The Fish Pie

After waiting for 6 weeks, my driving test got postponed till 2 weeks later because my examiner was ill. To help with the excruciating wait, I've decided to fill my time with elaborate activities. Today I made Organic Fish Pie for Tobey's lunch. It took me 45 minutes.

Here's how I've done it.

1) Cut carrots, broccoli and baby spinach leaves to toddler bite size chunks and boil them (in that order as carrots takes forever to be soft)
2) Quarter 2 medium sized potatoes and one small portion of sweet potato. Boil till soft. Roughly mashed.
3) Make cheese sauce by stirring a knob of butter with 2 tbsp of plain flour. Alternately, add skimmed-milk and grated 30g of medium cheddar cheese whilst stirring. Keep stirring until sauce is smooth and in the correct consistency.
4) Add boneless and skinless fresh cod fish (cut into 2cm sq chunks, around 6 of them) to the sauce and stir till fish is cooked.
5) Add cooked veges from step 1 and stir.
6) Scoop onto bowls and scatter mashed potatoes on top.

He ate all his lunch without any hesitation. And that made me really happy.

One happy customer

The Garden Swing

Tobey has been spending at least an hour a day out in the garden when it's not raining. He simply loves being outside. He would bring his shoes to us and tap the back or front door whilst babbling to us, asking us to bring him out. Sometimes, he would use the keys and tries to "open" the doors to let himself out. But really, there's nothing much to keep him entertained besides the clothes pegs, several pots and a tent. So hubby is in a mission to create a mini play area for him. In addition to his tent, he got him a garden swing. This swing is now being used as a toddler swing. But it can also be converted into a proper child swing in the future. Here's the boy helping daddy assemble the swing...


And as predicted, he is overjoyed about his new summer toy...

Next? A slide. How I wish I am the kid now.

Tobey at Shean Wenn's 1st birthday

Shean Wenn is exactly 2 weeks younger than little Tobey. Her mum and myself have more or less seen our babies grew up together for the first year... not forgetting all the "fun" it was being pregnant at the same time ;P . Therefore, little Shean's 1st birthday was indeed extra special for me,SK and Tobey. It was held in a floating restaurant in London. The weather was gorgeous. Sunny all around. Food was SO delicious. Tobey sampled most of the dishes as well. We ate so much until we skipped dinner ..hahaha... thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Tobey was a good boy as he managed to sit in his high chair most of the time in that 3 hours. Midway through, we did took him out to vent out the access energy by letting him walk/run along the waterfront.

Tobey and Shean Wenn meet again

Scene 1:

Tobey (T): "Hello Shean, Happy Birthday, you look reaaaallly pretty today. We are finally toddlers, do you know?"
Shean Wenn (SW): " I Know! at least now we can walk, much more interesting isn't it?...hey, you don't look too bad yourself"

T: "These lace are cool by the way"
SW: "Yup it matches my dress really well"

T: "But this bow has to be the winner!"
SW: (hands off my bow!)

****************************************************************************
Scene 2:

T: "Hey, Shean, can I have a look at your fingers please?"
SW: "Errr, why?...ok"

T: "You've got nice fingers "

SW: "I think yours look nice too"
T: "Heeehehe..gee.. Thanks" (blush)

First train ride and Gymboree

I've decided to increase Tobey's weekly activities to include another class (as he gets bored easily) either another music class or playgroup. A few days ago, we went for a trial Gymboree gym class. It requires a short train ride from where we live. Tobey's first :)

OK...is this a very long car mummy...hmmmm

Are we there yet?

The class was just like his usual music class, except that they have this fascination of Gymbo the clown, louder music and several structures which proves to be quite fun for kids. There were several elevated "bridges", slides and huge foam balls, cylinders and various other forms. It was a structured play gym class, with singing involved. Other kids there were "season pros" , so they know what the itinerary, and what to expect. Tobey was just lost in it all. He wasn't interested in following the rest, just enjoyed exploring the new things surrounding him. He was like a boy in a sweet shop.

