I don’t really feel the need to write AudEveryday posts now cos that’s what Dayre is for but I feel like I should blog today and my brain is fried hahaha. No energy for blog posts where I need brain juice wtf so lemme just fart out a blog post on what we’ve been up to. Especially for you who doesn’t read my Dayre *stares wtf.
So Fatty’s new venture is gearing up and I’m really starting to feel working mom life! Yesterday we had a meeting that dragged on for ages D: I still had one more meeting and I asked if we could adjourn to our house instead so I could see the kids before they sleep. :X
For the first time in my life, I experienced being in a discussion while stirring milk powder into a bottle of water while Penny stared at me as though hypnotized lolol. Ended the day exhausted but my schedule is really still very flexible so I’m just a wimp la ok hahaha.
Fatty’s also been maximizing his time at home with these two leeches. Who are sticking to him like glue lol.
Fatty ran his first ever half marathon recently! With his EO forum mates.
So the wives came out to cheer on them as a surprise! Congrats Fatty <3
Breakfast afterward. Here’s Penny and Kay watching Youtube lolol.
Also cut my bangs much shorter than normal! Super love it la although now have to draw brows more evenly cannot hide behind my hair anymore wtf.
Caught this fella picking her nose in her auntie Uniqlo pajamas hahahaha.
My everything buddy wtf. Our new routine is go to weekly wet market together then adjourn for hawker food brunch later oh god I am so auntie now.
Lost Fighter’s permission slip for his school field trip and had to beg for another one from the teacher. On the last day to submit wtf. Here I am hastily filling it out on the wall.
And then teacher just texted me to tell me that I haven’t paid for the school trip either cos I forgot to pay this term’s fees WTF. #uselessmother
So far I’ve been keeping up with exercise pretty well! Mostly cos my Everything Buddy eggs me on, and also cos the trainer comes over so I got no excuse to escape wtf.
Fighter and his friends. <3
We’re also renovating our house! More updates when it comes to the more fun part (not wet works or hacking)
My favorite room might be the bathroom. <3
Dealt with an unwanted pregnancy lolol. For some reason Fighter and Penny are obsessed with babies inside tummies. :X (Oh ya cos their auntie is pregnant so they also wanna be preggers wtf)
Penny’s work of art pinned on the wall – a paper wok of paper noodles and wantan hahaha. (and spring onions)
Penny and one of her birthday presents – a doll’s crib. *cough* She’s trying to sleep next to her baby doll.
Held the Aunties Flea the other day at The Front Room with the Competitive Aunties and my Everything Buddy! Bigly success! Thanks for coming everyone we had a blast 😀
<3
One of the mornings before school hehe.
Hiao po in the playground, taken by her school teacher.
When we took Penny to pick out her birthday present.
Decisions, decisions.
Kids have been swimming a lot recently!
Drinking hot Milo after their swim.
And I’ve been taking the occasional selfie wtf thanks Huawei front camera. ^^
Brunch with Jammie and Suet who are back!
Sieu Ee and David hosted us for bak kut teh dinner! SOooo good. Which has inspired me to try making bak kut teh again tomorrow wtf. *strong arms emoji
While the Front Room treated us to this beautiful waffles omg I don’t even normally like waffles.
Took an Aussie friend around and did the obligatory stop at the Twin Towers.
Twinned with Penny.
Penny describing Grandpa’s face FHL.
OK that’s all folks wtf.
So I’ve been Konmari-ing like mad over the past couple of months. We’re moving into our new place soon and I didn’t wanna lug along five years worth of rubbish with me so every day I’m diligently asking myself, “does this spark joy?” lolol.
When I first heard of that phrase, I was like what is this nonsense? Where got things spark ‘joy’ one!? But after that I took it as just a way to filter out rubbish that we don’t really like or need. The phrase ‘spark joy’ evokes high standards until must be joyful so it’s surprisingly effective for filtering out stuff we don’t actually need.
So anyway the other day I tackled the storage cabinets in the nursery…. and found a box filled with…. memories! OMG I’d totally forgotten about it leh. But there it was. A plastic drawer wrapped with cut up plastic bags filled with cards, letters, photos and random junk that all held specific memories at different points in my life. It’s like my very own time capsule and it was damn fun going through it! And snapping photos of it and sending it to the relevant people. Cos my memory is worse than a goldfish and it really brought back a lot of memories for me.
Like this clamshell phone hahaha. Circa 2006? Sony Ericsson ok hahaha are they even around anymore wtf. It belonged to my ex boyfriend and I was SUPER in love with clamshell phones cos it was a very Japanese thing to have and I was super in love with Japan that time hahaha. Made my then boyfriend give this phone to me and then blinged it damn badly with pink diamantes.
