Concentration

Tranferring...

...and drawing...

Funny to watch when he concentrates hard and spend ages doing his "activities" again and again. Occasionally, he would look up and smile proudly at us. Another favourite is reading (believe it or not)...fingers crossed...hopefully this will continue.

Almost a Break-In

At 2 am this morning, I heard a strange noise. Bionic ears SK was snoring away (I am the Magnificent nose ML by the way as I can smell betterl). It sounded like someone was shaking the handle of the french door at the back of our house vigorously. I woke SK up. He looked out the front window which faces the front of our house and I looked at the back, which faces the back garden. I saw no one, it was too dark. SK saw a youngster in front of our house, staring at it.

SK : "Oi!!! What are you doing here!"
Guy: "It's a...errr...I am knocking for Adrian" (in a low voice as if making it up as he went along)
SK: "Huh??"
Guy: " I am knocking for Adrian!" (in a louder voice)
SK : "No such person here!"
Guy: "Alright then" and walked away

SK then went downstairs to check. When he shined the torch into the garden, I was also looking out from the upstairs window. When he shined into the middle section, I saw a pair of legs moving away, running to the left. I immediately checked on Tobey. He was snoring away and there weren't any thieves in his room. Phew! We carried on looking and checking but no one was around by then.

Here's what we gathered. Two hoodie thieves came on a mission to steal my laptop (which is located in the dining table. One went over the garden fence and another one kept watch at the front of the house. When SK was conversing with the "guard" thief, his partner (s) in crime must have hidden himself.

I was bemused. My laptop is not visible from the kitchen window (the only window passer-bys can peep in). So how in the world did those scumbags know that the back door is the nearest to the lappy? Then again, they could be just trying to get in just to do a general robbery, not targeting anything specific.

Earlier in the day, the estate agent brought along a couple in their 50s to view our house (as we are currently trying to sell). This couple looked scruffy (think gypsies who lives in caravans) and basically "just not the type that would make us an offer". They were really friendly. But at a point during the viewing, I noticed from a distance that the husband was looking at my back doors really closely, as if examining it. I thought maybe because we are one of the few the street who still having our original wooden windows and doors and not the UPVC double glazed ones (UPVCs keep more warm in during the winter months, hence making the house more desirable).

Now that I think of it, that couple probably told their son and his mate(s) about the inside of our house and they decided to rob us. What they didn't know is that we have a million other latches on each door which we diligently make use of each night! So Stoooopid.

I am actually very angry that they got away with it. I was thinking whether we could have handled things differently. For instance,

1) If SK were to answer : "Oh yes, you wait, I'll get Adrian for you" Then quickly run to catch hold of that "guard" thief while I call the police. Would it be better? He would probably be bashed up and then get robbed. As there were more than one of them in the operation.

2) If SK just kept quiet and secretly alert the police. They might have managed to break-in somehow and again we would get bashed up and robbed.

The ideal is for us to own a gun. No need a real gun, a bb gun or an air gun would do. We would just need to shoot them unconscious and then get the police on them. Since we don't own a gun of any sort, I think I will keep a few rocks in my room tonight.

Siew Pau

I tried a recipe on Sukye's blog today

Oil Dough

• 340g plain flour
• 220g shortening / lard - used butter

Water Doug

• 550g plain flour
• 150g caster sugar
  
• 160ml vegetable oil
• 240ml iced water
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp golden syrup - Substituted with vanilla extract as well
  

Glaze

• 2 egg yolks

Method:

1. Process the oil dough ingredients in a food processor. Scale it into 20 gm balls.
2. Process the water dough ingredients in food processor. Scale it into 40 gm balls.
3. Wrap oil dough inside water dough.
4. Roll it flat. Then roll it up like swiss roll. Repeat this 3 times.
5. Repeat step 4 with all the pieces of dough.
6. Cut each piece of dough into 2.
7. Roll out each pieces and put in filling.
8. Preheat oven to 190 C and bake 10 mins
9. Remove from oven, glaze with egg yolk and bake another 20 mins.

