Big Cavity

One day, Zaky complained that his tooth was painful during dinner. I thought that it was one of the gimmicks to avoid eating. A few days later (and almost before the holiday), he complained that he had food stuck between his teeth after brushing. Parents-to-remove-stuck-food operation started. I was armed with toothpick and Daddy Lim with the torchlight.

We removed a huge chunk of chicken and realised that the pain he complained about was no joke; he had a super big cavity that I could see with an untrained and naked eye. The hole was so big that I feared an extraction required. I was reminded of the traumatising extraction experience that I had as a kid at the fierce school dentist's hands. Oh no! And it was so near to our holiday. Double oh no!

I got an appointment for him to see the dentist right after our holiday. I supposed the worse that could happen would be a painful tooth affecting meals during the holidays. Luckily no such incident happened. There were a couple of complaints here and there but the tooth held up.

I wad more nervous than the boy while waiting for our turn. The kids are familiar with dentist visits and are definitely more at ease than I am. At the check, I heard the dentist calling out the different acronyms for her assistant to record. Distinctively, I heard "decay" a few times. Each time, my heart sank a little.

The verdict: 3 cavities including the super big one. A mini one was right beside the super big one and the remaining one was on the opposite side. Win already. We were last at the dentist about 1 year ago. It must be all the sweets and chocolates and his super bad brushing habits.

The dentist decided to work on the super big one and the mini one beside it for today. Zaky was on the dentist chair for a long time. At one point, the dentist dug out all the junk in the rotten tooth to show me. T.T
There was pain and it must be quite bad that Zaky cried. The dentist continued to work despite his cries. Poor boy. I heard the dentist telling him that it would have been a small procedure if he had gone to her earlier and not wait until part of the tooth wall is gone. I am quite sure she was saying it for me to hear. Bad mummy.

Finally, the worse was over. I was just as emotionally and mentally exhausted as the boy. His cries ceased when he was reminded to watch the "Minion" show that they screened for him. Yes, the dentist room for little kids comes with TV.

At the end, the dentist said that the cavity was so bad that the nerve was exposed. The cavity had been filled but it would be a waiting game to see if the filling works. If there is an infection or there is still pain, then we would need to come back for a root canel or an extraction. An extraction would need to be followed with a space maintenance procedure to make sure that there is space for the adults tooth to grow in the future. I never knew kids would need to do root canel too. Root canel sounds painful already. We wouldn't know until weeks or months later.

Sob. It is my fault. I should have supervise his night brushing and I would do so from now on. Hopefully it isn't too late. Meanwhile, I fixed an appointment for myself too. I also scare and I thought I felt pain in one of the teeth too.

The little boy was so tired after half a day in Port Dickson, 4 hours drive home and a painful procedure. He wasn't even lured by jiejie's proposal for a swim. He showered and flopped on the sofa for a much needed nap. Poor boy.

Mummy Lim

KL Day 3: Sunway Lagoon

By Day 3, nobody cares about the alarm clock anymore. Nevertheless, we woke up early enough to be on time for Sunway Lagoon! The kids had been looking forward to SL ever since it was advertised on Nickelodeon; something about Nickelodeon theme park.

Luggage, packed. GPS, set. We went on our way after bfast. All ready to go!

The roads in KL city were challenging even with the GPS. At times, we wondered if we took the right side of the split roads. The directions on the GPS looked complicated and the English pronuciation of Malay road name made it worse. There were a few of such scares but it worked out very fine. It was a good choice to choose taxi over driving for the last 2 days. Without a hitch, we were on the expressway and on our way to SL!

The kids grew more and more excited and less and less patience as we neared SL. We had to warn them to behave a few times but who could blame them?

We booked a night at the Sunway Pyramid West Hotel and it turned out to be a fairly new and big hotel. We added on a bed on top of the huge king size bed. We bought a package that comes with 2 adults and 2 children tickets. It was slightly cheaper as compared to booking them separately. We didn't enjoy the room for long before we headed to SL. Who cares about the room or bed when SL is calling?

SL was less than 5 mins walk from the hotel.

