Great ambitions and all that..

When we were little, my parents(my mom mostly) would point to a poor person like a maid or something and say "If you study hard and get good grades, you don't have to work so hard like her".

So, i studied hard, got a scholarship, went to engineering school and what do I do everyday? Cook, clean, cook, clean, run after kids and work till my bones ache.

I think what my mom failed to also say was "You must also not have kids and your husband must be rich so that you can hire a maid!" ha!!

So, my advise to you people who are lazy - Don't have kids unless you marry someone filthy rich!

Mommy's name is Sow-jen

Just to get this on record, after telling him for the 100th time. Tyler finally knows my name!! Yay!! See, persistence pays!

It's not quite right, but i'm not even sure i say my name right these days because when i say it to my friends, they always say "Who??"

Cody Swimming

It's actually not Cody's first time in the water(it was at Prince Hotel in KL), but since i didn't have a camera before, we'll treat this as his first time! :)

Besides, he's properly dressed for it! All thanks to our trendy friends - The Contos for their cute hand-me-downs! I remember when Tyler first went for his swimming class, he was the only kid in the swimming class to not have any swimming costume, only swim diapers!! ha!

Cody who usually cringes at cold water seem to be quite happy to be in it. We dunked him into the water a few times but he didn't like that too much!

Check out my cute little outfit

Ok, i'm ready, MOM!!

It's brrrrr cold.. but i like it!

Riding the float with big brother Tyler!

Thumb prints for the kids

Have you ever tried to take a thumb print for a 5 month old? Well, i did this weekend. For some reason, i found it extremely funny and my friends know that once i start cracking up, there is no turning back!

So, this is how it looked like. I was holding Cody and was in stitches laughing while Alan who was getting frustrated at my ridiculousness was trying to pry Cody's little fingers so that he could get it onto the stamp pad and onto the paper(which was nothing much more than a blue smudge). To top it all, Tyler was on the side snapping pictures like a little paparazzi!

Here are some to Tyler's work:

Tyler's still not good at getting his finger out of the lens..

I was laughing soooo hard...

Tyler had to have a turn at the finger prints too..

Chocolate Fire Makati

Alan has always hoped that i would one day be a food reviewer and he would get to stop spending money on my expensive eating habits! So, maybe i'll give it a shot. I'd already gotten my friends a free eating extravaganza once at a seafood restaurant in Denver!!

Alan was working from home on Friday, so, he was available to take us out to check out a restaurant near our house called Chocolate Fire. Turned out it was a new restaurant that served lots of chocolaty stuff - truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries, choc dipped pringles, dried fruits, hot chocolate(hot and cold), coffee and stuff. They also had sandwiches but i didn't really check it out.

I got the chocolate dipped pringles coz i like salty sweet combination and also a cold chocolate to go with it. Alan got some chocolate volcanos and others. I can't remember(i'm not very good at this review thing, am I??)

So, here are my 2 cents. I didn't like the milk chocolate variety(too sweet) but the dark chocolate is quite good. The cold chocolate drink was too milky and was nothing special. I tried some of Alan's stuff and nothing really wow'ed me. Atmosphere was nice though the paying system seemed a little haphazard as you had to pay for your chocolate and drinks with different order sheets. But they did offer Tyler a little kiddo-chino for free which i thought was quite cute.

Anyways, here are some pictures of:

A super rare opportunity that i get to have my picture taken with my two boys

Our chocolate goodies

Tyler and his Kiddo-cino

We've also been letting Tyler handle the camera lately so that he could learn to use it(not sure how long the camera will last!!). He is getting better at it though i still have to spend lots of time deleting pictures of ceilings and floors and half faces!

We often have to duck down just to get our faces in

Not a bad shot by Tyler..

Tyler's fans

Since coming to Asia, Tyler has been getting lots of attention from strangers as they think he's so cute(OK, not was weird as when we were in India, some young men were videoing him!!)

But we've had people take pictures of him(why???), buy him candy and all sorts of stuff. But by far the funniest was when we were at a Korean restaurant, he actually managed to gather a crowd of people to gawk at him(and Cody). I found it so funny i had to take this picture.