For the filling:

• 300 gm Char Siew, finely diced - I used cubed pork shoulder and added 1 tbsp of Lee Kum Kee's Spare Rib sauce.
• 3 tbsp sugar
  
• 1 tbsp flour
• 3/4 cup water - 1 cup = 240ml, so do your own calculation
• 1 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce - omitted this one, didn't have any
• 4 chopped shallots
• 1/2 cup green peas - I substituted with potatoes instead as I didn't have any peas in my freezer
  
• 2 tbsp oil

The Steps:

1. Saute shallot in oil.
2. Add flour, cook until browned.
3. Add Char Siew.
4. Add water, all sauces and sugar.
5. Cook until gluey.
6. Add green peas.
7. Cool it before wrapping the Pau.

I halved the recipe above hoping to get 28 paus but I ended up with only 12! And the dough was too thick. Why? Because I forgotten to cut each piece of dough into 2!!!!!! (I think it's my cold that has been causing my blurriness *excuses* *excuses*)

The end result was tasty, but the filling was abit too watery. Most probably because I omitted the peas. So during baking, some of them managed to ooze out of the dough causing them to look messy.

SK came back and ate one and said "Hmmm nice BISCUIT dear".

15 months old

My little boy has got 4 teeth now. The 5th one is currently breaking through. He can eat most of our food but his tolerance to spicy food is still very low. I still cook especially for him each day. Just to make sure he has the essentials before dabbing into the adult food (which can sometimes be really unhealty..hehe).

He loves going out. He will spend ages trying to open the front door with my set of house keys. Patiently, he will try a key at a time. When one actually fits, he would quickly stand back as if waiting for the door to open itself. Also, sitting still for longer than 2 minutes is a hard task for him now. So it has been nightmare in the new term of music class. Instead of walking in a line with other kids, he would break free and stare at the line from afar and smirk.

I am abit worried about his speech development. He understands most of what we say to him and what we are talking about. But he just simply refuses to copy us! The usuals so far are just "there", "mum-mum", "da-di", "mama", "nen-nen", "na-na" and the most complicated one "tiger". No improvement from a couple of months back. Grunting and pointing are his preferred way of communicating. I am not rushing him, but just wondering whether if there's something I am not doing enough to motivate him. Oh well, hopefully one day he'll change his mind and decides to pick up talking more seriously.

He's into imaginative play now which can be quite funny to watch. For example, when I give him a small stainless steel pot and a ladle, he would spend ages "cooking" all his small toys in it, transferring them into another container and back into the pot and vice versa (When I am cooking he would also "help" by passing me endless supply of potatoes, garlic and ginger).

Now that he rather play on his own for quite a long period of time, I found myself having more spare time on my hand. It's so weird, I just do not know what I should do with it!!! It's been a long while since I don't feel like collapsing into a pile and rest whenever I have any spare time! So I've more or less decided to go back to work to feel more useful and send Tobey to a nursery once we settle in our new place. It would definitely crush me to be away from my son, but I genuinely believe that the time has come for him to learn to socialise, be independent, and learn the ropes of surviving amongst other little people and adults. It's very true that his standard of care will drop. No one will be there to instantly squash a spider that tries to get within 3 metres of him or frequently sniff his nappy to see whether he has done a poo. But, knowing his personality, I believe that he will have so much fun, learn faster and thrive amongst a fixed set of peers.

No doubt I will get peanuts back after paying for his nursery, but as long as he benefits from it, everyone wins.

The Smoked House

Today we went house-hunting again. One of the houses we viewed looked really promising from the advert. When we drove up to it, it looked really charming from the outside. It faces a huge park and is located in quite a posh location, which is within the catchment area of a primary school with fantastic Ofted reports (Grade 1s). However, the price was slightly lower than what is expected out of this area. We just thought that since the housing market is so bad now, this probably belongs to another desperate seller.

Once we stepped into the house. We knew the real reason.

It hit us like a slap in the face. The smell of stale cigarette smoke just enveloped us. At that point the estate agent rep said " I am not going to lie to you, this house does need a lot of renovation" He must have been kidding. It needed a complete rip-out-refit transformation!

