4 months old

Aelig turned 4 months during the weekend so we bought her a cake. It looked indeed mouthwatering, see how she was so eager to eat it!


This time I managed to order a black forest cake from our neighborehood bakery. It was too creamy plus they didn't use fresh cherries. I was kind of disappointed with the taste plus it was quite expensive = 14.5 euros. We let Aelig tasted the cream but she had hard time swallowing it.


The spring weather is so adorable and motivating. We brought Aelig shopping as hubby needed a new suit. When we were in the shopping center, I heard people screaming "oh a baby" as I didn't put her inside a stroller. We were wandering around with her on my arm, a pratice not so common in France.

We also brought her to the park and let her enjoy the sun. She seemed to like it a lot!

No see no cast

I accompanied hubby to CHU Nantes today to remove his leg cast.


Last glimpse of his cast before the removal. Judging from the hole in his cast we can tell that he has been walking with the foot even thought he was not supposed to.


Through vibration this tool managed to cut off the cast.





It needed several tools to finally break through the cast.


Finally cast free after six weeks of walking with this heavy thingy.


It sure needs some cleaning after all the sweating that were caught inside the cast.

Life is sure good without a heavy cast.

It is time for discipline

Gosh she knows how to show middle finger now. I told hubby it is time for discipline and we shouldn't let her continue this misbehavior. lol

Aelig on the show

Even since Aelig was born we have received many presents from family, relatives and friends. A lot of them gave us clothes ranking from 3 months to 2 years old. She is growing so fast I realise that I should dress her with all the clothes she received before she outgrows them. So instead of the boring body + pajamas combo, we change her every day with different kind of dress. Here is a series of photos with her on the show.


Hello Kitty dress from Malaysia.


Hand knit dress from her great grandma's sister.


This set of dress is from South of France.


Not sure who gave her this. There are so many clothes I lost track on who gave which dress.


Love this photo. Hand knit from her great grandma.


It has a beautiful bottom part.

It is a nice feeling dressing her. However, I think she doesn't care less on what we put on her as she keeps making bubble from her mouth and leaks all over her clothes. :-)

Children born abroad to Malaysian mothers qualify for citizenship

Kim sent me the link to this article and I'm very grateful she did that.

You can read the full text here.

A little background from this topic could be found in one of my posts here.

I hope this is for real and Aelig could automatically quality as a Malaysian soon. She will most likely need to choose between being a French or Malaysian when she reaches 18 years old as Malaysia doesn't recognise double citizenship. However, seeing how serious the brain drain phenomena Malaysia is facing, I wouldn't be surprise if one day the government starts granting double citizenship to overseas Malaysians.

Birthday cake

I bought Aelig a cake when she turned 3 months old. When browsing through the cake section in the bakery, I found that I don't have much choice. I selected this as I love strawberry and I think they have raspberry inside.


On the way home, I suddenly realize one of the differences between bakery in Malaysia and bakery in France : I hardly see any cartoon cake for birthday celebration. In Malaysia, bakery usually has a catalog for clients to choose any kind of cartoon or theme to put as decoration on the cake. Most of the time my family will select some cartoon deco for my nieces and nephews.


I asked around and in fact this is not common in France. Hubby said in France they value the taste more than the deco. Ok, I just want to clarify that having a deco on a cake doesn't mean it tastes shitty. In fact some of them taste wonderful, but they are quite expensive, especially if it involves complicated cartoon drawing.

Cakes in France are quite different from what we usually find in Malaysia. One of my favorites is Black Forrest, I bought this whenever I was in charge to buy for friends birthday celebration. I have never seen this available in any bakery here but hubby said it is quite common in France. Well, in this case, I would like to order one when Aelig turns 4 months old. I haven't eaten this cake for like 10 years.

Baby and leg cast

New laptop?

My laptop died on me last week. I was trying to grab the 100 photos for 8 euros promotion by uploading all the photos online and then suddenly the screen went blank. A message popped up saying that Window couldn't restart due to failure in one of the hardwares.

Hubby said the hard drive broke so we bought a new one. Unfortunately it didn't work after replacing the hard drive, and the light was off eventhough it was plugged.

Should I wave fairwell to this 5 years old IBM Thinpad or should I repair it? I'm struggle to come out with a decision. This was my first laptop I bought from US. We ordered it online and it arrived on a fine day while I was sleeping. Hubby installed everything and when I woke up, I got a laptop really to function. It was a wonderful laptop, never had much problem, I had been traveling with it to Malaysia many times.

