Lesson from a wise african old lady

 Echo was an 64 year old female eleplant, matriarch of the EB family living in Amboseli.  Every Monday in March, I've followed Echo on Animal planet.  I can relate so well with the behavior of the elephant family - where the female rules.  All females will remain with the family forever whereas the males will go independent and leave the group once they reach adulthood.

I've been reflecting on my feelings and thoughts in these 8 months following the birth of my son, wondering why is it that I can be so comfortable to let my family hold my son whereas I am so protective when my in-laws get near to him.  Finally, some enlightenment when I saw how the smartest land animal behave - it is basic instinct.  All animals except for humans, never get to meet their paternal family.  It is natural for a mother to be nervious when their off-springs are with anyone other than her own family.  Lions behave this way as well.

It is inevitable that one day my beloved son will have a family of his own and his wife will too feel the same way about me.  I will always remember this lesson from the wise african old lady.  I am praying hard that I will have a daughter of my own.

I was so sad when a search on the internet last night revealed that Echo passed away in May 2009.  You can follow Echo's EB family on Cynthia Moss's blog on the ATE (Amboseli Trust for Elephant) website. http://elephanttrust.org/blog/15
(The picture above was sourced from the same site)

I lived in a family of 4 sisters and my mum takes care of every single detail of home.  Seeing Echo with her family, reminded me of my mum and our family.  She is a majestic mother, grandmother and a caring caregiver for my son - my mum is truely a matriarch of my family.

Trial for the Tiger Food Jar

I did a trial with the Tiger Food Jar and it is really fuss free!

The porridge turn out to be very soft, something like those watery teochew porridge. I need to pour the "am" away and mesh up the contents a little with a spoon to suit my 7.5 months baby. I feed him the "am" separately like a soup and he loves it too!

The difficult part about cooking with this food jar is to estimate how much rice grains and water to add.

Serving size: 1 bowl of porridge

Ingredients

• 1 chinese soupspoon of rice grains, washed
• 300ml boiling hot water 

Method

1. Washed the food jar and pre-heat it by pouring some boiling hot water into it. Set for 10 mintues
2. Pour out the hot water
3. Add in the rice grains and pour in the boiling hot water.
4. Close the cap, wait for 4 hours... Voila! It's ready to eat.  

Tip: It is best if you can put the rice grains and water in a pot and heat up until boiling for 5 minutes before pouring the contents into the food jar. This will reduce the waiting time to 2 hours.

  

If you are looking for something that whip up those sticky cantonese porridge, this gadget will not do the job.

See also Sweet potato porride in Tiger Food Jar, Lazy mummy's cooking method

My Tiger Food Jar

Finally... Got my hands on the Tiger Food Jar which was highly recommended on SMH Aug09.
Thanks to Auntie Suzanna, whom managed to help me grab it from the Isetan card member's private sale!

This gadget can cook porriage on-the-go, then I can make porriage for Bay when we're in Chengdu next week. hohohoho!

Can you believe this tag? The original price is $109 and I got it for $39.90 during the sale.
The original price should be about $65 (Actual selling at BHG)
  



 
See also Trial run for Tiger Food Jar, Sweet potato porride in Tiger Food Jar, Lazy mummy's cooking method

"Kiiron" has arrived!

After Mark decided to name our boy "Kiiron", we did a search on internet and found out that "Kiiron" is a location of a highly secret military base in the book "Kiiron" by Trisha Johnson

Behaving like the usual tacky parents, we placed an order on 21st Oct 2009 with Borders so that our little boy can have the book that shares the same name with him.

I collected the book today, after almost a 5 months wait for it to be shipped from US.
Brought us back by $49.95 + $6.95 for shipping charges.


Book Summary
Karl Dornik, military specialist turned drifter, crash lands on Iskinar, a desert planet in the Veil Nebula. He is arrested and taken to Kiiron, the location of a highly secret military base. While being transferred to Midpoint Haven, the military government’s command center, he manages to escape and is rescued by the beautiful Treecia ven Willem, a trader on her way home from worlds deep in the heart of the galaxy. She is tall, blonde and fiercely independent, but she has a dark secret. Dornik is determined to penetrate the mystery surrounding Kiiron, and he and Treecia return to Iskinar, where they are befriended by the diminutive Corrua, whose people have been taken captive and transported to an unknown destination. They offer to help find Corrua’s wife and children and become involved in a mesh of politics and intrigue, implicating both the Confederation (the original, civilian government) and the Protectorate (the military rulers). Whether you’re a science-fiction adventure fan or not, you’ll be turning the pages of Kiiron to see what happens next!

It's a boy!

Name: BaoBao for now. Waiting for Daddy to think of a name
Birthday: 25Jul2009
Weight: 3025g
Length: 52 cm
Head: 35 cm
Delivery: Natural with Epi and Vacuum

Birth highlights  

• 24Jul 6pm: 1cm dilated. BB head still high. Insert 1st induce tablet at Dr's clinic
• Go home to have dinner and bath
• 25Jul 12.30am: Check-in MAH after roti prata supper 
• 25Jul 1am: 3cm dilated. Insert 2nd induce tablet. Contractions starts, some as high as 130 recorded but I dont really feel much pain
• 25Jul 9am: 4cm dilated. Dr break waterbag. REAL contraction pain starts... ok this is no fun!
• 25Jul 9.15am: Epi!!!
• Wait... Wait... Wait... no food at all. Super irritating when Mark when for lunch / dinner and came back smelling like a walking canteen 
• 25Jul 6pm: Fully dilated but BB head is still high (cant get engaged properly...) Dr decided to get me to try pushing but she say that if cannot come thru then will have to go for c-sec!
• PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! ... but I'm so hungry where got energy!
• 25Jul 6.58pm: After pushing for 1 hr! BB is delivered with assisted vacuum

The team in MAH is really quite good. They know that I'll have a difficult time to push, so 2 staff nurses were standing by my side to help me push my stomach when I pushed and the Dr were standing below pulling with the vacuum. They really helped to squeeze the BB out of me.

