Little Feet

We received several pairs of shoes as gifts when Asher was born, and I only recently remembered to make sure Asher wears them before he outgrows them. It was a good thing I checked, cos one cute little blue pair of shoes fit just right!

Asher's first pair of shoes!

He was totally intrigued by them, I guess cos they feel different from the socks he's used to wearing, and examined them intently in the car (I realise he likes looking at his feet in the car whenever he's wearing new socks too :) ).










He stands much more steadily in them compared to when he's in socks, and I think he realised that too! He was happily looking at himself in the mirror while standing, and throughout the day was happy to be on his feet.


Hiii--yaaah! Kung fu!












Going out in his new shoes! :) Check out his big grin!









As a side note, this boy really likes looking at his reflection. Maybe he's realised that the image is his own now. Either that, or there's this little boy who follows him wherever he goes, and appears whenever there's a mirror. Sometimes I'll be burping him after a feed in a nursing room, and I spy him smiling broadly to himself, only to realise he was actually looking at a mirror behind me and smiling to his own reflection. Actually, if I don't remember wrongly from my days in Uni, babies are only supposed to recognise their own reflections between 18-24 months of age - that's a long way away. So maybe I'll try the rouge-test to see if Asher really recognises himself or not. There was research done on babies by putting some rouge on their noses and sitting them in front of a mirror. The test was to see if they touched their noses or not. Apparently young babies didn't touch their noses, but older babies did. I remember thinking then, could it just be that younger babies aren't able to coordinate their movements enough to bring their hands to their nose? Maybe they do recognise themselves, but just don't touch their noses? Well, in any case, I'll try it one day and see :)

Anyway, back to the shoes. I couldn't resist a shoe size comparison - esp to see the difference between Jon's feet and Asher's. I like this pic - it shows there's 3 of us in this household now :) Little feet that join us big-footed adults in our humble home :)

Niu Niu Comparison Continued

Asher's continued to grow taller and taller. Look back to the entry on 18 Dec 08 where Asher was almost as tall as Niu Niu. Now he's outgrown Niu Niu in height!

Wrestling!

Passport to Holiday Happiness

We're planning a/some trip/s with Asher, and hoping it'll come to pass :) So we applied for a passport, and this is his first passport photo!


HI!









These were the other options, some more viable than others :)

Sheepish look. "I'm definitely innocent, let me pass through the Green lane please."












The irreverent look. Might be considered improper as a passport photo, heh.










The shocked, bound-to-get-a-laugh-out-of-the-customs-officer look :) I thought we'd better not use this, cos Asher might kill me when he grows up haha

Precious Time

Free time to blog has been almost non-existent these last few weeks. When I do find some spare time, sometimes all I want to do is have a lie-down, or just stone in front of the telly.

Anyway, why has life been so busy? For a while Asher had some eating problems. He'd nurse a while then stop and cry after a couple of minutes. It was incredibly difficult to get him to eat! He'd want to latch on, then he'd stop and cry, as if in pain. He might be teething! He's been displaying the various symptoms like drooling (lots and lots), diarrhoea, and difficulty with eating (which could be due to pain from the pressure of the emerging teeth). Was quite concerned about his milk intake and weight gain during that period, and kept praying that he'd be ok. Praise God! He's continued to gain weight, and the difficulty eating seems to have gone away (maybe used to the pain? or no more pain? I have no idea). I'm so thankful he's better cos it was really tiring trying to get Asher to eat, and heart-wrenching too cos he really really wanted to eat but couldn't.

Just as Asher's eating got better, I fell sick! One morning I suddenly woke up with chills and ended up with a high fever. At it's worst it was 39.9! Thank God Jon was able to take half-a-day's leave, and then my mum managed to take some time off to help take care of Asher. I was really fatigued! Just sitting up for a little while made me light-headed and very tired. So I spent a few days recovering from that. Poor Asher must have been wondering why I wasn't playing much with him.

Anyway, while there were some busy/frustrating times, it's also been a fun few weeks. Brought Asher out quite a few times when I wasn't ill. I (ironically?) find it easier to bring Asher out and roam around than to find time for myself. I guess cos when I'm out with him I'm still caring for him and it's still 'us' time, not 'me' time. 'Me' time in the day only happens when he's sleeping and when there's no other chores to do in the house - a rarity as any housewife/stay home mum will know. There's somehow always something that needs to be settled at home. So, going out is fun, but it just delays my doing the home stuff. And you know how it goes...things will pile and there'll be more stuff....etc etc.

