Daddy See, Daddy Do

So it seems imitation runs in the family.

Similar Adidas shirt

Similar need for afternoon naps
(otherwise both will be extremely cranky)

And recently, I stumbled upon this:

Similar "eye covers"

Daddy's girl.. or girl's daddy? *laughs*

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Around the World in 18 Days (Blog Train)

I've always believed that Singaporeans love to travel because our country is just too small! =)

So for 18 days in September, 18 Singapore Mom Bloggers will be sharing their favourite travel destinations around the world!

OUR 18 DAY ITINERARY

1 Sep 2012
Switzerland
by Madeline at MadPsychMum (host)

2 Sep 2012
California, USA
by Ling Siew at The View from Mama's Desk

3 Sep 2012
Taiwan
by Angeline at Princess Dana Diaries

4 Sep 2012
Bali, Indonesia
by Sandra at Sanses

5 Sep 2012
Maldives
by Yvonne at This Blessed Life

6 Sep 2012
Darwin, Australia
by Jiahui at Mum's the Word

7 Sep 2012
New York, USA
by Delphine at In the Wee Hours

8 Sep 2012
Amalfi Coast, Italy
by Veraday at Life is in the Small Things

9 Sep 2012
Hanoi, Vietnam
by Adora at Gingerbread Mum

10 Sep 2012
Panama & Peru
by Lyn at Little Blue Bottle

11 Sep 2012
South Korea
by Susan at A Juggling Mom

12 Sep 2012
Desaru, Malaysia
by Adeline at Accidental Mom Blogger

13 Sep 2012
Macau
by Ai Sakura at Sakura Haruka

14 Sep 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
by Summer at A Happy Mum

15 Sep 2012
Penang, Malaysia
by Jennifer at Little Dino Egg

16 Sep 2012
Hong Kong
by Winnie at Toddly Mummy

17 Sep 2012
Amsterdam, Netherlands
by Geraldine at Little Chuck's Story

18 Sep 2012
Cambridge, England
by Kam at The Kam Family


I'm proud to say that we managed to cover all the continents except for Africa & Antartica! Keep checking back (I'll be updating with the links as we go along) to follow our journey.

If you have a travel post (whether past or present), grab our button & link up!

<a href="http://www.madpsychmum.com/2012/08/around-world-in-18-days-blog-train_26.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/madelineheng/Logo23.jpg"></a>

We would love to read all about your favourite travel destinations through your eyes! =)

P.S: Don't forget to add the country you're posting about in the title when you link up k.

P.P.S: Check out my travel page for more travel tips and itineraries! =)

My Arduous Journey to Wisdom Teeth Extraction

Warning: This post contains bloody images which may be harmful to readers with haemophobia or allergies to the thought of tooth-extraction. The experiences of the author may also not be the same for everyone. Reader's discretion is advised.

Hooray! I've finally removed ALL 4 of my wisdom teeth! Soooo proud of myself *grin*

It was such a difficult process that I just had to rant about it so bear with me.

It all started with my visit to my periodontitist. As my dentist looked at the x-ray of my teeth, he told me that I needed to remove my 2 bottom wisdom teeth as they're growing horizontally (instead of vertically) and are thus trapping food which may eventually cause an infection. And since I'm taking out the 2 problematic bottom teeth, I might as get rid of the 2 top ones as well.

I decided that I might as well get rid of all of them before they caused me even greater pain in future. So after seeing a dental surgeon, who explained to me my options and the risks involved, I decided to remove 2 at a time under local anaesthesia (LA).

When the day came for me to remove the 2 wisdom teeth on my left side, I was understandably very nervous. I put my stuff in the locker, don the gown and proceeded to speak with the surgeon. As usual, the surgeon was all "Any drug allergies? Do you know there's a 5% chance of permanent numbness? Blah, blah, blah.. Please sign here."

As he spoke, I got more and more nervous. And then it was time. As I lay on the chair, I whispered a million more prayers in my head and then opened my mouth for the anaesthesia injections.

The thing about LA is, you won't feel the pain but you will feel the drilling, the tugging and everything else! They covered my face (except for the mouth of course!) and my upper body so that I wouldn't get splashed with blood or get scared.

As my bottom wisdom tooth is hidden underneath my gums, the surgeon had to cut open my gums and drill the tooth into 3 before removing it. That took approximately 15 minutes but felt like forever! When he was finally done, he said, "ok now I'm taking out the top one" and literally it was like tug, tug, crack and it was out. In just 1 minute. Why can't it be the same for both teeth? *sigh*

After removal of my left wisdom teeth

I went home and suffered immense pain and swelling in lower gums because 1) I talked too much and 2) my body did not respond at all to the pain medications that I was given.

