Chap Goh Mei Lion Dance

March 4th, 2007 at 17:36 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family · 1 Comment

Chap Goh Mei or “The fifteenth night” is the fifteenth day and also the last day for Chinese New Year celebration. Today, we had a Lion Dance at grandma’s. We were waiting for the Lion Dance team to come at 1400 hours. The boys were getting impatient since 1230. Finally, they arrived at 1405.

The two big boys were a little agitated by the loud drum noise. Dominik was really enjoying the drum rhythms and he was kind of dancing and getting excited in the whole event.
D and R enjoyed so much playing with the colorful papers from the party poppers.

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Dominik at 6 months

February 25th, 2007 at 11:31 · Filed Under Dietrich, Dominik, Family, Photography · Comment

These photos were taken on February 22. N could push up his body up high with his hands on the floor. He could also roll to his side but a little clumsy.

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Dietrich at 27 months

February 25th, 2007 at 11:25 · Filed Under Dietrich, Family, Photography · Comment

These photos were taken on February 22.

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Child abuse

January 19th, 2007 at 11:46 · Filed Under At Home, Critiques, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family, General · 5 Comments

Actually, I did not plan to write about this child abuse thing. It happened to my kids and I would not want to leave any marks on them. So, I decided not to write about it and hopefully to let this incident died. But I read about this maid thing in Suzette’s blog and I think I shall speak up and warn other parents about Indonesian maid.

Last August when my wife gave birth to Dominik, my mom sent her maid to our home to help. She helped to wash and cook. We did not want her to even lay a finger on our kids. But my 2nd son, Dietrich, liked her very much and liked to hug her. We left it to be but we tried to prevent him from doing so as much as we could.

Then I had retinal detachment in September. Had a surgery and needed for follow-up examination in KL. My wife would drive me to KL for the examination. One day in October, my wife sent me to the clinic in KL without taking any kids along (we left them at home together with my MIL and the maid), we discovered a small bruise on my eldest son left inner arm. We became suspicious about her and my wife asked Dmitry who did this. He told my wife that the maid “pinch” her! My wife asked him 5 times and he answered 5 times the same answers! Then my wife and I checked on Dietrich and found a bruise on his right waist. Dietrich did not know to express yet. Then we decided to file a police report and sent her to the police station for investigation. And we had to sent our kids to General Hospital for examination! After the police investigation, we deported her back to Indonesia.

Why did she pinch the kids? We trained our kids to do household chores. It appeared that Dmitry wanted to help her to clean the dining table. Apparently, the maid did not want him to do that so they were snatching the cleaning cloth. And the bitch pinched him. As for the case of Dietrich, we did not know what happened because he did not know how to express himself yet.

Of course not all Indonesian maids are bad. My mom had one maid earlier and she was very hardworking and quick in her work. We, particularly my sister Angie, really missed her. Angie missed her so much even until the last days before her departure. We tried to contact her in Indonesia but failed.

Before this happened, my wife and I had talked about installing CCTV at home. But before we could finalize the decision, this unpleasant thing had already happened. It was too late to install and we would never need to install one because my mom had decided not to employ any maid anymore.

If you want to install one, then do it! Don’t think about the cost or its worthiness. You never know what these fanatic Indonesian maids can do (but not all of them are like this).

Luckily, the incident did not leave any permanent psychological effect on our kids.

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Fly kite

January 7th, 2007 at 21:57 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family, General · Comment

After dimsum, our plan was going to the MBMB park at Bukit Serindit to watch kite flying competition. I got to know there was a kite flying competition at the park after I had a morning workout at the park. D wanted to fly a kite long ago.

When we arrived at the park, it was noon time and there were some crowds at the tracks and some kite sellers and parents with kids were flying kites. So we went to Roger’s Kites stall and bought a kite for RM45! It was quite expensive for a small one but according to the man, it will last for 2 years because of the stitching. So we bought it.

