Stash of baby food

This was the stash of baby food my parents hauled from Singapore when they came by for a visit a couple of weeks ago. Stuff which I have not seen anywhere in Bangkok, and stuff which Spud, so far, loves very much.

While she loves those baby foods, she was, quite unfortunately apprehensive about her grandparents. While she was quite friendly and takes to them okay, she was not too keen to interact with them if neither of us or the Nanny was there with her at any point in time. And given such circumstances, it was also quite hard to take any pictures of her with her Nya-yi and Yai-yi!

In fact, Spud was clingy towards us almost the entire time they were there; especially so with Silver Bullet --- something which she has not done before.

But as luck has it, Spud warmed up a little eventually. And that was on the 6th day of their visit; the very day when my parents were due to leave…

The thought of being able to leave Spud with her grandparents for a day when we go back to Singapore for a visit over Hari Raya seems very bleak indeed.

Bangkok Taxi

It was raining, I was stuck in traffic and I had nothing better to do but stare at things around me before I decided to take a picture of this sign plastered on the window of a cab I was in:

Clearly, a bunch of No signs, and while I can decipher most, I still struggle to understand the significance of some. From left to right, this is what I can make out:

• No Buffalo (Well, at least I think the picture looks like a Buffalo. And, in Thailand, to call someone a buffalo is extremely insulting.)
• No Weapons (I can understand this)
• No Screwing (Seriously. I mean, seriously!)
• No Dogs (OK. I understand. They stink)
• No Bottle of alcohol (an irony, because I swear sometimes I think the drivers are drunk themselves!)
• No Durians (Completely understand. I don’t like them too.)
• No Smoking (Yep. Agreed; although, some drivers still smoke and drive at the same time)

Signs like this are actually not uncommon in Bangkok. And, honestly, I think the signs are just taking the piss, and put up for aesthetic reasons only, with no direct consequences.

Next time you are in a Bangkok taxi, pay attention to some of those quirky ones you might just encounter!

Sneaky Murphy

At about 11 am on Friday last week, I faced a bumbling IT homosapien, who, much to my annoyance decided that he would stand right before me and smiled away for a good 10 minutes while looking AT me as he held my damaged hard drive in his hand.

Yes. My hard drive completely crashed the night before unexpectedly, after waiting for a few hours for the IT guys in my company to attend to me since 8 am on a Friday morning, they finally sent me a rather junior person 3 hours later, only for him to come back to me within the hour, (get this!) grinning from ear to ear as he informed me that the hard drive was “very damaged”.

Yes. I knew that could have been the reason (or why else had my laptop decided that it will no longer boot up). But what I wanted to know was if it was damaged, what can they do to help restore my data or, given that it was all my fault for not backing my stuff up, what steps should I take from there on. I knew it was my fault and I am willing to pay for any external data services required if deem so, and all I needed was some concrete info which I can follow up on in my time.

Unable to answer my question and instead of getting someone else to attend to me, there he stood, smiling his million smiles, scratching his head away and continue smiling as he struggled to tell me in English that it was damaged as he kept on pointing to the drive on my laptop.

I kept my cool, but I was seething. And for the 10th time, explained my questions to him. Slowly and as calmly as I possibly could. And all he did was continue smiling. There and then, I wanted to wring his neck and throw him out of the 24th floor!

Excuse me, I’ve been racing against time working on a deadline and just lost 10 years of work plus personal stuff which included my CV and pictures of Spud that was categorised by weeks and months from the time she was born, and then, all this person did was just returned my hard drive and grinned from ear to ear because he could not answer my questions?!

It was probably the most annoying reaction a Thai can give to anyone. They have no solution and no clue, so they smiled, hoping that the other person (me in this case) would just go away and move on. (They finally got another IT person to attend to my case after I lodged a complaint right after. To cut the story short, Super IT Guy reverted to me just a couple of days ago with a brand new drive in my laptop AND managed to save 100% of the data in my damaged hard drive (YIPPEE!), for which I am really, very thankful for!)

So, one of the reasons I have been quiet in the last one week was simply because I spent last weekend moping over the unprecedented incident with no laptop whatsoever. Technically, I went through the 7 stages of grief (shock, denial bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, acceptance & hope) within a few hours the moment Super IT Guy came to take back the drive as I mourned for the loss of my hard drive. In fact, I think I went straight to Stage 5 & 7, skipping the rest altogether.

