Nonchalance, Thoughtlessness or Stupidity?

Bangkok is generally known for not being sufficiently accessible for people with reduced mobility or other disabilities.  The streets and pavements are uneven. Few buildings and public transportation system provide ramps and handrails to aid disabled access.  The Sky Train (BTS) is one of the worst culprits in my opinion as they just don’t make sense. Build on two levels – ticketing on the lower, and trains on the upper, it makes access a challenge for those in wheelchairs; especially when there is only ONE escalator going up , not to mention the sheer number of steep flight of steps one has to access for those who needs to go down to the lower level! (NO escalator going down!)

That being said, it is of no surprise that moving around the city can be extremely difficult not only for disabled people, but also for parents who need to tot their kids in a stroller. (This is why baby wearingbecomes a much better alternative)

While the city has been designed as such, the display of thoughtlessness amongst the very abled Bangkok residents can be appalling. For a culture that raves compassion, kindness and empathy, I cannot seem to understand why some people choose to look the other way. Take this incident which happened to us recently:

Silver Bullet was wearing a sleeping Spud and I was carrying a backpack while pushing a stroller with a sleeping Squirt in it. Between the both of us, we struggled to get the stroller up and down several flights of steps to get to where we want to be;  yet, people around us choose to pass by us as if we are inconveniencing them or they pretend that they did not see us and walked on by. Rarely would people be offering us any help.

What baffled me though was that on this particular flight of steps connecting the BTS walkway to a shopping mall, there stood a person trying to distribute her flyers to anyone who passed by her to get to the entrance of the mall. She literally was standing on a platform between 2 flights of steps, and actually saw both Silver Bullet and me struggling to carry the stroller up.

Guess what she did when we took a small breather before getting on to the second flight of steps? Instead of offering some help, with a poker face, she just handed us one of the flyers which she was distributing! Last I checked, she wasn’t blind!

That really riled me up and really was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.  I was so mad that I exclaimed loudly, “Are you stupid?!”

Excuse my rant here or the lack of consideration for calling people names, but really, times like that makes me wonder if that was just sheer nonchalance, thoughtlessness or plain stupidity.

Happy Feet

While there are many, many, many massage shops offering foot massages available in every nook and cranny of Bangkok, there is still none other like the foot massage one can get at Dr. Feet.

This is by far, the only place where my feet feel really, really happy after an hour of kneading and prodding. 

It is such a shame that this place is not as easily accessible as I would like it to be.  While the place is technically not too far away from where we live, traffic can be a nightmare and hours are wasted just trying to get there. 

The scary bit about it is that Dr. Feet is located just opposite to one of the biggest and reputable hospital in Bangkok. . It is located along a small sub-sois, and traffic can really get into a standstill way, way before one gets to the vicinity of the soi.  In the bigger scale of things, it scares me to think that it would be almost impossible for anyone to get help or get to the hospital in time should there be an emergency situation given the appalling traffic condition 

It is not the most convenient place to get to, but when we finally manage to haul our asses over, there really has never been just a “mediocre” massage at this place. Most often than not, I would leave the place with buckling knees, all the acupressure points underneath my feet feel relaxed and un-knotted. So relaxed, that I don’t want to ruin all that nice feeling by putting my feet on the ground. It is THE place to go for whenever I need my massage fix. And so far, no other places can be compared to the skills of the therapists in this place.

I am addicted to foot massage like a druggie addicted to crack. And because I don’t do this often enough, I feel that it is such a treat to be going to Dr. Feet!

Ahhh...! My happy, happy feet tended by one of the best in the house.

Ain't over till it's over

When I posted “The one with pumped milk is about to retire...”, I guess I was myopic. It should have been a sabbatical instead. For a start, I didn’t think that my pumping career would make a comeback this quick!

But it has, and my Medela Freestyle® Breastpump has been dusted, cleaned, sterilized, assembled and has now been put up to speed for its efficient pumping job.  

My pumping memories were bittersweet – as much as I hated the hassle of pumping and cleaning it - and I still do - I can’t help but feel overwhelmingly satisfied whenever I see the volume of milk I yield after each pumping session. The very fact that my child is thriving on nothing but my breast milk and that is all he ever needs in his first 6 months is again, truly amazing. 