Where is Mark during this whole time? I cant see him at all, he was holding my head!

The first words that I said to BaoBao when I had him for the first time in my arms... "You have double eye lids!" Gosh! How shallow and superficial can I get? Must be due to no food for the whole day and my brain is not functioning...

My first thought immediately after the delivery? Actually I wasn't overwhelm with joy and anything like that... I was just thinking about how horrible the delivery process was and it sure is the top 3 most horrible experience in my life!

洁语录之...
I want to be a man in my next life... how great to tell my wife to wait in the delivery room and starve while I go enjoy my lunch!
  

5 years and counting...

Today is our 5th Wedding anniversary and how meaningful it is to spend it by going for our 1st prenatal photoshoot. I had great fun and it reminded me of the day we took our wedding shots.

I'm in W36 now.

   

This is my favourite.
Gosh! My tummy looked like it is going to burst any time. Some people told me that my tummy looked like a fake one as no part of my body grew except for the tummy!

I'm in W25

This is the 25th week of my gestation.

Times had moved so fast and its seems like only yesterday that I found that I'm preggie.
Mark and I had been praying for baby for some time now and this is really a special gift as he was conceived on Mark's birthday.

...

During this week, Dr found that my blood sugar is over the normal high limit.
(Normal is 7.8 and I'm 8.59)
I hereby officially announced that my sugar and carbo eating days are over!

Year 2008

Year 2008 just zoomed passed so quickly.
It is already in the last 3 days and I've not posted once this year...

So much for my life as a blogger.

Looking at the trend, I cant say that I've successfully fulfilled any of my resolution...
so I've decided to not make them this year.

Well, maybe for one...
I hope to be a good mumsy
:)

Holidays for everyone

December... it's holiday time for everyone, including Kippy!

My parents are going to China to visit the relatives there and Jean has plans for holidays in Japan and Shanghai, therefore we need arrange for a sitter for our beloved Kippy.

Kippy is also going for holidays too... 10D9N tour to Punggol in Bini's home. (Seriously, I heard that Mum had even packed a huge bag for him)

Jipi setup a webcam to show kippy's movement and I can view his actions online (http://kippy.audiomind.org/).
Here's some pics that I managed to save from the link.

Kippy is so cute!

In the land of Christmas

I am in the land of Christmas this week for work. It is so dark and cold here. The sun rises at 10 am and sets at 4 pm!

her-her-ha-he... 快使用双截棍...

Greetings from 上海体育场! So many people at Jay Chou's concert!



I'm going for Jay Chou's concert in Shanghai on 24Nov!

Finally the tickets are in my hands!

I am actually quite upset to miss his concert in Singapore on 19Jan2008 as most likely I will not be back in Singapore then and anyway the tickets are totally sold out in Singapore.

Mark's company sponsered some stuff and managed to get 2 free 包厢 tickets. (kekekeke!) Hope it will not be too far away from the stage.

Thank you darling for making the effort to get the tickets!!!

Shopping Spree

I went on a shopping spree in 证大广场 (Superbrand mall near to Oriental Pearl tower).  There's so many of my fav shops here... H&M, UNIQLO, Zara, Agatha...

I bought 6 tops, 1 skirt, 1 pair of gloves and 2 rings. Total damage is about RMB 1000+. Not too bad!
Eventhough I've been in China for almost 3 years now, but I'm still not used to the value of RMB.  In Singapore, I'll think twice about spending S$25 on a top but will not bat an eyelid to spend RMB129.  I better be careful not to over-spend now... but I need some new shoes to go with my new clothes!!! 

A lousy evening

I've spend the past 1 week or so of my leave doing nothing.

My typical day is to wake up at about 10+ in the morning, then check emails, manage my facebook and then practice crazy taxi. In the evening, I'll go to Carrefour to shop and then try to cook.

During this few days, I'd came to realise that I'm not suitable to be a housewife. As you can see above, my typical day does not include doing housework. Thus the house is in quite a mess. But I tried to fulfilled my duties as a wife by cooking dinner.

However I'm quite pissed today. I'd cooked dinner by 7 pm and then waited for Mark to come home to have dinner together. He came home at 8pm without informing me! I was famished by then and immediately served dinner. But I end up eating dinner alone as Mark was busy reading his blackberry and did not response when I asked him to have dinner.

I really don't understand... what can be so rush and important? Even US president can afford to have dinner with his wife.

Days in Shanghai

I'm on leave for 2 weeks from 10Nov to 25Nov. I've no plans on how to spend these days. Basically I'll just nau at home in Shanghai.

I'm back

I'm back in Singapore.... finally!

I'm not able to access to Multiply or Blogspot in China and cannot update my sites at all. SO DEPRESS!!! So strange leh, Cho can login when he was in Beijing, but I can't.

I'm a Blogger

Finally... I have my own blog!
It was created when I was in a telconf (yes, obviously I was not listening to the blabber)
:P