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Today Rachel turns 3.

It seemed like all that time flew past in the blink of an eye.

I can still remember the moment Rachel was born three years ago. We were so excited and scared being first-time parents. We didn’t know what to do with that screaming bundle that we brought home from the hospital.

We made a lot of mistakes with her. Something every first-born child has to go through I guess. In many ways raising Daryl is so much easier because Rachel blazed the trail.

Anyway, this year we are not having any special birthday celebration for Rachel. Just a home cooked meal tonight with my family.

A couple of weeks ago, MPH had a 20% discount for members so we took the opportunity to buy this birthday present for Rachel.

The Mr Men complete collection.

It’s a box of 50 books by Roger Hargreaves, each book telling the story of characters with peculiar characteristics like Mr Messy and Mr Topsy Turvy.

These books have been around a long time, I remember seeing them when I was a child.

We actually discovered some of these books at the library, and Rachel absolutely loved the books. We found that they helped us to teach her concepts like neatness.

I think these books would be a good addition to our personal library. Even though it may cost a lot, Rachel, Daryl and Caleb are going to be reading the books for many years to come.

I called a couple of MPH branches and was happy to find out they had stock available. I made a reservation and went to collect it. I must mention the excellent customer service of the bookstore, they made the effort to find the book and hold it for me at the customer service counter. They also helped me renew my membership card like it was their pleasure to do so.

Anyway, the book was priced at RM299 and I got it at 20% discount. Divide that by 50 and each book would only cost RM4.80.

We’re also getting her a Tigger and Pooh birthday cake, can’t wait to see how that turns out.

Rachel got a bruise on her cheek last week.

She was standing on a dining table chair and fell off, hitting the table.

You can see a faint bruise under her right eye.

When I came home from work, the first thing she did was to manja me.

I gave her a hug and she pretended to cry for a while.

Then I suggested boiling an egg to rub on her bruise.

She waited while we prepared her favourite manja drink, Milo nen nen.

After 10 minutes the hard boiled egg was ready and we rubbed the egg on her bruise.

After a while, the bruise changed colour and wasn’t so brown any more.

See how manja she is.

The bruise was gone after a couple of days.

In the past few days, Rachel was sick. It started with some vomiting, then she got better for a day. Then she started to vomit.

Then Daryl started to vomit, and now he has diarrhea.

So much washing of bedsheets, clothes and everywhere they vomited.

The house is like a war zone.

I tried to keep some form of hygiene but somehow it wasn’t good enough. Daryl still got infected.

I just worry about Poey Chin getting sick too, because I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s unable to take care of the kids.

Last weekend Sushi was at my parents house, so we made a trip there.

I finally got to meet Sushi again after more than a year. He is now living with my mom’s cousin because he can’t stay in my condo, and my parents are not at home most of the time.

As I stepped in the door, I could see he wasn’t as active as before. Sushi will be seven years old in a few months time so I guess this is a sign of his maturity and aging.

Previously he would be jumping up to greet me, and will be running around in excitement. Now, he just wags his tail going round in circles smelling everything.

The first thing I did was to kneel down and pet him, and he kept smelling me.

Rachel was so excited she keep shouting his name through the evening, “Sushi! Sushi! Sushi!”

She was so curious but afraid at the same time.

My father carried Daryl and he was much braver. He just looked at Sushi and kept smiling, wanting to touch Sushi.

The funny thing is, Sushi is much more obedient than my kids.

Physically he looks the same but I could see he has grown older, more stable.

He no longer followed me around, maybe I am not his master any more but just someone in his past.

One habit he still has, is to sit at the feet of anyone who sat down at the dining table. I was eating some desserts when he came over and gave me this familiar look.

“Give me a biscuit please”

After I ignored him a while, he resumed lying down on the floor but kept an eye on me, in case I changed my mind.

It was nice to see him again, it was the same feeling you get when you see an old friend.

Always at the back of my mind, there was this regret and sadness that he could no longer be with me.

I feel so sad to remember how, after I got married and moved out of my parents home, he kept waiting in the front door for me to come home every evening.

We’ve had so many wonderful memories together, I hope he still remembers me in his doggy dreams.

Now he has a new home with more people to pamper and play with him, so I know he is in a good place.

I miss him so much.

I’ve finally done it.

I called up to cancel my Astro satellite TV subscription today.

The procedure is simple: just give them a call, give some information for verification and request to terminate your account.

They asked me, “what is the reason you are terminating your account sir?”

With a tinge of sadness in my heart, I replied, “financial reasons”.

We both kept quiet for a while. In my heart the words that left my lips seemed surreal, those were words I never had to say before in my life.

She stopped typing on her keyboard and waited for me to elaborate, but I didn’t.

See? I added a little bit of drama there in the past few sentences. A little story writing haha.

They require a 1 month notice in advance, which means I still have to pay another month subscription before my account is terminated.

Why I Did It

I’ve shared with you last year why I considered doing this. It’s not only for financial reasons. I guess you could take a look at that blog post if you haven’t read it before. (Funny how I chose similar images to illustrate both my posts!)

One thing I wanted to add was, we were only watching less than 20% of the shows on Astro. That means 80% of the time we’re flipping channels hoping to find something worth watching.

