Rambling

I think I may never get around to updating everything, so I'll just ramble off some of the things that have been happening in the last couple of weeks.

We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by running some errands and doing Christmas shopping.  Our aim was to finish all our shopping before I deliver.  It may be an everyday thing for a lot of people, but having a whole day to hang out, just the two of us, is something Jon and I don't get to do that often.  It turned out that our anniversary took on an 'old school' theme by accident.  It started with lunch at Wishbone, a restaurant that's been around since I was a little girl.  My Mum had a cooked food stall opposite, and between plucking tao gay and picking tau suan, my brother and I would hop over to buy ice-cream from Happy Kappy, their dessert arm. 

Dinner was at Shashlik, a Russian restaurant at Far East Shopping Centre.  It's a place with special meaning for us cos Jon once brought me there for a surprise dinner.  It was one of those times that he really really managed to surprise me :)  Things haven't changed at all in the intervening nine years.  The place looks the same, and the food was just as good.  The Borsch was heavenly and the Shashlik, of course, was great too.  As for dessert, we just couldn't resist ordering the ever indulgent baked Alaska.  How things have changed for us personally though.  We're now married with one kid, and one more on the way!

Day 2 of our wedding anniversay (our wedding was spread over 2 days, so we have an excuse to celebrate more!), we had lunch at the chicken rice stall on the top floor of Far East Plaza - another old school joint.  Somewhere we both went to as students. 

For me it felt like we were dating all over again, and it was just sweet and romantic in an everyday, ordinary way :)

Now that we're both on leave too, we've been settling stuff in the day while Asher's at school.  We haven't had so many afternoons out together since we were students!  So we caught Narnia, and I'm hoping to catch the sneak of Gulliver's Travels tomorrow.

As for Asher, he's settled very well into his new school.  Although initially he'd protest a bit when I left, now he walks off to join his friends and blows us kisses as we head off :)  He always seems to happy when we pick him up, and I love how he runs to us to greet us with a big big hug :)  Things really took a turn for the better when Jon started dropping off and picking up Asher together with me.  I think that helped him adjust more quickly.  I was worried that if I continued to drop/pick Asher alone, when Baby comes Asher would feel abandoned or neglected if I suddenly stopped sending him to school.  So these last 2 weeks we've been doing it together, and it has come to the point where Asher's ok even if Jon picked him up by himself. 

Jon's been more hands on these last two weeks at home, and that has helped me lots, and is great for Asher.  From helping with laundry to bathing Asher when I need a rest.  Asher's now even closer to Jon, and it's evidenced by requests from Asher for Daddy to read to him, even though storytime is usually done by Mummy.  I'm really happy to see them bonding :)

Asher's also eating SO much better.  I was reading up on picky eating sometime last month, and found that kids who are not pressured to eat end up getting all the nutrients they need anyway.  I think that perhaps in my anxiety about his weight loss and his poor food in-take, I was unconsciously making meal times stressful for him.  I decided to let go, to not press for him to "take another bite", to just offer him a wide variety of healthy options and let him pick when he wants to eat from that selection.  I decided to let him be in charge of his intake, afterall they say breastfed kids know how to regulate their food intake well.  And the results were quick and satisfying.  Within a day or two he was eating more, and he started drinking milk again (yes, he had rejected even that!  At it's worst, he could go an entire day with less than 200ml of milk and just 2 tablespoons of rice!).  He now generally eats heartily, even though there are some meals where he just picks at the food.  But that's ok.  I've come to be very zen about it, especially cos I now adopt the mindset that it's just one of many meals in a week.  He's still more of a vegetarian/fruitarian, not liking to eat meat that much, but I've found a pretty decent list of almost full-proof food that he'll take, some of these he ate even during his picky phase.  Some things are, well, fast-food, but I've also come to think that if he will eat it, let him be.  It's still food afterall.  At home offer him the healthier stuff, outside, close one eye. 

