I love strawberries!

Went to NTUC yesterday for the usual grocery shopping. The Bukit Merah NTUC is the biggest one near my area and there is always so much to "see", that we spend quite some time walking up and down the alsies. 

As I was not in my best form, I just wanted to grab the stuff and head home. So as hubby and mother-in-law were leisurely shopping, I decided to laze at the "corner" with the children- as they entertained themself with servings of chilled drinking water. There was even a small bench to rest your foot. 

We hung around the area for quite some time and i noticed NTUC's implementation of wheelfriendly facilities (from an elevator to buttons that you can press to call for assistance at the lane you are at. The call button area also features a manifying glass which is good for elderly who forget their glasses). 

#2 as usual was keen in Strawberries! A punnet cost a whopping $7.20 (there were 12 South Korea strawberries in the punnet). I shoke my head and said no, too expensive. But when she said "mummy i want these strawberries please?" in such a sweet voice, heh... Ok la buy lor. Tsk tsk... Hubby must be shaking his head as he reads this... 

The strawberries were really sweet and fresh. They smell really good! We tried them when we reach home and it was really really yummy! 

This was the last serving of three strawberries shared between #2 & #3... Luckily #2 was willing to part some of her favourite fruit to #3. 

Ignore didi's face. Didn't know why he was even grimancing... :p

Happiness in a different form...

I am very sick today with chills and aches running down my body... Returned home to find that I was running a high temperature... 

After bringing #1 and #3 to the doctor's with me, we came home for some "fun". Birthday cakes and candles always brings smiles to the children faces. And nothing beats the excitement (though I wish I could be as excited as they were with the fever). 

The candles were lighted (one per kid), the birthday song rehearsed, the candles blown a few times... And the whole cake was gobbled up by the kids (too heaty for me, guess its really good since #1 had 3 pieces!)...

 

快乐就那么简单。

Shanghai 2015 day 1

IWas very happy to be flying SQ again this time. Yeah yeah SQ is my favourite airline with better service and food. This is our second trip with my in-laws and all three in tow. As usual the number of luggages we have is "astounding". 8 pieces of luggage and 1 pram. 

M helping with one of our luggages... ;) 

This time round the staff was very nice- dishing out lots and lots of drinks, food, ice-cream. The kids had their freebies. N and M enjoyed their children's meals. 

The kids had a little fun before take off. 

L and M also manage to get their beauty sleep on the plane. ;) 

Me coaxing didi to sleep in the carrier...

Papa looking stylish with the kids headphone...

We reached Shanghai Pudong airport at around 6pm. It was late and dark outside. We had a quick meal at the aurport and headed to take bus #2 from the airport to the residence we were staying at (Le Residence- review in part 2 of the blog). The bus ride took about less than an hour and cost us each RM22  per adult. Kids were free if they sat on our lap. ;) 

Pork Rib Soup with a twist

After loads and loads of chicken soup, it is time to balance it out with some pork based soup. Dearest #3 is not a fan of vegetable stock. *boys...* 

Anyway, I decided to do a twist for the pork based soup - what is available in the fridge and what was missing from the fridge (yeah ran out of carrots!). Out of "bo-bian-ness", I put the best of ingredients I had... 

Ingredients 

Pork bones with some meat (it was the cheapest bones that I could get that was not that BIG bone) 

Scallions (sliced thinly- 1 stalk) 

Tomatoes (2) 

Potatoes (2)

Yellow onion (1 medium sized) 

A small bunch of ikan billis (stomachs removed - abt 15pcs) 

Red dates (1-2 without pits)

As with soups, dumped all of them together and then add water till all ingredients and covered (+a bit more). I slow cooked in my rice cooker for abt 7 hrs and let it soaking in the ingredients "warmed" overnight. The next day the soup really smell and taste more flavorful. 

Forgot to take photo of ingredients. But here is the final product... ;)

CNY 2015

This chinese new year is a quiet one for us. Hubby's grandpa passed away so we are not able to 拜年 or give hong baos. 