The whole house has a tinge of yellow to it. I could see that the walls were not painted yellow, but of various other colours, but somehow it had a yellow coating to it. The ceiling, the 1960's carpet, the blinds, the window panes, even the air was yellow! It spelled years of enclosed smoking by someone that loved inhaling his own smoke back into his system. I nearly puked.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against smokers. Some of the closest person to me smokes. But at least he or she has the sense to make sure the house is well ventilated, the windows are opened before smoking or smoke outside of the house.

Me: What happened here???!!!
Estate agent rep (EAR): The previous owner smoked alot.
Me: Where is he now?
EAR: I am afraid he past away.
Me: What? Did he passed away in this house????!
EAR: No , he didn't

YEAH RIGHT!

Alarm bell started ringing in my head. "I got to get my boy out of here!"
So after just glancing at the ground floor, I excused myself and Tobey, saying that I just couldn't stand the smell. SK on the other hand, dared to venture upstairs as he could see the investment potential of this house. Let's just say, he could see beyond the yellow tinge. Also because his nose only works part-time.

So what if we managed to revamp the house with a completely new interior. Every time I smell (or think I smell) any ciggie smoke, I would definitely think that the previous owner is paying us a visit.

No thanks.

Lamb Stew

Lamb shoulders were on price reduction in my local Tesco. So I've decided to try this recipe.

Recipe:
Half a lamb shoulder
one leek
3 carrots
3 tomatoes
3 stalks of celery
5 medium red onions
half a bulb of garlic (skin on cut across in half )
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
2 stock cubes
1 teaspoon of black pepper corn
2 teaspoon of salt
3 dried bay leaves

Add lamb, roughly chopped vege, and spices into pot. Cover with hot water. Bring to boil and simmer on low fire for 3 hours until meat is falling off the bone. Nice eaten with rice or on it's own.

End product

Gymboree Free Play

Through our first visit to a Gymboree class , we discovered that there's actually a free play session for £3 an hour on Sundays. We've been (actually SK is the more dedicated one here) bringing Tobey there for the past month. He's now so used to the equipments and structures that he would just charge as soon as his socks are off. SK would set an obstacle course for Tobey each time, based on the equipment arrangement on that day. Tobey would then climb, slide, jump, run, go through tunnels, and lie down whenever he needs a rest, take a sip of water and go through his obstacle course all over again.

Every Sunday, he can do it faster than the last.

I can now see the advantages Gymboree. It's like a padded playground and it's specially designed structures really works to encourage the physical development of toddlers in a fun and safe way. I am glad we gave it a second chance.

The Biker

My Little Surf Turtle

In his 2-piece swimsuit

Testing out the lockers himself (I cut his back hair, too straight as you can see)

Yesterday, I brought him swimming for the first time. We don't own any club membership, so it was in a local leisure centre (public pool).

He was all cheery and happy when we I told him that "we are going swimming, OK. Play with lots of water". Still OK when we were in Tesco purchasing his arm band, inflatable waist ring (which came with an inflatable beach ball as well). He was his usual self, waved at cashier and smiled at anyone that smiled at him.

Once in the changing room, he didn't protest and let me changed him into his special swim nappy and swim suit. BUT, as soon as the arm band was on. He knew something was wrong.

I first placed him standing on the shallow part of the water. He was stoned for literally a minute. Looked around, looked at his feet, looked at me. Then I carried him into a slightly deeper side so that he can float his arm band and felt warmer. He started CRYING! That was not the response I was expecting from him. I thought he would be overjoyed to be given a chance to play with so much water.

For the next 20 minutes, he clinged on to me and whimpered and cried in between observing the kids around him having fun.

Me: Tobey, you don't want to play water?
Tob: (shake head vigorously)
Me: You want to go home?
Tob: There, there, there (whilst pointing at the direction we came from)

So I took him out. Maybe because I waited too late (only after all his immunisation jabs) to introduce him to the pool, or maybe because there were too many people and echoed in this indoor pool.

Maybe we should join a club after all.