So here's the list: all fruits, veg (esp carrots and corn), my bolognaise sauce, fish fingers, chicken nuggets, egg tofu, rice (esp if he helped to cook it), roti prata, tortillas, eggs (in one form or another - but you must give it to him in the form he wants or he won't eat it), and the KFC breakfast platter (he esp likes the biscuits).  Besides these, the cuisine that seems to work almost all the time is Indian food.  So far, he has without fail (to my memory at least) eaten well whenever we have Indian food.  Roti prata is one case in point.  He will happily munch on egg prata, and sometimes even dips it into the curry.  He loves briyani rice, he eats dahl curry, has munched up palak paneer (a mild spinach and cheese curry) with gusto, likes vegetable korma, eats dosai and apun jala (pancakes which look like spider webs), and enjoys papadum no end.  I think he likes their stronger flavours, and I'm not surprised, given how much Indian and Malay food I ate when I was pregnant and breastfeeding.

So it was a very happy Selena tonight as we left Samy's curry.  He ate very well, eating half a good sized piece of dry curried fish (he actually ate fish without me having to sneak it in!), dahl with briyani, papadum, and a cup of mixed fruit (this is something I didn't know they offered until today!).  I have always liked going to Samy's curry, and we've brought him there before, but tonight I left thinking, "I love Samy's!".  The staff are always so friendly to him, saying hi as they walk by.  He likes having his own banana leaf to eat off, free flow of papadum and dahl, fab lime juice, and now there's  even fruits to end the meal!!  And for the parents - great teh tarik too :) 

We weighed him tonight, and I was very surprised and happy to see that he's finally broken 12!  He's 12.4 kg!!  What a vast improvement from a month ago when he fell back into the 10 range! 

So I'm very very happy to see Asher happy at home, at school, at meals.  He's really been a jolly fellow these few weeks with Mummy and Daddy being available to him.  I hope it keeps up when Baby comes, and when Jon goes back to work. 

Speaking of Baby, we've decided on the name already, but we'll keep it under wraps until he arrives.  Asher's been refering to Baby by his name for the last several months, and I suppose we can't change it now else he'd be so confused when Baby is introduced with a different name.  Anyway, it's a name we like very much, and in fact was the first name we considered many many months ago when I was about 3-4 months pregnant.  We deliberated several others in the last few months, but nothing quite sat as well with us. Anyway, I'll elaborate more on the name when Baby arrives.

Asher's been very sweet though.  He talks about Baby as part of the family.  A few days ago when playing with blocks he built a house for Baby.  He has also in his new school played with a baby doll, and called it by Baby's name.  He carried the doll, brought it for a stroll around the room in a stroller, fed him milk, and included him in storytime :)  (I've some pics, will see if I can upload when I move to a new site.)  He says that Baby loves him, and he loves Baby.  I just hope that this good feeling keeps up! 

I've been getting him prepared for the arrival of the little one.  Asher chose to give a toy to Baby, and he's picked out which toy.  He knows I'm going to be in hospital for two days, and he'll stay with Por Por.  He knows it tiring to deliver and Mummy might be sleeping a lot after.  And the most recent piece of info I've introduced is that Mummy doesn't know when Baby is coming.  Only God/Jesus knows.  I realised I had to tell him this last piece of info too in case Baby comes in the middle of the night and we're not around in the morning when he wakes up!  Right now Asher's not the most reliable predictor of when Baby will come.  Every time I ask him whether Baby is coming before or after Christmas the answer changes :)   

And as for Christmas, I can't wait! :)  Where will I be celebrating it?  At home?  At a friend's house?  In hospital?  Let's just see how it goes!

Turning 2 at Changi

These were the last pics I managed to squeeze onto my blog. 