I got angry mainly because of the fact that only the night before, Silver Bullet and I, both agreed to set some time after work the next day to back up all my stuff into his workstation. Funny how Murphy likes to show up at the most appropriate time --- my laptop crashed while I was working in the taxi; I was less than 10 minutes away from home!

Come to think of it, despite getting to the acceptance stage, I actually have lost all hope of getting any of my data back. At that point, I started psyching myself up to move on and be prepared to start building up everything again as there was a big chance that I would lose everything. Those very thoughts also made me lose further motivation to blog like I always do.

And then, since then, I just have been insanely busy with no time to spare for anything else since I got my laptop back.

Now I’m back!

And I make sure that I have everything backed-up. TWO locations no less! All I need to do is to remember to do so frequently before Murphy does another unexpected visit.

Saltine snacks

Who would have thought that something so simple such as these can turn out to be so, so good!

Nothing fancy, and nothing too difficult. These are just a combo of saltine crackers, boiled eggs, about half a teaspoon of "spiced" mayonnaise topped with a dash of paprika powder and chopped chives as garnish.

These delish snacks were actually introduced by my mom-in-law when we last visited Holland, and only recently did I remember how good they were!

Hence, inspired by my mom-in-law's creation, I figured I'll give it a go at these yummilicious snackables.

They are really easy and quick to prepare and the only thing that will take time is waiting for the eggs to boil and then having to peel them. Perfect for when you have guests or just serving it up for tea-time.

Me being the chronic recipe-modifier, I decided to give this snack  a little twist by adding a clove of pressed garlic and some cumin powder (to taste) to the mayo. 

Verdict:

Can be extremely addictive! 

A warm welcome home

I was in a little bit of a daze as I walked out of the office to make my way home the other day after a very rough day at work as my mind kept on going back to a very unpleasant (and one that was below the belt!) incident which occurred earlier in the day.

I remember that I was still in a far-away land when I took the elevator up to our apartment as I continued reflecting on my horrid day at the office. I did everything without being conscious of anything around me…but the moment I opened the door, there was this little girl flashing her biggest grin, smiling away as she immediately left her nanny’s side as the door opened and came (almost!) running towards me. She had both her arms open wide and when she got near me, she immediately grabbed my legs, still flashing me her contagious smiles!

In my somewhat dazed mode, it took me a little longer to realise what had happened! In all that excitement of seeing such a happy face, I had immediately forgotten all about my work woes as I frantically tried to let go of my bags before scooping Spud up in my arms.

I then noticed that Spud looked a little odd; and as soon as I realised what it was, I burst out laughing.

The nanny has tied up her tiny bits of hair at the top of her head, and I thought it looked a little silly! Silly in a funny way as it was a look I was not used to.

Spud on the other hand, probably reacted to my big outburst of laughter and started to hyper-ventilate in excitement; prompting her to look happier than she already was.

There and then, I melted.

I realised I had just received a very warm welcome home.

Indeed, after a long (and shitty) day at the office, I really do not mind coming back home to that and the sight of this.

I have surprised myself yet again for feeling this way. It certainly was very heart-warming for me and I could not resist planting loads of kisses on her fat and squishy cheeks!

Bo-liao stuff

Be warned. What you are about to read is super lame, corny and divinely bo-liao*. But they cracked me up so much that I have tears welling up in my eyes. I stumbled upon this randomly while surfing something on the internet, and since it cracked me up so much, I thought it is worth sharing:

Silver Bullet rolled his eyeballs big time when I read it to him, but at least he laughed at its bo-liaonesss.

You have been warned. Read it at your own risk:

• If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?

•  If people from Poland are called “Poles,” why aren’t people from Holland called “Holes”?

• When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

• Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?

• If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

• If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, and dry cleaners depressed?

My bet is, somebody out there has too much time on is his/her hand to be thinking about such things.

Okay, Okay. I know it's lame, lame, lame. But it's really funny! (At least I think so!)


* Hokkien for idle, nothing better to do.

Fruity season

My favourite fruits are currently in season and are back on the streets! The rambutans are sweet and juicy while the longans are simply scrumptious little things.

