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This blog is no longer active. It  has since been moved to a new home on Wordpress and renamed Grubbs 'n Critters. Please head on to my new site here. See you there!

16 months

More teeth are finally, finally sprouting for Squirt after months of waiting. In the last month, we counted at least 3 upper teeth making their way out of his gums all at the same time. That being said, Squirt has also been drooling a lot but so far, has not quite lost his appetite for food or get ultra-cranky from his teething bouts.

He is still one of the happiest little tots I have ever come across; one who is always smiling, laughing and quite generous with his hugs and affection. He even enjoys getting his teeth brushed and always look forward to that – a very distinct difference from his sister who used to cry bloody murder for a good month before she would willingly allowed us to put the toothbrush anywhere near her mouth.

Squirt still babbles and although he does not seem to be in any big hurry to belt out his vocabulary just yet, he does have quite a good understanding of what we mean when we speak to him,. For sure he understands being scolded as he would then break out into the most miserable, saddest and weepiest cry he could muster. With tears too!

He is happy to just troop around as he busies himself with stack-up cups, his little car or whatever else he could find to amuse himself. He tends to suck him thumb when he is hungry, tired or sleepy and of late, and we have noticed several times now that he has got broken skin on his hand because of his thumb-sucking habit.

I am not sure if this is something I should worry about, and I do hope that this is something that will pass soon enough.

From time to time, I find such amusement when I watch him feed himself. At this point, I am no longer bothered by mess and it is quite a joy to watch him explore his food. He seems to be enjoying what is put on his plate. Mess and all. I can only hope that he continues with this and not give us any problem with food and chewing as those fangs make their way through!

At 16 months, the traits of being a boy has started to make quite distinct mark on our lives.

All fired up!

This must have been one of the longest breaks from blogging I have ever had in ages and travelling is not one of the reasons as to why there has been a lack of posting in the last 7 days.

The truth is, I just have been plain busy. Between my new job, juggling kids and trying to manage a household amongst other things, I have also been really busy trying to make time to fine-tune and re-organise my new blog site PLUS doing a little cramming to get a certification of some sort after working hours.

My stress level has since sky-rocketed since I left my old job. Coming home by 6.30pm has been quite a feat these days. It does feel like I am biting more than I can chew.

But, despite all that, I'm actually happy. I don't think I have felt at peace with myself for a long time, and yet in spite all the challenges thrown my way, I still feel all fired up and ready to tackle the day when I get up in the morning.

That's always a good sign.

The downside is, I am really struggling to find time to pen down my thoughts for a few posts which I have half drafted since 2 weeks ago and haven't got the time to write them all up. At the same time, I really can't wait to officially migrate to my new site and invite you over. At this point, it that's not going to happen so soon.

My goal is to get my new site up and running, hopefully in a matter of weeks and when it does, I hope you will like it.

Meantime, please do excuse me for the lack of updates.

Eavesdropping Spud

On this one rare occasion, we allowed Spud to eat her small cup of chocolate ice-cream as she sat at the back of the car, in the comfort and safety of her car seat, while the car was still in motion.

As Spud was happily eating away , thrilled that she had the ice-cream all to herself while ignoring her little brother’s little whines as he  gave her his deathly stare and eyeing her treat rather unhappily, we suddenly heard this:

“Papa. Why you do that? How will I eat?”

I have been busy yakking with Silver Bullet until then and had missed that little commotion. Boy! The little lady sounded annoyed.As it turned out, Silver Bullet had hit a bump on the road. And so, because of the bump, she had been unable to spoon the ice-cream into her mouth properly!

We laughed, Silver Bullet apologized , told her he’d be careful and went on our merry way. We shook our heads and grinned our little grins; still can’t quite believe the words that were uttered and the tone that came with it.

What a kid.

There were no more bumpy encounters and she finished her ice-cream in no time at all; of course complete with a little mess on her face and shirt. She then fell asleep soon after giving me her empty ice-cream cup. And just like we had expected, the cheeky monkey woke up from her nap screaming her head off.

I don't think we expected anything less!