We celebrated Asher birthday with family at Charlie's Corner in Changi Village.  Our Changi stay was planned to coincide with his birthday, so we thought it'd be convenient to celebrate it somewhere in the area.  Plus, my Mum really likes the pork chops there :) 

The highlight for Asher and Aidan were the car/bike rides available just next to our dinner spot.  They started on the individual bikes, and later shared a car ride.  It amazed me how quickly they both got the hang of riding the bikes.  And the uncle operating the rides said that almost all parents were surprised!  The kids he sees all apparently take to the rides really quickly.  He kept repeating in Mandarin how you must just give them a chance to do it, and they will amaze you.  They did!  After just a short while they were both independently biking around the circuit.  But, there was one thing that highlighted that they were still just very young toddlers - they were easily distracted.  When an aeroplane flew by they'd go, "AEROPLANE!", forgetting to watch where they were going.  That's when we had to step in to prevent them from crashing into the curb/cones :)  Anyway, the uncle said that some of the older kids he sees can probably reverse park better than their parents! :) 

Happily biking on his own

Going for a spin in the car.  Aidan is really good with machines.  After a while he figured out how to steer the car and brake too!  Asher just enjoyed his joy ride :)

A small blackforest cake.  Predicted (rightly) that we'd all be too full after dinner :)

Whaley Bouncy Birthday @ Loewen Gardens

I had been prepping Asher for a while by repeatedly telling him about the event, so he knew that he was having a party that day.  

It was held at The Pantry @ Loewen Gardens, and the invite list was the same as last year :)  Besides his very dear cousins, there were the playmates he meets more often who are basically the second generation of Mummy and Daddy's long-time friends.  It was nice that more of the kids (and parents) could come this time around :) 

Think The Pantry suited our needs very well. We wanted somewhere fun for the kids, somewhere with nice food (good coffee was a bonus!), and somewhere not too far from our place. It worked out well, I think, with the children occupying themselves at the many play spaces, the adults seemed to enjoy the food, the cake which the cafe made was delicious, and we even had an impromptu post-party of sorts at the trampoline. And at the end of all that, no cleaning up to do!! Yippie!

Didn't really deliberately set out to have a whaley theme.  It kind of just fell into place.  Whales are one of the creatures that Asher really likes, and basically his party centred around what he liked.  He liked the place the last time we went there, he likes whales (among other things), and whatever was in the party pack he also personally liked.  Yes, he really liked what was in the party packs.  After packing them the night before, I had put them in bags on the floor all ready to be picked up and brought along.  In the morning, Asher didn't come to wake me as usual, but I awoke to the sound of rustling plastic bags and realised he was rummaging through the party packs!  He wanted to take everything!!  He wanted to keep the water squirters, to play with the aeroplanes, to blow the bubbles....he didn't get around to seeing the cookies or he'd ask to eat them I'm sure, and if he saw the stickers, he'd probably have peeled them off already. 

I extracted him from the treasure and told him it was for his friends, but he didn't want to accept that.  Somehow in the end, I can't remember how, we managed to distract him, and at the party we covered the party packs in case he refused to have them be given away :)  Yes, like I said.  He really really likes the stuff in there. 

Prepared some noise makers or 'shakers' for the kids to decorate.  It was quite a hilarious process to make them though.  I had put some beans inside the folded paper plates to help create the noise, then glued it close.  After making the first one I happily beamed at Jon and said, "Ta Da!" while shaking it.  It make noise for two shakes...then silence....the glue hadn't dried...my beans got stuck to the side!!! So I had to quickly pry open the plate again and try to stuff in more beans.  But cos it was half glued shut, I had a little bit of difficulty holding the plate flat, with the result of having more beans get stuck to the side!  But in the end managed to get some in the middle.  Then I left it alone to dry :) 

The second try, I thought I left the plate long enough to dry, but again, after two to three shakes...silence!!  Scrambled to get more beans inside again.  Decided to not shake any of the rest until the next morning, just to be sure! :)) 

All ready for the guests to arrive.  Those yellow balloons didn't last beyond 30mins.  Either cos some burst, or cos they were hijacked by the kids.   But that was the whole intention anyway, for the kids to play with the balloons, and not just be decor :)

Lots of spaces for playing

Checking out the Christmas decor

The giant cake.  The owner of the cafe, Jane, told me that it was a 12 inch cake.  But she didn't say how high!   I generally like savory food more so I found the icing much too sweet for me, but the chocolate sponge was really good, and by the end of the day I had eaten wayyy too many slices of cake.