But it was well worth it because now it is so much easier to clean my set of teeth, especially the back. So although I'm really not looking forward to it, I set up an appointment to remove the other 2.

The second time around, my surgeon was female who was straight to the point and told me point-blank that the right bottom tooth is located very near the nerve so I will definitely experience numbness at my lower lip. "It would be a miracle if you didn't" she said. Obviously I became extremely nervous but decided to trust the Lord and go ahead with the surgery.

As she was drilling my tooth, I pictured my girl saying "I love you mama" over and over again in my mind so that I won't be scared. "I'm doing this for you baby girl," I thought to myself.

Apparently everyone is very interested to see what the nerve looks like so all the nurses and students gathered round excitedly. "There it is, that is the nerve!" my surgeon announced after extracting my bottom tooth after what seemed like forever.

And just like that, it was done.

After removal of my right wisdom teeth

This time I made sure that I got even stronger pain medication from the doctor and didn't talk so much. The swelling wasn't as bad as the previous time and when the anaesthesia faded, I touched my lower lip and there was no numbness! It was a miracle! =)

I'm truly glad that it's all over! Thank you Jesus for your grace and for an uneventful recovery =)

Linking Up With:

Why We Shouldn't Tell Our Kids to "Stop It!"

As parents, whenever our kids are misbehaving, our first instinct is always to ask them to "Stop it!"

But as you can see in this humourous video, it is not really helpful..

I was at a training recently where we were being taught on how to use the Attachment Model for children living in children's homes aka residential care. Our trainer, Dr Art from the Center for Family Development, showed us this video to illustrate that as therapists or staff working with children with history of abuse and neglect, just telling the child to stop the behaviour or stop the emotions is not going to lead to long term results.

I really enjoyed the course and thought that some of what I've learnt can be used as parents in dealing with our children as well so I'm sharing some of my learning points with you =)

1) Ask Questions, Don't Assume

I, for one, am very guilty of this! If my girl is throwing a tantrum, I assume she is in one of her princess moods and scolds her, only to find out that she is actually frustrated that she wanted to give me a piece of sweet but I was totally not paying attention. I ended up apologising profusely to her.. for being such a mean mum =(

So the next time your kid is "acting up", pause and find out what's really going on; which leads me to the next point..

2) Address the Cause, Not the Behavior

Dr Art illustrated it this way, if you have a fever and go to the doctor, your doctor is not going to give you medication for the fever. Instead, he's going to ask you some questions, check your throat, listen to your lungs and then treat the infection that causes the fever. If you treat the infection, the fever goes away.

Similarly, whenever a child throws a tantrum (i.e fever), we've got to dig deeper & address the cause of the behaviour (i.e infection).

Very often as parents, myself included, we tend to focus our attention on stopping the behaviour. "Stop whining!", "stop screaming!", "Why are you not doing your homework? Stop watching TV!" And when they continue to exhibit the behaviour, we get frustrated and wonder why our kids are not listening to us.

Instead, we should be finding out why they are behaving the way they do.

Ask them (after you've calmed them down), "Why are you screaming? Are you feeling angry? Why are you angry?"

More often than not, once you address the cause of the bahaviour, the behaviour will go away.

3) True Relationship Begets True Compliance

It is in-built in us to want to please the one we love.

Instead of focusing on enforcing compliance via punishment or force, focus on building your relationship with your child.

Once you've got a great relationship with your child, your child will want to obey you simply because they love you and not because of a strict set of rules and regulations.

Isn't it just like how we obey God because we love Him? That's the best kind of compliance!

Hope these learning points are as helpful to you as they were to me =)

DIY Personalised Magnets

The cubicles at my workplace is made up of magnetic boards so the colleagues and I are always on a look out for nicer and more useful magnets to put up in our space.

As usual, I find the need to personalise everything so that no one else has the same magnets as me. Here's how you can do it too =)

#1: Jazz Up Existing Magnets
I got these cute magnets from Daiso which almost every colleague in the office has.

Pink magnet from Daiso

So I personalised it by sticking some stickers on it!

Mad Psych Mum =)

Placing them in a row so the letters spell the words right

I'm sure no one will have the same magnets as me now! *laughs*

#2: Transform Frames into Magnets
This is definitely not a new idea but I'm so in love with it. First, get plain magnets from Daiso/Spotlight and lightweight photo frames (as light as possible) from Daiso/Ikea.

My photo frames are from Ikea & my magnets from Daiso

Stick the magnets to the back of the photo frame and viola.

