a Chinese primary school, it's clear SE isn't able to follow the lessons.  She cannot even understand what the teacher is saying hence cannot absorb anything.  My parents had been trying to get her up to speed but somehow she has a mental block to learning Chinese.  Or BM for that matter, sigh.  I figure we don't have time to try her out in a BM-medium school as academically she must be miles behind by now.

So no choice, next year for Standard4 she will go to a private school.  The books will be in BM but teaching will mostly be in English.  Unlike some schools where students have to pass the entrance exam to enroll, this school states upfront that their policy is "every child deserves an education"  (from a cynical point of view,  that means they aren't popular enough to be full so they want your money HAHAHA).  There is still an assessment to check what class to place the student.  SE did hers online last weekend.  It was 1.5 hours for English, BM and Maths.

Mummy! I don't know what this means!!

Count count... Mummy! I cannot click!

Mummy: Su Ern! Faster do! No time already!

Sigh... problems included difficulty in navigating, in using the laptop, not understanding the terms used, not being very good at BM/maths in the first place, being slow, multiple occasions of lying down when she didn't know how to do questions...  

Anyway we have received an 'offer letter' from the school after the test.  Here's to hoping SE will do fine in her next chapter.  While my pocket gets used to being lighter.

All vaccinated

Vaccination just opened for kids 5-11. Getting an appointment was smooth via MySejahtera.  The only venue carrying Pfizer(kids) near my place was a community hall which had plenty of slots.  However since it wasn't a shopping mall nor clinic... no air-con haha.  And there were many, many people.

My fear was SE would bolt at some point of the process!  This was the kid who came back from school one day and told me (pardon me if repeating, might have told this before in my blog hehe):

SE: Today got injections at school. Some people ran away and teachers had to chase them
Me: Oh.  Then... *mother's instinct*  Were you one of them?
SE: Yes

SE: Then, some people, the teacher had to hold them down for injection

Me: *faster now*  Were you one of them?

SE: Yes

But I assume she wouldn't have anywhere to run in an unfamiliar place.  And hubby couldn't come along.

So last week, I followed Waze through some narrow kampung roads and found the PPV without problems.

Waiting

There were pauses in the queue.  When we got nearer the front, realised that was because they were using batches of vaccines brought in a thermo chest.  Once a batch was used up, someone would take that chest and go for more.  Also, there were only two stations for the whole hall.

   

Almost there

Finally, after an hour of sweating, it was our turn.  A kid dose is 200ml vs the adult one of 300ml.

JE first

Poking.... done

Then it was SE's turn.

Bit scared. Hold Jojo

Poking... still holding Jojo

All right, all done!  The kids had sore arms until the next day but were otherwise fine.  Now to wait two months for the follow up dose.  

CNY Day2

 We (without hubby and maid) went to my parents' house for Day2 .  

All in red-red

To me going back to my 'own side' always feels good!  It was a potluck so we had plenty of variety of food.

Laying out the food

Ze food

'Tiger' yee sang with creator

I only bought satay since don't have much free time this round.  And without my maid around to help out, keeping things a bit simpler.

Happy CNY 2022

Food for the reunion dinner - steamed grouper, salt fried prawns, braised pork belly, fish maw.  Things were scaled down a bit due to the situation but it was still a good dinner. 

Hubby started having some wine at CNY.  He'd gone without alcohol since the surgery, which is definitely his longest period ever in recent times!  

Good spread of food

We took some photos around the house the next day.  Kids kept complaining about their uncomfortable clothes... well fortunately they didn't need to wear them for long.

Gong xi fa cai!

Now can we go change?

 Happy CNY to all!  

Pre CNY

Oh it's already the sixth day of CNY, better get posting!

This year we acquired a very respectable stash of CNY snacks and cookies.  I love having a variety of these to munch on!

We have all these to eat and more in the kitchen

Made only two of them this year - seaweed crackers and peanut cookies.  There were some problems with the latter which tasted strongly of baking soda.  Oh well my objective, as I frequently tell hubby who would always go for the shortcut of buying everything - is to let the kids have a culture of MAKING stuff.  Luckily the cookies tasted better once cooled down. 

Seaweed cracker production process

We had an early lou sang session 2 days before CNY to accommodate people who cannot make it for the reunion dinner.  Food of poon choy and yee sang was enough for our small group.

Huat ah!

For this year, right at the top of the our wishes is hubby's health.  

Status:  Progress had been steady until about 2 weeks ago when he woke up not feeling well.  He was unable to move the muscles he had worked so hard to re-activate, even his 'good' side was affected.  He fell a few times when his legs buckled.  Went to the hospital again for a MRI scan... turned out there was a swelling at the surgery site while the other side of the brain was fine.  Neurosurgeon said swelling is common enough, can be there a few months, some even a few years.  Whatever it was, hubby got a course of steroids to consume for 2.5 weeks.  Withdrawal symptoms are expected once this finishes but for now, he is back to his normal self.  Guess we need to take things one step at a time.