Gathered the kids together in the hope of getting a group shot, but in the end could only get 6 of the 7 on the sofa

More play spaces

The start of the post-party trampoline fun

Fun with adults

Even more fun with no adults!

Group hug!

Tao pok!

Getting tired

This was super fun.  Emma's Dad went under the trampoline and pushed the kids up with his legs, making them fly!  The kids had no idea what was happening and why they were flying cos the bottom of the trampoline was opaque, but they absolutely LOVED it! :)

Taking a break

Post post-party!

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Asher, I love you more than you know.  You bring me so much joy, and I feel so blessed to have you in my life.  You have taught me many many things by what you notice, what you say, and I have loved all our little excursions together.  You enjoy going to the zoo, to the beach, to the Botanic Gardens.  You absolutely adore running through fountains.  You love the playground - in school when it's time to go to the playground you always eagerly shout "outdoor!".  You are very observant, and often spot little things that I don't even notice, like the way some animals move and tiny aeroplanes in the night-time sky.  You love books, and you enjoy reading together very much.  Your memory also often amazes me, like how you rememered what the fat penguins did on Philips Island, how the rhino in the zoo looked at you, what characters are in your books, etc.  You are also getting cheekier and chattier, and I love getting an insight into what goes through your mind.

You are such great company, lots of fun, very sweet, sensitive, and loving.  Caring for you has not been without it's difficulties, but the love and happiness you bring more than out-weigh all that.  I love you for who you are.  I am so amazed by how much you've grown, how much you've changed, how much you've developed, and I can only thank God for all this.  Happy Birthday Sweetie! 

  

Once Upon A Milkshake

Jon brought me to try this fairly new milkshake place called Once Upon A Milkshake at Maxwell Chambers.  He had heard lots of good reviews about it, and since he knows I like milkshakes, brought me there on Deepavali.

We headed there after lunch at a nearby Japanese-style Korean restaurant called Bukang Tuna which sells the strangest looking fish I've ever seen, the Flatfish.  Honestly, it looks like the entire species have some kind of deformity, but that's just how they are.  Look at how the fish develops! 

And as it turns out, many so-called food fish are a kind of Flatfish too, like flounder, plaice, halibut, and sole.  Find out more from wiki!

Anyhow, the fish must be the specialty of the restaurant cos they had lots and lots of Flatfish in the fish tanks.  None of them were moving at all though, which made me wonder how they swim given one fin is on top (facing the sky) and one below (facing the bottom of the tank).

We didn't try the Flatfish that day, but the lunch sets we
had were good and value for money.  The service is good too.  They even on their own initiative brought a small bowl of beef porridge for Asher.  Gratis!  Definitely scored points with me on that count.

But anyway back to the milkshake.

It's a simple setting with the decor du jour of mismatched chairs.  Not quite so ecclectic since the chairs were mass-produced pieces rather than unique one-of-a-kind ones.  But again, I digress.

The shakes were good!  I am absolutely of the opinion that milkshakes must be thick, otherwise it's just milk.  Milkshake that's thin in consistency is a waste of time.  So far the closest to a proper milkshake has been good ol' McDonald's.  It's thick, it doesn't melt too quickly, and cheap haha.

The milkshakes sold here are of a thick consistency as well, but are much smoother than the McDonald's ones.  Mac's shakes can sometimes be too powdery/grainy.  There's a wider range of flavours to choose from too.  I had Cerious Maple which was exactly what I was looking for that day - something simple with a twist.  It's essentially vanilla with some maple syrup and sprinkled with crunchy maple cereal flakes.  Jon had the Vanilla Pot, which was basic vanilla - a good way to test the quality of a shake. 