Mummy, I need my socks off please, else I'll slip!

This is so cool!.. Can we have one of this at home?
Helllloooooooooo........

I didn't really like feel of the franchise. First of all, no personal touches, it's like "woohoo, we are all having a fantastic time for an hour and oh! times-up goodbye" and no more talk about how your kid is progressing, see you in the next class, not even another glance. No sales pitch either. I hated it. It feels cold. Maybe it's because it was the last class of the day and they were all tired. But it wouldn't kill them to just "sell" me the class for 5 minutes. Anyway, hopefully we'll have a better Gymboree branch once we move to Cambridge.

Discipline-Freedom within boundaries

Tobey has been testing his "boundaries" with us for a couple of weeks now. Not physical boundaries, but boundaries relating to what he can or can't do. As cute as he might be, at times he really can be the tyrant of the house who loves to test our nerves. The elders (hence wiser ones) would say "boys will always be boys", but I see no reason why we can't curb the extremes and set him up with nice set of "rules" that will prove beneficial for him in the next chapters of his life (in school setting, in playgrounds, etc). As absurd as it sounds, this impressionable little boy really yearns to know his boundaries, so that he can confidently dwell and grow within those walls, both physically and cognitively.

As parents we now go by the mantra of "be kind yet firm" and we very consciously on a daily basis make the effort to ensure that we give the correct response to his undesirable actions. And it's been so difficult, as our natural response is to laugh at his antics (any antics, bad or good) and hug and kiss him as if condoning such actions, just because his every new action still seems awesome to us, be it good or bad.

Examples:

1) I love lying beside him when he falls asleep for the night. But at times, he would refuse to go to bed and decides to walk back and forth the bed, throw his soft toy off the bed before asking me to pick it up only to be thrown down again. Sometimes, I would be there in his room persuading him to go to sleep for up to an hour (when he finally tires himself out)! So one night, after 20 minutes of pure defiance, I just tucked him in, kissed him goodnight and told him I love him and exited the room. He went to sleep without protest.

Observation: So here, he was testing what I would do if he carries on playing on the bed as long as he can and he found out that I would exit after 20 minutes.

2) During rough play with daddy, he would sometimes raise his voice "commanding" his best friend daddy to the tone of "chase me faster!" or "Why are you not doing what I want you to do!" So SK will just ignore those bad manners and will only resume play when he behaves himself again.

Observation: In this instance, he learned that he cannot be rude to daddy, even though daddy plays the same toys and agree to his game plans (e.g: daddy chase him with the vacuum cleaner toy whilst he runaway with the walker).

I just hope we can do right by him in every way. There's really more than "Parenthood" than just hugs and kisses.

I did it!

Riding solo

Yes!

Tobey's 1st Birthday (Part 2-The actual day)

Today (10th June 2008), we celebrated our son's first year of life with the customary candle blowing and cake cutting.

A year ago...

Credits to digifree

Today...

Happy 1st Birthday Sunshine,
You bring so much meaning and joy to our lives, no words can describe,
How can words do justice when around you all we want to do is burst into smiles,
Your love so pure, unconditional and fine, brings tears of joy to our eyes...

We love waking up to you calling out to us,
We love seeing you play, dance and laugh,
We love how you rub your sleepy eyes on your muslin and how you smell after your sleep,
We love your kisses, hugs and how generous you are with them...

You are 1 year old today,
It's been amazing seeing you grow,
Our one and only hope, is that you continue to grow into a healthy and happy boy,
We will be there alongside you.

We will love you unconditionally and will always do.

