Old Reader's Digest to giveaway

I love Reader's Digest and have been subscribing them since I was a teen. I have a huge collection at home that I wish to giveaway (if can sell, better still :-)).

Anyone knows of any shelter homes or charitable organisation or schools that may be keen in them? Most of my collections are complete and most of the books are still in very good shape (except a little dusty :-)). I can't remember how many books I have but I think it is at least 10 years of collection if not more.

I keep them like treasures cause occasionally I do like to take them out and read them again but since becoming a mom, I haven't got the time and I need more space so the painful decision to get rid of them.

If anyone knows of any place that is keen, please get them to email me or leave a comment in my post.

A mother's heartache

I was feeding her porridge for lunch one day and she was seated in her high chair. She wasn't chewing the food in her mouth and was eating extremely slowly.

Me: you quickly bite and swallow and finish your porridge
Hayley: I 'pau pau' (cantonese for full) already
Me: no not yet, still got a lot, you quickly eat
Hayley: I 'pau pau' already

Then she did the burp sound

Hayley: see I burp already, I pau pau already
Me: you want me to take rotan or not?

Folded her arms and turning her face away from me.

Hayley: I want to talk you... (her version of I don't want to talk to you)
Me: Oh you don't want to talk to me? Then I also don't want to talk to you. You don't ask me for vitamin C later ok?

She immdiately put down her hands and smiled and called me 'mummy' so lovingly...

You say la, kek sim (heartache) or not? She's only 25 months old. Imagine what it would be like when she turned 15 and has her own room?!

Her bad habits

My oh my, just noticed 2 very bad habits my little one developed over the last few days (at 2 years 1 month old):

1. She bit her nails - she bit them until they were so deep they bled.
2. She dig her nose and then put the finger into her mouth - adoi, who taught her that????

Papa and I clearly don't bite our nails and of course we don't dig our nose (except when we're cleaning it in the bathroom in private) and put the finger into the mouth. Could she have picked it up at the babysitter's or elsewhere?

How to put a stop to it? I was told by the babysitter that she will bite her nails when she's about to sleep. I try to observe her at night and will smack her if I caught her doing it but have not been successful so far.

I caught her twice digging her nose during day time and putting it into her mouth and I flicked her fingers. I also constantly remind her not to do them and she always say OK OK.

Worst come to worst if she's still doing this in the next few days, I will resort to applying chillies on her fingers!

Constantly tired

Of late I have not been blogging much as I have been extremely tired. I normally blog after putting Hayley to bed but have not been able to do so for the past many nights.

I will normally accompany Hayley to bed at around 9.30pm and most of the time she will be asleep around 10 or 10.30pm and I will be able to do some blogging before hitting the bed myself around 11 ish. But for the past many nights, I knocked off before she did :-)

For some weird reasons, I find it hard to get by the following day even when I am getting 8 or 9 hours of sleep a night unlike the times when I was much younger when I hardly slept more than 6 or 7 hours. And having to stare 8 hours at the monitors while at work is not helping either.

I am just wondering why I am so tired even when I am getting about 8 - 9 hours of sleep a day? Maybe I wasn't getting quality sleep, the same problem I had since I was young. Sigh sigh.. hopefully this will all go away very soon.

And when most people say 'dont worry weekend is coming, recharge during weekends lor' and my answer would be 'weekends even worst, I have to add in time for housework so I normally don't get to sleep when she did but still got to wake up early when she's up'

Indecent acts caught on the plane

So happy to be home. Finally!

While in the plane on the way back, I was sitting right behind a couple who could not stop kissing. Although I pity the guy who sat next to the couple, I think I pity myself more for being right behind them as I could see all that was happening through the gap between their seats.

I think the couple (foreigner of course) should at least respect the other passengers on the plane and although kissing in public is common where they are from, it definitely isn't the same here. I know they love each other very much and couldn't bear to be away, can't they at least wait until they're home or back in the hotel? For the entire short flight back, they kissed at least 5 - 6 times and they were passionately kissing. Can you imagine that?

And the most awkward thing about this is the are from the same sex! Don't get me wrong, I am not discriminating same sex relationship as I have many fantastic gay friends so I am cool with same sex relationships but I just think they should at least respect the local culture and the people and behave more decently in public and should not cause discomfort to other people who may 'not be' ready yet to accept this kind of relationship.

Hopefully I don't bump into people like this the next time.

Missing her like crazy

I am actually away from home for 2 days for work. And initially I thought I would enjoy the time off since I will be away from all the housework, got my own hotel room, enjoy my own private time and do whatever I want to do. But boy I was wrong. I actually miss home. I miss my little girl (I do miss hubby too lah hehe) and can't wait to be back.

She's now 2 and she's at this very cute stage where she surprises me everyday with the words she uses, the actions, the gestures and the expressions and I look forward to seeing her and spending time with her after work each day. I am actually missing all these. Thankfully I've got a great hubby who is very hands on and whenever I am away, he will takeover the responsibility of being both the mum and the dad and I will not have to worry at all. He'll pick her up from the babysitter in the evening, bath her, feed her, entertain her, play with her, and put her to bed.

I'm also glad that we've got Skype installed and although my company laptop (old crappy one) doesn't come with a webcam, the one we have at home does so I could see them although they couldn't see me. That was enough to keep me going for another day.

So I am actually asking myself. If I can't survive without her for 2 days, what happens if we (papa and I) were to plan a trip elsewhere and be away from her say for a week? That hasn't happened yet. We've only been on local and Singapore trips so far and she always tag along. I don't know if the day will ever come (cause we're not comfortable leaving her with the babysitter and overnight for so many days and our parents are not able to care for her) so I guess we'll not have to worry about this yet.

I just can't wait to be home tomorrow to kiss and hug her....