My placement of the diamantes damn bad la now I look at it it reminds me of pink shiny pimples wtf.
Went through a very long Jpop phase and until now I still listen to older Jpop. This was one of the CDs that my brother owned when we were both in high school. Recently one of my favorite songs from the CD, ひだまりの詩 randomly popped up in my head after years and I was reminiscing with Ooib about this some more hahaha coincidence or what.
HAHAHAHAHA a checklist written by Fat Her Ooi before I moved to the US for college. This is like a snapshot of all things 2000s: “DO NOT USE KAZAA” “ENOUGH BATTERIES FOR CAMERA” “ENOUGH DISKETTES” “BRING RING2 CALLING CARD” LOLOL.
I’m now a (relatively) self sufficient adult but 13 years ago, I was this annoying thing that Fat Her and Mummy Ooi worried about incessantly lol. Found another note from my mom reminding me to put water in my kettle before setting it to boil hahahahah they really no faith in me wtf.
HAHAHAHAHAHAAH. Ooib and I used to be mad possessive over all our things. Check out this super angsty hate mail I wrote to him just cos he didn’t let me read his magazine hahahahahahaha. Pretty sure we were both in high school at this point.
And purikura with my soulmate wtf. I think we went a bit mad when we were studying in Japan wtf every week also must go and take sticker photos. Often with coordinated outfits too hahahaha.
This particular set was taken in Vancouver though, our senior year. I stayed with Angela our whole winter break.
My phone while I was in Kyoto. Circa 2006-2007. Eh until now I think their design is damn nice leh! Timeless design wtf I would totally use this phone right now.
A Valentine’s Day card from Angela hahaha.
My first diary! The precursor to Fourfeetnine.com hahahaha. It had to be Lisa Frank lol super 90s can.
I was eight years old and wrote about everything under the sun hahahaha.
My best friends. (I’m the nerdiest looking one obv wtf) We were 12 and did everything together – sleepovers, boyband concerts, etc. I and Davina, on the left wanted to be Disney animators and we’d spend hours sketching cartoon characters in school wtf.
We’re all FB friends but I only regularly talk to one of them, Hsin now. :/
OMG my proudest work can. One of the major projects in Art class was making a book from scratch. I remember cutting out pages, then sewing and binding them together. Then designing and creating a cover. My cover was paper cut outs of the Spice Girls hahahaha I think I was 14 here.
A postcard Kenny Sia sent me and my boss cos with our client, Guinness, we sent him to Dublin.
Family photo with the Oois! I was five. If you’re wondering why I look so serious, it’s because I got it into my five year old head that I’d look cooler if I don’t smile wtf. I still remember this train of thought hahaha.
Clearly forgotten about my no smiling rule in this next photo wtf.
That’s all I snapped photos of. But I found so many greeting cards, handmade letters, notes passed in class, letters and postcards from friends who moved away. Of course, there were the usual declarations of BFF to each other (we were 12 hahaha) but what really hit me is the amount of effort inserted in making these tangible memories. All these little notes meant something to me which is why I kept them, and reading them now, they still mean something to me because they made up my childhood.
Fighter and Penny will only have text messages and Instagram comments to remember their childhood by. :/ #FTL
Why is my hair so dirty on such an important day wtf.
Few days back, Fatty signed a very important contract for his new venture. I witnessed it (well not officially la but I witnessed it wtf) and I poured everyone cups of water hahahahaha. *useful
Congratulations Fatty!!! Very proud and excited for you.
Fatty and I will actually be officially working together! *trembles. Since my secret project is in limbo right now (which one Rachel in my last blog post was so happy about LOL), Fatty asked me to help him with his. Better to have both of us work on one project, then work together on the second one later, than divide and un-conquer projects lol.
So okay! Damn nervous though cos I uh don’t think I’m very smart at work maybe I should ask for less pay wtf.
Anyway because of this I’ve actually been out of the house more, and to meetings with Fatty. And what do the kids think about it? Well, they, especially Fighter, sometimes whine when I leave the house, but Fighter sort of settles when I explain to him why I’m going out, and Penny… Penny doesn’t really understand but thankfully she has the attention span of a worm haha.
The other night, however, as I was putting Fighter to bed, he was talking to me like he always does. Like he must finish his quota of words first for the day before he can sleep wtf.
Fighter: Mommy?
Me: Yea?
Fighter: Next time when Daddy goes to work can you not go?