The cny eve dinner was at my place for convinience so that I did not need to travel with my three kiddos in tow. Instead of the usual steamboat, we had western meal. Which makes up of BBQ pork rib, roasted corn on cob & vegetable and classic cabonara. The minestrone soup was a frozen pack from Fazzler. ;) 

The kids enjoyed the classic cabonara and of course the chocolate fondue which followed. The dessert was unplanned so there was very little strawberries to go around... 

According to my mil, the kids can still wear nice CNY clothes. I did very last minute shopping at chinatown (alone) and landed with clothes for the two girls, nephew and hubby. The highlight for me was of course 日日红麻辣香锅！lolz. Hey it's addictive and I love it to bits! 

Prior to buying gai gai clothes, there was shopping around for didi's very first set of  CNY clothes... 

This was bought from Giant. ;) very nice looking set at not very cheap price... Haha but it's his first so it better look good! On first day of the new year, he got his first angpow from the 老板娘 of hubby's favourite wanton noodle store. 

The remaining days of CNY were spent with more eating... @ Radin Mas CC for a grassroot gathering. 

Chicken soybean stock

The yummy smelling chicken stock meant for didi... The scallop makes the stock even sweeter and more flavourful. ;) In the pot, there is 

Chicken bones ($2 worth the spine area + neck - abt 6 strips) 

1 carrots

1 scallop

1 handfull of soy bean (washed and soaked)

What's left of the stock ingredients. Even the carrots are tasteless... Haha.

The yield which is suited to be kept in the freezer for up to 2 wks. 

Cute max...

Perhaps its a second child's cuteness - learning things from the elder sibling...

M is now talking, mostly in bits and pieces or jus babbling some incoherant phrases... Recently (@ 21 mths) fwe noticed that instead of expressing herself in words, she will use sounds or actions: 

When something is nice to eat... She will shake her backside and go "mmmmmmm.....".

When something goes wrong or she "spoilt" something or we go "horrrrr...", she will say "ohhhhh oooohhhh".

When we ask her something and the answer should have been a "yes" (eg did you drop your pacifier?), she would go "mmmm hmmm".

When she is duly impressed with something, she goes "wowwwww" or "wahhhhh". 

Cute max ain't it - learnt all these from non other than sister dearest. Am savoring every moment of this for as long as it lasts and while its still cute...

Didi's first swim! :)

This time round hubby was the one who kept asking me if L was reading for the "swim" at BabySpa. He had signed M up for 20 sessions and we used up about 10 sessions so far.

Luckily, we could pay to extend membership and add L in to use up the sessions. Last week, L had his first "spa" experience at 14 weeks old. His first session was a full "non-stop" 10 minutes worth of kicking session, pausing occassionally for a rest. 

Actually, it's quite difficult to get him full and well rested for the "swim", his naps are so short and sometimes I do wonder if he drinks enough! Looking a little unsure about what is happening...

Apparently he is also very much in love with this chinese staff who would speak to him and he smiles readily in return. 

And yes the big friendly smile... 

This week we return for a second not so successful session... About 5 minutes into the swim, the boy is tired and wants to sleep... The same lady attends to him and guess what! He fell asleep! That's a first! 

Quite impressive and back breaking to bend over to keep rocking this boy in the water so he won't cry... Sheeezzz... 

Hopefully the next session would be a better one! ;) 

I am learning to talk...

For some strange reason, I do not recall N's learning journey for speaking. I can only remember her first word being "bird" and that was after she figured out how to address papa, mama, nai nai and yeh yeh... 

At 19 months old, M is finally able to address all of us - "mama" being an early word she used as compared to N. Uh... The wonders of our bonding through latching. Sometimes in her excitement she would call hubby "mama" too. 

Recently, she decided to join her sister in calling hubby "daddy" - her way of pronoucing? "Da-yeeee"... Lolz

Mother in law has also thought her a few chinese words "饱饱” (meaning she is full after a meal), "我要" or "我也要” (meaning yes I want or I also want and nodding her head), "不要” (don't want), "喝水” (drink water). The other word which she can consistently recognise and name is "ball". She can also say  "要 tu-tu", for someone who can't live without her pacifier... 

