Once upon a time, she designed buildings and interiors of corporate offices and on the rare occasion, homes. Now, she cleans poop and is student of a patience management course. From the drawing board as a London Architect to the realities of Motherhood, she has certainly learned many lessons in humility. And then others.....
To succeed in the corporate world, first succeed with your kid as the happy boss. Seriously.
This blog is about Mamapumpkin: A crazy, demented Mom who cares full time, alone, without any help, for an even crazier preschooler AND a baby with a boob addiction problem.
She writes anything that comes out of her head, mostly without thinking first, which almost always gets her into trouble (according to her husband, whom she considers the love of her life.......on a good day).
Her 2 pet monkeys drive her towards challenge after challenge, 24/7. Day after Day.....and by the way, her parents are Muslim, her in-laws Buddhist, she's Catholic and her Hubs, an Atheist. She's thinking her kids should be Hindu, just to complete the rainbow religion cycle.
Gotta love it.
She'd love to hear from you : Mamapumpkin at gmail dot com
Tee has been a fussy eater but with a lot of creativity and child psychology, I have managed to get her to eat, and love eating. She has never had a problem eating, just that she knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like, limiting her food fare to countable options. She does not like anything black or brown. If there are black seeds or anything that resembles bugs, forget it. If any food looked remotely dark in colour, forget it. She wouldn’t even want to try.
The one thing I have still not succeeded in making her eat is durian. But I think she just has her father’s genes in that. He cannot stand the sight nor smell of durian. But I shall persist *evil laughter*
With everything else, I am lucky in identifying what clicks with her, what is important to her and what she likes doing or what she likes people to think of her. It takes an incredible amount of knowing your child to get to this stage. A LOT of talking, a LOT of observation. Once you know your child’s strengths and weaknesses, you can then almost get anything done by manipulating situations to work. It is about getting them to see other perspectives. A lot of patience is required.
Thus, I am proud to announce that I have since achieved in getting Tee to eat what she used to refuse, Kiwi fruit, the one with the evil black seeds. We are now working on Dragon fruit. She already eats bitter gourd and ladies fingers, raw garlic, sashimi (raw fish), salmon roe and caviar, and a lot of other food not usually appreciated by children her age. It’s all about psyching that little head of theirs!
I’m having the urge to post pregnant face pictures of myself of late – perhaps it is an exercise to put on record how much weight I get to lose after this baby comes out. And seeing that I look like a maid most of the time, it’s a nice thing to put on record the three times that I get to put on make up in my nine months of pregnancy.
This was taken last night before I went out to watch a play that produced some excellent acting. I am so bored of my glasses, I can’t be arsed with contact lenses and I badly need those new Prada frames but the optician has advised me against them for now because I am pregnant and my power is unstable but who cares?! Well, the Hubs does…..because they are RM2000 and I have high astigmatism which means more money for high powered lenses. He only wants to pay for it once, not twice, because once this pregnancy is over, the power of my eyes would change again. *sigh* Aren’t you bored of my boring glasses? I am so bored! Tell me I need new glasses straight away.
One important lesson I’ve learnt about holidays is NOT to bring a large camera, especially NOT if you have kids. The reason is simple. The large bulky SLR that would take magical vacation pictures? You’re going to end up leaving it in the hotel room after you realise how inconvenient it is carrying it around all day and then you sacrifice by taking minimal pictures and come home without any memories.
When we went for our month long trip to the States, we specifically went out to buy a good point and shoot weighing 250 grams with a loaded micro sd card and that served us BEAUTIFULLY throughout our entire vacation. If you don’t believe me, try it!
Well, this bitch of a woman, parked me in the other day which infuriated me to no end. I was parked directly outside Bangsar Village in a yellow parking box but when it came time for me to leave, I realised that there was no way of leaving. Both front and back had cars close to me and I was squashed in. To the right was the kerb and to my left was this car – WEP 3636. If she had had any brains, she could have at least parked her car in between the dividing line so I could have at least attempted to squeeze my car out. But obviously not.
I had a dear friend with me AND a very tired baby. We were rushing to send her home and then pick Tee up from school. If circumstances were different, I’d have waited patiently for that woman, and then give her a piece of my mind. Maybe smash her wind screen, kick her car and puncture her tyres all at once – IN FRONT OF HER.