It has been more than a year since the last fruit galore post and oooooooooooh! A lovely morning sight as I make my way to the office, fresh, street fruits in Bangkok are the best find ever!

The one with eye glasses

I guess one starts to notice the imminent signs ageing when you start sensing that your once 20/20 vision has started deteriorating right after you hit the big three-o. This is true in the case of Silver Bullet who has never needed any glasses, until recently.

He seems to be bothered by the fact that he no longer can see things clearly from afar, and so, decided to have his eyes checked when we were in Holland as his eye-sight has got progressively worse in the last year or so. They then diagnosed him with something more commonly known as astigmatism, and so, he decided to make his life easier with glasses and not having to squint all the time.

I’m not used to seeing Silver Bullet with glasses, so when he actually starts wearing it, he looks a bit strange to me. He looks so professor-like mister-know-it-all. I guess it’s just a sight I need to get used to.

At least I got to give due credit to that man for wanting to wear glasses when he needs it. I, on the other hand, do actually need my speckies, but I will only use it when I’m working in front of the computer and mostly at work. Other than that, I don’t use it as I really hate wearing glasses. I find them cumbersome (I started having to wear them when I was about 9 years old). I am just vain that way.

I did think of going for Lasik to correct my eye-sight for a while now (actually, only one of my eyes as I have a lazy eye!), but haven’t really got round to my research as I still feel a bit iffy about it.

While it is a nice thought that eyesight can be corrected with just a simple Lasik procedure, I cannot stand the thought of anyone poking right into my eyeballs while at it! It is just grossly ewwwwwwwwww and I am just very afraid at the prospect of these doctors poking my eyes blind!

What if they poke the wrong nerves?

I like the idea of having a perfect vision without the need for glasses, but I still don’t know. I still need to think about it (Lasik)

This time in 2010

I almost cannot believe that it took us nearly two years since Spud was conceived (20 months to be exact) and now reaching to the stage when Spud is now walking, and almost practically running!

As I recall, sometime this time last year, I was a waddling not-so-little big whale, walking around with a rather huge tummy and sporting a pair of a very swollen, tired feet.

At around this time last year, I had started working from home simply because I got too big to waddle to work every day as my ankles got so impossibly swollen that I just cannot be on my feet for too long. At that last stage of my pregnancy, it not only became quite a chore to walk to the office because I tire easily, but also because I was having a lot of difficulty navigating my way through a jammed up soi which has no room for any woman with a huge tummy to pass through.

Let me tell you this ridiculous story:

The few times I tried getting out the apartment, I ended up retreating my steps back home after only a few meters down the soi. The reason was really silly: it was NOT because I suddenly got too tired to walk (I’m sure I could if I pushed myself), but simply because there was no room for me to maneuver myself in between the temporarily stationary bumper-to-bumper vehicles while sporting a huge tummy. Sounds really ridiculous, I know, but if you live in Bangkok, it becomes a very plausible reason as to why I ended up not leaving my home! And no, I am not exaggerating here.

Thinking back though, while I enjoyed having been able to work from home for more than 2 weeks, it really was one of the most uncomfortable stages of pregnancy! In fact, as my tummy got bigger, my hand felt shorter as it was quite a chore to reach out to the mouse and typed on the keyboard when there was a tummy in the way. Sitting at the table was no longer comfortable, and I ended spending a lot of time working with the laptop (and sometimes a cat as well) on my lap. While it worked out a tad better than having to sit at a table, it still was not the best option as the stomach actually obstructed my view of the keyboard. A case in point:



Picture taken from top view, with the laptop resting on my lap 

So yes, even though I got to put my legs up all the time, the entire bit of working from home got a little bit annoying for me. Coupled with backache and all…it was not exactly fun, especially when you are being “cooped up” at home.
Still, I pushed myself. I worked till almost the end because I just cannot stand the thought of not doing anything. Even though I was mostly feeling tired, sleepy and constantly hot all the time, I kept myself busy. There was always something to do. Or if there isn’t, I’ll be sure to find something to do. I refused to be a tub of lard, ready to be blended in with the couch!

This was me and (some bits of me) sometime last year, at about 38 weeks, anxiously counting down to the imminent birth of Spud .

