another new thread for chinese mums

[csa]

gong xi fa chai!

a new thread for a new year? (good idea yingers)

hope everyone had a good celebration this weekend. us? the closest celebration i got to was speaking to my family on new year's eve and hearing about their reunion dinner

Did you get a date yet csa?

I have had a really cr@p week - DH hurt his back and I have been left to do school / nursery runs, cooking and all the home stuff on top of juggling work.

The only bright spot is that we are going to a hotel this weekend by the sea (and I won't have to COOK or clean up!)

oh, hope you have fun rojak. where did you go? and no, still waiting to exchange. have kind of given up thinking about it. nothing much more i can do really. our buyer needs to get a sign off from the council about their kitchen renovations for their buyer and by the sounds of it, they are really stressed out about it. so, i'm sure they will try and sort things out. i just hope it won't take forever cos the last thing we want is for our seller to link her purchase to this sale. so far, we have managed to convince her not to.

happy mother's day everyone by the way :)

It doesn't get any worse with me - lost my purse somewhere between Tesco and the car park yesterday evening. Only discovered this morning so have had to ring and cancel all my cards etc.

csa - went to a little beach resort on the north coast where it was for the most part, raining. But we had organised some indoor activities for the kids so it wasn't too bad and at least I didn't have to cook, clean etc etc.

I got a couple of hand made cards from the kids and DS made me a little candle holder (from school) which will be a paperclip holder on my desk at work!

Rojak - the candle holder sounds really cute! Celebrated my 1st mother's day with a sweet card from DD. Am waiting for the day when she makes me macaroni jewellery which I plan to wear with pride! :o

Hello all, Mother's day was nice, dd1 made me a card which was great but she has since decided to slowly tear it apart!!! We went with my MIL to have lunch at a local chinese restaurant which has a very good rep, the food was yummy but it was honestly heaving with tonnes of mixed race couples and their extended families. The bill was a bit of a shocker though. Sent my mum flowers and of course despite the claim that they would arrive on sat or sun, she got them on monday!

Rojak - sorry to hear about your cards, a real pain to have to replace them.

Hiya, I got the best mother's present from my DS. 5 poos and sick all over me. Ha ha

He is suffering from constipation and has been prescribed lactulose for the next 3 months. So it was great when he gave me 5 poos on Sunday.

Anyway, we are back from our holiday in Cyprus. It was ok. My DS was ill for most of it so we didnt really get a chance to relax. He was so bad that we had to take him to see the pediatrician over there. He's better now.

Anyway, I am going back to work next Monday!!! I am going to be working from home full time, it's all been confirmed today but I still have to go into the office for meetings and etc.

Wish me luck girls! It's going to take me a while a adjust as i have been off for 10 months.

Hi everyone and happy belated Mothers' Day to y'all!

I'm new to MN and so glad to find this thread (which goes way back!) for chinese mums - I so desperately need some tips and advice (and of course, a place to gossip and let off steam).

My DH and I are both Chinese M'sian, met here in B'ham and recently settled in Milton Keynes (yes, that 'new' town with grid roads). We have an only DD who is 2.7 and getting increasingly cheeky. We'd also just got back from our long CNY hols, during which DD was so totally spoilt rotten by both sets of GPs that lost her ability to self-feed!

I've been a SAHM for the past 2 years (out of necessity - previously when DD attended nursery, she was continuously ill from one thing or another for 11 weeks!) and have been trying to unravel the great mystery of homebaking (still no success, alas !).

Meanwhile, I'm also trying to get my head round signing DD up for a local pre-school - a bit confused about when/how to apply. I called up the pre-school last Dec to be told that they will send me an application form in Jan (as per usual for them), but they didn't. Chased them several more times, only to receive a letter today saying that the Sept intake's full. Gotta look elsewhere, I suppose.

Oh, could I just add that DH and I simply adore Oriental City - we always head there whenever we feel homesick for Chinese food/atmosphere.

hello
My DH's family are from KK, where are you from?

We are both from Borneo, myself from Sarawak while DH's from Sabah (Tawau, to be exact - same as your DH if I'm not mistaken?)

oops, I was mistaken. Sorry. Most of my DH's maternal side family are in KK.

I have been to Tawau but MIL is from Sandakan.
Are you Hakka speakers?