Where do you get off parking your car just anywhere illegally, boxing other people in? Have you ever heard of a parking lot? There’s ample parking within Bangsar Village. Mind you, the bitch did not take 5 minutes. She took 15 minutes, maybe more. With a tired baby and me running late to pick Tee up, I was furious! Who knows what she’d stopped for but whatever it was, she wasn’t even in a nearby vicinity as I had started horning gently for a long time and nothing. Finally when she hurriedly appeared, I blasted my horn LOUD AND CLEAR to show the entire Bangsar who this bitch was and to plan a mass massacre of her into a hundred and one bits for the dogs to eat.
Just for the record, she was a lady who looked in her late fourties, fifties, and she did NOT apologise. Merely rushed to her car and zoomed off. If you know this lady, please let her know I’m looking out for her.
I think that majority of problems in this world are a result of poor communication skills. Seriously. If people only learnt to communicate properly and clearly and soundly, the world would really be a happier place.
But how does one brush up on their communication skills? Is it personality? It is practice? It is intelligence? A combination of several factors?
I guess what people need to do when communicating first of all, is to think of what they are about to say and put themselves in the other person’s shoes and think about how they would react if someone else were to say the same things to them. Of course, it’s not as straight forward as it sounds but all this come with experience.
My youngest brother called me the other day from Melbourne.
“Che, I need your help.”
“What?” I’m already on my defense because if at all he needs my help, it would be about money.
“I need to borrow some money. Either from you or Mom.”
“I have no money to lend you and neither does Mom. Why do you need money?”
A long story continues about how he needs to find a new place to stay. The more he talks, the more suspicious I get because the impression we all have of him is that he is a spoilt brat. And this impression is formed through no fault but his own, thus we really cannot be blamed. If he wanted this impression to change, then he would have to change.
Without enough information and with his style of approach, he totally got me on the defensive wall and I was hesitant in helping him. Who wants to help a spoilt brat who needs to grow up and learn the meaning of responsibility? For every response he had, I had a counter response and in the end, the issue was unresolved and I am still waiting for him to take some action. But you know what? Why should I chase him for it? If he had the sense to grow up, he would take charge and revert to me with the things that I have asked for.
It is typical of society, this attitude. It’s everywhere in the work force. People take no action, then later they blame others for their misfortune. I, on the other hand, always protect my interests so that I cannot turn around to blame someone else. It is a victim attitude. It is the attitude of majority of the work force in KL – nobody wants to work! Every one wants a free ride. Easy money. Easy job. Fast success. Sorry to break it to you, honey, but it does NOT work that way. Sure, there are those who have had the luck. One in a million…….so don’t hope and wait. Work for it!
Instead of how my brother had approached me, which was a rather stupid way I might add (especially from such a smart kid), he should have first explained that his housemates were moving out of his current house and as a result of THAT, he would no longer be able to afford the rent as he would have no one else to share the rent of the entire house with. THAT would be his reason for needing (not wanting) to look for another place.
And then he could have added that he’d been on the lookout for new places but all of them seemed to be more expensive already from his little room in this shared house. And then, he could have asked me what I thought he should do?
Don’t you think that would have been a far better approach? Than “Che, I need your help!”
*sigh* Not only my brother, but so many people have so much to learn…….how are they going to sell any ideas in life if they cannot even communicate the simplest of concepts!?!
Thus starts the domino effect of poor communication. And they all come tumbling down……
The problem with having a sedentary job which forces you to sit in your chair for several hours on end is that you never get off your butt to do any exercise. My poor treadmill is sitting in my lounge not being used and is very lonely. Soon, she may start having withdrawal symptoms and get into deep depression. The Hubs thankfully strokes her sometimes, you know, just to keep her going.
Once this baby is out though, I intend to FORCE myself to get onto that treadmill at LEAST 4 times a week and my job will just have to take a back seat. The priority would be to get fit. And everything else would come secondary. That’s my promise to myself. Go Mamapumpkin!
But interestingly, through reading old emails from some of my blog readers, I’ve discovered that I have some very high profile readers!!! Wow!!! I am so, so honoured!!!
I’ll share with you in a separate post who they are later but it brought me back some wonderful memories of old posts I’d done which brought butterflies to my stomach. Tee was so cute when she was 2 years old. Oh, I could just eat her up!