Photo courtesy of a professional photographer friend, BKKImages

Trying to get a perspective

Big, fat swollen feet

And in case you are wondering, no, I do not miss being pregnant.

Lasagna

Given Spud's new-found interest in adult food recently (and she does seem to be getting quite bored and apathetic with her roughly mushed up, tasteless baby food), we decided to start experimenting by giving our food to Spud for one of her meal-times.

She seems keen on sandwiches, noodles and basically whatever we eat, and when I made some lasagna over the weekend, I thought I'd let her try a 2" x 2" portion. Her reaction was a little lukewarm, but she did take at least 5 bites out of it.

Spud generally has more patience with new food and is usually quite game to just open her mouth willingly if she tastes something new. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes from here. I certainly do hope that she is a foodie like we are.

However,  if she starts to want something new at every meal-times, I swear it will only be a matter of days before I start banging my head on the wall in trying to figure out what to feed her just so that she eats!

I think we have enough headache as it as, as we too, have an issue of what to feed ourselves every single day with the following conversation happening every other day as we approach meal times:

Me: What do you feel like eating?

Silver Bullet: I don't know. What do you feel like eating?

Me: I don't know...what would you prefer? Asian or Western?

Silver Bullet: Hmmm..I don't know. what do you feel like cooking?

Me: Not sure. Anything in particular you want me to whip up?

Silver Bullet: Errr....what is simple to make?

Me: Bleahhh...you didn't answer my question. Order in?

Silver Bullet: You didn't either. Can order in I guess...

Me: OK. YOU pick! :)

Silver Bullet: But I pick yesterday...YOUR turn!

Me: Arggggggggggggggggggh! I don't make decisions outside the office. You pick the restaurant, I'll help you with the food.

Silver Bullet: OK. (5 minutes later...) what do you want?

Me: Arggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Silver Bullet: Hee....heh! Awwww...c'on. Help me out here

Me: *pout*pout*. Just pick one.

Silver Bullet: But....but...

Me: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

And it all comes back to square one, from the top!

So. We will eventually reach to a decision after about 20 minutes of having inane conversation such as the above, and no, I'm not kidding when I say that is usually how it goes literally every few days when we both just cannot figure out what to eat.

The story of our life. C'est la vie.

Baby Wearing: The Rucksack Carry

When I started on this baby wearing journey, I knew there was no turning back.

What began as something out of necessity actually become a passion, one of which I am an advocate of. I am always curious on the various types of baby carriers there are out there and the various ways one can wear a baby.

Despite Spud being extra squirmy these days, I still love wearing her in The Wrap or my Mei-Tai when we are out and about. The decision to use either one really depends on my mood, although I generally prefer The Wrap mainly for its versatility, because I can be quite unpredictable when it comes to the various methods of how I want to tie the wrap at any one point in time. I use the Mei-Tai only when I feel lazy, and it works faster too, for when Spud’s cranky.

I have been experimenting with the Rucksack carry recently in my bid to carry Spud differently such that she can look outwards when she’s being worn. I had some help from Silver Bullet on my first attempt, and I must say, it was quite comfortable to be carrying Spud on my back like this.

However, I have not made it out of the house with the rucksack style yet, simply because, I still need a lot of practice! This method of wearing Spud is more tiring, especially so when she decides that she isn'tgoing to corporate and starts squirming away …

For now, there is no way I can accomplish the Rucksack Carry with the wrap all on my own.

Hats off to Mommas who can do this effortlessly…check this one out. Like one of the comments stated – she totally killed it!

Discrimination

This is one of the signs that are being plastered on the wall of every BTS trains in Bangkok. I found them to be very distasteful, discriminatory as well as stoopidly biased against moms with babies OUTSIDE the womb.

So, no. Once the baby is out of your womb and "upgraded" into your arms, you no longer earn the right to be offered a seat while riding the BTS. But, if you are a monk, however, you'll immediately be given that priority. And yes, you saw the signs right --- the first one depicted an image of a small child.

So yes again: kids of about 4-9 years of age DO get offered a seat. Why, I don’t know; but I fail to see the logic of why non-handicapped kids of such age get priority (of being offered a seat) when they can jolly well stand. After all, they are young, lithe and perfectly capable of standing on their own two feet.