My super power is back after a 2-year sabbatical. The milk machine is running at full speed, and now that we have introduced the bottle to Spud, it feels a little liberating that other people will be able to feed him as well.

Pumping is indeed something which requires a very high discipline and commitment. In my head, I am still struggling to figure out how I would be able to cope with pumping full-time and tending to two kids when I am back at work.

With my unnatural personal biasness against formula, I know there is no other way out except to pump when Squirt does not get any access to the boobs. In doing so, I certainly am hoping to be able to provide Squirt with breast milk for about the same length of time, as did his sister. 

Wish me luck!

Leaf Scorpion Fish

This is one of the most bizarre, but cool looking fish I have ever seen in my entire life. I was so intrigued by their features that I just had to get a few snapshots of them while on a Mommy-time with excursion with Spud to Siam Ocean World recently.

Their bodies are flat, very leaf-like and quite transparent. Quite hard to make them out until you spot their eyes – which makes them look rather bizarre!

Leaf Scorpion Fish

Weedy Scorpion Fish

Also known as the Paper Fish, the Leaf Scopion Fish is one of the smallest members of the Scorpion fish family. They come in lots of colours and often have blotches, which enhance their camouflage.

They have venomous stinging spines. They are known to be a master of disguise as they imitate a leaf or seaweed moving in the water current by rocking themselves from side-to-side. They also shed their skin and are known to change colours.

They were so fascinating to watch that I could stare at them for ages! 

My inner child thought that this was an interesting find. It was quite cool to share this with Spud and telling her all about it.

The one with black forest

Black forest chocolate. Hmmmmmm.

Quite a huge bar of chocolate too. Hmmmmm.

I should have known that it will be nowhere near the taste of a desirable Black Forest Cake.

To be fair, the taste wasn’t at all bad. It was…okay. I actually quite like the cookie bits in it. But what spoiled it in my opinion, were the cherry jellies in it. They were so absurdly chewy that it was impossible to even enjoy a small piece of chocolate properly. I felt like my molars were all going to be falling off as the jellies got stuck pretty bad between the bottom and top molars, making it very hard to chew. Those cherry bits also tasted kind of weird. I ended up taking out every single cherry bits from every square as I don;t really want to eat them

I know for a fact that Cadbury has got some awesome chocolates, but unfortunately, this one is not one of my favorites. Certainly not at all like the black forest I know. 

This black forest chocolate is quite disappointing.A waste of space in my tummy.

Exquisite timed photo

These are a few of my favourite shots depicting moments of some very lucky photographers being at the right place and the right moment...

The original article was published here.

I also like the Perfectly Timed Animal series.

Simply WOW!

Kids say the darnest thing

Spud toddled up to the (safety-gated) kitchen one evening, looked over it, turned to me and, out of the blue, with her big, cheeky grin, muttered, “I come in peace.”

I was floored. I asked her to repeat what she said once again and when she did with yet another really silly grin on her face, I guffaw my heart out. It was especially ironic, considering that she had just been given a light reprimand just 10 minutes prior for smearing and playing with the tub of calendula cream (there was cream everywhere and all over her!)  I was using on her brother. 

It must have been random, but I thought she seemed to have gotten the context right! It made me wonder where she could possibly have heard that sentence from.

That same evening, just as I settled her into her usual bedtime routine of watching TV before she goes to bed, I realized where she had gotten that script from. It was from a movie called “Rio”. And all along, I never thought she paid any attention after 10 or 15 minutes into the show. (And to be really honest, I had not noticed that before)

Coming from a 2 year old, I thought the whole thing was hilarious! By the same token, I guess this was just the debut on more kids-say-the-darnest-thing moments to come.

Reflux Medication: Lansoprazole

Be gone thy Omeprazole. Let there be light with Lansoprazole!

Squirt’s former reflux medication, Omeprazole has now been switched to a different one several weeks ago. The switch in medication largely stemmed from us complaining that it was quite hard to administer Omeprazole to Squirt without those little tiny balls going down the wrong pipe.

According to our doctor, Omeprazole and Lansoprazole (also known as Prevacid) are actually the same stuff. I was told that the difference is largely for “business purposes”. That is to say, Lansoprazole is just the upgraded version of Omeprazole where “they add another molecule to the medicine to make it better and longer lasting”.  And, the only reason we were prescribed with Omeprazole in the first place was because of its extensive experience in infants.