Hubby suggested me to buy a new one and he started researching online. For me, I prefer to repair this old laptop and pay the minimum. I do not need a super advance laptop, just something to store photos, surf the net and probably use the webcam function from time to time. I do not even watch DVD nor listen to music with it.

It is yet another hard decision to take. I do not even know where to get this repaired.

Learning to be stronger

Aelig was admitted to the hospital on Monday after being diagnosed with the seasonal flu virus attack. She was very weak on Tuesday and refused to eat due to the blocked nose, heavy coughing and difficulty in breathing. She was given oxygen and milk through a tube. It was very hard to see her so lifeless and with two tubes attached to her nose. Thank God she recovered little by little and was discharged on Wednesday evening.

Her admission to the hospital was like adding salt to the wound for me as hubby broke his ankle a week before and is still relying on crutches. Since hubby couldn't drive and only one parent can stay at night to take care of Aelig, I was jiggling between home and the hospital for two days. While fetching and sending hubby home I had to leave Aelig alone in the hospital. She cried hard during our absence until she lost her voice. Each time we arrived we could hear her crying and it hurt us so much that we rushed to her bed to comfort her.

It was so tragic to have a sick baby in the hospital and a husband with crutches. I cried while driving, in the shower, while pumping my milk and while eating. I needed to cry to release all the stress gathered over the weeks after hubby got injured. I felt so helpless and lonely without my family here. Since none of my French family lives here they couldn't provide immediately help. I wished so much that someone could be there to take care of Aelig while I was gone or someone could fetch and send hubby.

I realized this is just the beginning of the challenges in the motherhood. There will still be many hurdle along the way. I need to let go the dependency on family and start to face each bump on the road myself. Looking back, in 2007 when hubby broke his arm, I was forced to drive as my family was here visiting, and eventually I was less afraid when my job needed me to commute long distance everyday. Now with this incident, I got familiar with the CHU Nantes and know where is the emergency room and where to park next time I need to go there again.

During the hard time, I'm learning to be stronger, for myself and for my family.

Moulin Rouge show

While planning for our Paris trip I thought about Moulin Rouge musical show. My friend went to see it once and she highly recommended it. I know there is no chance hubby will bring me there as it is more a tourist stuff, so it was a good occasion to see it with my aunt.

We were worried about the right attire as my aunt didn't have nice dress and high heels with her. Turned out it was not strict at all, while making reservation at Moulin Rouge the salesperson took a look at how we dress and assured us that we could enter without problem. At the end, we entered the show with normal black pants, T-shirt with sweater. I wore a pair of boots but my aunt had a pair of black flat shoes.

We couldn't book the 9pm show so we went for the 11pm. When we arrived at 10.30pm, there were already a long queue. We were told to hand over our camera and coats, which costed us 4 euros to be put in the locker. Everyone was paying the same price, 80 euros per person, if you pay 102 euros it will come with a bottle of champagne for 2 persons. There is no guarantee that the earlier you arrive you are going to get the nearest seats. When we entered the performance hall, some people were sitting on the two sides and people entered after us were slowing filling the middle rows facing the stage.

The cabaret was spectacular. Very Moulin Rouge style with lots of dancers and shinning costumes. Most of the female dancers were topless. The majority of the songs were sang in French, I was glad that I could understand most of them. The highlight of the show for me was the can-can dance, topless dancers were waving their leg with the famous can-can music. The show lasted for about 1 hour 45 minutes.

My aunt was fascinated by the show and she highly appreciated the performance. Well, the goal was to thank her for all her helps during her stay in France. I'm glad she had a memorable last night in France.

Our mission at Louis Vuitton

I don't want to talk about how hubby broke his ankle and created all kind of inconveniences in our life. Instead I want to blog about one of the missions I have in Paris: buying bags at Louis Vuitton.


On the way to Louis Vuitton shop located at Champs Elysee Paris, I got approached by a Chinese, asking if I could help her buy some LV bags. Apparently each Chinese is only allowed to buy one LV bag. I firmly turned her down. It reminded me of my painful experience the second time I was in Paris. Same thing, I was approached by a Chinese woman, she gave me 1300 euros in cash so that I can buy 3 LV bags for her. I believed her story that she has a lot of request from her family but can only buy one so I helped her. Later I realized I took a huge risk, as she could have given me fake cash, and it is a known illegal act as these bags will be sent to China and be produced in mass to be sold in the black market. I was naive and I certainly won't help these people making fake LV bags anymore.