Without realizing, we could waste an entire day just sitting there and flipping channels. And many times we end up watching repeats of episodes we’ve seen before.

I realized the most effective use of our time was video on demand. Won’t it be nice to watch the shows we want, when we want?

Moving On

I bought one of these media players recently, which we will use to watch videos we download from YouTube or other Internet sources, effectively giving us video on demand!

It’s a nice device that turns my TV into a media center. It plays a few video formats, music files, image files, text files and even has a SD card slot for viewing photos.

It comes with two USB ports for an external hard disk or thumb drive, and even has a LAN connection for streaming media from a network. I might get a WiFi adapter later so I can stream videos and music directly from my iMac.

It supports Full-HD but I don’t need that since my TV is still the old CRT type (remember when flat-screen TV was so state-of-the-art?).

It cost about RM220, I figure I will recover the cost of investment after 4 months.

I Think We’ll Survive

If it means spending less time watching TV, then it’s even better for our electric bill, and we lower our contribution to global warming.

Hopefully it means more time to do productive activities.

My parents, aunty and mother in law do come over during the day, and I’ve got some Chinese shows on my media center for them to watch too. As a last resort, they could bring over their Astro smart card and watch from my home (I hope that will work!)

If Rachel gets bored, I may get some cartoon DVDs for her. It should be too costly, since she can watch one DVD over and over again. For the past year I’ve got to know Barney, Baby Bop, and BJ very well.

I don’t even have access to the free channels because I can’t get any clear reception in my condo. Probably have to find a solution for that problem.

I hope things will work out.

Photo by: Néstor Carrasco

I used to think vegetarians were weird, snobbish or health freaks.

Recently I read a book (You Don’t Need Meat by Peter Cox) which has completely changed my perspective.

All this time, I knew eating vegetables was good for health, and eating too much meat was not good for health.

Little did I know what happens to bring the meat to our plate.

Today I’m also announcing to the world that I am trying to practice a vegetarian diet. I will still eat eggs and maybe some dairy products, so technically I will join the ovo-lacto-vegetarian way of life.

I will try to reduce dairy products, which isn’t too big a deal since I don’t drink milk (but I love cheese!).

As I mentioned before in a previous post, I will not be too strict about this yet. For example, if there are dinner parties or no other choice of food available, I may still eat some meat.

Okay, now let me share with you what I’ve found out.

You Don’t Need Meat

We’ve been sold the idea of eating meat as part of a balanced diet. Actually, we can get the vitamins and minerals we need from non-meat sources with proper planning.

I’m fine with planning my meals. I’ve been doing that for the past year in my quest to lose weight.

The author of the books suggested humans were primarily designed for a plant-based diet. Even our parents and grandparents don’t eat as much meat as we do today (because of economic reasons).

Health Benefits

The first health benefit will be lowering my risk for cardiovascular disease (which is a risk I inherited from my ancestors).

This will come from lower consumption of fat and increased consumption of fibre.

Vegetarians are also supposed to feel less lethargic and less constipated.

Second benefit is reducing the risk of cancer.

Third benefit is reduced exposure to diseases (refer next section).

Animal Diseases

Come to think of it, almost every type of livestock animal has had some form of epidemic in the past few years.

Mad cow disease (BSE), scrapie, swine flu, avian flu.

The question is, have these diseases jumped from animals to humans? Another question is, how long can these diseases lie dormant in humans before showing symptoms?

It’s not only about us eating meat, but even what the animals eat. I’m not sure if this is still practiced today, but diseased animals used to be ground up and recycled as feed for other animals.

I am also reminded of the growth hormones and antibiotics fed to the animals to increase profits.

How Animals Are Raised and Killed

I used to think animals are bred by allowing them to freely mingle around, fall in love and then have babies.

But did you know, they are forced to become pregnant? Check out this slideshow.

Then there is the issue of slaughtering animals. There is a debate on whether animals have feelings like humans do. Many vegetarians are animal lovers who can’t bear to see an animal die.

Personally I don’t feel so strongly about this, but it’s still hard to support some of the practices.

How I Will Do It

One step at a time, slowly reducing until it becomes a way of life.

Again I’m going to stress I’m not going to be religious about it. I suspect as I get used to it, it will get easier.

Believe it or not, I feel sad when I imagine never eating another bite of KFC again. And no more bak kut teh. Or satay. OK I better stop before I change my mind.

It won’t be an impossible task. After all, our Asian cuisine has a lot of vegetarian options. I am especially fond of Indian vegetarian food.

I may fail totally and abandon the idea one day, but even then I don’t think I will eat as much meat as I did before.

This Is My Feeling

I’m not trying to force anyone of you to change. I am not saying I am better. I’m not even sure I can succeed.

I’m just trying to give my family and myself the best quality of life, at the same time trying to persuade Poey Chin and the kids to do this together with me.

This is the stage of my life where I start to think of the kind of life I leave behind for my children.

I know plants are not immune to chemicals and contamination risks too, so we will have to be more selective of the plants we buy and maybe get a “vege-washer”.

My only request is for you to understand why I’m doing this.

Photo by: Zsuzsanna Kilian