(Side ranting: my locker key -which was a magnetic coin on a band- was faulty. Being the first time using it, I thought the locker was faulty when it wouldn't lock when I used the band to touch it. So I shifted lockers TWICE. In the midst, I dropped my clothes and the coins in my jeans pocket fell down. A kid pretended to help me pick up a £1 coin and pass it to me. But instead of actually letting go of the money, he retracted his hand and ran off! Yes, he stole my money! If I have a free hand and not in the midst of shifting locker, holding on to Tobey, and trying to get an attendant to help me, I would definitely ran after him and ensure that his parents know of his vice...GRRRRRRRR)

ActiveTobey

Maybe I should explain what's going on first:

Tobey has this tendency to sink his little nails into SK's knee operation scar. SK would then pretend to scream in pain and Tobey would find that funny. I was trying to capture this in the above video, but it turned out to be a mixed one :))

By the way, this is his usual active-self in the evenings.

Sticky Pan Fried Lemon Chicken

After salivating over Tsu Lin's Pan Fried Mango Chicken dish. I came up with a pan fried chicken dish of my own- Sticky Pan Fried Lemon Chicken. It's so easy as it's all done on the same pan :P

Recipe:

1)Marinate chicken pieces( I used 2 skinless thighs and 2 drumsticks with skin on) with salt, white pepper and cornflour.

2)Pan fry them till brown on all sides

3)Add slices of 1 lemon, 3 garlic cloves and 3 tablespoon of sugar .

4) Switch to low fire. As the sugar melt, keep turning the chicken ensuring they are well coated with the sticky sauce.

5)As the sauce thicken, add 2 teaspoon of light soya sauce and 1 teaspoon of rice wine and stir till the chicken is cooked.

Tasted not too bad (I liked it), will probably use brown sugar instead of white and add a cinnamon stick in the pan next time.

August Bank Holiday Weekend'08

Monday this week is the last Bank holiday in Britain till the Christmas break. Although it was a 3 days weekend, it still felt too short for us.

Saturday:

We went for out first Cambridge house hunting trip. Looked at Soham and Ely. We targeted these two as they have schools with really good Ofted reports. Looked at Barratt and Persimmons newbuilts.

Soham was disappointing. It has next to no shops. NO TESCO. The nearest Tesco is 4.5 miles away. Just imagine. The village that call themselves a "town" has a very messy layout and the atmosphere is stale to say the least. Maybe that's why we are not cut out to live in a village. Ely was ok. It has a huge cathedral right in the town centre. Typical of Cambridgeshire. Unfortunately, the plot of newbuilt we saw was still in major construction for at least another year.

Anyway, it's back to the drawing board.

Sunday:

We brought Tobey to Gymboree free play in the morning. There were literally 3 kids there which was fantastic as he went on his favourite elevated planks (which was good to curb his fear of height), slides, and tunnel to his heart content. Worth every penny of that £3 an hour spent. After lunch and grocery shopping, we went back to do some DIY and gardening.

Monday:

More DIY. And an outing to Tobey's favourite place in the world- The Park, with his favourite person in the world- His Daddy. Here's some pics taken.

Tobey and SK (I love this pic as it captured how happy they are together)

On his favourite slide

A spot of footie (whilst I sat on the bench and chill...bliss..!)

Tobey with mommy

Tired after football, playground and running around

Going home

The weather has been rather kind to us, heavy rain at night and sunshine in the day time. In fact, this has been a rather pleasant Summer. September is creeping up. That spells non-stop rain and chilly wind...brrrrr...hopefully it's not too harsh.

Growing pains

I am busy teething. Can't put it off any longer. Don't feel like eating anything at all. I just want my milk. It's tough being a baby.

Tobey and the apple

Playdates

Here's my son exploring the cafe where we went with cutie baby S and his mom J

With all the unavailability of his usual activities due to Summer break, I've been racking my brains trying to keep him and myself from being too bored at home. Therefore, I've arranged several playdates for him this week. Basically, we just visited my friends who have a toddler around the same age as Tobey. That way, Tobey got to play with his peers whilst I got to chat to with my friends to my heart content. It was great to be able to have some adult conversation with other mothers over a cuppa and just chat about everything and anything. Must do this more often.

14 Months Old

On this day, Tobey had a good time running around the almost empty kampung Northampton town centre. He chased pigeons and played with automated shop entrance doors (going in and out many many times, just to test run the sensors). For his many fans out there (especially his grans), here's some glamour pics ;P



Tobey's daddy bought him his second remote control car (the first one was daddy's and not that suitable for a toddler). It was fully charged and ready to go right after his dinner. This car is super cool. He played with it the whole evening.

