A meal for one

So I was inspired by Obachan, and I finally made my own chicken and mushroom claypot gohan(rice).

I used short grained rice from US, not from Japan, unfortunately, for the rice from Japan costs a bomb. Me cannot afford. :P I added a dash of dashi stock, a little bit of soy-sauce, a little bit of dark soy-sauce, a little bit of mirin, and a little bit of salt. Used carrots, chicken and shitake mushrooms. Towards, the end, I turned up the heat and burnt the rice a bit so as to get that nice burnt flavour. Yummie! And baby was pretty cooperative and let me finsihed cooking before he woke up. *beamz*

Some improvements I'll make: must marinate chicken first before cooking! And perhaps a little bit of garlic too. And there I was, worried that how I was going to cook rice for one, this lunch actually turned out great!

:)

*****
I brought baby to visit an ex-classmate, and he had a wonderful time playing with her two kids and their toys. When baby came back, he was so tired, he slept like a pig. Heh. Shall do that more often! The last time I gave baby some flu medication and he slept like a pig too, and woke up quite stoned. Think I won't give him anymore. Not very nice to see him looking so glazed all day. He was a real good kid today, not too troublesome to take care of, wonder why my mom always find him such a chore. She spoils him too much, I'd say!

Baby dearest isn't always a good kid though. Here's a picture of him demolishing my bookcase. Damn, must put a cloth over my shelves! I taught him to put the books back, and sometimes when I'm lucky, he'll put the books back after pulling them down.

And here's a picture of baby dearest sitting cross-legged on the coffee table drinking his ribena. Or well, trying to drink. He prefers the mummy to hold the bottle for him. And don't talk about bottles, when I give him the pacifier, he prefers me to hold the pacifier for him too! *rolls eyes*

Why I am upset

Yep, this place if for me to whine and complain. Otherwise how else can I vent my frustration and anger?

So today my father said he'll come by during dinner, and I asked him if it's convenient to buy me dinner. I specifically told him what I wanted, and he said ok. So guess what? When he came buy, he bought everything which HE likes, and nothing I liked or wanted. Okie, not all, so I only ended up eating six small pieces of sushi. Because the rest he bought are what HE likes, which I don't like. Might as well don't buy anything for me right? Arrrrrggggh.

:(

ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH.

The sake I liked

This is the sake I always buy home to drink. Well, hubby usually finishes it for I seldom drink, but I like to go with sushi sometimes and it's nice to have a bottle in the fridge for that. :)

Home alone with baby. And he's finally asleep. Thank goodness. Who says I can rest though? To work, to wash the clothes.

Xmas wish list

It's going to be the time of the year when everything will be glittery and pretty and cash registers ring and buzz and hey, what do you know? GST increases again next year! *sigh*

Still, it's always nice to have a dream ya? And I stepped into the shop out of boredom and decided that it's a nice dream if I could have this. :P



Yep, a very pretty charm bracelet indeed, and it'll go with my ear-rings and necklace. :P Too bad it's just silver and will tarnish, but it doesn't come in white gold and it's just so ex.

Ah well .... dream dream dream. :)

On a sidenote, a wishlist for baby? The stuffs from ELC looks really pretty, but I'm not sure if he'll appreciate them. Baby dearest is now learning to play with his toys, but he wants you to play with him else he's just not interested. I've been playing octopus with him nowadays and he laughs so happily. :P Perhaps one of those magnetic doodle thingy? You have to see it to believe it, baby dearest knows how to how a pen and doodle on paper, and with some help, he can write his ABCs. :P

Or perhaps books would be nice. Oh boy, he luuuvves books! Mine especially. He stands and pulls mine all down the shelves. As of now, I've bought him a total of three books, and read them to him from time to time. Is he ever so tickled. :) And you know what? He took my baby magazine once and really flipped through it looking at the pictures. Didn't tear a single page at all! Is he good eh? :)

Yep, baby dearest is sometimes too smart for his parents to handle.

I got him one of those toys where you put those different shapes into different holes. He's getting the hang of it, though he only plays with it when we encourages him to. The only stuffs he plays by himself is 'empty-mummy's-or-granny's-bag'. Yep, that's certainly my cute rascal. :)

Hmm... it feels like Friday again yesterday and today! Oh, it's Friday already! Yay!! :)

Blury baby

It's so hard to take a pic of baby nowadays. He's always on the move, and all I get is a blury baby.




Oh yeah, he's trying to climb into his playpen. Well, at least he's trying to get his toys from the playpen. His playpen is actually this big place where we keep all his things. Plus his sleeping cot. Which he doesn't sleep in. Well, we tried, but no heart to let him sleep on his own yet. :P

Just the other night, I swear baby dearest has an antenna somewhere in his little head of his. There he was sleeping on the bed in the bedroom and here I was in the study room, and all of a sudden he knew I was not around and started crying for me. That was twice in an hour. Thank goodness, his antenna is switched off tonight. :)

<-- Here's baby dearest on his daddy's shoulders. Grabbing the hair. And trying to grab books off the shelves again.

