Eng’s mum is here in the UK to help look after Cameron for a period of 2 months. Lucky me as it really helps since I will be returning to work pretty soon. She has been potty-training Cameron. Since he started on solids which are just baby rice, vege and fruits, his poo is starting to smell. Can’t imagine once meat is included into his diet.

Nicely tucked onto mummy’s seat. He was good on the plane, slept in our arms most of the time. It was us that didn’t get to sleep during the 13-hour journey.

Completed our ‘mission’ trip to KL and now back in the UK. The last month was pretty challenging, hectic but pleasant at the same time. Mixture of feelings. So much happened but just do not know how to put them all in words. When friends ask about how it all went, these are what I would normally say…

- Cameron was down with a temperature for the very first time on the 3^rd day of our KL trip. Subsequently, it developed into chesty cough with phlegm and running nose. Could be due to the change in weather and haze. It lasted for almost 2 weeks, hence did not get to go anywhere.

- Eng and I were also down with cough and flu, thus we did not get to feast on our cravings that much arrghhhh Missed eating curry laksa, asam laksa, fish head curry, banana leaf rice, hokkein mee, roti canai, teh tarik, putu mayam, rojak…..ggrrrrr

- Breastfeeding was a torture. Imagine I had to stand breastfeeding Cameron at the ladies in Concorde. There wasn’t a single chair, no proper nursing area, not even a baby change! Wonder where other parents change their babies’ diapers. Either that, it’s not a norm for babies to be outdoor hmmmm. It was worse at 1U. The nursing area wasn’t air conditioned…goodness…Cameron was screaming away as it was too humid and uncomfortable.

- Best nursing area is Jaya Jusco. I was impressed by the facilities offered.

- Managed to meet up with close relatives and some friends and those were the best moments of our trip.

- It was the mega sale in KL but we did not have the time to shop. What a bummer. Well, once you have a kid, your life will never be the same….

- Had to change our return flight to a week early, as I was apprehensive that Cameron would develop further problems with the weather. Besides I was struggling alone with him and it was pretty stressful. The best resolution was to return to the UK.

- I’m glad we returned a week earlier as he is going through a tough weaning process. I’m resuming work on the 31^st July and hence I’m cutting down breastfeeding to just twice a day and he has to feed on solids and formula. It’s really difficult for the both us but he is getting better by the day. He is even sleeping much better.

So much so for my 4 weeks trip to KL. I would be visiting KL sometime soon or probably next year but do not think it would be a good idea to bring Cameron along after the bad experience. As usual, will see how…

It was Saturday, we went to KLCC in the afternoon to kill some time before meeting our estate agent for dinner. Being a newbie to KLCC car park, I spent some time looking for a space. Finally I came to a small section where there were about 2 square spaces which were empty.

I reverse parked in one of the space. Got out and it was warm and stuffy fumed with car exhaust. Can’t complain, as it is generally happening to any enclosed car park. While Mel is getting out of the car with Cameron, I went to the back to setup the stroller. I noticed there was a Kelissa coming along and signaled to park in the space behind me. So obviously it stopped as I was behind my car. I quickly got the stroller out from the boot, put it on the ground and set the whole thing up. Before I could finish, the Kelissa HONKED at me to move away from the space!!!!! What was that about??? While I was working on the stroller??? There wasn’t any other car waiting for them!

I swear I didn’t spend more than 7secs to finish what I needed to do and moved away from their space! If I had a choice I wouldn’t want to stay in the car park any second more than it takes to get everyone into the Mall.

I was furious! The driver was a mid-aged lady with another mid-aged man sitting next to her. It was such a rude thing to do, completely ignoring the fact that there was a young child in the car. It was so oblivious, so insensitive.

Well, I hope they got further that day with the few seconds that they were so stingy to give out to others.

Many people at work asked me about my holiday, and my standard answer has been:

It was good, met my family and had lots of food. But weather was hot and we were all ill…etc etc.

To be honest, did I really enjoy this holiday? I don’t know…

Many things happened during that 2 weeks and it was completely out of my expectation, more than I’ve bargained for.

The one week prior to the holiday, people from the church and people at work noticed my excitement. I had smiles on my face, nothing at work could possibly affect my mood; even the control freak lady of my team who trying to run the whole show by doing the least. We were so looking forward towards the trip. At home, we packed and re-packed, thought about the food we were going to eat, planned our itinerary and list of things to do. There wasn’t any word to best describe the feeling.

However reality is cruel.

The weather appeared to be a lot hotter than we anticipated. The landscape of Mel’s house in Cheras has changed. The little jungle has been wiped off 80% for new housing and as a result the house is hot. Cameron didn’t like the heat at all and gets annoyed easily. He developed fever on the third night. Traffic is mad. Looking for parking is a routine. Mel had cold and me follow suit. Both sides of the family members also fell ill from the flu.

Despite all these mourning, we managed to meet up with the family and had dinner. Cameron is well loved by everyone. We managed to taste some of the food that we have been longing for, although not all of them. We also managed to finish most of the things on our list.

As I am typing this, I was told that Cameron has developed cough (probably due to the Haze making a comeback on the day I left KL) and Mel is still battling her cold.

So it was a good trip in general, and the best part must be the beautiful one week before the holiday.

** Maybe weather, traffic and parking have been problems all these while. Maybe it was ourselves that played down the effect because of the excitement.

This is Cameron’s latest look. Macho with enough scars to compliment his manliness

I am back. Back to the UK.

Landed at Heathrow amid the heightened security atmosphere on Sunday evening. The airport was chaotic probably because many flights landed around the same time and no cars were allowed to drop off / pick up passengers from the Airport front. Anyway I managed to find my way home.

Walked out of the airport, first thing that greeted me was the cooling temperature. It was below 20 C that day and to be honest I do not miss Malaysia weather at all.

Got home, changed and made oat porridge (as that’s the quickest and healthiest at home) to fill me up for the night.

Home is cold and quiet. Never mind, another 3 weeks, the home will be filled with laughter and cries.