Just this evening, we also taught her to say "please"... Well, its kinda wrong because of the mixture of chinese with english - but courtesy right? So M went "喝水”, then I went say "please?". So she said "pi-sssssseeee". Oh well better than nothing right? 

She is at such a fun age now. Must start teaching her more words... ;) 

Ending the post with a picture of my two lovely girls... ;) 

Mama its sooo painful...

I know teething pains are part and parcel of growing up. These little beings (even myself) don't remember much of this traumatic experience after that. 

During the wee hours of today and yesterday, hubby and I watched helplessly as my usually gung ho toddler woke up to cry. The little girl pushed all her fingers into her mouth against the gums and cry. The misery apparent with saliva (loads and loads of it) and tears smeared all over her face. There were several occassions this week where she sticks her fingers into her mouth and then cry as though she had her fingers in between cupboard doors. 

Today's misery is made worse by a rather empty tummy since she refused her milk feed before her sleep.

Having had N go through this before, a lot of people would say it would be a walk in the park for me. Rightfully, I would have lots of tricks up my sleeve! Well... Right but wrong at the same time. 

Dentinox and ice cold towels DID NOT work. Rubbing dentinox and using ice cold towels to rub against the gums worked for N but not for this little gal. 

Today, I told hubby to go to sleep since he needed to go to work later. Took over the crying girl. Went to the kitchen and offered her an ice cube. Ok ok I am sensing frowns - which freaking parent would give an ice cube to a young child at 2am in the morning. That's me in desperation to soothe her. If she was miserable, I was not going to be any easier on me. She sucked it, pushed the ice out and swirled the ice cold water in her mouth. As the ice got smaller, could see her pushing it at the molar areas in her mouth. 

Being more calm, she also nodded when I offered her cold milk. She rejected the hot milk early remember? She happily/hungrily drank and finished what was left in the fridge. Then requested for another ice cube (pointed to the top part of the fridge). Gave it to her and she happily took it. For some unknown reason she ran out to the living room but started crying and refused to eat the ice cube. Uh well, nevermind - the earlier ice cube had already done a good job. 

Brought her to room, changed her out (romper was wet with saliva, tears and what not), applied her fav Baby Vicks on her chest and moved her back to her bed. Hopefully she sleeps till the next morning... 

DG, I hope you will allow the molars to emerge soon and return the fiesty but cheery little girl to me. It breaks my heart to see her cry like this. Hubby commented that she has lost her cute little tummy for eating so little this past week. Hopefully her appetite would also come back when those big molars are out. 

The "milk milk" journey so far...

3 August 2014... 22 days to the day I go back to work. Took all 16 weeks of maternity leave and truth is with my mil at home to watch the other two kids, life is so great! I don't feel like returning to work... *ooops* 

Baby L is coming to three months old next week. I have latched him since day 1, an hour after his arrival. As with each baby, the breastfeeding journey is different yet equally fulfiling. 

My fear is still in relation to latching. Baby M had a better latch/suction, while baby L's latch was percieved (by me) as shallow and gentler (didn't need nipple cream this round!). For the record, he made lots of grunts, clicking sounds and pulling back of his head during the early days of latching. The above (based on internet research) were considered bad latch! Knowing my "flow", L was just unhappy about the forceful let downs - he would pull back and a proper latch will become shallow (just so he could control the milk volume). And of course, instead of gulping down the milk, he would let them flow out of his mouth (messy!!!). 

Baby L also presented a new set of challenge - milk spitting which suddenly started at 2 weeks old... The amount of milk that comes out can be quite unnerving (since my first two babies didn't have this problem. M's milk spits were due to over feeding during cluster latches and at 3 months old). After some  internet research (such as kellymom), baby L was held upright for 15 mins after feeds, burped whenever he unlatched during the feed and he slept in an elevated (at the bed head) baby cot... Oh yes, the best tip I learnt from the internet - burping him by rubbing in a circular motion on his left area below the shoulder (instead of patting). This brings up a burp quicker and more effectively. The other thing I learnt, never go anywhere without a burping cloth. 