And here's baby dearest after his great fall. He has been having this runny nose for a while now, so this is definitely not his day! -->


Nowadays, my baby dearest doesn't want to stand. You put him to stand, he immediately bends his knees and lands up squating instead. Oh, he's such a cautious little big baby. Mummy wants me to stand? No way ... me sit. Baby is extremely mobile too. He goes from standing holding a piece of furniture, to squating and takes off crawling towards you. Presto. Did I mention that he got into the kitchen, stood over the shelves and pull down my tupperware water container? Fortunately it was only about one quarter full, and the water flooded the floor. Baby was stunned for a while, but quickly took stock of the situation and started 'swimming' on the floor. Splish, splash, splosh! He goes, oh so happy, while his poor mummy has to mop up the mess whilst in the middle of cooking. *mutter*

My shoulders really hurt from carrying him! Baby dearest was making a lot of noise after dinner. He wants his after-dinner-walk, so I brought him down for a walk. After a couple of rounds, I decided to head back. When I reached the lift landing, baby started grumbling and crying. No! He hasn't got enough! He pointed his little finger in the opposite direction and said, 'Ah there?'. So mummy obliged. After another round, his mummy with really aching arms put her foot down and up we went, with baby dearest protesting loudly and expressively. Straight into the ear. Fierce hmm?

Blue black

Dear baby is now 11 months old! My my, he is a big boy now. I think he's teething though, he's having a bad runny nose and is starting to have excess drool. Poor baby gets so uncomfortable especially at night, and so does his mummy too. He woke up in the middle of the night and I have to carry and rock him to sleep. Me poor back!

Last night baby fell off the bed (again) and this time he got an ugly bruise on his forehead to show for it. :( It's all my fault unfortunately. I put him on the bed and switched off the lights because he was so super hyperactive, that the only way to get him to sleep was to switch off all lights and cuddle/feed him to sleep. Unfortunately, his little baby brains thought this was some kind of new game, and he suddenly lurched towards me, only to fall through thin air and right smack onto the ground. He cried inconsolably for half an hour after that. *sigh* No amount of hugging or rocking or kissing could stop him. Only two things did the trick. One was when I turned on the tap in the kitchen sink, and he stopped long enough to play with the water. Too bad I couldn't let him play all night and he cried even louder after that. The other method was to bring him out for a walk. That got him sleepy and quiet and he finally fell asleep.

He definitely feels heavier than ten kilos! Me poor aching back and arms!

Baby dearest was so hyperactive all day, yesterday and today. In order to prevent him from ransacking my bookshelf, I put a mattress in front of him, to block him from reaching the books. My baby dearest loves to stand in front of the shelves and pull down all my books and throw them onto the floor. Sometimes he would proceed to read them. :P Hmm, don't believe me ah? heh. Okie, so anyway, last evening he became cleverer and actually pawed at the mattress to pull it down, and he whacked his cheek on the shelf. That was another bruise. He cried a bit and looked sheepishly at me. Duh serves him right. :P

So baby dearest today was all bruises on his face. Did I get a good scolding from my parents! :X

What could be worse?

Today is not my day. After the last post, baby dearest finally pooed after four days. This calls for a celebration, but NOT when he got so much poo that it went up his diapers and onto his shirt and pants. And of course no one else is around to clean him up, so me, moi and I have to do it. And what could be worse? Yep, the poo got onto me as I was carrying him to the bathtub.

Yeeeuuuch.

Next time when I'm old and decrepit, would baby dearest wash my backside too? :P

He's finally sleeping after a dose of fedac. He actually looked forward to taking the medicine. He opened his mouth wide with a happy look of anticipation, and I squirted the stuff from the syringe into his mouth. When he tasted it, the look on his face was priceless. Hahahah. He couldn't make up his mind whether he liked or disliked it.

Now dirty clothes, here I come!

Gotta wash the poo off his clothes too. Yeeeuuucchhh. But I guess it's still better than bis and holly licking other dog's POO! And then kissing Wen after that!! Heh.

My crybaby

The aircon is leaking again, the clothes are still in the soak and the dishes are only three quarters done. My dear crybaby is rummaging through the wastepaper basket and pulling out rubbish and literally throwing them all over the floor. You should have seen him go through his diaper bag. One diaper ... weee .... throw to the right. Another diaper ... whooosh ... throw to his left. Right left right left until everything is emptied. I swear he even turned the bag upside down to make sure nothing was left. Nope, not going to let him has his way with the wastepaper basket! It's almost full! Smack his little hands.

So my crybaby koked himself on the windowpane and looked at me and baaaawled. Mummy just looked back at where she was and smiled at him. Earlier on, I had successfully put him to sleep and wanted to do some housechores. In less than fifteen minutes, the crybaby woke up and baaaaaawled his head off. I raced upstairs (after taking my time) and found him sitting up in bed and crying his poor little eyes out. Wah lao eh. Like he was being abandoned or something. Duh. I sat on the bed besides him and he stopped crying. I stepped out of the room to the toilet and he started again. Duh. I took a washcloth to clean his face and returned to the toilet and he started howling again. That is why I'm now sitting here typing away while he's looking out at the window and the rain. I guess if I walked out of the room he's going to start crying again. *slaps forehead*

So the laundry's still not done, the kitchen is still in a mess, and the bloody aircon is leaking (on my clothes so I had even more clothes to wash). It's a gloomy day and the sky is pouring. I didn't buy my 6 tubs of hazgan daz ice-cream yesterday when they were on sale. Baaaaawwwl. :(

*****
On a nicer note, we finally managed to meet up and had the most delicious crabs last night. Even baby joined in the fun. He was sooo hyperactive and oh-so-cute. Simply irresistable eh? Anyone else wants to come and help nanny him? ;P Like NOW.