I had not been flying kite for more than twenty years. I could not get the kite up. After many tries, the man who sold us the kite offered to help us. He slightly explained and I had recollection of the techniques in the younger days. With his help, we finally got our kite soaring high in the sky. Can you spot which kite is ours? The photo was taken using my cell phone the kites look small.

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New Year countdown with crabs

December 31st, 2006 at 23:59 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family, General · Comment

After we finished with our grocery shopping at Tesco, we were driving aimlessly on the street and suddenly, LA sparked her taste buds and wanted to have some crabs for New Year Eve’s supper. The regular restaurant at Jalan Bunga Raya where we usually bought crabs from was not opened that night. We went around the town to hunt for crabs. We had to buy from another restaurant at the adjacent street. We bought a can of stout too.

When we arrived home, it was an hour before midnight. We prepared then ate the crabs just before midnight. Nik was sleeping already. D and R were so eager to eat te crabs with toasted breads.

Just before the clock struck 12, I called Michal in Poland to wish him and his mother and girl friend a Happy New Year. Michal, if you are reading this, Happy New Year and we wish you were here to celebrate with us New Year 2007 and have crab party. Do you still remember the restaurant we had crabs party beside a temple?

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Runaway treat

December 30th, 2006 at 19:57 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family · Comment

LA book a hotel room at Mahkota Hotel to give us a retreat for the end of 2006. She got home in the late evening and told us about it and the kids were joyful to hear that they would be going to the swimming pool the next morning. We got ready and and moved the our luggage into the car and I started the engine. We were out of the house for our 1D/1N holiday in Melaka!

We checked in to Mahkota Hotel at 9th floor in Jasmine block. This was the first time we stayed in Mahkota Hotel. The one-room apartment was not too bad except that D and I had to sleep on the floor. We bought some supper and ate in the hotel while watching TV until midnight.

We woke up at 0700 and had breakfast at 0800 and 0830 we were heading to the pool. The breakfast was quite a hectic one as both D and R were getting excited about the pool and could no longer sit still to eat their breakfast and Nik was starting to make noise. LA and I had to wash down our breakfast with juices.

When we were at the second pool, the water was cold and the morning breeze made us felt colder. But that did not stop the kids jumping into the water. R was shivering and I had to wrap him with two pool towels and to rubbed him to keep him warm. As soon as he had warmed up, he insisted to go into the pool again. We played until the sun came out and we began to feel warmer but we had to go fearing of getting sun burn.

We returned the pool towels and went back to our hotel room and took some hot drinks and hot bath/shower. After the hot shower, D laid down on the couch and fell asleep. Soon, Nik was asleep on my chest followed by me. LA and R took the luggage to the car. When they were back, LA took some candid shots of three of us sleeping.

R got his first mini waterfall bath.

Ooooo…. cold. An gu…. The water was cold. Nik only got his feet wet.

R was shivering.

Teaching R to swim, actually kicking his legs in the water.

D was soaking in the cold water and sneezing away.

R was wrapped in two pool towels and I rubbed his body to keep him warm.

Caught in candid camera having siesta after the swim.

Nik was sleeping on my chest.

R was helping mommy to pack.

R gave D a kiss. Smuck!

And a smuck to daddy.

Daddy woke up and kiss kiss!

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My birthday cake

December 26th, 2006 at 23:56 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family · Comment

Ha! Finally we got settle down for my birthday cake party. Nik was already soundly asleep after D, R and I returned home from a meeting with Jim and Karl for some karate matters. Sorry Nik.

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Christmas in PJ

December 26th, 2006 at 23:48 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family, Travel · Comment

This was my first time to spend Christmas away from home. LA and I decided to go to PJ to visit her mother and brothers and sisters on Christmas eve. We actually planned to have a day trip and would be back to Melaka to celebrate Christmas and my birthday. Every year we would visit The Portugese Settlement at Ujong Pasir to see some Christmas decoration. But we ended to spend our Christmas in PJ and missed the Christmas decoration this year. When we were back to Melaka last night, we went to the town to find some supper and we thought of dropping by but we gave up when we were caught in traffic.

