Identity to be Revealed!

In another 2 days, we'll be able to know the real identity of my sis' baby. Will it be a nephew or niece for me? Sis will be going for her detail scan and gynae checkup on Thursday morning, and mum will be following along. She hasn't been to her checks since 5 weeks ago and the last time, the baby refused to let them see the important parts. After a suspense of 5 good weeks, the truth will be revealed in 2 days time. That being said, I certainly hope s/he will cooperate during the scan!

Makes of the Week..

This week I did quite a bit of baking and cooking as I am trying to fatten up the kids. I steamed Banana Muffins in the middle of the week from a recipe online given to me by sis. I've got bananas that were too ripe at home and thus I thought rather to waste it as we couldn't finish it in time, might as well put it into good use and try the recipe. It was rather easy and I didn't even need to bake it, just use my steamers. Picture I took wasn't good to show the muffins but I didn't have time to take more pictures. Will do a better one next time..

On Thursday night, I baked a round of Horlicks Doggies. These are real cute cookies that sis wanted to try out. She gave me the recipe too. The dough was easy enough to do with minimal effort but the decorating was painstaking! I think the time spent to decorate the cookies was even more than the dough making. This also requires a longer baking time than other recipes that I've tried so far. Outcome is good though :)

This week Hao learnt to make sandwiches in school from his teacher. He came back and told me that he will make breakfast for us on Saturday morning. He wrote down his grocery list for me and told me umpteen times that I'll need to get the ingredients for him. He did a trial yesterday morning and was rather proud to be making his own sandwiches. This morning he woke up and got Ee to help him out too. Well, it's not bad to have 2 chefs in making in the house!

It's Wednesday already!

Time really flies. Today is already Wednesday and almost half a week had past. This week I am trying not to push myself too hard as I just recovered from stomach flu and really feeling slow right now. The challenge this week is to try and help the kids regain their appetites back and let them gain some weight back. All except Hao, who is the last one standing and not affected by the epidemic. His appetite is also good and is eating more everyday. Now instead of getting food to share with his siblings, he had to get his own adult portion now when we go out for meals. Am quite happy to see him eating well.

Monday was a slow day for me as I was still tired out. I cook a simple Yong Tau Foo Mee Sua soup for the kids as they were not really up to any real foods and were more to drinking soups instead. Maybe we need to replenish the water in our body. They ate up all that I cooked that day.

Yesterday was back to rice for dinner again. I thought hard what could whet up their appetite and decided to make some crispy pork chop with sweet and sour sauce on the side (I added corn in that). Both Ee and Min ate more. Hao liked it too. I also had plenty of soup again and fried some simple vege and also their egg omelette with hot dog slices. At least they are starting to eat proper foods again.

Today, at the request of Ee, I will be making sushi again. Sushi is usually eaten on Fridays as one of my all in one friday meals, but since he told me he wanted it, I thought just to make it for them as recovery food also. It's also simple enough to prepare and easier to clean afterwards. I've more or less prepared the stuff so I'll just cook the rice and wrap it up later.

I am the 3rd...

The good news is that Hao wasn't the 3rd victim in our stomach flu epidemic...I am LOL. I had started feeling not very good on Friday night when I was particularly tired and bloated after lunch with Sis and Mum. I didn't feel like cooking and brought the kids over to Tampines Mart for their dinner. I didn't even order any food to eat as I didn't feel hungry at all. Min was cranky that night and slept only at 11.30pm. I was drop dead exhausted since I woke up real early that day and hadn't got time to rest throughout the day. By the time I slept at midnight, I was totally flat out.

I started feeling queasy in the middle of the night and could felt spasms in my tummy. Then came nausea and rumbling tummy. I tried hard to brush off that sick feeling and forced myself to sleep and rest more. I woke up and cleared my bowels twice and I know I am falling sick with stomach flu. When I woke up Saturday morning, I tried hard to pull myself from the bed but I can't. Without any choice, I had to wake hubby up to tend to the kids and told him I wasn't feeling well and needed to rest more. By the time I woke up again, it was 10.15am. Feeling guilty, I dragged myself out of bed and helped a little with the kids. It was already too late for Hao to attend his swimming lessons, so he skipped that.

By mid-day, I wasn't feeling any better than I wished. We had planned to pop over to Siow Kiang's place for his daughter's full month celebration but decided that we shouldn't go since 2 of the kids just recovered and I was down with stomach flu. Its contagious and it'll be bad if the virus is passed on to the baby. Since we were not going anywhere and hubby decided to order MacDonald's for the kids for lunch, I took a quite dash to the nearest clinic to see a doctor and get some medication so that I could recover in time by Monday. After I came back and popped the medicine, I tried to take some lunch but it all ended up in the toilet bowl before I laid back to bed and slept till 4pm. It was a good thing that my in laws came and fetch Hao and Ee over to their place as Hubby could not manage the 3 of them at home. Min had to stay with me since he needed to nap and nurse.