Asians are crazy about LV bags. People pay hundreds or thousands euros just for one bag. When we entered the shop, it was full of Asians. There are a lot of Asian sales persons too. The process was efficient, we were greeted by a sale assistant, she checked the models we wanted then get another person to help us. We wanted to buy two bags for each model but they refused to sell us! Yes, one person can only get one model, as they need to save the rest for other customers.

Why do people want to buy LV bags in France when they can buy those bags in their own country? Well, it is a lot cheaper to buy the bag from France due to the tax return (sales tax is 19.6% in France, but you only get around 12% back and the shop retains the remaining as processing fee). Besides if you buy the bag from your own country chances are the selling price includes import tax from the government. For example, for one of the bag we bought, the selling price was RM5500 in KLCC and 900 euros (about RM4100) in France, an immediate saving of RM1400! With the 12% tax return (108 euros = RM490), the total saving could reach RM1890.


I sent my aunt to the airport and helped her through the tax refund office. She needed to present her passport, her plane ticket (or e-ticket) and the refund form she got from LV shop. The officer stamped the form and I put a copy on the envelope that came with the form and mailed it on the mailbox located just in front of the office.

It was a weird experience to have spend so much money on bags. I felt rich at some point but I was aware that it was not my money that I was spending. The customer service at LV shop is not always courteous as they refuse to sell you bags. Since the Chinese has ruined their reputation by making copies on these bags, the sales persons are on alert and since we are from Chinese origin, the buying process was not as pleasant.

Broken, again

No more KFC

On the way back from Le Passage de Gois yesterday, hubby asked if we would like to have some KFC. My aunt objected to the idea initially but I told her I craved for it so we bought a menu of 2 chicken plus 3 wings. She got one piece of chicken and one piece of wing. During the night, she woke up for diarrhea and vomited several times. We think it was due to the KFC, because I got stomach ache as well during the night. I ate some soup after taken in the remaining of KFC so that was why I was not as sick as her. If the situation persists, she will have to French foods since we are visiting family in Brittany for the rest of the week. She leaves for Malaysia on Saturday morning.

No more KFC for me.

2 months old

Aelig turns 2 months old today. Last several weeks, when she was in good mood,

she started to smile especially when she wakes up;

played with her tongue;

entertained herself with toy.

She also went to her grandparents house, first long distance trip in her life.

To help improve her sleeping habit, we introduced her the pacifier. It is still a misery how this pacifier ended up on her head.


In terms of sleeping, it is still hard to get her to sleep especially during the day. She seems to lack the skill to soothe herself to sleep. We had tried swaddling, pacifier, anti-reflux medicine, gripe water, but things seemed to work just for a while and then she was still fussy getting to sleep even though she was yawning continuously. Basically, we need to rock her on the arms then put her to sleep on her bed but she would wake up after 15 minutes. She still wakes up several times during the night for nursing.

In terms of breastfeeding, at one point she refused to suck on one breast, crying out loud after first suck, or sometimes she rejected both sides. In this kind of situation I always had to change several positions in order to get her to nurse.

The next few weeks would be another milestone and big challenging moments for 3 of us. My aunt will go back to Malaysia, I will go back to work, and Aelig will go to babysitter. Next week I will go to Paris with my aunt and she will be alone with hubby. At this point, I'm not sure whether I would continue breastfeeding after going back to work. I haven't think of a place at work that I could express milk comfortably and if I do find the place, I don't know how to transport them since I'm working far away from home. Well, wish us luck!

Celebrating Chinese New Year in France

I got pretty homesick this year during Chinese New Year. It is due to the fact that my aunt is here plus it would had been nice if Aelig could celebrate this festival with my family back in Malaysia. Well, sometimes life is tough and we can't always do what we want, so I decided to celebrate CNY with family (my in laws last week) and friends here. I would love to invite more friends but our apartment is too tiny to be able to include more people.

Hubby prepared his signature dish Guacamole as appetizer. We then presented this cheated version of Yu Shang. I said cheated because we couldn't get the real ingredients so we improvise by replacing them by green apple, green and red pepper, cucumber plus homemade sauce.


The Malaysian Chinese usually have Yu Shang during the 7th day of CNY, which is also known as "human day". Yu = Fish, Shang = life. This dish should have 7 colors plus raw fish, and before start eating it we use chopstick to stir all the items together, with the hands holding chopstick moving to the highest up the better as it signifies lively and prosperous year ahead. The height could mean climbing up the corporate ladder, the higher the better.