With Prevacid, we can now administer the medication with ease. For one, the tabs dissolves in water and the little beads that can be found in each tab are much, much smaller – perhaps only about one-tenth of Omeprazole’s.  That makes our job easier as we only need to mix it with about 1-2 ml of water, suck it up into syringe and administer it to Squirt.  Those little beads in Lansoprazole should not dissolve. They have a hard coating to protect them from stomach’s acid until they can do their job when they finally settle into stomach-land. 

The Prevacid solutabs should be administered on an empty stomach and 30 minutes to 1 hour before a full meal - which usually means we have to  endure a  little bit of wailing before Squirt can have his feed. Prevacid is also strawberry flavoured which makes the taste a little bit more pleasant for Squirt. 

Although we can’t be sure if the switch of medication was the culprit, Squirt did have 2 bad nights of continuous refluxing right after the switch to Prevacid. That surprised us, and after some research and checking with our doctor, we were told that there should be no lag in effectiveness given that Squirt has already been on Omeprazole and that Lansoprazole is effectively the same medication, but just better. We don’t know why that was, and still could not find the answer to that. We suspected though, he may have just had some form of stomach cramps – a possible side effect from either.

Despite all that medication, we also found out the hard way on a separate occasion, that vaccination triggers reflux. We had not been fore warned or told that; you read it here first. And so, after 24 hours of Squirt’s 2nd month cocktail of vaccination, he had another bizarre attack of reflux which got him cranky for several days on end and kept us up for several nights. Thanks to Google, at least we now know that is something to watch out for when he is due for his next vaccination!

The good news is that Squirt’s reflux seems to be in control for now; well, at least the pain from his reflux is. He still spits up and sometimes swallows it all back down. But it has been a far cry from what he used to have. 

Squirt has since been a very different baby. Let's hope that we can maintain this.

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

Happiness is spotting a very unexpected but a familiar sight which I would never have thought to be possible in Bangkok…

Silver Bullet spotted this a mile away while we were out gallivanting at Central World one afternoon and pointed it out to me. The entire area is still under construction at this point in time, but seeing this makes me really, really happy!

I’ll be looking forward to a much long-awaited reunion with my all-time favourite beverage of Chai Tea Latté.

Spud's little big bed

Another milestone was reached just 2 days short of Spud’s second birthday.

It was a little earlier than we could have ever anticipated, but Spud has by now been successfully transitioned into a toddler’s bed – to our delight, without much of a fuss or hassle. 

We did not buy her any new bed; we just converted her old cot bed into a toddler’s bed and bought guard rails for the converted bed. To make the transition easier for Spud, we also made sure that she was involved in the actual process of transforming her cot bed into her little big bed.  

Even though she was at first apprehensive when she saw her transformed bed, it did not take her long to get used to the idea. In fact, Spud was really excited about the fact that she can now climb in and out of her bed on her own. 

My heart beamed at how seamless it was to transition her along. It felt like it was such a big thing and I feel so proud of Spud.  When we snuck in several hours later, I cannot help but snap a picture of her in her new bed…

Spud sleeps in funny positions, and she travels in her bed. Looking at her whilst she sleeps makes me a little emotional.  It marked one of the last journeys of her being a baby as she moves on to the next phase. While in that state of mind,  I was being reminded by what I read a while back -  a quote  written by a journalist, Jonathan Sale: 

“When a child climbs to the next rung on life’s ladder it means the previous rung is no longer going to be trodden on."

This was just one of our firsts of the many last journeys.

Banana Bread Perfection

My quest for that perfect banana bread recipe has come to an end after the fourth time mucking around with methods and ingredients as well as mixing and matching the different recipes I found from several sources.

Here’s what my yummilicious banana bread looks like and has gotten a huge thumbs-up all around:

 And here’s my ideal recipe which I have mucked around which I am very satisfied with:

Ingredients:

• 4 oz (about 114 grams) butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 and half cup of self raising flour sifted
• 1 tspn baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (or 1 small tub if 150g) sour cream
• 4-5 over-ripe bananas, mashed up till very “liquidy”

Method:

1. Combine butter, sugar, vanilla extract until creamy
2. Add eggs into the mixture one at a time till all is mixed well
3. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda and salt
4. Add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well
5. Finally, add in sour cream and mashed banana and mix well
6. Bake in a pre-heat over of 175 Degrees Celsius for about 45 minutes – 1 hour.