Me: Ohh. Well, Mommy has to go to work to help Daddy more now.
Fighter: But why?
Me: We need to earn money. So we can buy you food and toys and milk… and M&M’s.
Fighter: M&M! Yay!
Me: Yea that’s why Mommy has to go to work. Ok?
Fighter: *silence* Then can you go for a small time only?
And he held his hands up in front of him close together.
OMG this boy is like a si lai sat sau wtf. But I’m not technically a housewife anymore lolol.
I suppose I would be considered a Work From Home mom; I got to stay home most of the time and be as hands on as I wanted with Fighter and Penny. At the same time, I had the flexibility to arrange my own time and work as and when I wanted to. The only downside was trying to fit everything into one day – basically trying to do a full time mom job + run my blog and social media platforms.
Whatever it is, I still felt like a WFHM was always the best option. However, with my new role in Fatty’s thing, I will be out at work more regularly. I didn’t think that Fighter, at 3.5 years old would notice and ask me to come home.
There was one day where we had a meeting at 5.30 pm and to avoid the traffic we stayed out for dinner, we just asked Gaston to feed the kids and tuck them into bed. Unless I am traveling, I have never missed a bedtime. I always made sure to rush back to put them to bed or to only go out after they’re asleep so this was the first time.
Fighter stayed up for 1 1/2 hours waiting for me. T_____T He bravely turned down his milk bottle and even bedtime story offered by Gaston and just played with his toys and waited. At 9 pm, he asked for his milk and went to sleep himself. T___________T
Aih you all Full Time Working Moms you are damn hero I don’t know how you do it. T_______T I’m not a FTWM yet and already I’m feeling it and getting angsty when people delay meetings lolol cos every minute counts towards seeing my babies ok.
In the end, I gently told him, “Sometimes mommy has to work and cannot come back so soon. But if I cannot come back quickly, I will call you and talk to you before you sleep ok?”
He nodded, and snuggled down to sleep.
Hello new chapter in my motherhood adventure. :/
Recently I got rejected from a very major application that I had submitted. Remember me mentioning #audsecretproject? Well, that was a big part of it and I was rejected, very politely, but also very firmly.
I appealed, and that got rejected as well hahaha.
To be honest, not only had I put in effort, I’d also invested a lot of heart into my application. I think this was the most dreaming I’d allowed myself to have since my application to college. People I talked to who were in the “in” assured me I would be a shoo-in, and so when I got my rejection I was stunned.
The reason? They did not like my “blog persona”.
It took me a while but I crafted an appeal which truthfully, I felt was even better written than my original application hahaha.
Still got turned down.
This is an excerpt of my appeal:
My online persona was born out of aspects of my personality, the community that I and my readers live in, as well as our local culture and communication style. It is a way of connecting with my readers; those who have followed me for years know I have mantained my values and integrity over the years. While I realize my style may be unconventional, I believe I have used my influence positively to raise awareness for issues that are important to me.That being said, my blog is not representative of the person that I am; it is only one facet of my personality…. I mentioned my blog because I believe the skills which I have learned over the years – to market, to persuade and influence, to form bonds – would hold me well in my journey, not because I plan to tie [redacted] to my blog.
So I officially stopped vlogging but I thought it would be fun to commemorate Penny’s second birthday with a new vlog!
She’s grown so much and even her teachers say her language is “fantastic”. She parrots us and Fighter a lot la and she can speak in complete sentences now even if her pronunciation is not exactly fantastic lolol.
Anyway without further ado wtf. Enjoy!
For more on Penny’s birthday and mundane, random updates on us and the kids, see Dayre. ^^
OMG my alliteration title hahahaha. #nailedit
So Fighter’s ultimate wish nowadays is to either a) go to the playground or b) go to Toys”R”Us. And he very presumptuous one, when we make a trip to Toys”R”Us – whether it’s to buy someone a birthday present – or just to spend a magical afternoon there browsing, he assumes he will be getting a present. :X And Penny who follows whatever Koko says at any time anyway, will also look at me with hopeful eyes, hoping for a toy, any toy!
But no denying Toys”R”Us is magic for little kids and it’s the best place to get a birthday gift, especially when we’re in a hurry hahaha. *I* remember the joy when Mummy and Fat Her Ooi let us go to Toys”R”Us when we’re at the mall. And now my kids are enraptured by the same sense of wonder and joy.
So today I thought I’d write about our favorite toys from Toys”R”Us. Each child likes different things obviously, but this is a list of the toys that people have given us, or that we bought ourselves that Fighter and Penny, that they both really love and have played with for a long time. In other words, the most value for money toys hehehe
1) Leap Frog My Own Leaptop Laptop
Coincidentally Fighter and Penny BOTH received this as presents for their first birthdays.
