Monday, January 31, 2011

Grenoble Games 2011



Organized by 1Malaysia Grenoble

For more information, please go to their website.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

She is a true Malaysian


Enjoying her durian. After gotten her first bite, she kept asking for more and was trying to grab the whole durian from me. She also enjoyed bah kut teh and roti canai.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Touched down in Malaysia!

After 23 hours of traveling, we arrived safely in Malaysia. When we left Nantes at 3pm (Malaysia time 10pm), it was raining with grey sky. When we finally arrived at my brother's house around 9pm (2pm French time the second day), it was humid and warm.

This time, surprisingly, we were happy with the services provided by KLM. Flight from Nantes to Amsterdam was fast and unevenful, Aelig slept through the whole trip and didn't seem to be bothered by the difference in air pressure.


Things turned painful from Amsterdam to Singapore. We were seated closed to the toilets and she was deeply disturbed by passengers passing by. KLM provided us a basket but each time we put her down she cried. Eventually, I was not able to sleep much as she demanded to be on my arms all the times and a tiny movement would wake her up. At the end of the flight, she was exhauted and finally fell asleep.


It was ugly when we touched down in Singapore. KLM Nantes was not able to issue us the boarding passes from Singapore to Malaysia because they are not partnered with Malaysia Airlines. Once we arrived, we were told to go to the gate, which had status as "boarding". Well, we had only one hour of layover in Singapore, so we rushed to the gate just to be told that we needed to first pass through a transfer counter for the boarding pass. We followed the instruction, but it was the wrong transfer counter. We ran again, this time to the right counter, but the gate was closing and there was no way we could catch the flight. After a long wait, we got issued tickets to the next flight, which was scheduled to take off 50 minutes after the initial one. Well, it was good that Changi Airport has PC with free internet at every corner so I sent an email to inform my family about the flight delay. This time, luckily, Aelig slept through the whole flight.



So, we are happy to had finally touched down in Malaysia and be reunited with my family.

Monday, January 24, 2011

13 months



The girl has mastered the skill of throwing food on the floor and refusing everything come near her mouth (except bread and chocolate cream).

The parenthood is becoming more and more challenging.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Euro to MYR heading south



This is not looking good. 1 euro is worth only RM4.17 compared to RM5 two years ago when I sent money home. That means for every 1000 euros exchanged, I will lose RM830, which is almost equivalent to 3 days 2 nights travel to Redang Island, for both of us!

Ok, time to tell hubby that he needs to cut off certain items from his shopping list in Malaysia.

On the other hand, for those Malaysians who have been eyeing for the latest LV model, it is time for action. A bag that costed RM5k two years ago is only priced at RM4170 now!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Does full moon affect baby's sleep

On the way home yesterday, my carpooler looked at the full moon and said:" Do you know that full moon affects baby's sleep? Both my kids were giving us trouble at time when it was full moon."



I remember someone told me this once but I didn't believe it. I'm still skeptical about this theory. Baby could have a bad night when the moon is full, is sounded so weird to me. Then at 10.45pm, hubby said:" your daughter ah, still don't want to sleep!".



Well, I think this is just a coincidence?

Sunday, January 16, 2011

BCG done; PD asked us to feed her as much as possible

Despite the pain to get an appointment for the BCG vaccination, Aelig had it done last Saturday. So far so good.

However, there is still an unsolved problem, that her weight is progressing at a decreasing rate. She was doing fine when she was on breast milk, but ever since we switched to milk powder, she was not gaining as much weight as before, and now she is at the edge of underweight for her age.

The pediatrician (PD) suspected that she was allergy to the glucose protein, she suggested us to have a blood test. It was an horrible experience, Aelig was not one year old yet, and it had to be done early in the morning before she eats anything. So, both hubby and a worker in the lab hold her arm tied, another worker took her blood (8 samples!) and me trying to comfort her but failed as she was looking at me with eyes full of tears and kept yelling as if why I let all these happen to her. The result came, there was no sign of allergy, what a relief!

While waiting for the result, we followed the PD's instruction to change the milk. She didn't like it so didn't drink as much, resulting in her losing weight.

The PD was trying to find an explanation, now she wanted us to feed her as much as possible to make sure that she could gain weight normally. It was insane, in the health book it was clearly described that we should limit / delay any intake of chocolate and sugar, but the PD asked us to give her chocolate cream. Aelig loved it instantly and ate the entire 125g, but later her stool was chocolate cream alike and smelt very very bad. We got scared so we stopped.