So, that being established, my question then is: why don’t the adults or the kids alike offer their seats to the more needy ones instead? Like giving up the seat to any mother or father who happens to be carrying a baby and at the same time, totting along a couple of bags with him/her?

Wouldn’t then these people be more deserving to a seat on the BTS train as opposed to a 10 year old kid who is able to stand on his/her own feet?

To be fair, there are the odd occasions when I did get offer a seat when I’m wearing Spud. I said ODD. By odd I mean like 1 out of every 6 times. That is a very sad number.

What baffles me more, and consequently annoys me sometimes is the fact that while they take the time to tease, touch, play and generally try to get Spud’s attention while I am standing and trying to keep my balance as I stand, they forgot that giving up their seat for me would probably be the most gracious thing to do! (Reminds me of this post I wrote a while ago)

If that very sign is a mandate for everyone, then yes! I feel discriminated. But, it gets even sadder.

Pregnant women sometimes don’t even get offered a seat. Come to think of it, even when I was very pregnant, the times I have been offered a seat while riding the BTS was far and between. Perhaps, out of the 20 times I took the BTS throughout the times I was expecting, I dare say that only 5 people (or less!) had offered their seat to me.

While there are certainly a few kind souls out there, unfortunately, most people don’t even bother. In pursuit of iPhones, iPads, Blackberries and other material stuff, we human being have lost the basic courtesy of simple kindness and morphed into a very unkind, self-centred "me-first" society.

We live in a very sad and selfish world indeed.

Aichmophobia

I have a confession to make. I have aichmophobia. That means I have an inexplicable and unnatural fear of sharp knives.

Funny that.

Considering I cook so much, I’d much rather work with a blunt knife as opposed to using some fancy-smatchzy chef’s knives and risk losing a finger or two. Or three; much to the amusement of Silver Bullet who is into state of art chef’s knives.

I do wonder where that phobia came from and after all this while, I still don’t know the cause of it. I do know though, that I really hate to use sharp knives. The sight of them scares the crap out of me. It sends shivers down my spine! I shudder just thinking about a bunch of really sharp knives I have in the kitchen.

I know this sound strange, but I like my knife blunt. That means, just sharp enough to be able to cut stuff up, but not nearly sharp enough to draw blood from any of my fingers!

So now you know. I’m a wuss when it comes to knives. My knife skills just royally suck big time and I’m convinced that I’m the worse food cutter there is. I imagine I’m Gordon Ramsey’s nightmare if I ever worked in his kitchen. (Not that I ever would really…he probably would balk at the stuff I cook.)

But that’s OK. At the rate I'm cutting up my ingredients for cooking, I’d happily trade my knife skills for my precious fingers.

Anytime.

Loopy paintings

These may not be the most elegant paintings of all time, but for some reason, we thought that it would be quite a riot to have them in our home! 

I mean, look at these 2 pictures of loopy-looking cats! They look bizarrely hilarious, it's epic!

Painted by a local artist who obviously loves cats, we stumbled upon them at a furniture fair quite a while back, and only recently did we find the time (and empty walls) to hang them up.  No two paintings they had were the same, and I quite like that concept...which means that whatever we have is rest assured to almost be the one and only; and for not too much money at all too!

One thing for sure, both Silver Bullet and I just love that silly, loony expressions. Even Spud likes them and goes crazy-gaga over them.

While at first we thought that these paintings should be hung in Spud's bedroom, we thought better of it and decided that they both should go in the living room instead. It just feel more fun that way, making our home more lively.

These cats cracked me up, I tell you! They look authentically loopy. Just like us.

11 months

One more month to go before the big monumental milestone of Spud turning ONE!

At 11 months, Spud is a far cry from that once a helpless little baby she used to be. In fact, she has beefed up quite a chunk; my arms and shoulders ache each time I carry her.

As Spud acquires more dexterity in her motor skills, her thirst for exploration grows as she gets more curious with the things around her. She has been quite a busy little baby practicing her new found skills and with that, comes tripping and falling as well (mostly banging up her head against something again. Yikes!)

Now at 11 months, I am pleased to announce that Spud has officially started walking! Just a tad wobbly, but walking. This kid is a wriggly little worm. She just cannot keep still…not even while she is sleeping!