Tyler's crowd

Pictures from March

I'm going crazy uploading pictures just because i can!! ha!

Anyways, here are some pictures we've taken in March that i'm too lazy to write a blog about.

How to tell if your parents are cheap? When they refuse to pay 10 pesos for a ride!!

Alan's gene coming thru

same expression?

Tyler dancing to musical fountain at Eastwood

my two boys

I just thought this was a funny shot of Cody

Tyler and his favorite Kong Kong( he loves Po Po too, just no picture to show it!)

Alan's birthday..

Tyler potty training going over his head!!

How did i miss it?

Apparently there was an earthquake in Manila registering 6.2 on the Richter scale but i somehow missed it. I can't even remember what i was doing around that time. Oh well..

Diaper commercial

Backview...

Front view!

Guess what??

I have internet! Yay!!

After stealing Netgear's internet for a week for some slow as heck connections, Alan finally got us a trial broadband connection. I'm supposed to be testing its speed and all that good stuff. I've just uploaded some Cody's pics and it actually did it. So, maybe you'll get more pics in the next few days.

I'm no longer a sad Stay At Home Mom(SAHM) with no internet, tv or radio!! Got to work on tv and cable next!!

Conversation with Tyler

Speech was never Tyler's strong point and was classed as a case of "delayed speech development". But after going thru some speech therapy in the US when he was about 18 months, his speech improved tremendously and he eventually caught up by the time he was 2 yrs old.

He's not completely talking yet, but he's getting there. He's just missing all the prepositions at the moment and picking up new words everyday and almost enough to make a conversation work.

Here's a conversation we sorta had today. We were walking back from the park.

Tyler : My ride airplane (my = I)
Me : You want to ride airplane, Tyler?
Tyler : Yes, my ride airplane find Kong Kong
Me : Oh, do you miss Kong Kong?
Tyler : Yes, my sad too.  
Me : you're sad?
Tyler : yes, my wake up (he meant to say, when he woke up from his sleep, Kong Kong and Po po had left)

And he's got this "in the sky" thing going for him these last few days, where if you ask him where something was, this is how the conversation usually goes:

Me : Tyler, did you see Cody's pacifier?
Tyler : yes
Me : Where is it?
Tyler : sky! ( he points up too!)
Me : ???

When we were in the US, i spoke primarily in Mandarin to him just to make him bilingual and i think he is. But since we've been here, i've switched to English and when i speak to him in Mandarin, i can see him blanking out.. hmm.. better switch back soon, eh??

What's your name?

Tyler can say many names, but one name he never said was his own name. I used to think it was funny when he went to his class and they'd be 10 kids that says, "Hi Tyler!!" and he can't say it.

But yesterday, I asked him what his name was and he actually said Tyler. Well, it was actually more like Ty-yer", he's working on the "l" sound.

That of course spurred me into asking him what his daddy's name, his mommy's name etc. So, now he can say Alan's name and Cody's name but mine is still in the works. He can repeat it when i say it, but he still can't remember. So, when i say, what is Mommy's name, he says "Mommy's name Tyler too!"

A little update..

I was going to do some crazy updates with cute pics of the kids, but it turned out my stolen wifi connection is TOO slow for picture uploads, so, i'll do some writing instead.

We've moved into our apartment 5 days ago which is located in Makati. It's quite a large apartment and is across from a nice little park. It's surounded by lots of restaurants which are just waiting for me to go try. The few that i have tried have been quite good.

We've been busy the last few days doing shopping, trying to get the house functional. It was quite lucky in one sense that we saved a whole bunch as there was a big sale over the weekend, but i managed to lose my purse during the whole extravaganza. Not sure our savings were enough to cover what i lost!!! :( But it was a learning experience for me and my mom and I were shown the true uselessness of Philipino administration system. My advice, don't lose your purse!

My parents who were so kind to accompany me and my 2 crazy kids to Manila have left for home yesterday leaving me to fend for myself without a maid. Today was my first day and i have to say, it's gone over quite well. Tyler was on schedule for all meals and bedtimes and we even made it out to the park where i met a few mothers and even got invited to a playgroup. Woo hoo! We'll see how that pans out.