I have to admit though that the sour cream is quite a weird one here, but as I found out, it is quite key to keep the bread super moist.

There you have it! Love, lovely super moist, light banana bread. Bon appetit!

Quote of the day

Here's something that's worth sharing...and remembering...

These mantras make life worth living!

When disciplining backfired...

When we started enforcing consequences on Spud’s unacceptable behaviour , we certainly didn’t see this one coming.

You see, one weekend, 2 weekends short of Spud’s 2^nd birthday to be exact, we had an enlightenment. A rude, slap-in-the face enlightenment.  That day, she was hell-bent on pushing Silver Bullet’s button, and she did. 

With it comes to disciplining Spud, we try to educate her by enforcing consequences for her defiant behaviours. This will include things like when she continues to spit up her food for no reason, throwing her plate off the table in a defiant way, swatting her spoon at us when she is being fed, or generally hitting, screaming, kicking or throwing her toys at us in anger, despite being given several warnings to stop her unacceptable behaviour. Or else.

The “or else” would be us calmly but firmly telling her that she’ll get no dessert, no shower, no TV and no more playing. She will go straight to bed and she will sleep until tomorrow morning. We enforce this by hauling her to her bed and close her bedroom door behind us. We have done this a few times when she gets ultra-defiant. 

Usually, this will result in Spud belting out a screaming fit for about a minute. We will then come get her, try to calm her down, and try to explain to her on that specific set of unacceptable behaviour. She usually “gets it”. This works like a charm - mainly because she doesn’t like to sleep in the day and the fact that she cannot get out of the bed by herself. As soon as we get her out of bed, she will behave. It then will be like as if nothing had happened. (!)

Now, I can’t quite recall what exactly happened on that day, but whilst I was in the shower, Silver Bullet had already whisked Spud off to her bed. As I was going down the stairs, I then saw this little girl wailing away as she opened her own bedroom door and started running towards the stairs!

Confused, I asked Silver Bullet what happened. He seemed confused himself. Not to mention shocked as well. 

It turned out that our Little Spud has just become an escape artist. She has by now, managed to climb out of her rather high cot bed with her acrobatic climbing skills. It was something we did not expect; I reckon, it was probably something Spud did not know that she could do either. Not until at that point in time. 

It was then Silver Bullet realised that the punishment of putting her to bed had just backfired. Not knowing what to do as we both we still in shock, Silver Bullet then tried to calm her down and picked her up. While things simmered for a while, we both can’t help wondering how she managed to climb out of her cot.

At dinner time the same day, an hour later, she again pushed Silver Bullet’s button while I was feeding her. The same threat was used – but this time, we were already quite skeptical if it would work. It obviously didn’t – as soon as I put her in her cot and closed the door behind me, she immediately tried to climb out . I waited for less than 5 seconds right outside her door, and when I opened the door again,  I heard a loud thud.  I thought I saw her jumped off the rail of her cot. It was quite a height.

My heart immediately palpitated. Shaking, I picked her up from the floor and put her back in her bed. I then went down to her level,  held her firmly and told her in a very stern voice that she was not allowed to climb out and the only way she can get out was when either Papa or Mama picked her up. Each time she tried to climb out, I put her back in. Thankfully, I did not have to try very hard, for she immediately complied by pleading that she wanted to continue eating – something she refused to do 5 minutes ago.  We hugged and we kissed and I made her say “sorry”. Then it all ran like clockwork. She finished her dinner without a fight and it was, again, as if nothing had happened. 

Now that I know she is more than capable to climb out of her cot bed, I had all sorts of safety hazard scenarios playing in my head. It was one of the most stressful evenings at home we have ever had. 

Watching the CCTV later that night, we saw that Spud had used the edge of the bed to leverage herself upwards, using just the strength of her arms. When she climbed out the first time, she had jumped and while doing so, had hit her chin quite hard on the side bar of her bed. 

It has now become a major safety hazard, mainly for herself. 

When we put her to bed that night and several nights later until we set up her new bed, we gently told her several times that she can only get out of bed when we come get her in the morning. Thankfully she listened. 