It’s amazing to see how fast she is developing, though. Just about two weeks ago she was only crawling on her feet (not knees - which made her look ridiculously funny), cruising along the furniture as well as feeding herself with her own sippy cup when she feels like it.

(It also seemed like a long while back since we battled it out with the bottle and get her onto the sippy; when it had actually only been TWO months!)

Her nap routine has gotten much better, too. These days, she gets 2 naps  (one in the morning, and another in the afternoon) for at least an hour at a stretch. She goes down without a fuss when we put her in her cot and leave her to put herself to sleep in her own bedroom. No longer do we need to be carrying her around and shush her to take that much needed 15 minutes nap she used to do. Spud is certainly a far cry from when she was younger. What a milestone, indeed.

Recently though, she has shown some disinterest and impatience to being fed her solids. What used to take 5 minutes for her to wallop all her food, will now take us, especially me forever to feed her – assuming she wants to open her mouth at all after taking a few bites! (Yes, it includes cauliflowers!)

While according to the Nanny that Spud always finishes all her food and does not give the Nanny a lot of grief, for us though, the experience of feeding her on weekends when we are at home has been quite the opposite! Not only does she start whinging, she has actually begun not to finish her food altogether, opening her mouth for only 3-4 spoonfuls of solids, and most times, nothing more than that. She gets really upset if we pressed on.

It actually makes me wonder if the nanny is lying when she said that Spud’s okay when it comes to feeding her solids whilst we are away at work. But, I really have no reason to doubt as I have seen her fed Spud and it seems like Spud does co-operate better. While Spud does try to be difficult, I guess it helps that the Nanny has such insurmountable volume of patience. (And I generally don't)

All I can say is that it can be such a dreadful chore to feed her when she simply refuses to co-operate. Other times, she may co-operate if I act silly enough to amuse her while feeding (the scoop here is that I have to take very deep breaths to keep myself really calm, and repeatedly tell myself not to get mad! Not the easiest thing to do). But like any other times she has been difficult, I hope this too shall pass!
Up until now, I have not really quite realised that that a parent’s job description included that of being a perpetual clown. Amongst other silly things. In the same breath, I have also been wondering if she is ready for adult food as she seems to be showing great interest to what we eat.

Apart from being difficult with when it comes to feeding, she is actually quite pleasant to be around with these days,and I swear her cheeky streaks are starting to show.

So. That is just Spud being Spud and here we are, counting the days and waiting in anticipation for the rest of her developments as she nears a ripe one year of age in exactly 30 days!

Baby Food: Steamed Cauliflower

Here's a recent batch of newly introduced food which I have painstakingly prepared for Spud...

...which happened to be just a bunch of the not so appetizing steamed cauliflower, roughly mashed up and ready to be frozen.

The kind of food that I, as an adult, do not like to eat ....but for some reason, Spud has shown a great interest to it. Dare I say, actually, love 'em cauliflowers!

It's bizarre how I am actually feeding her stuff that I don't eat myself; things like pumpkins and celery to name a few.  Well, rather her than me, I'd say! 

Digressing to another topic here, I thought the picture quality taken with my Canon Powershot S95  turned out great!

(Ok. the picture, I admit looks quite weird and I don;t know why; perhaps a little out of place with angle experimenting. But it still is a sharp image though!)

Nursery Rhymes

Singing some of those nursery rhymes to Spud, I realised that there certainly is something very wrong or sadistic about how these songs were penned for children.

I mean, just look at the lyrics of Rock-a-bye Baby:

Rock-a-bye, baby
On the treetop
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock
When the bough breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

First off, why would anyone, god forbid, place a baby on the tree-top? Not a very smart thing to do, me-thinks. I mean, come on, isn’t it just tragic that the cradle fall along with the baby too? WTF?

And then there is this one which seemed to have been written about drunk person:

This old man, he played one,
He played nick nack on my drum
With a nick nack paddy whack,
Give a dog a bone;
This old man came rolling home.

 And he apparently played till ten. Seriously. Why was he rolling home again?

And here’s one which makes absolutely no sense:

Hey fiddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
A little dog laughed to see such a sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon

I can see, how in a weird, abstract way on how the cow would want to moon the moon (I did say abstract), but somebody please tell me why would the dish want to run away with the spoon? It absolutely does not make any sense. I bet you the lyricist may have been a bit of a stoner on this one!