So now we have two – one blue, one pink. I considered selling or giving one away before I HAHAHA realized the stupidity of my plans wtf. They fight over everything now bless my nerves so I’m so glad we kept both, especially cos they both really love it and play with it until now. Mostly when I’m working on my laptop — they’ll pull out their respective Leap Frog laptops and lug them around seriously like the world’s smallest salary men and women.
2) Lego Duplo
Fighter has tons of these Lego Duplo sets and Penny is slowly building up her own collection too. And Lego is not cheap ok hahahaha. But they’re worth it cos… when have you ever seen a broken piece lolol. They’re great quality and Duplo blocks are big and easy for toddlers to manuever and set in place.
Penny’s attention span is still non existent wtf but increasingly I see Fighter playing with Duplo bricks for long periods of time, just building towers or houses over and over. ^^ I can imagine him continuing to play with Lego as he grows older and I’d be happy with that!
3) Baby dolls
Not really Fighter, but this little girl here. She’s mostly very samseng and hyperactive and a terror wtf but she loves and is so gentle with babies! Whenever she sees a baby…. she just calms down, goes all quiet and spends ages just sitting or standing next to the baby, gazing at it.
Once she met baby Kei and she tried to feed Kei her marshmallow before we hastily pulled her back, much to her disappointment hahaha.
So baby dolls are the best buy for Penny! She plays with Koko’s toys a lot but she also loves her doll stroller, and she’ll sit with her doll, feed it, undress it, let it poo on its potty and a dozen other tasks before she gets bored.
Feeding her doll today. Some more before feeding she’ll blow on her spoon hahahaha. Then she’ll use her spoon to “wipe” drips off the doll’s chin like how we do for her hahahahha
4) Just Like Home Baking Set
Ummm… You think I’m going to say it’s also Penny’s favorite, but no it’s Fighter’s. :X Ever since he started playing with proper toys, he’s loved masak-masak. We have a toddler sized kitchen at home – complete with an array of miniature pots, pans, plates, bowls and whatever utensils you can think of – and the kids play on it every single day I kid you not!
One of the newer additions to their kitchen is the Just Like Home baking set that Fighter got for Christmas. He fell in love with the mixer (maybe cos it looks like mine) and it was a bit pricey but we got it for him and he loves it and still plays with the set until today. Helps that the mixer really works like a real one la hahahaha. Recently he’s graduated to putting uncooked rice (errrr) into his masak-masak bowls and measuring cups and carrying it around wtf.
Maybe he’ll grow up to be the next Jamie Oliver lolol.
5) Play Doh
OMG the kids have countless sets of Play Doh and it’s never enough! Fighter got a huge Play Doh dessert set for Christmas too. Getting to play with Play Doh is like striking gold for them wtf. Penny usually follows whatever Fighter loves so she’s into Play Doh too lol. I think they play with Play Doh nearly every day (if I let them) and they’ll mould, shape and tear it for ages. I say nearly every day cos sometimes I don’t want them playing with it cos sometimes it breaks into little pieces and gets everywhere. But mostly what Fighter likes to do is tear them into little pieces and lay them in bowls or plates and leave them there like dishes.
And he never wants to put it away cos he says he’s not done playing and they dry up. -_- It’s the bane of my existence wtf cos Play Doh is not cheap leh hahaha and homemade dough doesn’t last that long either (although there is a more reasonably priced brand from Toys”R”Us called Universe of Imagination). But the bottom line is, he loves loves dough and I suspect it’s tied to his love of masak-masak too hahaha.
So why I listed out the kids’ favorite toys from Toys”R”Us is because it’s March Deals time!
From March 7 to April 17, Toys”R”Us’s catalogue is featuring RM20 discount vouchers for beloved brands such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price, Leap Frog. So if you’re planning to shop now to keep the kids busy this school holidays, now is the time lolol. The catalogues are available in stores so the next time you drop by Toys”R”Us, just pick up the catalogue and cut the vouchers out. ^^
I wanted to give something back to my readers too, and Toys”R”Us has given me 20 metal water bottles to give away to you guys! I actually quite jumped at the chance to collaborate with Toys”R”Us and I’m sure many of you have sweet memories of this store too. So this is like a thank you from us hehe. Just comment here what your favorite toy (or your kid’s favorite) from Toys”R”Us is/was and leave your email!