Please head over to my little competition if you have not participated. We need at least 10 contenders. Thank you
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A couple of years ago, Moleskine was unheard of. Only true journalists and passionate writers and artists knew of Moleskine but recently, I suddenly see Moleskine everywhere! Moleskine is supposed to be the crème de la crème of notebooks, sketch books and more recently, even address books; for top artists who refuse to let precious ideas slip by.
I wouldn’t exactly call myself a top artist though at architecture school, it had become a habit to write or sketch our ideas down as and when the light bulb switched on (if ever!) and this habit has certainly become a necessity now as I have lost all forms of memory since I became pregnant. Do you know what my Moleskine is in my handbag? A used, tattered RM2 brown exercise book that once belonged to Tee. How unglamorous.
But to buy myself a Moleskine? No, I don’t think so. It is completely overpriced and any other notebook or sketchbook will suffice for me. It is like carrying that Chanel handbag versus the Nine West, but hey, if anyone were to invest in a Moleskine as a present for me? I’d gladly accept it with open arms……and will cherish it with boundless ardent love.
Just last week, I heard of these two real life incidents happening in the heart of Bangsar, somewhere we frequent.
Incident one happened near Telawi, the auditor of a friend – broad daylight, Mr X was roaming the residential area in search of a parking spot when thud, a car had accidentally hit him from behind. He looked at his rear view mirror to check first who had hit him and saw only one man seated and felt, OK, it was safe to get out of the car to check on the damage. But as soon as he got out of his car and walked behind, two motorbikes swung by with parangs and all three men robbed Mr X AND slashed him till he bled and bled helpless. I wonder if there were any witnesses peeking out of their bedroom windows but nobody came to his aid. Everything happened in a flash and they left. Mr X, in shock, quickly drove himself to the nearest hospital, completely blood staining his car and checked into Accident and Emergency. After SIX hours of surgery, he was smacked with a 50,000 dollar bill. Is this fair?
Just the other day, the very pregnant me was walking from a residential spot in Bangsar too and whilst I knew it was a dangerous thing to do, I did it anyway and prayed like mad. Parking in BV would have been too far a walk so I ended up parking at the residential area. Thank goodness, I got off scot free as I would have been an easy target.
Incident two also happened near Telawi, Jalan Telawi One (satu), to be exact. My friend’s friend was parked outside her son’s tuition place waiting for her son and suddenly a bike with 2 men stopped beside her and started smashing her window. Because her window was laminated with that sticky laminate thingy, it was quite difficult to break the window. Yet they persisted!!! The lady was in so much shock that she didn’t even think to press the horn or drive away. All she did was hand them her handbag and begged them not to hurt her when they eventually got through. Thankfully, they did just that and zoomed off.
Times are bad, people. What with the 27 convicts who escaped from prison in Penang? Please be extra careful wherever you are, especially in Bangsar (although in fact anywhere), and please don’t carry unnecessary stuff with you. Don’t dress flashy, keep things low and don’t even carry a handbag if you can help it!
To support her bedridden eight over year old mother who has suffered from a stroke.
I’ve forgotten to mention that my masseuse also has the G5 machine to zap fat cells and she also does manual kneading for breaking up fat cells. I can’t wait to use her for that exact purpose when the time comes. Watch my thighs shrink!
Over the holidays, Tee got busy folding up flyers and then cutting them and eventually posting them into mail boxes at our condo. Within a week, my masseuse had a call. We’ll monitor results after which we would do another batch for another condo.
She has helped me so much with my pain and ailments. This is the least I can do for her.
Tee had a great time as she felt that it was such an important job to help this Aunty. She really had so much pride in getting this task done which took us an hour, no more, folding, cutting and delivering mail into a hundred post boxes. I am so proud of her…..
…….except for the time Tee chose to sleep on the job.
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I’m having the urge to post pregnant face pictures of myself of late – perhaps it is an exercise to put on record how much weight I get to lose after this baby comes out. And seeing that I look like a maid most of the time, it’s a nice thing to put on record the three times that I get to put on make up in my nine months of pregnancy.
and I have high astigmatism which means more money for high powered lenses. He only wants to pay for it once, not twice, because once this pregnancy is over, the power of my eyes would change again. *sigh* Aren’t you bored of my boring glasses? I am so bored! Tell me I need new glasses straight away.
Does anyone know the owner of this car???
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