I'll still wanna update my blog with some of the outings we had so look out for some posts that'll be backdated (I just like it to be in chronological order lah..humour me) :)

Although I've been busy, it's been immensely rewarding as well cos Asher's been such a dear. He started laughing! :) And he just laughs at more and more things everyday! I really think he's got a good sense of humour. I'm so addicted to his laughter, especially when he breaks out in chuckles! He's also becoming more and more chatty, chiming in when Jon and I are talking, having 'conversations' with my mum, etc. What fun!






(24 Mar 09) Postnote: I'm all up to speed now!

Speedy Gonzales

After Asher went to sleep I indulged in some late night kitchen experiments. I took the recipes from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express, which I had bought at a London streetside booksale. I watched many of her shows while in London, and thought a recipe book with quick fixes would be great for an after-work evening. But now more than ever, with Asher to care for, quick recipes are all I have time for. Hooray Nigella!

What did I make? Mini croissants and Gravlax!

The croissants are not real croissants, but look-a-likes, which still taste great especially when fresh out of the oven. I filled them with dark choc (70%! yum!) and although I was supposed to only put in only one square of chocolate for each croissant, I greedily stuffed in 2 squares...then after making 4 uber-filled croissants realised there really wasn't enough pastry to wrap them up properly, so reluctantly reverted back to just one lonely square of chocolate in each.

The recipe really is speedy, and before you can say Gonzales, Jon and I were chomping on warm pastries while watching TV. Mmmm...

The next morning, bright and early at 6am, I baked another batch, this time stuffing most of them with peach marmalade for a breakfast-y twist. The plan was to make more so that we could distribute to our neighbours and relatives. That was the plan. In reality, Jon and I ate every single one of those 25 croissants all by ourselves!! Oooohhh the indulgence....and ohhhh the waistline...










Gravlax is really just salmon cured in salt and sugar. The one I made had a Jap twist to make it more like sashimi. In addition to salt and sugar I used sake and wasabi, so when you eat it it tastes like sashimi already dipped in wasabi. I wanted to make this dish so that I didn't have to cook lunch but just needed to slice up some fish and eat it together with crackers or rice. A time saver! I like it, though non-fish lovers will find it too fishy (to which I always say..."but fish has to taste fishy!")

Anya Faith Wee

Say hello to Anya! Asher has another cousin! She arrived happy and healthy on 9 Mar 09 (nice date huh?)













Asher is still intrigued by 'small people' (i.e., babies). But, I think he knows Anya is special, that she's his cousin, cos when we sat him down by her side, the first thing he did was to kick her bassinet!!

THE FIGHTING HAS BEGUN! tsk tsk tsk... :O) My brother and I have been conspiring to have the two boys gang up against Anya...looks like Asher overheard us and has started on his own already!


Just before the kick!







I had lots of fun growing up with my cousins, and I certainly hope that Asher and his cousins, Aidan and Anya (yes, all A's...it was purely by coincidence), will grow up close and have lots of great childhood memories too :) How wonderful that they are all less than 6 months apart! Of course, Ah Ma is the happiest of them all - three great-grandchildren in a short span of time.

So anyway, Anya, as Ah Ma would say, "guai guai kun, jit meh dua jit chun"!

Dim Sum @ Dragon Phoenix

We had a $30 discount voucher for Dragon Phoenix restaurant, so we decided to head over there for Sunday Dim Sum lunch with the Moks.

Food was good, and company was even better! We had the usual dim sum suspects (har gao, siew mai, etc), along with Dragon Phoenix's signature Yam Ring (ohhh yummy yummy yummy yummy!). The Char Siew Bao was also particularly good - the bread was very light and fluffy, and the meat filling flavourful.

The fun discovery we made was that Asher is now able to sit in a high chair unassisted! :) We don't actually have one at home so we have never tried putting him in one. But now, we're planning to get one from IKEA so he can sit with us for meals at home :) He was really good! He sat quietly throughout the meal, alternating between observing us eat and 'reading' his book.


Big boy now! Ready of the big table! :)



















Post lunch saw us chilling out at a Vietnamese coffee joint for a couple of hours just chatting and munching on cakes. Jon and I were so stuffed after that! So we went home for a simple dinner before settling Asher to bed, and settling ourselves in front of the telly :)