But it's definitely harder without the extra hands to get my meals ready or to take Tyler out for a bus or jeepney rides. :) Tyler obviously misses them like crazy and still asks for Kong Kong and Po Po from time to time.

During the last few weeks of transition, Tyler's eating has probably been affected the most. He basically stopped eating for a few weeks and i had resorted to liquid diet just to keep his weight up. We've taken him to a local paediatrician and seems to be doing much better with some appetite enhancer. He has finally started to eat solids again last week but we have to continue to work on the volume.

Cody seems to have coped with the transition well and weighed in 14 lb 12 oz two weeks ago at the clinic.

Alan's job is keeping him busy and he tries to run everyday to keep himself fit.

Cody at 20 weeks

Cody is a happy baby at 20 weeks old. I thought i'd better blog all his milestones before i forget them.

He flipped over around Feb 22(16 weeks, Tyler flipped at 10 weeks) and was starting to grab stuff, mostly towards his mouth. Now, he flips onto his stomach easily and is able to grab stuff that is handed to him. He is in his tasting phase where everything he grabs, he tastes. It is quite funny to see him try to stuff his pacifier into his own mouth.. :)

He talks to himself and blows bubbles when he's happy but screams his head off when he's tired or hungry or demanding for attention.

Due to his large base(hehehe..) he seems to be able to maintain his sitting position for quite a few minutes without toppling over. He has also "found his feet" this week.

Here are some pictures of him:

Grabs toys and put it in his mouth

He likes to flip onto this tummy

Practicing sitting up

Look what i found! Feet!!!!

Cody's I'm so miserable face..

Threading, pedicures and badminton

Today i decided to treat myself to some pampering treatments as my gorilla eye-brows are threatening to frighten little kids on the streets.

I checked out a local Salon and chuckled to myself after i spent a whopping 5 USD total to get my eye-brows threaded and a pedicure! ha! What a bargain! Though this is the first pedicure that is done completely without water!! Hmm..

Oh, and badminton. I joined Alan for a badminton session last week and is proud to announce to Steffen that i've successfully sweated in a game!! (though not sure how much of that was from moving). Yes, it was THAT hot. Holy cow. So, imagine how surprised i was when i went to the bathroom and found the bathroom air-conditioned and smells really nice like a hair salon! ha!!

Tyler's new wheels

When we came to the Philippines, we decided not to take his bicycle with us thinking it'd be easy peasy to get a new one. But unfortunately, that was not true. We've looked everywhere and we can't find a kids bike that's as good as the one we got back in Malaysia.

One of the criteria of his bike was that it has to be able to go backwards so that he can do 3-point turns(yes, he makes 3 point turns). So since arriving here, my dad and I have been obsessively turning all the pedals on every bike we found!!

Tyler actually found one on his own when he climbed up a bike and backed it out of its parking spot. I was like.. "huh???". We bought it right away but had to return it due to a defect :(

Anyways, so, we'll wait on the bike. In the mean time, i bought him something i thought was like super duper cool. A TWIST CAR!!!

I saw this only once in the US at a park in Boulder. It propels itself forward when the handle is turned side-to-side. Same principle as roller blades i think.

Anyways, it took me a while to convince Tyler that his new wheels does not require feet to move!!

Tyler still uses his feet sometimes... ggrrrrr...

Tyler giving Codes a ride on his new wheels

Mabuhay from the Philippines

Just a quick update from the Millers. We are finally united with Alan in the Philippines. We've been here for the last 12 days.

My parents travelled with me to help with my luggages and kids and has been an awesome help with helping me cope with the new environment and rowdy kids!

Still without internet, i've spent many hours at Cafeccino using their free WIFI.

Will do more updates when i get more time

Love Actually Cake

I was buying some cakes for Alan and I one night and was in a big hurry and it just reminded me of a scene from Love Actually where one of the characters was trying to buy a piece of jewelry and Mr Bean was taking so long to wrap it up.

It took her longer to take the cake, put it in a box, put a ribbon on it, cut the ribbon, tie the ribbon, put it in a bag(i was actually afraid she was going to put flower petals in them too) than for me to walk to the store to get it and back.

But it was pretty and the cake was lovely.. :)

My lovely cake..