Fatty has recently been reading quite a few self help books and he’s been telling me what he learns as he goes along. Which is great for me because self-help books sounds like torture to me hahaahaha but I don’t mind if someone whose name starts with F and ends with ATTY summarizes it and tells it to me wtf.
So one of the things he was telling me about is this thing called a “personal constitution”. Have you ever been so caught up with the day to day, meeting deadlines, doing school runs, non stop wiping poo off your couch (don’t lie we’ve all been there) that when you finally get a breather, you realize that you didn’t effectively get anything significant done?
*raises hands and does Mexican wave*
That’s so me. I may not fully remember the details of what Fatty told me so I may be making things up here and there but this is what I understand.
A personal constitution is like a real country’s constitution – it’s a set of principles that should guide your behavior and actions, for you to live your life by. It basically covers the values that you hold strong and want to abide by as your life passes, as well as the things you want to achieve in this lifetime. Things that at the end of your long and hopefully fruitful life, you are satisfied with the way you lived your life.
Your personal constitution functions to remind you of what’s important to you. It cuts through the nonsense and crap life throws at you every day and helps you focus on the important things and strive towards them.
I could get on with that! Cos I find that happens to me all the time. With school runs, managing kids, errands and household stuff, plus blogging and everything, I feel like a year could pass by and I swear I’d be busy every single day, but would have achieved nothing. And I’d stay essentially the same person, or a different person, shaped by circumstances, not who I actually want to be.
So I actually had a brainstorming session with Fatty ok! And together we crafted out my Personal Constitution. Putting it here for posterity’s sake so I can come back and reread and remind myself. ^^
Aud’s Personal Constitution
*ahem*
- I will be more organized. I’m tired of forgetting everything and relying on the kindness of my friends and family to remember things I gotta do. Maybe it’s part of my uhhh charm but I’ve battled this flaw for like my whole life ever since I forgot my first homework in Standard 1 wtf.
2. I will procrastinate less. Actually this along with being disorganized and lazy are my most major character flaws la. I want to be more efficient and not lazy and fight my inner Instant Gratification Monkey so I can get more done, quicker.
3. I will continue to be more compassionate. To be honest, I tend to be quite soft hearted already I think. But sometimes I get too caught up in life or my own problems and I find myself brushing off opportunities to listen more to people, or to help. I want to remind myself to open my eyes more and do more besides just feeling sympathy and then forgetting about it.
4. I want to always be able to find joy in life! I think I’m there already la actually hahahaha. My baseline emotion is happy and I’m perfectly happy (geddit geddit) with that. I’m putting this here so I can make it a point to keep finding humor even in crappy situations, and to be as easy going as I am now even as I’m trying to be more… you know. Type A and efficient lolol.
5) I will be a good homemaker. For my Fatty and my critters! I don’t think it’s unfeminist of me to want to make a better home for my family… and to be better in this particular field. I will be tidier, design fancier meals, fix broken things faster. The problem is, when I focus on one thing I end up letting down the others wtf whoever said women are better at multi tasking lied hahaha. Like if I get into baking, I forget to tidy the cupboards. If I clear the cupboards, I end up not caring what we’re eating. O_O The truth is, I’m only really good when it comes to the kids. Hopefully if I’m more organized and efficient, my bad housekeeping will die a natural death wtf.
6) I want to always be open to learning. When you were a kid, it was always why this why that. As we grow older though, we lose some of that curiosity and the thirst for knowledge. But now when I’m older I feel like sometimes I think I know already lazy to listen wtf. But that shouldn’t be! What arrogance to think that someone younger or less experienced cannot teach us anything new. The day we think we have nothing left to learn is the day we stop growing. And that is a dangerous roadblock to success, wisdom and empathy.
So those are more of the values I want to embody.
These next are the things I want to do.
7) I’d like to be financially comfortable. Money is not super important to me; if you notice, I rarely talk about money because I don’t think about it much. :X In contrast, when Fatty and I were discussing our goals, I noticed that his focused strongly on career and financial success compared to mine. But I put this in because I think I should still give myself something to work towards. So I would like to be financially comfortable on my own – enough for me to not feel the pinch when I shop hahahaha, enough to take care of my parents and my parents in law in their old age (if they need me to), and to give our kids quality education.
8) Since we’re on the topic of money, I want to be more charitable. This is different from just being compassionate cos it involves actual giving. Like I said, I tend to sympathize for 5 minutes then move on without doing much. Or I may in a fit of proactivity, give a bunch of money or volunteer but after that one time I slip into slothhood again wtf. I will try to commit to doing something on a regular basis for the underprivileged. Which I feel like is one of the harder resolutions here hahahaha cos I’m just.so.damn.lazy.