We went over to in laws place for dinner but I didn't managed to get anything down despite continuous nagging from in laws to eat something. I know I couldn't get anything in and simply just rested on the bed throughout the whole time, feeling giddy and nausea. After we came home from dinner and I managed to get the kids to bed, I felt a bit better and took some bread and lotsa Ribena drink to hydrate myself again. Thank God after that I felt a lot better and managed to turn in at 11pm.

Woke up this morning feeling much better and as usual Hubby slept in late while I tend to the bed. I had a feeling hubby had enough of helping around for a day LOL. He couldn't do a day without afternoon naps, not to mention half a day with 3 kids and an afternoon tending to Min (except when Min napped with me and he managed to catch a napcap too). So much for support from him. I should be thankful he's not complaining after a day's work. Now I am just worried that Hao will be the 4th victim as school will reopen tomorrow. Crossing my fingers that this epidemic will end with me as the final victim and all will be well once again as we need our life back in order!!

I need strength...

I woke up at 5am this morning after what seemed to be just a few winks of sleep last night. Luckily hubby volunteered to wake Ee up at 11pm last night for his toilet visit so I could turn in at 10.30pm. I woke up at 2am to wake Ee up again for his toilet visit and then couldn't really sleep well with Min tossing and turning beside me. It seemed that he couldn't fall into deep sleep and wasn't feeling quite well. The good thing is that since yesterday morning after I started him on the medicine, he stopped throwing up and didn't seemed to complain of any tummyache. However so, he still wasn't quite fully recovered yet and was a little lethargic and cranky at times. He fully woke at 5am and couldn't sleep. There wasn't anything I could do except carry and rock him and making him feel as comfortable as possible. We walked around the house and I crossed my fingers that he'll fall asleep soon but he didn't do so till nearly 7am. By then I was exhausted but couldn't sleep. Freshened myself up and did some chores and decided to surf the net while drinking my much needed cuppa milo to give me energy for the day. Pray that today will be good and the kids will be their playful self again, and Hao will not be the next victim!

Stomach Flu Virus Strikes!

Its nearing the end of school holidays and so far the stomach flu virus in our house has claimed two victims - Ee and Min. Min woked up today acting weird, not his usual bubbly self and I immediately suspected that he had caught the virus from Ee as Ee had just recovered. My guess was right as Min started throwing up milk shortly after getting up and we had a busy time cleaning and washing and changing. As we had scheduled to bring Ee to his eye check up at KKH this morning, we had no choice but to get Hubby to go with Ee alone while I stayed home with Hao and Min. Luckily Min wasn't too cranky and after some doses of medication, he seemed to have recovered halfway as he stopped throwing up and his tummyache seemed to have subside too. Am crossing my fingers that its a sign of recovery and Hao will not be the next victim. As for me, I am getting a bit tired out now and am sneezing much more than normal, so I think I might be getting a mild bout of flu too. Although it's Thursday today but I've decided to cook my usual Lazy-As-It-Dish of claypot chicken rice in the rice cooker. We are not particularly hungry today but we still gotta eat right...

Day 1 of School Holiday!

It's only day 1 of school holiday and Ee has started to show signs of Stomach flu :( He woke up this morning complaining of tummyache and didn't have any appetite to eat anything at all. As he only had tummy discomfort, I prayed that it wasn't going to be stomach flu and carried on my plan and brought Hao and Min for a long overdue haircut (mine too :P). After we came back and settle down for lunch, he said he was tired and I allowed him to lie down on the sofa and he fell asleep almost immediately. Inside I was quite sure this will be another round of stomach flu for the kids, the same as last November when the 3 of them got it one after another. Anyway Ee woked up at 2.30pm and asked for milk. I reckon he's hungry and made some milk for him and just less than 30 mins after he took the milk, he started throwing up. Thankfully he hadn't eaten much today so there wasn't really much to clean up and I quickly fed him some medicine and got him to lie down again. He played Wii with Hao and got distracted from his tummyache but acted up again when I stopped the game for dinner. So he couldn't eat dinner and laid down together with hubby while waiting for Hao to finish his dinner and to continue with their Wii game. Just earlier I gave him another medicine to stop his stomach spasms and now he's happily playing BALL BOMBS with the guys. lol

Housewives Holiday Hooray!