That day, marked the day when we realized that the calling for our barely 2 year old monkey to be transitioned to a toddler bed was happening sooner than later. 

We certainly did not see this one coming. At least, not the way how it all had transpired.

My peachy moment

Now that Squirt is not completely dependent on my boobs for his meals, I get to temporarily shirk my motherly responsibilities and leave my 2 kids with the Nanny for several hours in the weekdays while I go gallivanting. (Read: Run some errands! Solo.)

Usually, I would be gone for just a couple of hours – my absence from home was hardly felt. One day though, I was out for almost the entire afternoon.  I can’t remember what I was doing, but it was the day where I did not really have the chance to interact with my kids in the morning, and,  I was not feeling at all guilty leaving my 2 babies with the nanny who I know are in good hands.

The moment I came home and walked in the door, Spud looked up from whatever it was she was doing, stood up and with a big, fat smile on her face, bolted towards me and exclaimed, “Mama!”

After some hearty hugs and slobbery toddler kisses with Spud, I then walked over to Squirt who was then happily sitting in his bouncer. The moment I stood down to his level to give him a kiss on his chubby cheek, I was greeted with such wonderful smiles – smiles that seemed to say that he missed me and just all too ecstatic to see me. All this time, Spud hovering over me and her brother.

Ahh! Such warm welcome home.  My heart expanded a thousand times! It feels light and bouncy and warm and toasty.  For a moment, I forgot all that crying and wailing and temper tantrums I have been brutally exposed to since I became a temporary stay home mom.

At that moment, I was wholly consumed by overwhelming sense of joy, pride and love for and from my kids. Such happiness! 

And at that moment, I’m thinking that is really how a mother should feel. Every day should be like this.

Security Thai Style

This is quite a common sight in and around Bangkok…

With so many security check-points being set up in MRT stations, entrances to shopping malls, hotels and office buildings, anyone walking around in Bangkok should be able to feel safe…

…except that, from my own personal experience, these “security check-points” are in fact utterly useless. 

Take the picture above for example.  I was making my way to the MRT station and had to follow a throng of people going through that entrance to get to the underground train station. While the security guards did appear to be checking, what they effectively did was this:

• Commuters were told to open up their bags
• The guards used a flash light to flash into the (or any) opened compartment of the bag for about 2 seconds
• The alarm at the entrance beep every other second
• Commuters are waved on immediately.

Basically the entire process of “checking” lasted for a mere 3 seconds. Being the little imp that I am, I played punk by opening a small compartment of my haversack that stored nothing. The entrance beeped. Still, I was waved on. And believe you, me, this method of checking is quite universal at almost every check-points there is in and around Bangkok!

Ahhh! Why do they even bother?

It is a joke, this. And really, one of the more useless measures Bangkok has put in place.  And all it does was to create unnecessary gridlock of human traffic. 

But of course, only in Thailand!

The story of Soothie

If there is one thing I have an unnatural hatred for, it has got to be that one thing they called the PACIFIER.

Or a soother.Or a dummy.Or The Plug.Or whatever it is they called that thing for little beings around the world.

I don’t know why that is, but I hate, hate, hate the sight of that thing. I detest it. I abhor it. No matter how cute the designs are, or how cool they look in their different shades and sizes, I do not care for it, and I am utterly disgusted by it. I really do have an unnatural hatred for it. 

Now, don’t get me wrong - it does not bother me at all that many parents give their babies a pacifier to soothe them or settle them to sleep. It is, after all their choice, it is their kids and I have got no issues with that. I am, in no uncertain terms fit to judge or even be judging or questioning their decision on using the pacifier.   (Although I have to admit that I thought it can be quite unsightly to see a 3 or  a 4 year old sucking on that silly thing while out and about in town)

This is just me being personal about the physical thing itself and I just cannot explain it.I am mostly disgusted at the thought of having my kids using them, and worse, be dependent upon them.

With Spud, although we did buy a couple (why, I don’t know!), I made it a point not to ever introduce her the pacifier. So, when Silver Bullet once stuffed that damn thing in her mouth without first telling me that he was gonna do it that one time he was trying to soothe her - and promptly after, followed by the Nanny, I threw a fit! I got so angry with them that I made sure that pacifier never saw the light of the day again. As far as I was concerned, Spud did not need it as there were other ways to calm her down.  The pacifier was pretty much, history. On the hind sight, with Spud’s personality and our struggles with her to get her off the breast and to the bottle and then off the bottle and to the sippy cup, I was glad the pacifier was never in her repertoire.