I do not grow up eating chocolate cream nor those sweet stuffs for 4pm gôuter so I'm not keen at all to let Aelig have all these sweet stuffs. Now I wonder if we should listen to the PD, she might be underweight just because she is half Asian!

Friday, January 14, 2011

An incident at a grocery store

I was waiting at a checkout to pay my grocery and was witnessing this incident:

A young man was checking out and wanted to pay his grocery with some restaurant tickets and cash. The cashier informed him that they can only accept maximum 2 tickets. He was surprised, asking when did the rule change, and he did not bring enough cash with him and he has no credit card. He was embarrassed and didn't know what to do, and the cashier was very cold, she told him that he has to return the items that he couldn't pay with cash. I really felt back for him so I proposed to the cashier that I would take his extra tickets and pay him cash in return. And she refused! She said she didn't want to create another mess. Well, I kept my mouth shut and keep watching the drama. The young man has no choice but to select among the grocery, slowly pulling out the tuna, endives, chicken...I peeped on his restaurant tickets, he was planning to pay 4 tickets with 8€ face value, so he was short of 16€ to pay for everything.

I sympathized with him, several times the words were at my lips but I just couldn't spell it out to him. I wanted to help but at the same times I didn't know if he would take it well. Anyway, the drama continued, the cashier announced that some of the items he bought could not be paid with a restaurant ticket, so she took more items out from him. Then, when she entered the two tickets, the system didn't want to accept them and she has to call someone else. What a mess! Ended up, we (there were a couple queuing between him and me) had to checkout with another cashier.

Conclusion: Always bring along spare cash / credit card with you when buying stuffs, you never know what would happen.

PS: Talked to hubby, he said by law it is illegal to have someone else's ticket, so the cashier was probably just following the rules. Still, her attitude was quite rude.

Monday, January 10, 2011

We speak the same language but still...

This morning when I arrived at the car park to join my group, I was surprised to see the carpooler who was supposed to be on vacation showed up. Since they were four already, I had to drive alone.

A little bit of explanation about the carpooling: Usually a group consists of 4 people and I'm the 5th person. One member of the group only join three days a week so I fill in the blank for the remaining two days. Since I have to go to R town 3 times a week, I need to drive alone once per week, or sometimes joining them when someone is on leave.

The confusion started with a simple sentence: je serai en congé du 3 au 10 janv (I will be on leave from 3 to 10 Jan). Both me and the other member who handles the planning interpreted that he would be back only on 11 Jan. Both of us were wrong, he meant he would come back on 10 Jan. I asked around, everyone said that it was confusing, he should have said "I will be on leave from 3 Jan to 10 Jan included or until 10 Jan evening. Now, I'm reassured, at least I didn't show up due to my bad French comprehension!

Sunday, January 09, 2011

She had been spoiled with gifts

Happy 2011 everyone! I had been too lazy to post, I'm just slowly recovering from the holiday mood.

"Alors, elle a était gâtée?" (so she was spoiled?) was the question everyone asked after Christmas, knowing that Aelig would get both her birthday and Christmas presents. Yes, she was very very spoiled was my answer. In our family, we do not wait under Christmas morning to open the gifts, gift distribution was done over the Christmas eve dinner. I don't know how many round of gift distribution we had, I just know that when everyone finally got their last gift, Aelig still had tons to open, but she was more excited to play with the gift wraps on the floor then the gifts themselves.

Here are some of the gifts:

A little car that she hardly play at home. She hasn't figure out how to use her legs to push the car.


Several set of clothes, this one is my favourite.


Baby cellphone from us. She played with it a lot but it annoyed everyone as it rings when there is a movement. We left it in the car while driving home and it was a huge mistake as we were hearing the stupid ring ton all the way from L town to Nantes.


Two sets of moving train. This whole book is about a train and you need to unfold it in order to let the train moves on the rail. While, Aelig's favorite act is to throw away the train and fold the book. Another set came with 6 pieces of railway plus several little trains. She loves to destroy the railway and kick all the trains away.

The conclusion we have from this precious experience: it is just a waste of money to buy her toys, she doesn't know how to appreciate them yet. I have gathered three boxes of toys which she seldom lay eyes on. Her favorite spot is our recycling bin, where she happily throwing every bottle and paper on the floor.