My wall of photos at my cubicle that keeps me going =)

You get a professional wall of photos!

#3: DIY Clay Magnets
When my colleague S found out that I like arts and crafts, she told me she got some Super Dough air-dry clay from Art Friend for a steal and asked me if I would like to make stuff with them. And then I found out my other colleague WM actually used the plain ugly black magnets as it is without adding anything, which immediately light up my artistic lightbulb. Why not make Super Dough magnets?

Made this cat magnet for cat-loving colleague S..

..and seashell & crab for colleague WM

It also makes for a really fun co-worker bonding activity over lunch too =)

Make your own magnets and definitely no one will have the same thing as you!

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The Side Effects of Living with a Microbiologist

The hubby is a microbiologist, who counts the number of bacteria in food for a living (among other things). One day we were having dinner at a restaurant which faces a couple of fast-food chains and thus led to this conversation.

Hubby: Do you know that if a burger is brought into our labs, it will fail the test if its vegetables are in it?
Me: Why?
Hubby: Because they don't cook the veg, so it has a lot of bacteria. This is why I don't eat fast-food.
Me (eating my salad): Is it? Never thought of that.. though it makes perfect sense.
Hubby: And you know what is funny? The healthiest item on the menu is the salad but it is also the one with the most number of bacteria!
Me: ... Now you tell me (-_-")... Ah whatever *continues eating said salad*

And this, my friends, is a classic example of what I like to call  职业病 or "job hazard".

It is of my opinion that everyone has their own form of "job hazard".

Teachers like to correct other people's grammatical errors, lawyers like to point out what's legal or not and researchers, well, we like to debunk (or support) myths and back it up with random numbers we like to call statistics.

Speaking of which, did you know that approximately 150,000 deaths & 5 million illnesses can be attributed to climate change each year?

This lends support to the phrase that we often hear people (including me) say when someone is sick, "Hey you're sick? It must be the weather!"

In actuality, the changing weather is only the moderator and not the cause of illnesses. Let me illustrate this with a diagram we often use in our psychology statistics class.

The moderating impact of weather on the relationship between germs & illnesses

Bacteria is the mastermind behind the whole operation but the weather actually aids it. Bacteria live twice as long during monsoon seasons and in the right warm conditions, a single baterial can multiply into 131,072 bacteria!

Hence, besides loading up on vitamin C to boost your immune system, you'll also need to wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap regularly before meals and after using the toilet.

So the next time you get caught in the rain, don't just clean your clothes. Remember to wash your hands with soap! =)

Disclosure: This is Part 2 of a series of sponsored stories on behalf of Lifebuoy Singapore. However, all opinions & text are my own.

The Only Breakfast I Know How to Cook

I think I mentioned this previously, my idea of a typical breakfast is very unlike my hubby. I love me my bread and eggs (soft, hard-boiled, fried, sunny-side up, scrambled, etc). And that's what I'm going to do =)

Prepared the eggs and olive oil

Look, I'm seriously not a morning person so the fact that I even bother to fry anything is commendable ok *laughs*

I decided to do scrambled eggs because I used to eat it every morning when I was in primary school and watched the canteen lady do it. All you need is eggs, salt and pepper =)

Mum-in-law only reminded me after I finished that I should have turned on a bigger fire so that the eggs wouldn't stick. "Pan hot, oil cold, to fry egg" she said.

Now you tell me.. -_-

Scrambled eggs, bread and jam/peanut butter for breakfast!

I was supposed to spice it up a bit and add ham and sausages but 1) we ran out of ham and I forgot to buy more and 2) I was too lazy to defrost the sausages.

It's just too early in the morning lah.

I like to have peanut butter or jam with my bread *yum*

Introducing my version of eggs to baby girl

I feel embarassed to share my so-called 'recipe' and nearly chickened out of posting this but I made a promise so I was going to keep it! At least I get an A for effort? *laughs*

This post is part of a Breakfast for Champions initiative hosted by Adora at Gingerbreadmum.

Head on over to read about the amazing recipes by the other Singapore Mom Bloggers, which I guarantee is many, many times better than mine =)

Bangkok: Our 2nd Honeymoon

This is actually the first overseas trip that we've taken just the 2 of us since our honeymoon in 2009. And since I've been really busy trying to adjust to juggling work, parenting and blogging, I decided that this will also be our first trip where we truly relax and the OCD me did not come up with a strict itinerary. Go with the flow and all, if ya know what I mean *laughs*

We boarded the brand new Scoot airlines, which is the largest plane we've ever taken via a budget airline. It was a really comfortable ride and we both enjoyed it very much =)

The view from my window seat

When we arrived at the airport, we proceeded to the public taxi stand and took a cab to our hotel. It ran by meter and cost only 320 Baht =)

Hotel Novotel Bangkok Platinum

We stayed at the Novotel Platinum Hotel because it's located just above the famous Platinum Mall where we did most of our shopping! =)

The hubby even booked a room on the Executive Floor, which is at the highest level of the hotel.