With Squirt though, almost everyone I spoke to and every website I read recommended that we need to give him a pacifier as he has the reflux. For a reflux baby, apparently, non-nutritive sucking using pacifiers can relax the digestive tract and increased saliva that can help digest feeding quickly – something which a reflux baby would need. Putting him on the boob would mean feeding, and with his reflux, it just should not be done. With that in mind, I had to GRUDGINGLY agree to introduce the pacifier to him. 

I could feel myself cringe, and my goose bumps pop out all over my body the moment I put the pacifier in his mouth to calm him down between feedings

I was seething with hatred at the plastic plugging. The first few attempts with a Tommy Tippy pacifier were somewhat futile. When he rejected it at first, I swore I felt so relieved!  At the same time though, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.  Laugh because, I pretty much convinced myself that he will never, ever take it and I am truly happy for that - I think I even jumped for joy! Cry because it could be the very thing that would be able to calm him down when required, and that could be our savior. 

But when a friend gave us the Avent Soothie as a gift, he eventually, but grudgingly took it when he had one of those fits in the earlier days of his reflux. It was an ugly little number that thing.

I was torn. It was like I want him not to take it, but at the same time, I want him to take it ...but just a little bit.

I then became quite the control freak with using the pacifier, using just about enough to calm him down and then withdrawing it, and never use it to put him to sleep. With my paranoia on Squirt becoming dependent on Mr. Soothie, I made sure that Silver Bullet and the Nanny are both on board to limit the use of the pacifier.

By now though, I am comforted by the fact that Squirt is not really too hot with Mr. Soothie. (I am grinning from ear to ear as I am typing that sentence). While it does help to soothe him for a bit, that is, usually, just it. For.a.bit. Mere seconds.

In fact, we had to be rather persistent for him to take it when he has a crying fit to minimize the gas in his stomach. When he finally calms down and a few non-nutritive sucks later, he would then spit Mr. Soothie out. In fact, most times, he gets a little annoyed if we keep shoving that thing in his mouth. I swear sometimes, he gave me a “are you kidding me” look in his state of calmness when I shove the pacifier back in, only for him to spit it back out.

Looking at how things go with the pacifier, I am a happy camper. I guess my worries are unfounded. Or maybe, I have just jinxed it.

Pacifiers..they make your babies look really ugly in photos!

Catching a breather

Introducing Squirt to the bottle was pretty…uneventful.

Yep, that’s right. Uneventful. And I’m saying it with a smile. A very big smile!

When we decided to introduce Squirt to the bottle at six weeks, I have to admit that I was feeling quite nervous. Deep, deep, deep down in my heart, I was hopeful that it was going to be easy-peasy, but at the same time, I was truly afraid that Squirt will violently reject the bottle just likeSpud did. While I was somewhat prepared for that to happen, I was also dreading if it will happen, for I did not want to go through what we went through with Spud in the battle of the bottle again. That was just nerve-wrecking.

But Squirt did well. Even though he did not like it very much the first time round, he merely just pushed out the bottle with his tongue. None of that crazy, heart-wrenching screaming which Spud did the moment the bottle hit her mouth. With a little bit more persistence, he took to the bottle in no time during our very first attempt at introducing him the bottle. For the record, Squirt got his first bottle feeding from his Papa. 

I was so, so, so relieved that I actually shed a tear or two. I know that it could be an easy feat for most parents with easy babies who take to anything, but after our experience with Spud, I got completely emo when I saw Squirt take to the bottle easily. Silly, I know. 

We first attempted the Breastflow bottle on him. While he took to it for the first time, he did not like it very much. We then switched to the Avent bottle, and after a couple of days using it, he seemed to like it too much and started fussing at the breast. For that reason, we switched back to the Breastflow bottle.  It appears that he did not mind it so much now. 

Another hurdle crossed!  After all the hoolabaloos with Spud previously and Squirt having his reflux , I reckon we deserve to catch this little break. Although..there is always a chance that Squirt may just decide to regress...