We visited the land theme park 1st. It wasn't big. The main attraction is the water theme park after all. These are only pictures that we had as the phones were kept in the locker thereafter. The locker can be opened and closed unlimited times. There was no worry about forgetting items just that the park is big and locker could be far away.

This ride was good. It was like a huge slide!

I had wished that the land theme park was bigger bcos I don't really fancy water pouring over my head or crazy slides that made my butt pain and head dizzy. I ended up enjoying the water rides very much.

The water theme park didn't start very well though. We almost took this "ghost buster show", only to escape the very last minute bcos it was actually a scream park where we had to walk through this 20 mins haunted house with zombies scaring us. My heart can take roller coaster but not this shit lah. I can imagine Zaky crying all the way too. We then went for this 5D ride that got us very wet. It was a rapid show but it just felt like they were trying to throw water at us at every opportunity. Oh well, the water was welcoming given how hot the weather was.

The map was ruined after the ride. The map didn't help much anyway. The rides were positioned in such a way that one entrance leads to different rides. We got used to the concept after a while. The fun started after the 5D show.

The only down was the need to lug big float for many of the rides. I envied so many of the girls who went to the theme park with their boyfriend and saw the boyfriends lugging the float. There I was lugging and puffing away for my kids. Poor me. My arms! But those were also the fun rides; so many of them felt like roller coasters and it also mean that I dont have to hurt my delicate butt. Woohoo! Some rides we even went 2x. There was not much q most of the time. The most popular ride required 45 mins queuing and got the kids very bored and quarrelsome. The ride was not worth the wait and pain.

The water play got us very hungry.  The park was promoting this cashless system and loading credits into the wrist tag. We eloaded RM50 only to realise that not all the snack shops accept the ecredits and RM50 cannot get us a lot of food but we survived until we got back to the locker for more money.

By the time we made it back to the locker, it was almost to the end of the trip. We rewarded ourselves with a big candy floss that disappeared into our tummies at lightning speed.

The very tired us heading back to the hotel.

We did find the last bit of strength to go to the huge Pyramid Shopping mall for dinner. There were plenty of eateries but we went to the 1st decent one bcos the kids looked like they couldn't walk much anymore.

After dinner, Daddy Lim insisted to shop and got this cap. I thought it looks good on me again. Muahahaha.

We found this Hello Kitty cafe and spurged on some cakes and coffees. It wasn't that amazing a cafe but still didn't stop my camera from clicking away.

The cake and coffee looked nice!

The kids needed to be piggybacked to the hotel room. Sleep was so easy. Before 9pm, they were both in lala land.

Mummy Lim

KL Day 2 Part 2: Berjaya Times Square

The cab ride to Berjaya Times Square took less than 30 mins but the tired boy still found time to fall asleep. It must be really tiring to climb all those steps! The cab meter ended up more than RM35 but the cab driver honored the quoted fixed price. So nice of him.

We carried the sleeping and heavy boy into the mall and settled with KFC for lunch in Berjaya Times Square.

There is an indoor theme park and we initially wanted to bring the kids there to burn the afternoon away. Come to think of it, the theme park had been around since I last visited the mall more than 10 years ago. The rides didnt look very old though. The tickets cost about RM150 for our family. However, the kids aren't tall enuff (140cm required) for the thrilling rides and suddenly, nobody was too excited to go into the theme park.

We contemplated and hesitated until the Escape Room caught our eyes. Daddy Lim had been wanting to visit the Escape Room back in Singapore after hearing me raved about it. The kids were daunted by the creepy posters and pestered to do the laser tag next door instead. They tried kids laser gun at boo's bday party but this is adult stuff - neon lights, big tag jackets, guns and all. There is generally a 7 yo age limit in Singapore but they welcomed all here.

We paid also about RM150 for 2 games. Right after I signed on the credit card slip, Zaky realised that we would get playing in dark rooms and insisted that he wanted no part of it. The next 10 mins was spent trying to coax the crying boy to try. We were quite sure that he would like it once he started. It is gun leh, laser some more.

He did eventually and love it. See! Aiyo, all those tears wasted. Lol.