We had steamboat and grill chicken + seafood. I love having steamboat as it senses festival and conviviality. We omitted some ingredients such as different kind of fish balls (the French don't like it) and various soya bean products (except taufo as we couldn't find them in the Asian store nearby).


Aelig also joined in the party.


Aelig and her little friend R got their CNY ang pao.


How can we not have mandarin orange during CNY? We also had the fortune cookies, funny that the message we got in French is totally different from what was written in Chinese. Our friend prepared us some delicious mango muffin as dessert.


I called my family at Malaysia time 12.15am while they were celebrating the Tian Gong festival. We heard firecrackers loudly and continuously, it reminisced us the good moments we had in Malaysia during our visit in 2007. I can't help but compared Christmas here and CNY in Malaysia. Christmas is an family event and the cold keeps most of the people indoor whereas CNY is for family and friends and in Malaysia we get to celebrate it at warm and humid weather, thus having people staying outside whole night for chatting and firecrackers. One is peaceful, one is merit with loud voices.

360 diapers!

Before being a parent I had no idea how much a pack of diaper costs. At this point we are using Huggies size one for Aelig and it costs 17 cents each. On average we spend like 50 euros a month for diapers, which for me is still affordable, until hubby told me that the price of a diaper cost twice when we go for the later size. Holly shit, one size 2 diaper costs 37 cents and size 3 costs 47 cents. This freak me out a bit, considering that a kid will use diaper until he is 2 or 3 years old. I started looking for cheaper solution and that was when I saw an announce on a forum: Huggies diapers at 50% off at http://www.allobebe.fr.

I ordered from this site and the shipping is free if you buy over 59 euros. I bought size 2 and size 3 and on average each diaper costs 18 cents. I saved at least 50% for 360 diapers, but I have not tried it out yet so not sure if the quality is as good as the one we bought from the local supermarket.

Having a baby is not cheap that's all I'm saying. :-)

How much a pregnant woman costs the French social system

1. Monthly regular check-up
a. During the first five month, the system pays 70% of the medical fees minus 1€ participation fee each time you go see a doctor. In my case:
4 consultations with my family doctor = 22€ x 4 = 88€
1 session with a gynecologist (emergency) = 50€
French social system paid 70% x 138€ = 96.6€ - 4€ participation fee = 92.6€
My health insurance paid 30% x 138€ = 41.4€
I paid 4 euros participation fee

Note that my pregnancy was followed by my family doctor. If the pregnancy is followed by a specialist = gynecologist, the service fee = 46€

b. From the 6th month onwards the system pays 100% of all the medical fees, in my case:
4 doctor consultations = 22€ x 4 = 88€
2 check up with a gynecologist = 46 x 2 = 92€
1 session with an anesthetist = 28€
French social system paid 100% of these fees = 208€

Total regular check up fees paid by:
The French social system = 300.6€
My health insurance = 41.4€
Out of my pocket = 4€

2. Lab analysis
These included blood and urine test once a month and all kind of glucose tolerance tests, paid 100% by the French social system, in my case = 333.4€

3. Ultra-sound sessions:
a. Same as the regular check up, the French social system pays 70% of these sessions for the first 5 months minus 1€ participation fee.
First trimester = 48.35€
Extra session under doctor request = 33.44€
Second trimester = 81.92€
French social system paid = 111.6€
My health insurance paid = 49.11€
Out of my pocket = 3€

b. The ultra-sound session during the last trimester was paid 100% by the French social system = 73.99€

Total ultra-sound sessions paid by:
French social system = 185.59€
My health insurance = 49.11€
Out of my pocket = 3€

4. Childcare classes
I had 8 sessions of childcare classes all paid by the French social system = 8 x 30.74€ = 245.92€

5. Medicines
I didn't have any supplementary vitamins except some iron. Besides I had gotten some cream for some kind of infection. These totaled to 8.98€, all paid by the French social system.

As a conclusion, all the medical care during my pregnancy had costed the French social system =300.6€ + 333.4€ + 185.59€ + 245.92€ + 8.98€
= 1074.49€

Note: This is just based on my personal experience as the medical cost for a pregnant woman can vary depending on each person's health condition and how the pregnancy goes.

A French Chinese New Year

We are heading to my in law's place for CNY reunion dinner. This is going to be the first long distance car trip for Aelig. Let's see if she is going to get her first ang pao (red envelope stuff with money). The reunion dinner will be French style, so it is going to be a different experience.