These days, he is on the bottle for at least once a day – a practice run for when I go back to work eventually. That also means ,  I now have a little bit of a freedom to  leave him at home with our Nanny for a couple of hours while I shirk my motherly responsibilities. 

Ahhh…freedom is when I don’t have a baby stuck to my boobs 24/7. 

Here's Oma giving her first bottle to Squirt.

A cat's life

Look who decided to come out and play. And pose…

Donut has been quite obsessed with Squirt’s wedge. Each time I put it down for a little bit of a floor time for Squirt, he would come to this spot, sits first regally on the wedge before I even had the chance to put Squirt down and then grooms himself silly.

Quite a sight to watch. And, just the perfect moment for a candid shot.

#1 turned 2

Spud was spoilt rotten yesterday. With her grandparents in town this week, the whole family made some considerable effort to put up some decorative and balloons in the living room the night before her birthday.

She woke up with a surprise and went, “ooooooh…” when she saw the decorations and balloons. The day was pretty much hers – along with her Oma, we took her to the playground in the morning, took her out for lunch and in the afternoon after her nap, we had a low-key birthday celebration for her consisting of only family. 

It was nice. It was simple. She got to eat a really yummy chocolate cake, opened a dozen of presents and pretty much played and played and played till bedtime. 

She ate well (so well that she went to bed with a really full tummy that she threw up!) and she behaved really well too.  Above all, she was all cheery, supremely happy and loving all her presents!

It was a very good day, indeed and we all had a very nice time. Most important of all, we, especially her grandparents made sure that Spud was spoilt rotten on the day she turned two. 

Isn't it great to be a 2 year old?

24 months

It seems that we have come a long, long, long way away to this stage where Spud turns two!

Her Terrible Two stage started quite a while back; and by now we are quite unfazed as to what she comes up with. It can still be annoying at times, but other times when I look back they seemed quite amusing.

Like the time when she decided that she was going to strip herself naked for no reason. And then got obsessed with trying to put on her own diaper using Squirt's diaper size (!). That kept her busy for a good 20 minutes, and the whole time she refused to have any clothes on.


Like the the time when she thought she didn't need to have to put her pants on wth her Calvin and Hobbes T-shirt. She fought for 15 minutes with the Nanny, screaming and kicking and running around the house before the Nanny managed to get the pants on her. And after that, just like that, it was as if nothing had happened.

Like the time when she thinks that she needs a wet wipe every 2 seconds and use it as a diaper for all of her stuff animals. And by the end of the day, we'll find tissues in almost every corner of the house.

And oh yes! She is certainly pushing her boundaries a little bit more each day, but tends to calm down better when she realises that she cannot get away with wanting things her way all the time.

Spud is our little big girl now. She is this girl who seems to have an endless supply of Energizer batteries in her body. She is lithe, she is mobile, she is energetic, she is restless, she holds no fear and is a rather "spirited" kid. That being said, transitioning her to a toddler's bed suddenly became an urgency...quicker than we thought it would be (that would be another story for another time!)

Her words and vocabulary are exploding by leaps and bounds. She parrots our every sentence and copies our every move.  It still amazes me as to how much she remembers stuff, and she has a knack for remembering the last few words of every page in the books within days of reading a new book to her. 

She picks up difficult words quite quick too – at least quicker than me! One word which always cracks me up when she says it is “Vruchtenhagel”  (pronounced as vroooththunhahhel or something like that). It is a Dutch word for fruit sprinklers – which happens to be Spud’s flavor of the month bread spread for her breakfast in the last few weeks.  I can’t even remember it the first or second time of hearing it, and it  took me almost a week to remember that word (thanks to Spud repeating it over and over again), let alone pronounce it right., yet this little child managed to say it without putting in too much effort . Little child at this age can be so amazing! 

Spud has been really nice to me these days – she no longer rejects me like she used to. Funnily enough, her attitude towards me started to turn around right about the time when I was able to start carrying her again. These days, it has been quite fun to hang out with her.

It's also looking like her Asian genes is showing up stronger...with..(dare I say it?!)...her looking more like me when I was a toddler! For her sakes, though, I hope grows up to be taller than I am with a better personality than mine.

She's into bear-wearing...

Playing with sand at an indoor playground. I love her outfit assemble here

Happy, happy Spud!