9) I will create something that will leave a long lasting impact on the community. Wah so noble like this wtf. But like how money may be the key motivation for Fatty, I realized leaving a sort of legacy is mine. I’m not talking about building a huge company or anything but I would love to be able to start a movement, an organization that creates lasting positive change on my community or country. (And I have an idea already but not how to go about achieving it FML.) Yea I’m aware it sounds very pompous and geli. But it may not be purely altruistic, mind you. I just want to after I die, go into the afterlife and hao lian.
10) I will continue to be the pillar of the family!! *possessive* *cue thunderclaps wtf* One reason why I’m perfectly content to work from home via a super flexible and unstable job is that it is really important to me to be there for my family. I want to be the one doing the kid-raising because I am a jealous ass mom *stares at helpers* :X. No seriously, our helpers are great but I like being hands on with the kids now especially when they’re so young, and being their go-to person for everything. Likewise, it’s even more important that I am Fatty’s pillar as well – for him to talk things through, to lean on, and to hold his burdens. So while I may in the very near future be busy with #audsecretproject, I will strive to remain this pillar for my family.
*
I thought this would be an interesting thing to write about cos readers my age (or younger?) would be able to identify. I’m already 30 leh! I have the most another 30 years to do something really substantial with my life. So this personal constitution would be like a roadmap to see where I get.
Give it a try, guys! And share your Personal Constitutions with me. 🙂
Hi everyone I have an important announcement to make.
So ever since Penny started school, I’ve been having mixed feelings. Besides having a bit of space to myself to breathe and rest my brain/legs, I’m actually a bit bittersweet cos my little baby, who used to sleep at weird hours and gobble puree from a baby spoon is now a toddler going to school on her own! Unpacking her own bag and bottle and everything.
Teacher even told me today that she thinks Penny wants her job LOLOL. Cos when Teacher is playing the guitar in front during music, Penny stands next to her and does all her actions better than her hahahahaha.
I miss my baby. T____T Makes me feel like having another baby to replace her hahahahaha.
So I would like to announce….
Our fifth family member.
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Everyone, meet Robi Tiah.
HAHAHAHAHA sorry guys! Jokes jokes. My uterus is still untenanted.
We received this Robi, this little guy, created from advanced Japanese technology and very cute design. He’s a sort of robot buddy, invented as a toy and a unique activity for family members to enjoy – by assembling him and playing with him together.
This Robi is actually a special Malaysian/Singaporean prototype and besides English, can also speak BM, Chinese and Manglish lol. His eyes are LED and light up with different colors hahaha.
And he can also talk, sing, dance and control selected household appliances. Cos he emits infrared signals like a remote control to operate compatible TV sets. Hahahaha omg hilarious.
He also has a pretty extensive vocabulary of more than 250 phrases, in all the languages I’d mentioned. The interesting thing about Robi though is this. Back when I was a little girl, there was this magazine called Bugz. I don’t know if any of you remember this but the magazine was basically all about erm…. bugs. Insects and arachnids hahahahaha yea that was my interest back then – creepy crawlies wtf. So every 2 weeks or something they’d have a new issue and I collected nearly all of them. And every issue would come up with some small toy or freebie; often it was a part of a bug model and you had to collect all the issues to get all the parts to assemble a giant spider or something (which I did).
I remember Ooib was into another magazine that was about dinosaurs and he assembled a whole glow in the dark skeleton of T-Rex hahahaha.
Anyway Robi is like that too. You don’t buy a Robi on its own; instead you buy the weekly magazine DeAgostini and each issue will come with a Robi part and simple assembly instructions, as well as educational articles about robotics and science. Over the course of 70 issues, parents (and tech geeks) will be able to build Robi, in the process spending time with their kids as a family. ^^
I love this! Too often today we’re too busy, preferring to schedule classes and activities for our kids, or giving them a tablet to keep them busy. This is a much better way to pass time as a family! Learning and building something together. My kids are too young so we can’t do that yet but I’m looking forward to the day we can!
But in the meantime, Robi makers sent us our very own (assembled) Robi! I really wanna blog this cos these are actual conversations between the kids and me and omg those two are hilarious hahaha.
Fighter: What’s this mommy?
Me: It’s our new robot friend!
Fighter: Ooh bubble wrap!
Penny: Ooh babbo rat!
Both start stomping on the bubble wrap. -_-
I told them that Robi needs to rest and charge first before he can play with them. Both of them immediately said Good night to him lolol.