I wonder how many of you are following and watching the show "Housewives Holiday" everynight 9pm on Channel 8. Well, I am an avid fan of the show. You may wonder why, as it seemed to be an auntish and boring show featuring 3 aunties and their lives as housewives. I'll just say that whatever is shown is very true of a housewife's everyday life. Not just their routines and their characteristics but also on their emotions and concerns. Just yesterday, they talked about having more or less children and how the men (they don't talk about their hubbies but MEN in general) just hold a job and think they are contributing a lot at home while the wives handle all other things including housework, children, their children's homework, in laws relations, finance, savings, cooking, and the many many endless little things in their life. Well, isn't that so true! Of course, there are other exceptional cases around where fathers play very active roles in families but really the percentage is so low that we usually cannot really see that happening around us. I believe full time working mothers have the worst, with the need to provide for the family in addition to what we stay home mothers are doing. I've been there, so I know, and really kudos to them for doing a job so well and maintaining their sanity at the same time.

Last sunday was International Women Day and I wonder how many men or husbands really came out and gave their spouses a big hug and thank them for a job well done, plus giving them a day off "work" and enjoy themselves for the day. To those men that did, kudos to you too!

Visit to the Air Force Museum

Was reading Nigel's Blog and saw that the Elis Family went to the Air Force Museum for a visit. I thought that was a pretty good idea since we've never done that before and the museum is not far away from our place either, so hubby and I decided that we'll bring the boys there on Sunday.

I showed Hao the website of the museum and he was pretty excited about the trip. Even Ee was excited and asked when are we going and whether he can see real planes there.

When we got there late morning last sunday, there was only a handful of other people. The place was very quiet for a sunday and hubby was elated that there were no crowd and we could enjoy the free air con (it was a pretty hot day) and the free parking. All in all, they enjoyed the trip and got to see many model planes. It was a pity that Min slept through most of the walk and only woke up when we got to the very end.

Hanging in there..

I've been missing online for a week now. Since last weekend, I've been trying hard to calm myself down and resettle my mood as well as deal with my depressing self. I'm glad to say that I'm feeling a little better and after a busy week again, I decided to bake myself some chocolate chips cookies this morning and sinfully ate almost 1/4 of them :P I've also taken any free time available to sit down and think what really made me happy and how I can pamper myself with the little time and money. It suddenly strike me that I don't know what I should do. For so many years, it's either been the kids or hubby or my responsibilities. I've never gotten myself any hobbies or thought of what I want to do or bought anything to pamper myself. There just wasn't any time for any of that for myself and now that I want to start thinking for myself, I realise that there's no me anymore. It felt that I have to start 'rebuilding' myself again and build my own identity again. I am not sure if that's good or bad but at least realising that is a good start right? Now I just need to find myself and decide for myself what I want to get out of this....Meanwhile, I'll just hang in there!

Losing Myself?

I don't feel good with myself today. Maybe it's one of those days that I think too much and get too depressed. I've been doing that too much lately and that might not be good as I tend to self pity too much and have too much negative thoughts. Maybe after a while I'll feel better.

Why I think I am losing myself? I was watching Oprah Show a while ago and there's this woman who said something so very true, just like describing myself. She said that woman has too many roles. A woman needs to be a mother, daughter, wife, employee etc and will always be worrying and looking out for others a lot of their time. With that, we tend to neglect ourselves and lose our own identity in the process. It doesn't just stop there. As you lose your own identity, you start to lose your worthiness. Are you worthy of yourself at this point? What is your worthiness? How very true! I started to think about myself at that point. Who am I really? What am I worth?

I know I am a mother to 3 boys. I know I am wifey to hubby and a daughter to my parents and a sister to my siblings. But other than that, who am I really? Gosh! I was lost for words. I don't know anymore. I tried to look back at what I was last time. I was a confident woman earning my own keeps and having time (altho little but I still had time) to myself and indulge myself in little enjoyments now and then. Now, I just know I am needed at home. Altho no one forced me to give up my work to become a SAHM and I did that willingly, knowing that that's the best decision to make, but somehow, in that process, I lost my own identity. Day in day out, my time is spent between the kids, housework, cooking etc and basically that's that. I don't buy anything for myself now as every single cent given to me is for the household and not for my personal expenditure. I do not have time on my own or even time to go out and meet up with friends. Everywhere I go my 3 kids will be with me and even if I leave them with hubby, he'll end up calling me less than 30 minutes after I leave the house.

Now, I am not complaining about my life here. I clearly love my time spent with the kids and doing things for them but its just so scary not having you as yourself anymore. Many ask how I cope with my life and how I transit from earning my own keeps to relying on hubby financially and not having anything for myself at all. Well, I can only say it's a big challenge and I am still adjusting myself to that notion. It's really not easy. You can even say it's depressing! But I've just gotta bite my teeth and get through it. I hope when the kids are older, I can start to find myself again. I need to find my worthiness all over again. I need to be able to stand up for myself and tell others who I am and love me for I am and know what I want in life and how to achieve it. Till then, I can only go with the flow and do my best in what I do now. God help me that I don't even know i am talking sense now but I sure hope I do!