As I was saying, the days where I can latch him in the day is dwindling... Am already thinking how I will miss latching him while lying down (yes, I will doze off too) and of course how I really hate to pump (after pumping 11 months straight on a daily basis for N)... Mother in law and hubby have (over the past 2-3 days) asked me when I would start pumping so baby L can practise bottle feeding. 

Well, I am going back to work so I better start... Keeping fingers crossed that he would take to the bottles just like baby M. ;) 

3 Aug 2014, the day I turn 33 years old is also the day I finally took out and sterilised his glass bottle (looks so nice right?) and my pump parts. 

Here's wishing myself a successful moo-moo career ahead! And a photo of the super relaxed boy sleeping on my bf-ing pillow (for some reason M also enjoyed her time as a baby on this pillow).

 

Caterpillar to pretty butterfly...

Remember my recent fixation? My sister got me another batch of caterpillars - apparently her father in law's lime plant was "home sweet home" to quite a large number of eggs laid by the lime butterfly(s?). 

She recently inspected the plant and caught me another fresh batch of 5 more "babes"... And in this picture you will see them all at different stages of growth... The young doesn't look too appetising isnt it? Looking like bird poop would save them from birds. As they grow bigger they turn green and gets hidden when they hide among the leaves. I noticed after they turn green, they "balloon" in size very quickly. The large green one was about the size of the small green one less than 2 days ago...

Back to the original two caterpillars, the one that landed up on the bottom of the bowl finally turned into a pretty butterfly! Initially, I thought it was dead - despite observing what look like the outline of wings on the surface of the pupa (can you spot it?) 

On 24 July, nine days after it became a pupa , it emerged as a pretty butterfly! The aftermath of its emergence is mmm pretty disgusting (can't tell from the photo right? It was actually wet)...

Here are pictures of the butterfly. N was so excited that she camped next to the "habitat". When hubby returned from work, she loudly exclaimed "daddy daddy look at my butterfly!". 

We decided to release the butterfly on the same day. We headed to Hort park only to realise there wasn't much vegetation. Hubby then drove to Labrador Park - much better and we saw other butterflies there as well. We let N release the butterfly after I opened the paper covering the habitat...

N slowly peels the paper away (initally I was worried that the butterfly will fly into her face). 

It didn't... Instead it stayed on the paper and flapped its wings - like it was saying thank you and good bye. 

Finally it took off into the hot evening... Landed on some greens for hubby to take some last photos before it took off and we never saw it again... Can you spot it in the photos? 

The other caterpillar (from batch 1) is still in the pupa stage. Hubby said that the bowl doesn't make a good container for photos. He bought a tall glass bottle for it... So I transferred the pupa by pasting the branch on a longer stem... 

I wonder when it will emerge and surprise the children... I would think soon? The pupa seems to be getting more "chao dar" (brown/burnt) - as dark areas appear - on the top part of the pupa (which I think is the butterfly's wings). Since this one became a pupa about 2-3 days after the first, it should be emerging soon! Excited! 

Caterpillars!

I have always wanted to get my hands on caterpillars. Since N is old enough to appreciate and since she loves science. 

I was super excited when my sis posted on facebook that her FIL's lime tree was infested with caterpillars. I immediately told her i wanted to adopt 2! 

I thought i could wait till the next day for photos but it was too late! One was on its way to be a pupae, while the other was chomping its way through another leaf... 

This is the one that was hanging from the top of the bowl cover... 

Horrors of horrors! It fell off the top! :( and it's at the bottom of the bowl... 

Am praying it doesn't die... Consulted a few friends who told me to leave it alone. Like some first time parent, i took out the bowl to look at the "fallen" caterpillar and noticed it was turning lighter - a process called crystallis... Hopefully it will continue to grow into a beautiful butterfly... 

Anyway I did some research and with confirmation from my friend Sylvia, it is concluded that this is a lime butterfly offspring at its very late final stages of being a caterpillar. The lifecycle is being chronicled in this blog I found online. 

http://butterflycircle.blogspot.sg/2011/11/life-history-of-lime-butterfly-v20.html?m=1