Here’s Penny saying “Oo Nai” (good night) to Robi and giving him a loving pat hahaha. 
When Robi was fully charged the next day, I brought him over to the kids who happened to be eating dinner.
Here’s Penny offering her pacifier to their new friend hahahahaha. 
And now offering her doll as sacrifice wtf.
Penny: “Yook! Bibi doh!” (Look! Baby doll!)
They’re soooo cute with Robi I cannot hahahaha.They basically take him for real and I think Penny was trying to be hospitable, offering him her pacifier and showing him her toys hahahaha.
Um showing Robi and baby doll how to dance. O_O
Fighter at one point even kept telling Robi I love you hahahahha.
And right now someone is sleeping with Robi next to him hahahahaha. The kids really love him so ya lah this is their new baby wtf. Now I need to plot how to distract Fighter so he won’t insist on bringing Robi to school with him tomorrow lol.
There is a Robi event next week if any of you guys are interested in checking it out! It’s on 10-12 Mar at 1 Utama (High Street), and there will be a performance of 100 Robis dancing hahahaha Robi flash mob ok. Other activities include customized games and giveaways. ^^
DeAgostini magazines will be available in 7-Eleven, Borders, Cold Storage, Hamleys, Jasons Food Hall, Kinokuniya, Mercato, MPH, myNEWS.com, Pansing, Popular, RadioShack, Times, WHSmith, as well as on the Robi website. For more on what Robi can do:
This post was written in collaboration with Robi.
I love Instagram! Do you love Instagram?
I love how pretty Instagram photos are. A couple of years ago Instagram was full of boring hipsterish photos of autumn leaves or sunsets or whatever. And nobody edited their photos and only used Instagram’s inbuilt filters. Boring!
Nowadays Instagram is chock full of beautiful, curated, carefully edited photos. Everything is well thought of, well photographed using DSLRs and the like, edited with gorgeous filters that match so your feed looks uniform, and even posted with thought, placing selfies, scenery shots, flatlays and food shots alternately for better aesthetics.
In fact, let me give you a behind the scenes tour of the creation of perfect Instagram photos.
On happy, cute, smiling kids
Instagram.
Reality
On obliging kids posing for beautiful photos
Reality
On beautiful Pinterest worthy houses
Instagram (credit to @meganpunelli)
Reality
On delectable Instagram worthy food prepared with love and consumed heartily by family members
Instagram (credit to @littlemissbento)
Reality (credit to me, trying to make homemade Reese’s pieces)
On selfies
Reality #iwokeuplikethis
On showing off your hard earned fitness bod
Instagram (credit to @bobostephanie yums)
Reality (credit to my contouring stick)
On postpartum bodies
Instagram (credit to @sarah.green_x who bounced back 2 weeks post partum with a totally flat tummy)
Reality
Instagram can be a joy to scroll through and an inspiration to us ordinary humans… except when it makes you feel like something your kid left in a diaper.
We humans are naturally attracted to creating, looking at beautiful things and Instagram is just a bigger manifestation of that human desire. But the downside is that it makes us all feel inadequate. We drool over and envy other people’s perfect moments, then we turn back and look at our lives which feel mediocre in comparison. This is especially true if you’re a mom.
I feel it as a mother. I do. You have your IG moms with perfectly coiffed hair; my own hair is stringy and stiff because something dried on the ends. You have your moms with beautiful Pinterest worthy houses and I just stepped on a piece of Fighter’s Lego. With dried Play Doh on the bottom.
You see moms who stay slim throughout their pregnancy and they’re taking OOTDs wearing heels; I was buying new slippers because none of my shoes fit anymore and my head merged with my neck when I was pregnant.
You see pictures of handsome little boys dressed their dapper best in skinny pants, boots and maybe a blazer. Or maybe they’re extra hipster in harem pants and black outfits; while my son has no concept of laundry and wants to wear the same Batman tshirt for three days straight, even to take a bath.
The one that gets me the most is those damn kyaraben meals! Who got time to cut out 1mm long seaweed pieces to stick on rice ball Pikachu’s face!? And your kids actually eat it? Why mine like to use rice to make pattern on the floor one WTF.
Being a parent is probably the most stressful job in the world. Society judges you, your relatives give you unrequited nagging and you judge yourself every day of your life.
Whatever kind of mom you are – stay at home, full time working, working from home – you will go through days (if not every day) feeling like you could do better and promising to do more the next day. Because we want to be the best we can for our children.