LA, Nik with cousins Lilian, Vivien and Shane

LY with Nik and LA with Su-An

Strong grandma

Nik with cousins Sharlene, Vivien and Wendy

D and Rich got their Christmas presents from Santa Clause (daddy)

D got this dream Yoyo and R got some play stamps

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Nik’s day out

December 12th, 2006 at 21:26 · Filed Under Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family · Comment

We decided to go to grandma’s after picking D from school. So I took a half day off. When we arrived at grandma’s, the three musketeers were very happy but Nik was still sleeping in his portable car seat. LA had to carried Nik with his car seat. After our lunch, we began to hunt for my running shoes. I was actually thinking to buy Power running shoe for it is cheap and after all running shoe does not last long. Unfortunately, I could not find big sizes to fit my large feet!

LA suggested to go to Mahkota Parade and there we go. To our surprise, D said he wanted to stay with grandma. So we left both D and R with grandma. Poor grandma, she had to take care two musketeers.

It was Nik’s second visit to departmental store. He was excited to look at lights and people walking by. When he was tired, he would sleep in cuddles.

After taking many look at all the shops selling sports shoes, I decided to buy a pair of Addidas running shoe. It fits my large feet well. I really liked this Addidas UK 12 size and its design. I was hesitating because of the price, which was RM167.90 after 40% discount! LA said that was her Christmas gift to me. But I was still hesitating because of the price and it might not last long. Finally, I decided to take it. Honey, thanks for the early Birthday and Christmas gift!

Now, I’ve got the shoe but I feel a little pity to wear it for running. I hope this pair will last me for at least 2 to 3 years to spread even the cost.

When we arrived at grandma’s, we learned that R had stepped into the drain. Luckily, we had bought him and D a new pair of sandal earlier before we went to MP.

We arrived home around 2030 and three musketeers were soundly asleep in the car. It was a tiring day for all of us.

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Nice tower castle

December 4th, 2006 at 19:29 · Filed Under Dietrich · Comment

This morning, Richie built his tallest tower castle when D was at school. Both of them could not build anything together as they would get into commotion and would demolish anything. So, without D, R was able to sit down by himself to build.

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Young engineers

December 1st, 2006 at 17:55 · Filed Under Dietrich, Dmitry, Family · Comment

D likes to play with his wooden blocks we bought him from Taipei. He likes to build towers with the wooden blocks. But R likes to demolish what D builds. Today, D built the tallest tower and R was not a demolition man, instead R built smaller tower but his tower collapsed.

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Yummy crab

November 14th, 2006 at 0:57 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Eating Out, Family, Food, Malacca · 1 Comment

LA likes to eat crab. I like to eat crab too but I am lazy to peel its shell and I dislike the messiness. LA ate quite a lot of crabs before she delivered Nik. The Chinese believes if the pregnant woman thinks of eating something, her husband must get the food she likes. Otherwise, the baby will become greedy when she grows up! It’s Chines folklore.

After LA’s massage at my parent’s, we passed by a restaurant beside a temple. I went down to buy her a crab in sweet and sour sauce. I bought a small bottle of Guiness Stout. It has been a long time since my last Stout in the mid 1990s! While I was waiting for the crab at the restaurant, I saw an old man ordering Stout. I did not know why I had the urge to drink Stout after so many years.

We came home and set in the dining room to eat the crab with toast breads. Umph… yummy! D and R like the crab and the sauce with toast breads too!

Michal, if you are reading this, can you remember we took you to this restaurant for seafood? You were so enjoying the crabs! We wish you will come visit us again and we can have crabs party. I can’t remember if I made you a picture eating crabs. I am going to go through my CD archives to find out.

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