Apple Pear Drink

The little girl is down with phelgmy cough and cold. With "bad breath", I was quite sure she was getting "heaty".

Researched online and found a drink suitable for coughing toddlers, so decided to give it a shot. My mum cooks this regularly (minus the pear and almond).

The drink is pretty sweet and the little girl didn't mind drinking it. I used a slow cooker so I don't need to watch over the fire.

Ingredients were adapted from http://food-4tots.com/2009/07/25/apple-soup. Hubby and I agree that it would be wierd to have it as a savory soup, so I omitted the meat and the bitter almond (since pregnant n tods should avoid due to toxicity). Instead of soup, we have a drink.

Ingredients
2 apples (small sized)
1 pear (brown skin, big one)
3 figs (无花果)
3 honey dates (蜜枣）
10grams sweet almonds (南杏）
Enough water to cover the ingredients

I shaved away the skin of the pear and apples (removing the core and slicing them in quarters and halves). Rinse remaining ingeedients. Put all together n slow cook on high (for about 3-4hrs).

The result is a clear yellow sweet liquid... ;)

More scribbles... ;)

Little girl was scribbling on the note pad while I was peeling the pamelo that day.

Didn't really pay attention to the small scribblings other than the fact that she was proudly spelling her name on the paper.

The next day on closer scrutinity, she actually wrote her name again - reversed this time. The surname was also reversed! *sheez* mum always tells me that this is normal for younger kids. Sure hope it's the case.

On the lighter note, she wrote the word "九" on her own! Amazing!!! ;)

Lil gal's first movie - Disney's "Brave"

It was a movie which hubby and I wanted to bring the little gal to watch last week but failed because little gal went down with fever and a bad bout of cough.

Worried that the film will be taken off soon, we decided to bring her today! Golden Village has this offer where you can buy 2 tickets and get one free for the kid. We bought the tickets for the 1pm show at 12 noon. Luckily the gal had a fuss-free lunch @ Soup spoon. Enjoying the soup with bread... ;p

It was her first movie in the theatre - 100 mins. She manage to sit through munching through her pop corn and sips of warm water. She was however a little distracted during parts of the show and was more interested in distributing the pop corn to me and hubby.

Overall, she manage to catch the gist of the movie - like the queen/mother turning into a big black bear. She did like it and I sure hope she doesn't get nightmares from the images of a pretty fierce looking bear... :p

Strangely, the story to me was not about Princess Merida's bravery but more of how easily daughters can misunderstand a mother's love. The fight between the bears displayed the ferocity of a mother's love in protecting her loved ones. To hubby, part of the witch's hint was what he felt meaningful: "Fate be changed, look inside. Mend the bond torn by pride". Well that's very much the gist of the movie... ;)

Sand Art

Thought this would be a fun activity, so when my parents walked pass a push cart and wanted to buy something for little gal, I suggested buying sand art for her. My parents agreed and bought 3 pcs for $5 (abt A4 size each).

Well little gal and I did one some weeks back at my granny's place. He admired my patience since that pc came "uncut". Yup, I used a pen- knife to cut out the bigger areas so the sand could go in.

Weeks later, little gal pulled out "Mickey" sand art and insisted on doing it up. Brave mummy took up the challenge- she choose the colours & poured them while I help pour the sand into different disposable bowls. This time it looks more "complete" as all the small parts could be removed for the sand... ;)

The conclusion: doing this sand art is a test of the parent's patience. But check out the smile on her face (priceless?). :)

Learning another colour?

After the colour "RED", it is on to "BLUE". For some reason, she prefers big letters (capital) over small letters... When I ask for "small letters", she takes it literally and writes me "small-sized" words in capital letter.

The school will allow the kids to doodle on recycled paper and without aid, little gal actually spelled the word "BLUE" (notice it is is caps...) ;)

Guess the little "Colour" projects are working... ;)

Yummy fruits: Petite champagne grapes

I remember that when I was very young, staple fruits were banana, orange, apple and pear... Occasionally grapes (since they were expensive then).

Now fruit stalls bring in more variety - kiwi, cherries, peaches, nectarines, pulms, prunes, dragonfruit, etc. Now it's so easy to buy seedless grapes. The fruit stall we frequent sells this variety of grape which are special - not only seedless but also small!

Check out how much the little gal enjoy these little grapes! ;) Slowly savouring them one by one...

My TTC journey :)

I am about 18 weeks now and this is just a record of what had happened for #2.

The TTC journey is a long one this round... Comparing it with my first pregnancy which took only about 6 months with the help of Clomid and ovulation monitoring.

This TTC journey started 2 years ago when we started planning for a "Rabbit baby". The Rabbit year came and went. Enter the year of the "Dragon"... The months to try for a Dragon were coming to an end. Not that Dragon matters but it's almost 2 years of trying! Medical attention was definitely needed...

I went back to SGH's CARE which helped me conceive back in 2008. The doctor recommended two cycles of Clomid. After failing one cycle with Clomid, the doctor ordered an additional trigger shot during the 2nd cycle. Having read the side effects of long term Clomid usage, I did not want to be on more Clomid. So, I went back to the gynae who delivered my #1. There, I relied only on ovulation monitoring (i.e. ultrasound scanning and LH test kits). Just when the gynae asked if we would consider IUI during my next cycle, since my "natural" attempts have failed, we hit the jackpot!

This attempt was no different from the other cycles. The only difference was that we tried alternate days just before, during and after the LH surge. I remember during my TTC journey, there was a lady who blogged about her LH test kits and it was called - pee on stick. For memory sake, I actually took pictures of the LH test kits and put them side by side for comparison. So here there are  - the photos of LH test kits used in this successful cycle. My gynae confirmed that the positive test result should be the 3rd stick and not the first. As to why the second kit looks so negative, he couldn't quite explain. :p

The #2 pregnancy was also a Mothers' Day gift. I tested positive the day before Mothers' Day. Was 4-5 days late and I wasn't holding up much hope since it was normal for my cycle to be late up to 5-6 days. But positive it was. :)

Will be blogging more about the pregnancy in the next few posts! :)

Practice makes perfect?!

After the PTM with lil gal's school teacher, we decided to settle down with alternating weekdays with worksheets/revision & play.

Well at least some part of it paid off when I gave her a revision and she could spell out loud, write the word "RED" (in big and small letters, yah and she really writes it small!) and point out the Colour to me.

Nothing great i guess but I'm happy to see some results... ;) and yeah she can write her name on her own too (thou I feel she writes her "O" very big!).