I am sure I am not the only parent who thought about such things though, and I am sure that there probably are dozen of other similar posts on this. Funny despite all the realisation on the "unhealthy' meaning of the songs, we parents are still singing these crazy, manic songs to our kids, generations after generations.

And get this, we sing them with such a happy sounding tune too! Big smiles, animated gestures, laughter an all...

You know what's the worst thing about this? Sometimes I caught myself humming to these songs while I’m working or walking or doing something else that has got nothing to do with baby stuff.

Ahh...the joy of parenthood. Talk about being brain-washed.

Bizarre.

Quote of the day

Saw this sign in one of the meeting rooms I was in not too long ago:

"Ice cream is happiness condensed"

Ahhh....! So true.

Especially if they come in the flavours of chocolate chip mint or sticky chewy chocolate or macadamia nut brittle or orange vanilla and a whole lot of other flavours...

You get my drift. I am a sucker for ice-cream and I am just bummed I cannot have any of them at this very moment.

Almost eleven months...

This update came just a tad too early right before her 11th month update, simply because we wanted to share this first-hand. The scoop is that we managed to capture Spud "live" when she took her first few (more than 4 steps!) rather confidently on the 1st of July:

I'd say that is quite a milestone!

Only about 10 days ago did I witness Spud taking her first 4-5 steps completely unassisted and without using anything for support. She smiled at me the moment she finished her few strides before she crashed her bum on the floor! I guess it really will not be too long now before she starts strutting confidently as it is clear that her crawling days are now numbered.

Already she is showing signs of wanting to climb by lifting her legs up high each time she sees an elevated object…

Watch this space for more updates soon.

Shoot or not to shoot (the bear)?

This was a brilliant viral campaign which was launched sometime last year.

This video allows viewers to create their own personal ending as to how the hunter interacts with the bear. Sources said that they have recorded more than 50 video responses..."dirty" words included!



Actually, you are better off if you go to this link here for a better interactive experience.

Here's what I got when I typed "slaps":

Tiny feet!

I had to take a double-take as I passed by our shoe-rack when I saw this from the corner of my eyes:

Tiny little pair of sandals for tiny little feet placed amongst several pairs of not so tiny shoes…I mean.Wow. Just wow.

OK. Actually, very WOW.

I realised that not only it looked quite strange to me (hey! I never have baby shoes in my house before!), it was also an image I am not used to. It felt so weird being jolted by such a sight that I actually stopped short in my track, widened my eyes and smiled, thinking; “How strange. Where does THAT come from” to “I really have to get used to this one!”

It took a while to register all of that, but as soon I got over that fact,  the realization of Spud’s reign of babydom being almost over, hit me soon enough. In my head, she’ll soon be this bumbling toddler, whose presence will be more ubiquitous (not that it is not already!) as she claims the right to every single square inch of space in our humble home.

Gosh.

Spud, our once-not-so-easy baby is about to step into toddler hood. An over-active, talkative, bumbling toddler who can be quite the drama queen will soon be making her mark (not that she has not already). More bruises and bumps and exciting times ahead as the house may be transformed into some manic chaos.

But I digress. I was talking about tiny little shoes. I had to buy them last weekend as Spud has shown great enthusiasm to walk and walk and walk. She likes being walked and she enjoys gripping your hand, walking wobbly with her stomach and butt both tucked out.

I figured, given her penchant of going around outside the house bare-feet, it is about time we get Spud a pair of really soft shoes!

What surprised me was how expensive a pair of baby's shoes can be. I saw this brand called "Peds" acclaimed as baby's best first shoes, and they will set you back by almost 3000 baht! (~SGD 120).  That is just insane money for something that can only be worn for less than a month.

While I do agree "Peds" seems like a good brand to start with (it felt soft, and sturdy and all), I still think it was crazy money. I ended up with something from Mothercare instead. It was on sale and it cost me no more than 400 baht! (~SGD ~16)

And it looks quite funky. Reminds me of my TEVA. My favourite pair of outdoor sandals which I believe have been taken off th emarket for quite sometime already as I cannot find them anywhere anymore!