Their other flavours sound quite exciting too and there are a few I'm already eyeing for our next visit there, such as Chocolate Truffle Castle, Litchi Otokonoko, Grumbling Raisins..er...actually, I think I most of their flavours sound quite good, and would suit different moods/weathers. 

Cerious Maple

Enjoying big gulps of our shakes before nodding off contentedly for his nap

Artichoke

To celebrate my father-in-law's birthday we went to a fairly new establishment called Artichoke at Sculpture Square along Middle Road.  The place is immediately inviting, and the smells emanating from the kitchen are mouth-watering.  The place serves my kind of food - Moroccan & Middle-Eastern influenced with fresh ingredients.  We ordered way too much, but what fun to try the many dishes!  The menu there changes frequently to keep things interesting, and often the best dishes are written on the wall.  Loved the lamb short ribs cooked with chermoula spices - so well cooked the meat just comes off the bone; the hummus and babaganoush with bread were what they are meant to be - flavourful and comforting; the beef stew was excellent - robust, rich, extremely tender, but not stodgey; the moussaka was lovely - light with a lingering flavour; the leg of lamb served with seven veg couscous was perfectly done; and the popcorn chicken was a fried food indulgence that lived up to it's name - it really comes with popcorn :)

One of the few pics I had a chance to snap.  Beetroot with feta and a sprinkling of nuts.

Their offering reminded me very much of Mecca Bah in Melbourne, and I was quite pleased to have a place to go to in Singapore for something similar.  I would have taken pictures of everything if my hands weren't so tied up with Asher - he was fussing and not wanting to eat even though ordinarily, he'd eat everything on that table!  In the end I only took pics of the first dishes that arrived.

Anyway, the place serves brunch too, so might pop by there another day to try it.  But we'll definitely be coming back again some time!

 Drawing for the first 1 min of the meal.  

There was essentially no meal for him since he didn't eat dinner per se...

He only had some fruit garnishing Grandpa's cake

Bollywood Veggies

To top off our overseas-without-being-overseas weekend, we made a trip to Bollywood Veggies, somewhere we've been wanting to check out.  The restaurant was surprisingly un-farm-ish.  Erm...I guess I didn't expect it to look like a restaurant, rather I thought it'd be more of a shack or a hawker stall.  It was a pleasant surprise :)  We tried their nasi lemak (which interestingly came with banana chips), banana flower curry (which I liked, but wasn't quite to Jon's taste), and a Kandy style curry chicken (which was good).

It was a super hot day plus Asher was overdue for a nap so we didn't walk around as much as we wanted to.  But we'll definitely head back, and hopefully hit the goat farms and some other farms as well.  It isn't a bad idea to stay a night at the D'Kranji Farm Resort so you can check out all the farms without having to drive up repeatedly.  Maybe when the boy(s) are older :)

Home of the gentle warrior...

...who shoots you with a cross bow if you don't turn off your engine...hmmm...

The restaurant

 Mixing drinks for Mummy & Daddy 

 

Plenty to explore

Cat's whiskers flower!  I think the name is so appropriate :)

Blackhearts

But Asher kept correcting me and saying "purple", even though I tried to explain it's just a name :)

One of the ladies working there gave him an organically grown banana, which tasted very different from the usual bananas we get from the market.  Different type I suppose?

The Magic Island

Brought Asher to catch PLAYtime's The Magic Island at the Esplandae Theatres after school.  I thought that it was a good production in that the storyline was kept simple, the characters sufficiently engaging, and it was obvious the children enjoyed the programme.  Plus, the tickets aren't that expensive at $15.

The Recital Hall was set up with a platform in the middle (the island), four marked out areas for parents and children to sit, four more 'islands' in the outer perimeter, and a platform in front which, I suppose, was a hill. 

Basically the story is about a little girl who visits her big sister, and during her week-long visit tries to make friends with the animals she meets.  She eventually makes friends with Baby Monkey, Baby Tiger and Sally the vegetarian singing Snake.  It brings the children through a series of adventures such as a journey to Coconut Island, to Starfish Island, and learning how to swim. 