Tobey's 1st Birthday (Part 1- The Party)

The party was a success. It was held on the 8th June, 2 days before his real birthday (there's where part 2 comes along). Other than Tobey being abit grumpy (not used to having so many friends at one time in his home), everything more or less went as planned. It was buzzing yet relaxing and the weather was fantastic. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here's several pics of the party

my cupcakes which I slaved hours doing the night before...actually the time consuming bit was the "number one cake" (icing so many corners was not fun and after all that hubby and I messed up the surface icing! We shall no attempt baking and icing after a long tiring day) which we'll use on the actual birthday tomorrow...
Tobey got so many nice gifts (Thanks again everyone!!!)..but this definitely caught his eyes

He's more like the mechanic to the bike for now, checking the seat, testing the horn, drop test it to the sides, making sure the gear works...but no riding solo on it...he needs us to guide him when he's zooming with bike.

All his gifts in one pic...

More on part 2. Now I am off to play with all the new toys with Tobey :)

...and two more days before Tobey's 1st Birthday Party

STRESS and anticipation sums it all up. It's all happening. We've started planning this party 2 weeks ago (and started thinking about it 3 months ago). We don't want to deprive Tobey of a traditional kiddy party for his 1st birthday. Both SK and I had one when we were...one. And so will he. Just because we are in a foreign land and couldn't share this occasion with the relatives closest to us, doesn't mean we can't still have one. BBQ, gazebo, helium balloons, homemade cupcakes...you get the picture. Even at this eleventh hour, I've still have not decided whether I should risk baking a number one cake for him or not. SK feels that we should just buy it. No can't do! was my answer repeatedly. My train of thoughts as I type this include..

"He loves Tigger, If I were to iced the cake in Tigger's stripes (orange and black), will he think that we are cutting into and eating his favorite character?? Will that scar him for life?"

"...was it 3/4 cup of carnation evaporated milk, or was it 1 whole cup....how many gram is one cup...THAT cup is in Malaysia. I knew I should have packed that cup in the suitcase...Arrgh"

I hope I don't fall flat at the end, as a result of my stubborn streak and ruin my son's party. Here's hoping and praying for things to work out right and well.

Music Time

Friday mornings during term time are reserved for Tobey's 'Music Time' classes. Quoting the class literature, it's basically a pre-school class consisting of "singing, finger rhymes, tickling songs, action songs and games, dancing, composing, improvisation and playing percussion instruments...". My intention was for Tobey to socialise, to be exposed to group activities and learn skills like sharing and following instructions.

Here's the boy having just woken up and taken his shower, watching a spot of cartoon before breakfast...


...plus some 'dancing to the music' session..kekeke

During the class (actually nowadays in general), it's almost impossible to take a nice still picture of him. He would either run to grab hold of the camera or busy doing something which requires rapid movement from him. Most of my pics looks like this nowadays...

another 'stolen snap'

Today's class was about underwater world. We used crafted sea creatures as props as we sang. We learned about waves, sound of the sea and all that. One of the activity today required the kids to walk in a circle through seaweed and soap bubbles. This is the first time Tobey saw soap bubbles floating up and around him. He was ecstatic. Just stood in the midst of the bubbles, trying to pop as many as he could with his face all litted up and refused to keep walking. I had to literally drag him away so that the kid behind him could have a go. The bubble making machine is one amazing machine (to a mummy). So simple yet brings so much fun!

Tired after class (notice the smiley sticker in the middle? He got that for being a good boy :))

Tobey still has a long way to learn about sharing and waiting for his turn. Other kids (he's the youngest as the music teacher and I decided that he's more suitable in a toddler class rather than a baby class) has already understood and mastered these abilities. When it's time to pass a toy to another kid, they will stand up and do so happily. Tobey would hold on to the toy with all his might and I'll have to peel his fingers off them. Then he would point at that toy and grunt as a signal for me to get it for him for the next minute. Hopefully, by attending more group activities like this would help him learn these important basic skills.

He's also going through a stage where if he doesn't get what he asked for (or pointed at), he will wail his lungs out and is face will look like a red pill. It's been so difficult to make him understand that he can't have everything he set eyes on. But I think we are painstakingly making some progress finally *fingers crossed* (more about that later)