Gong Xi Fa Chai everyone.

Pineapple tarts

The year of Tiger is just around the corner. To celebrate Chinese New Year my family usually prepares some tarts and cookies. One of my favorites is pineapple tarts. Well I'm not much into baking so usually it was my sister who made them and I was the one finishing them. This year I decided to bake some myself. However, since my daughter is so sticky, I showed my aunt how to do it and she was the one making these crumbly and addictive tarts.

Ingredients:
Pineapple jam
1 pineapple + some sugar
Slide and grate pineapple. Dry the grated pineapple.
Simmer it until the juice dry out. Add sugar (to the sweet level you want) and stir till the jam is thickened. Store in the refrigerator overnight.

Note: You can add in some cinnamon or glove to have some taste but I prefer the fresh pineapple taste.

Dough (recipe altered from here):
340g flour
225g butter (I used salted butter)
2tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
5 tsp water
1 egg yolk

1 beaten egg for glazing

Put flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Pour in melted butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Beat in the egg yolk and add in cold water. Mix well to form a dough. Place in a plastic bag and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.


Roll pastry out to 3/8” thickness on a tabletop and cut out rounds with a tart cutter.


Fill each piece of cut-out pastry with pineapple jam filling.


Glaze the tarts with beaten egg.


Preheat oven to 180 degree. Bake for 20 minutes or until the tarts turn golden brown.

With these ingredients you can make about 100 pieces of pineapple tarts. With the salted butter it makes a nice combination of sweet (pineapple jam) and salty (pastry) taste. I planned to give some to my in laws but we finished them within two days. My aunt made some again today and she put about 50 pieces aside to avoid us finishing them again. Now I think about it, I'm not sure if my in laws will appreciate them. I have learnt that some French do not mix salty and sweet in one dish, meaning that once they finish eating something salty (main dish), they will pass to something sweet (dessert) and they will not take any salty food later. Since there is a clear cut between salty and sweet food, I'm not sure if they could appreciate sweet and salty cookies.

Could Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt enjoy the French social system

In 2008 Angelina Jolie gave birth to her twin son and daughter in France. There was rumor and report that they received social help from the French government, something around 1750 euros a month. I had seen an article in English implying that they are qualified for a lot of social help but I couldn't find back the article. I used to believe this kind of report, but the more I get involved with the system, the more I'm skeptical that this could be true.

Let's look at what kind of social benefits a resident in France gets when having a kid.
1. Birth bonus - 889.72€ (1779.43€ for adopted kid)
You get this one time bonus at the 7th month of the pregnancy in condition that you yearly income is inferior than 43363€.
Don't tell me Jolie and Pitt don't earn more than this amount? For Pete's sake they spent 45 million pounds transforming a castle to their home in south of France. That's how wealthy they are.

On the other hand, since they are so wealthy, they will probably get a huge birth bonus from their health insurance. In my case I got 1143€ from my company insurance. However, this is from the private sector so it doesn't count as social benefit.

2. Basic allowance - 177.95€ per month
Again, they need to earn less than 43363€ a year so they won't quality for this.

3. Allowance for extended maternity leaves - 552.11€ a month (in the case you do not quality for basic allowance)
After the 16 weeks paid maternity leaves, some women prefer to stay home by taking another 6 months unpaid maternity leaves.
Even if Angelina chooses to take this unpaid leaves, she won't be quality for this allowance as she would need to have work in France for 2 years before she could apply.

4. Childcare allowance
If this couple choose to hire babysitters to take care of their 6 children in France, they could enjoy some childcare allowance. Again I'm pretty sure they earn more than 43363€ a year, in this case they could get 167.07€ a month for their children who are less than 3 years old and 83.54€ a month for their kids who are more than 3 years old. Let say they have 3 kids less than 3 years old and 3 kids more than 3 years, the most they could get = 751.83€ per month.

So, they most they can get from the French social systems = 751.83€ per month.
However, to get childcare allowance, they first need to hire at least 2 baby sitters. This creates job for the local. If they pay their baby sitters minimum wages, this could total to 2400€ a month. These baby sitters would have to pay taxes to the French government which could easily surpass the 751.83€ the couple receive.

Besides, to apply for all these allowances, they need to have a valid French income tax return. If they declare their income in France, imagine how much taxes they could contribute to the systems.

As a conclusion, the French system could not be easily abused as believed by many people. In this case, even if Jolie and Pitt managed to "milk" some money out of the system, at the end of the day, France would gain more by collecting taxes from them than paying them.