Sorry, my host server is unreliable and has been down since morning. So remember, AVOID Eternal Solutions because their 99.9% uptime guarantee is bull and they take forever to reply my complaint.

Integricity…..here I come.

Dear readers,

As Braedyn and Shayanne are growing up so quickly, my wordpress blog has run out of space for them. So please visit our new (and hopefully improved) home at http://www.khongfamily.com/blog

Please update your link ya. Hope to see everyone there.

We usually take the kids out to McDonalds for food mainly because of the ambience, the service and the conveniences they offer. The food isn’t great when compared to Burger King but in Malaysia, having a great Whopper in a lousy atmosphere is also not much fun. We are not fried chicken fans either so have never brought the kids to KFC or Marrybrown.

So it is no surprise that Braedyn has his special name for the Golden Arches. He calls it “Gar Gar” (no surprises there). Everything to do with McDonalds is “Gar Gar”. He calls the restaurant that. He calls Ronald McDonald that. He calls Hamburglar that. Even the play area is not spared!

Mummykhong is blessed to have Braedyn around because she’s very poor with directions. So with Braedyn, he can easier lead her to the nearest McDonalds because everytime we drive past one, he will spot it immediately and say “Gar Gar”. Must be the golden arches.

What is more surprising is that he even points out the Burger Kings and the KFCs. They are all “gar gar”. Must be the red colour signages.

So come join us at Gar Gar where the food is fist-sucking good (according to Shayanne).

Excuse me, 1 skinny Latte please. I want my OWN cup and my OWN spoon . Ah….a happy customer of Bakerzin.

Look at her chubby cheeks…her ezcema is getting worse after we stopped applying the steroid cream. Poor baby…she must have felt very itchy!

Updates on Shayanne:-

• Weight: 7 kg
• She is not as chubby as before. Her arms, which could give the Michelin Bibendum man a good fight, don’t look as good as his anymore. She’s grown much taller so looks more lean.
• Her head is very steady now.
• She can now roll over from her back to her front (started 2 weeks back) but cannot roll back onto her back. She will roll over once we put her on the playgym and start to grab things near her.
• She loves sticking her fists inside her mouth to suck and suck, with her saliva all oozing out which she will then spread around her mouth area. Not helping her ezcema at all.
• She likes to sleep on her stomach. Whenever she’s on her side, she will topple over and continue to sleep.
• I have difficulty nursing her when we are outside especially when they are a lot of people around. Very “pat por” this little girl. She will stick her face out of my nursing wear and look around….*slap head*. I have to resort to expressing milk everyday for storage just in case we need to feed her when we are out the whole day and she has a lot of things to look at. It’s very challenging to pump when I am nursing Shay with Brae nearby. He will see me pumping away and then he will rush over to sit next to me and ka-ka-cau-cau (disturb). Most of the time I can only pump 2-3 oz in an hour. How to boost my milk supply? Brae is very good at mimicking my pumping action now.
• Sometimes when I nurse her, she will slip her fingers into her mouth and start sucking on them.
• Nowadays, she loves it when people carry her and walk around. During family dinner, she will whine and stretch in the car seat until someone picks her up. Sometimes, daddykhong and I have to take turns to stand and eat at the same time!!!
• She loves to watch her kor-kor playing.

It is always better to teach the basics of Mr. Stork & Friends to your little ones instead of diverting the issue or having them learn all the wrong things from the wrong people.

So if you were to ask Braedyn where his “penis” is, he will point to the right place and say “Gar Gar”. If we point to his penis and ask him what it is, he will say “Gar Gar” (which we will assume he wants to say “penis” but can’t).

The other day, he was on the bed observing Shayanne while her diaper was being changed when he pointed to her privates and said “Gar Gar” together with the sign which signifies “no more”. LOL! He’s learning fast.

Tagged by Jessie, Immomsdaughter & Wokkingmum .

A very popular tag. I don’t remember much about their names, origins, etc…so I’ll write what I remember then return with more after checking the book I looked at (which is still residing at MPH Bookstores because I was too broke to buy it and daddykhong was too chicken to steal it!)

Braedyn Jian-Wen

A version of Brayden (which apparently Zoe Tay of Singaporean TV fame picked for her son too). Before everyone jumps and says that I copied her – I didn’t. Braedyn’s name was long confirmed before I found out about Zoe’s choice. If you don’t believe me, ask daddykhong.

(Daddykhong says, “Errrr, whatever you say dear. You are ALWAYS right!”)

We wanted something different from what the name book recommended so picked one of the many variations of Brayden . It is supposed to mean “wood” or “creek”. Alamak….forgotten liao!

As for his Chinese name, banana mummykhong left all the hard work to banana daddykhong. Daddykhong, being strictly English-educated and all related Brit-snob crap like learning his math in pounds and pence, did manage to learn enough from his 8-odd years of Mandarin tuition to know how to use a Chinese dictionary, the intonations of each word, etc. He would search for the name based on its Mandarin pronounciation and I will get him the Cantonese pronounciation. The name must sound ok in both dialects (and look good when written in English) before we confirmed.

We even bought 2 Chinese name books to learn more about the various elements, the binomials, etc.. Had to choose a name that satisfied ALL Chinese naming methods (think there are 4 or 5).

Anyway, Jian is “strong” and Wen is “Literary” so Braedyn should be as strong as Superman and as smart as Einstein. Judging from his progress so far……probably would say he’s got a wee bit of both!

Shayanne Xue-Yan

A variation of the American name Cheyenne . Totally forgotten what it means.