We headed back to the hotel via cab and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the pool. Though nothing close to the Grand Hyatt's pool, the kids still had so much fun.

Dinner was a simple affair at KLCC. We heard about the huge playground outside KLCC but didn't visit it given the rain earlier on.

We ended the night with more TV. Yawn.

Mummy Lim

KL Day 2 Part 1: Batu Cave

After a tiring day, the alarm was seriously being ignored. Poor alarm.

I took the opportunity for a quiet coffee and to blog. So nice. The agenda was easy - Batu cave and Berjaya Times Square.

Finally the remaining people decided to get up and head to the hotel buffet! The kids were overjoyed to have "pick and choose" bfast. On many of our trips, we had budget hotels and bfast were usually tabao back.

The restaurant looked magnificent but the spread was nothing to shout about. Still, we had happy tummies.

We headed to Batu Cave via taxi. It cost us about RM30. The journey took us about 20 mins. Hello, Batu Cave.

According to the Indian taxi uncle, the Batu Cave is where god Murugen built his temple. The story goes, he and his elder brother was competing in a mission to cirle the world. He was on (or with?) his peacock and his brother and his elephant. His brother is the elephant god. He lost, got angry and went to the high mountains with his peacock. Henceforth, his temples are always found in the mountain and in cave.

A big golden statue of Murugen greeted us.

It was magnificent at closer look.

Before we embarked on the 272 + 3 steps (3 steps were recent years added on for safety) stairs, there were pigeons feeding on seeds.  Lil Shauna had fun walking amidst the pigeons.

After mission toilet was completed, we started our ascend. The only toilets were at the base of the cave. It wouldnt be very fun to solve the toilet problem once we started climbing.

I was wearing shorts and had to loan a scarf to cover my legs at RM3 before the climb. There were many people climbing alongside with us. It didn't feel that bad actually but we still stopped many times to rest, take pictures and avoid the monkeys!

We saw so many monkeys, both big and small. They are not at all afraid of humans. I read from many blogs how unfriendly these monkeys are and monkey bites aren't nice. We tried to stay away. Zaky who freaked out previously at close encounter with monkeys responded quite well.

We finally made it to the entrance of the 1st part of the cave at 250+ steps. Everyone was very much alive. Looks so mysterious.

The cave was huge but human invasion has damaged the natural landscape. There were some ceremonies ongoing.

It was a limestone cave with natural lighting. Daddy Lim took this super artistic shot. He didn't include us, chey!

We climbed the remaining steps to another part of the cave.

It was much smaller this time. Some other rituals were ongoing. We were more interested in the monkeys that scale the rock wall on one side. Can you see them?

The monkeys made their way down to find human food. They are skillful taking out what can be eaten and discarding the rest.

We didn't stay long and started the descend to the Dark Cave. After the hard climb, our legs were turning to jelly as we made our way down.

The Dark Cave is near to the Batu Cave, at about the 230 steps point. Educational tours were being carried out at RM35 per adult and RM25 per kid. It was a good 30 mins wait but we decided to sign up. We entertained ourselves by reading the informative boards put up. Zaky didn't want to read and was happily snapping pictures.

The tour was about 30 mins and totally worth the entrance fee and the wait!

We were given a mini torchlight and a guide brought us into the cave, explaining the history, structure as well as different living organisms in the cave. It was an eye opener! Different kind of animals/ insects live in different part of the cave depending on amount of light, humidity. Part of the cave was totally pitch dark.

We saw rock formation that I only read about in books or saw on TV!

It was so good. The kids had fun bcos it was an adventure. Lol.

After the tour, we continued our ascend down. Jelly legs, jelly legs. We had to constantly remind Zaky to take it slowly. No accidents. Yeah! The only picture that we had as a family so far.

We managed to get a cab to Berjaya Times Square. I read that cabs would easily quote RM50. This taxi uncle only quoted us RM35, claiming some traffic jam. Zaky fell asleep in the cab and we had peace. The taxi uncle was chatty. It was interesting that all the taxi uncles that we met were super chatty and entertaining.

Mummy Lim