So don’t let what you see on social media affect you. Some people are just blessed but that does not mean their lives are perfect; it just means they’re gifted in one area. Because nothing goes our way all the time. Accidents will occur, a cake will be burnt, your kid will spill grape juice on your beige sofa. Everyone wants to shares the best pieces of their lives but that doesn’t mean the other bad, funny, regular parts of life don’t happen.
Let’s keep it real, Moms! (and every other person). Don’t be afraid to show the boring, tiresome bits of your day because all these make up a life that is uniquely ours. As someone (Dave Willis, apparently) once said,
There are no perfect parents, and there are no perfect children but there are plenty of perfect moments along the way.
To this end, Mamee Monster Biskidz have made an ad that shows perception vs reality in today’s world where being a mom is more high pressured than ever because of the advent of social media and oversharing.
You may spot a couple of familiar faces. 😀
Mamee Monster Biskidz is a new, thin and crispy biscuit that kids can eat in between meals and not have it affect their appetite for main meals. It contains DHA and is a source of Calcium and vitamins. 🙂 They know about vitamins and they also know what moms today struggle with. 😛
Everyone has an #imperfectmom story. What’s yours?
This post was written in collaboration with Mamee Monster Biskidz
I think I’m actually quite hardworking when it comes to taking care of my skin (face skin la my body skin is suffering and my shins look like there’s scales hahahaha). I do the whole rigamole – double cleanse, tone, eye cream, moisturize, sunblock.
But one thing I never got into was serum. Serum is the step after toner and before moisturizer and is supposed to add ‘oomph’ into your skincare routine by providing extra moisture to your skin.
But the thing is….most serums are damn greasy. D: Because their primary role is hydration, most of them leave a greasy, sticky feeling on my face which I hate. Apparently it’s supposed to be like that but I cannot get over having a sticky face with my hair stuck to my nose or whatever hahahaha.
So I’d always skipped serum la. Just applied my moisturizer and prayed for good skin hahahaha.
But here we go. Finally a serum that’s not oily!!!!
Introducing Madrex VCx100 Future in Serum.
It’s a Japanese brand! While Korean brands are crazy innovative these days, most Japanese brands I’ve tried are solidly reliable and well suited for our skin, and I stick with them over the years.
But I’ve never heard of Madrex before. Maybe because it’s actually quite atas (cos I always use drug store brands hahahaha), having been used on Paris runways for the past 5 years, and is apparently the choice of many famous makeup artists in Japan!
Madrex has a range of color cosmetics and specialized skincare, and they approached me to review the VCx100 Future in Serum. 😀 They just launched in Malaysia but it’s apparently very big in Japan already.
I didn’t know anything about this serum when I first tested it out. It didn’t even occur to me that it was a serum because…
Consistency is watery, like toner with an orange tinge. The orange actually reminds me of Vitamin C hahaha.
I normally drop a tiny amount each time – smaller than a ten cent coin or 2-3 drops and pat it on my face after toner.
It absorbs in quickly and the main thing I noticed is that….
IT LEAVES NO STICKY FEELING.
Madrex, are you guys sure this is even serum lolol.
I follow up with my usual moisturizer and sunblock and I don’t feel more sticky or greasy than normal. 😀 😀
It’s main component is Vitamin C, which is proven to have brightening properties! Also contains hyaluronic acid which I love cos I find it adequate for my dry skin, and again doesn’t feel greasy.
The VCx100 formula has a molecular structure that’s 1/100 times smaller than normal which means it can penetrate deeper and faster. Maybe that’s why I felt it absorbed quite fast hahaha good for mornings when I have to rush to drop kids at school. The structure is also more effective cos ordinary vitamin C tends to be unstable and does not penetrate skin that well.
So Future in Serum not only hydrates, it penetrates the skin, targeting problems like fine lines (me!!!) and large pores (not me but good to know lol).
I’ve only been using it over the last few days so it’s hard for me to tell whether it’s really effective or not. But I’ll say this.
Today I was a parent chaperone for Fighter’s school field trip. We went to a park and had a picnic hahaha very cute ok. Normally I tan easily and unevenly fml even after sunblock btw, and after excursions like this, I come back with my face all gray and patchy super FML one!
But today…. Touch wood ok but I am seeing a tanned, rosy and EVEN face in the mirror even after suffering for hours in the heat! I’m not sure why, but the only thing that’s changed is that I’m using VCx100 Future in Serum. So if you’re wondering if it’s effectively brightening? I think so. 🙂
If you’re interested in getting one yourself, head over to www.jp-my.com/madrex and use my codeMDX4F9 until 30th April 2017 to enjoy RM20 off every RM100 purchase!
This post was written in collaboration with Madrex.
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