(Daddykhong says, “My next car would be a Porsche Cayenne. Thank you very much.”)

Chinese name selection was must easier. It was all done in 1 night as opposed to kor-kor’s many weeks. We originally wanted to rigidly stick to the Chinese naming methodology like what we did for kor-kor but after a couple of attempts + the wood element not matching with the metal element and what not, we decided to give her a Chinese name similar to her English name.

Xue means snow and Yan means swallow. Daddykhong’s mum has xue in her name and I have yan in mine. All coincidence. So from the name, Shayanne should be a cold-hearted person and will fly very far away once she’s old enough!!!! Or maybe she will be as pretty and fair as a snow swallow?

Braedyn has finally decided to call me “MA-Ma” (he stresses the 1st MA hence the uppercase) after months of calling me “Gar-Gar”. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Have to thank daddykhong for catching Braedyn saying his 1st “Ma” and then getting him to repeat it every now and then. Most unfortunately for daddy, his “Ba-Bas” have all but disappeared. What normally happens is this. Daddykhong will point to me and ask, “Who’s this?” and Braedyn will say “MA-Ma”. Then I will point to daddykhong and ask Braedyn the same question and he replies, “MA-Ma”! Sometimes he will say “MA-Ba”!! *piak on the head*

Just a short update from me because a lot of mummy bloggers out there have already posted their 2 cents on Ashley, Kylie, Fearles & Cruz’s mega birthday bash which was held at Burger King, Mutiara Damansara last Saturday.

We arrived at 4:30 pm thinking we were the latest. Stupid Burger King, never can find parking on weekends so we had to circle Petronas twice before deciding to park behind the restaurant in the drive-thru lane.

Went to meet the hostesses first:- Laundryamah, AnnieQ and Mummy to Chumsy to pass them their gifts. Actually wanted to eat first but must be polite and meet the people who invited us, right or not? I have met Laundryamah and AnnieQ before but it’s my first time meeting Barbara (Mummy to Chumsy). Barbara gave Shayanne a prezzie too….(thank you so much, Barbara, very thoughtful of you even though we have never met before). Now that I mentioned it here, everyone else will be expecting a prezzie from you too!!

Photos below were courtesy from a very good photographer, Shannon:-

Braedyn

Braedyn in Burger King’s playroom. Braedyn’s probably thinking……must get away from that red-haired Uncle Ronald next door.

For those who don’t know Khongfamily….tada…here they are:- daddykhong, mummykhong, Braedyn & Shayanne. If you are all thinking that Braedyn got his “fatty” genes from his papa, you’re all wrong.

Sorry, we couldn’t even catch up with everyone there….too many parents and kids around. I only managed to meet up with:-

• Angeleyes (sorry ahhh…didn’t manage to really have a chit chat session with you)
• Allyfeel (even though first time meeting you, we talked like old friends horrr)
• Sasha (everytime sms…and finally get to meet you in person. One word, you are very ‘leng lui’! Daddykhong says you look like the HVD film star. He’s certain you are related to her.)
• Mott (finally get the chance to meet you in person)
• Tracy (nice meeting you too)
• Jazzmint (saw you busy taking photos….)
• Shannon (thank you so much for the photos you have taken..very nice! And your little princess is very very cute! )
• Sue (nice meeting you too)
• Little Luke Skywalker (we sat so near to each other but didn’t manage to talk, nice meeting you guys)
• Angeline (nice meeting you too)

And to those whom I didn’t have chance to say hi…..very very sorry ahh!

(Daddykhong says…..were there that many people? I was more interested in our Shah Rukh Khan! Who thought his jokes were lame, put your hands up?)

More stories here:-

Sasha : http://sashablablabla.blogspot.com/2007/05/bash.html

Jazzmint : http://jazzmint.net/blog/?p=627

Allyfeel : http://allyfeel.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/mega-birthday-party/

Mott : http://mott.blogsome.com/2007/05/20/screamin-partaypart-ii/

Tracy : http://tracy-elydes.blogspot.com/2007/05/mega-birthday-bash.html

Little Chumsy’s Blog : http://chumsyashley.blogspot.com/2007/05/big-bang-birthday-bash.html

Dining area

Braedyn making full use of the play area

We visited Caterpillar a couple of weeks back. Surprisingly, for a centre/cafe that focuses on children, it is located on the 2nd floor with no lift facility. The both of us (daddykhong with Shayanne in her car carrier + backpack containing baby stuff and myself with 12.5 kg of Braedyn) crawled S-L-O-W-L-Y up the stairs. Phew……..good for my spare tyre!

As we arrived close to closing time at 4pm, there was nobody left. The owners, Sania and Ann, fetted over us like doting mothers. They provide homemade food without MSG. Apparently, EVERYTHING is made from scratch including the burger patties. Daddykhong, being cheeky as usual, upon hearing that then asked them whether the sausages are also made from scratch to which they sheepishly replied, “No, but it is made by a sausage manufacturer using OUR recipe!” OK lah, they win.

We ordered a lot of food to stuff our hungry stomachs. We ordered homemade chicken nuggets for Brae but they ended up in our tummies as he had no appetite due to his mild fever. He was also distracted by the toys in the play area.

There are classes for kids and adults such as; playgroups, art and craft, dance and English language classes for Japanese as well. They also provide child care services if you enrol in their classes for a minimal fee of RM10.

This cafe is a nice place to have a cup of tea and chit-chat when the classes are over but not my cup of tea for a full-blown meal. Prices are reasonable though.