The bridge with a warning

Spotted on the railings of a stairway on both ends of a bridge:

What I saw as I walked up the stairs

What I saw as I walked down the stairs

Signs such as these never fail to bring a smile and (a smirk) to my face. With all sorts of cable wires jutting out and hanging haphazardly right above my shoulder as well as within an arm's reach, I can't help but feel anxious that I just might unknowingly get electrocuted from my innocent little walk across the bridge.

As I tried to take a close-up shot of what lurk right behind one of the signs, a security guard on "bridge duty" quickly intervened and shoo-ed me off. I must have imagined that he must have thought I might be a potential terrorist; given the sheer number of embassies located within that area.

He didn't ask me to delete the pictures, and I managed to get a decent shot. Check out those cables!

Wires hanging about precariously all over Thailand with barely an inch above anyone's head is really not such an uncommon sight. What is uncommon is the fact that this is the only bridge I have come across so far that bears any warning.

Not that anyone cares, but I guess I should be grateful for the reminder (and the fact that I was not immediately arrested for making him think that I might have been a potential terrorist!)

Reflect and Ponder on Reflecting and Pondering

Like every other human being in this world, there comes a time when one tends to reflect and ponder on the serious stuff that was etched into one’s life experiences. I do that too, every once in a while, except that this time, I happen to think that “reflecting on life what ifs and what-happened –and-I shouldn’t have-done-that-but-did-that-instead” without any concrete action to address what you actually reflected on is just a bloody waste of time!

I don’t know where all that overwhelming feelings came from, but the waste-of-time factor that came from pondering or reflecting (whichever you prefer) and not being able to do something about it at that point in time was so strong that I felt so compelled to stop pondering further.

My guess is, that tipping point came after months and months and months of useless pondering of my “Maybe Baby” project which I mentioned earlier in one of my Thought Pieces posts.

And after enough reflecting and one that was enough to annoy me of my own incessant waste-of-time pondering, I decided that it was time to move along. By that, I mean go and do something about it.  

So, in the last month or so as I waited out my employment notice, I battled my insecurities. I shamelessly contacted people I know and people I don’t know to get some sense of owning a domain, doing a blog migration, contemplated (and actioned!) on web design overhaul as well as trying to get into the real technicalities of behind the scenes of blogging (which has proven to be too technical for my super simple and un-technical mind).

It has been yet another learning curve. Before I knew it, I committed to contract a very capable and dynamic web designer based in Singapore to help me with my new site and the works behind it. Sounds completely crazy and out of the blue, but the fact that I finally did something about my senseless pondering and get it done was BIG. For me.

I figured, except for parting with an amount of money as a long-term investment, I got nothing to lose. If anything, the new site will look fresh, swanky and I can use it for the kids’ unfortunate inheritance - both Silver Bullet and me have got no real money for them when we die.

While waiting for that to happen, I came to a conclusion that I learnt something valuable from my entire pondering-and-doing-it-for-real experience:

• People don’t always respond. Keep trying, anyway. Have a thick skin. BIG, SUCCESSFUL bloggers or web-designers will certainly ignore you, but one kind soul out there will eventually respond. 

• If I didn’t try, I will never know. And if I fail, at least I tried. Having an always-learning mindset is crucial to my mental health and the goodness of my soul.

• Do not let other people get the better of me and let them make me feel down about myself. Getting an ally who really cares and sincerely support my cause, helps boost my confidence and morale. 

• I have always advocated that it is important to engage with people younger than you, as I think they would be able to guide you to things that you are not familiar with. More than you would ever care to know. 

• I don’t need to explain myself as all I really need to do is just say what I need to say. There will always be some nasty soul twisting my words around and misinterpret what I say. 

• If, in my lifetime thus far I have observed all rules dished out to me, I don’t think I’ll get to anywhere. In this case, I have put my rebellious streak to good use.

• The GUT is almost always never wrong. Use it to guide your instinct with decision making.

Last but not least, stop fricking pondering and just bloody do it. You won’t always get it right the first time, but it’s a start. You have crossed over that invisible line of go and no-go.

With all that in my back pocket, I am feeling really excited with the imminent birth of a new site in a matter of months.

Please, stay tuned. :)

How to sketch like a pro!

This is super cool stuff and whoever did this how-to,  makes drawing a still-life spoon looks amazingly easy.

Had I try to attempt this, I am pretty sure it would turn out to be something not so easily identifiable. There is only way to find out.