Executive Room

Although the room was not very big and there isn't a bathtub, the best part about getting an Executive Room is the access to their Premier Lounge.

Premier Lounge

Not only do you get to check-in and check-out here (i.e. you don't have to squeeze with the crowds), you get to enjoy a free flow of canape and drinks between 5-7pm everyday =)

I love their selection of desserts!

And the incredible view of the city!

The hubby had the time of his life enjoying all the different kinds of alcoholic drinks while I tried the different desserts. Both of us loved it and ate so much that we literally saved money on dinner *laughs*.

Of course I can't talk about a Bangkok trip without talking about the food and the SHOPPING!

First of all, there's Platinum Mall, one of the largest wholesale centres in town. It's so big it took us almost 3 days to cover the whole mall from top to bottom and from left to right. And cover we did, all 98.88% of it *grin*. It definitely didn't hurt that we live just upstairs and could go there as and when we please =)

We also decided to explore the other malls in the area, such as Big C.

Big C

Big C houses a megamart, where we gladly stocked up on daily necessities and snacks (a must for all Singaporeans) as well as a rather large foodcourt.

Tasty dishes we ordered at the foodcourt which cost only S$1-4

If you prefer something more atas (high class), you can consider this restaurant on the same floor.

The name of this restaurant is in Thai (as you can see on the menu) so I have no idea what it is called

I loved their fish cakes and noodles with Tom Yum soup *yum*

Next, cross the overhead bridge to Centerpoint aka Central World where Isetan, Naraya & Cath Kidston are located.

Centerpoint

We also visited Siam Paragon, located just behind Centerpoint, as well as MBK center.

MBK Center

However, we didn't really like the place so we left soon after.

Nevertheless, one of our unexpected favourites (which the hubby initially didn't want to visit until I bugged him) turned out to be Terminal 21.

Terminal 21

The interior design and themes on every floor really intrigues you and makes you wanna explore further. Even the toilets (and toilet attendants!) follow the theme to a tee =)

Tokyo (Japan)

London (England)

Hollywood (USA)

Istanbul (Turkey)

The things they sell here are really unique and very different from the goods we saw at Platinum (or even Singapore for that matter). One of our favourite purchases was this pair of "statues", which were actually cloth coin banks!

His & Hers statues

They will look fantastic in the living room of our future home, doncha think? =)

Finally, on the last night of our trip, we visited the famous Chinatown in Bangkok.

Chinatown, Bangkok

Everyone raved about how cheap and good the bird's nest and shark's fin was so the hubby and 2 of our friends were dying to try them. I was less keen on the shark's fin (well you know why) but I caved quite quickly to peer pressure especially in the presence of good food *sigh*

Nam Sing is well-known to be the best in the business for Bird's Nest & Shark's Fin

I have to say that it really lived up to its name and we really liked the taste. Oh well, at least we finished every drop so the poor animals did not sacrifice in vain. Oh man, I feel so guilty =(

We were a little full from the meal so we decided to get oil massages at a nearby spa. We asked the kind uncle where he thought was a good place to eat seafood and he told us xx restaurant, which is small and not very noticeable but has really cheap and good food.

Of course I'm not going to share with you where it is otherwise that place will be flooded with people the next time we're there! *laughs*

Our last seafood dinner

It was the best dinner of our trip which included large prawns, fresh fish, tasty Tom Yum soup and BBQ sotong (we loved it so much we ordered 2 plates of it). The best part is the entire meal of 7 dishes only cost S$72 for 4 people. Jealous yet? *grin*

I can't believe that we allowed ourselves to relax, have no itinerary (although it is important to note that we literally stole ideas from the amazing itinerary diligently put together by my cell member's friend SY!) and ended up really enjoying ourselves so much!

Sometimes, it feels good to not have to be in control all the time. And also to take time away from our busy schedules and reconnect. Both the hubby and I giggled like honeymooning lovebirds the entire trip, something which we have not done in a long while!

We should really do this every other year, if not every year! That is, if my mum-in-law let's us (thanks mum!). Till next time.. *waves*

P.S: Visit my travel page for more of our travel itineraries! =)