Maybe some fedac might do the trick. Besides his poor little nose is running too. *sigh*

When oh when ...

It felt like Friday yesterday. And it feels like Friday today. Alas, my luv ... tis not Friday yet.

I cooked beef steak today. Yummie! And vegetables (borsch soup except chicken stock not beef)and steamed sweet potato. Yummie! Except that the beef seemed just a little too small, and as such ... I'm still hungry. Maybe that's why dinner tasted especially delicious. :P

Damn, nowadays I can eat a whole cow.

Poo talk , baby talk, girl talk

It's been a while since I've posted pictures of baby dearest. He's still as cute and naughty as ever, or cuter and naughtier as he could be, so much so that I didn't have the opportunity to take photos of him. We went swimming, climb stairs (him), walking around the estate (him again, holding on to my hands) etc, and many more precious moments together. Now he knows to clap his hands when we ask him to, and can do high-fives easily too. He knows to look for the key, when we say key, and to look for the cat, when we say cat. His eyes grew huge when he saw a Siberian greyhound(?) the other day, and he reached out his hands eagerly, so we 'chased' after the owner and her dog - the mummy huffing and puffing while carrying her ten kilo baby. Yep, time to introduce him to Holly and Bis. I wonder who would be more afraid of whom?

Baby dearest is a big boy now. His poo is also extremely smelly and big and lots of them. That's what my father said today. Of course it would be lots, he had one week's worth of poo stuck inside him! Jolly good I wasn't around to be the recipient. Heh heh. :P My parents grumbled that they needed a potty but there wasn't one, so they put him on the WC, and both of them went ah..mmmMMmm.MmmmmMmmm..mmMMmmMmmm together with him. I can imagine my dear boy's face turning all red. :P Back where I was with hubby dearest, we were actually discussing whether to give him an enema and some medicine if he didn't poo today. I bet he heard us loud and clear and quickly did his business before we got his hands on him! Hahaha. :P

Gotta monitor the poo situation carefully. Mustn't wait for one week's worth of poo to accumulate! Now that we've got the medicine and enema ready, no problem! Baby's poo, here we come!

Sorry Xena, no photos of poo this time. :X

I took a break and went off window shopping in the afternoon. Met up with Wen, the only friend who happened to be in town. Caught some gossip about some people she knew, which was funny as hell, and incredible as anything, shared a lovely fruit tart and carrot cake - all things which I've not been able to do since the arrival of baby dearest. I wished I could bring baby out shopping with me, like I see some young mothers and their babies, but they have their girlfriends or husbands with them, and I don't think it's still very wise for me to bring baby dearest out on my own. Besides I had to rush back to help hubby at night, so no baby, too bad.

The window shopping turned out to be rather expensive as I spied a pretty pair of ear-rings back at where I always get my ear-rings. Heh heh heh.

All in all, the walk and chat and shop did lift my spirits much and hey, you know what, I can face the coming week much better now! :) Wished I had some friends I could just call and crap about how bad the day is, but things don't always work the way we want to. Nowadays the only people I get to sms are my students (exams!! oh horrors) and the only people I get to talk/joke with are the shop boutique sales assistants (if I ever go out). And come to think of it, it's kinda relaxing and fun being with Wen because she tells really funny stuffs which makes me laugh. I don't think any of my other girlfriends do that (besides PM sometimes perhaps, though now she's just full of angst and stress and can be quite incoherent!) The other person was the ex-schoolmate who prattled on with her funny and interesting life experiences . OH man .... I'm so in need of someone telling me funny stuffs!

Life gets boring if there's nothing to laugh at.

Hell hath no fury

And I was so so fuming mad today.

We left the house fifteen minutes earlier so that I could be early. Only to find that hubby had left my bag at home after I dropped him off at work. I was sooo angry all the way to my parents' place and all the way back home and all the way to work. Baby, for once, was extremely quiet throughout the journey. He glanced at me, saw my super black face and looked out of the window, and did not even make a whimper. Mummy's super black mood must be oozing out of her pores.

I said: I'll carry baby and you carry all the bags.

My bag was left on the floor by the shoes. How not angry can I be? My keys, my wallet, my identity cards, my everything! If one day I were to die on the street, and without my bag, I'll be a Jane Doe. A woman's identity is in her bag. No bag, no body.

On a scale of 1 to 10, my anger was 11. The +1 came from the remark that I always blamed him when things go wrong. I have a good reason for this. Two in fact. And I have the right to be extremely angry. All things considered, I wasn't being unreasonable at all.

I'm no longer angry now, but I'm still not appeased. We shall wait and see. All these things do add up.