Hello Slyx and welcome! I'm Malaysian too but married to Irish DH and living in Northern Ireland.

Completely envious of your trip home to Malaysia for CNY! We won't be going to Malaysia till July this year as DS is in P1 and we're having to work round his school holidays.

Oh the joys of homebaking.... NOT! The furthest I got when I was on mat leave with DD was rice krispie bars (no baking required!) and some flapjacks.

My DH is Hakka/Hainanese mix but speaks mainly Mandarin and Cantonese. I myself can speak Foochow and very poorly, Hokkien. Unfortunately, my DD has not been taught any of the dialects, let alone the rare ones (though she does speak Mandarin).

We'd been going back every year (ie x3 for DD!)as my parents and the ILs complained that they don't get to see their first and only G/child (NB, not DH nor I!) enough. Reasoned won't be to go back so often when DD starts preschool/school so decided to take this 'last' long trip (DH returned earlier) this year, though we'll probably get emotionally blackmailed again nearer the next CNY (children should be filial, esp during CNY/ who'd take care of us when we're infirm, boo hoo, etc)...

Slyx

That's what we've been doing every year too - because I knew DS was starting school in September last year, I spent 9 weeks with them last Feb and my parents come in the summer too but they won't have seen the kids since last summer.

However, have just bought a webcam and got Skype and hopefully will be able to organise to speak and see parents this weekend - will be great for kids!

Isnt Skype fab? Dh has just discovered it and tho we dont have a webcam he can talk to his brother and some feirnds in China for almost nothing. Not his Mum yet, cant see her getting a pc. But to think that only a few years ago noone even had phones there! (mainland China that is)

what's skype?

and good luck wyls!

CSA - Not sure exactly how it works but if you have a nmicrophone on yr pc you can speak to other registered people while online and it doesnt cost anything. So you just have to make sure people you want to call are online when you are.If you have a webcam they can see you too! Just like our idea of the future when we wwere kids!
Wyls - hope it goes OK tomorrow

Skype basically offers you phone calls over the internet using your internet connection (broadband works best, less drop and very clear) and if your friends have skype, no matter where in the world they are, you can talk for FREE! You download it (just google Skype)

You can buy specific phone handsets for skype or most people just use a mic and head phones.

We got a webcam to go with it so my parents could see the kids and we tried it this weekend and it was FAB!

Kids were so excited because they're quite young and can't quite understand the concept of people not being able to see down phones!

The webcam thing works if you have a webcam but the other party doesn't - ie they can see you but you can't see them. Called a friend in Singapore and didn't realise she could see us until she said "I like your dining room!"

Good fun - really do recommend it for those of you with friends and family abroad or far away!

oh wow. will definitely check it out. sounds fab! by the way, csa is now fez! just fancied a change of name. :)

Yes good idea - name change because I kept wondering why some people hated you in thread titles..... turns out they were talking about the Child Support Agency

fez/csa, thank you!!! My first day is ok, I have no idea what everyone is going on about at work but hey ho i will catch up somehow.

I have skype too and it's brilliant but I still think MSN is better than Skype. I also have yahoo and POD. I think i am tech freak really.

My DS is starting nursery 3 days a week this week. I am so going to miss him!!!

Maybe I should change my name too ...

:o rojak. very farnee!

a tech freak on our thread wyls? brilliant. a source of information. still need to read up on the skype thing.

Hi girls, just a question about the MMR jab. I know it's meant to be 3 in 1 but I would like my DS to get it done separatly and was wondering if you can give me some info on how to go about it. Thanks

Hi again, ok I have just found a clinic who does the single MMR Vaccination but with a cost of £280!!!

Has anyone had this done for their lo?

Any thoughts?

wyls - I know private clinics offer the single jabs but don't know costs and benefits of doing it this way.

What I did and not recommending it but just to let you know, I skipped the MMR at 18 months for both kids and let DS have his MMR just after his 4th birthday (the booster jab). DD is only 19 months so she will get her boosters when the time comes.

I did it this way because I had a colleague whose son was diagnosed autistic around the time I had DS and I remember how awful it was for her as she tried to pin point the time when she first noticed this.

My reasoning then was to skip the 18month one till I knew we were clear that autism wasn't an issue.