Asher was engaged throughout the performance, and I had to catch him back several times when he wanted to wander onto the stage, or didn't want to come back to my lap after an interactive portion where the children actually were allowed to go on stage :)  He particularly like Baby Tiger, and after the performance we walked around Esplanade looking for Baby Tiger to say hello.  I think he had fun, at least, he nodded his head when I asked him after if he did :)

Will definitely try to go for their other performances next time.

As usual, when we're at the Esplanade, we headed to the bayside to see the Merlion and watch the boats go by.  That day there were canoes, and even better, two eagles soaring above.  They even swooped down a couple of times to catch fish!  What a treat to watch.

Trying to be an eagle

 

We ended the outing with dinner at Ichiban Boshi.  The food there is always decent for the price, and I really like some of their sushi items.  I ordered an unagi-tofu-tempura set to share with Asher, and a side order of cha soba.  The set was hearty and I was happy with the variety of dishes it came with.  Besides the three mentioned above, it also came with miso soup, some pickles, chawanmushi, a bowl of rice and oranges.  The portion of unagi was generous and they gave an entire slab of tofu!  Asher eventually only wanted to munch some of my tempura, but walloped the soba, a mound of rice, the entire bowl of chawanmushi and the oranges.  Didn't realise he would like chawanmushi so much! 

Overall, a good outing :)

National Day Starts at Kith Cafe

Brunch excursions continue.  We met Joce, Clarence, Emma, Jian Ming, Jo, and Josiah at Kith Cafe @ Rodyk Street near Robertson Quay for breakfast on National Day.  Most of us came in red-and-white even though we didn't plan for it.  I guess having kids makes you do that to make the day more special.  Then again, I always do that anyway hahahaaa.  I like national day.  Majulah Singapura!  I love my country.  Just because.  I just do :)

Anyway, back to breakfast.  The food was not too bad.  I guess the big breakfast set was alright, nothing to shout about I thought.  But Jon thought the hot dog was great.  I didn't really try it so can't really comment there.  The place is small though, and not very kid friendly.  We ended up putting two small tables together, and still didn't have enough space for all of us.  And we had to kop chairs from here and there to get seats for 6, even though there were 9 of us.  The kids were running around most of the time, and a few of us were running after them, so it still worked out fine :) 

The kids had enjoyed watching the boats go by (the cafe is located along the river), running on the pavements, and trooping into a bicycle cum book and stationary store (yes, a rather unusual combination) which boasted a cute kitten and a friendly cockatoo.  I think the kitten was more afraid of the three of them then they were of it :)  It looked a little spooked and hid behind a table.

Clarence was definitely Uncle-of-the-day.  He single handedly managed all three kids at one point, and on more than one occasion carried two toddlers by himself :)  Definitely all ready of baby number 2.  Speaking of which it was good to chat with Joce and Jo who are also expecting, and like with our first kids, we are all due within months of each other.  We were exchanging info on our plans to make space at home for the second kid, how to handle the childcare situation, and all that.  It's reassuring to have friends who are at the same lifestage as you.  In particular, it was reassuring to find that we all didn't really have a plan we were completely satisfied with. I guess you just have to make do after a while. 

Later at night, we allowed Asher to stay up late to watch the NDP parade.  He had during his staycation with the grandies seen the aeroplanes, helicopters, and fireworks live from Fairmont Hotel, so he was quite eager to watch NDP when I told him that he could see all these things again.  Plus, he would get to see tanks, fire engines, soldiers, and people dancing. 

And, muahaha, I managed to get him to stand with  me for the pledge and national anthem, and he even enthusiastically joined me in dancing to "stand up for Singapore" :O)  Jon just rolled his eyes. 

After the parade came to an end around 10pm, I brought Asher to the bed and sang national day songs until he fell asleep :)  Brainwashing!!!  Hiah hiah hiah