Concentrating hard

It has 2 sides. It can climb wall and flip on itself.

And the best part.....wait for it....

Awesome!

Turning 30

What happened in my 20s?

I got my degree, moved to another country, worked in several professions, got married and have a baby. On a more personal note, I've stop striving to be who I am not meant to be. With self-acceptance, come my acceptance of others.

What will happen in my 30s?

Only time will tell. I am more at ease with who I am now. Plan to focus on project happiness and proceed with faith and positiveness.

Library visit

Tobey's first library card and set of library book

Tobey is not much of a book person. The best he could do is to sit till I finish reading him the story and then would proceed doing other things. Very rarely he would choose reading over other toys. We are ok with that. But just incase he decides to take up reading more seriously, which is not a bad thing at all, we've signed him up at the local library. His library card can borrow up to 20 books for 6 weeks until he's 5! There are 3 library within 2 miles radius to choose from. Plus the books we buy him, I am sure there's enough book exposure for him. The selection of books is very important as well. I am hopeless at that. But am trying to select based on what he might like and not what I feel he should be reading. I think I am getting there. Recently I bought him a "In the night garden" book and he seems to like it and kept wanting it to be read to him.

His first set of library books includes several DK Animal Feel n Touch series, and two other animal themed books. They were new (the library branch I chose is pretty out of town)!. I also got him a "In the night garden" DVD for £1.50 per week. Got myself an Annabel Karmel's recipe book for toddler.

Here's him trying to figure out what so special about this little plastic card that mommy has been making such a fuss about...

Sweet for my sweet

...to my hubby, Tobey's daddy, my best friend and soulmate. You'll always be 23 to me even when you reach 131 ;)

Surprise

A special card from my family back home for our birthdays. Thanks Mom & Pa!

Food Exploration

After a session of feeding himself some chocolate oats

As part of his route to Independence, I am suppose to let Tobey feed himself and explore food at his own pace. I am suppose to lay a huge mat under his high chair during meal times and just let him go crazy. Wanna squash some peas? Sure. Wanna massage the mash potatoes? Of course you can my dear. Wanna pour water into the porridge that mommy has been making for the last hour? Why not, go ahead.

The mother (and Chinese) in me shy away from that idea as I know that if I let him take control of his spoon, only 25% of the food will actually be eaten. But "I want my child to be well nourished" and not share the other 75% with the floor, his high chair, his hair, my hair, his face and our clothes.

Dilemma

So the compromise is that I make sure I let him have several messy meal times a week. Mostly for breakfast as he has oats for breakfast. If the consistency is right, the chances of it dropping off his spoon on the way to his mouth is less. I once gave him steamed carrot sticks, fish fingers and a cup of water. He stirred carrot and fish fingers together in his cup of water then scooped that murky water into his bowl of fish fingers. You get the picture. Another time, I gave him a bowl of rice crispies. He fed himself, his soft toys, fed me and crushed the rest between his fingers, his toes and embedded them into the carpet. Thank God for vacuum cleaners.I dunno whether he learned anything or not.


But all is worth it simply because he had a fantabulous time every single time and sure felt super proud of himself and his achievements.

City Break

Since both our birthdays are looming, we decided to take a last minute overnight trip to Birmingham. We chose this hotel as we got a good deal on it. I am very picky about hotels. From experience, hotels in Europe always fell short on standard compared to the ones in Asia. Even if it's freezing outside, a hotel that is worth the money MUST have good and silent air-conditioning. With city trips, opening up windows for fresh air also meaning letting traffic noise pollution in. Anyway, this one is perfect and it provided us a restful and quiet retreat even when it's smack right in he middle of the city centre.

Tobey loved the changed of surrounding.

He's definitely not afraid of height at this point in time. Kept pointing to the cars at the roundabout below.

Here's my little boy looking adorable for mommy.

We started of our day with Dim Sum with BIL at our usual Birmingham chinese haunt Wing Wah. Tobey only took TWO scoops of the lunch I made for him! But I let it go to teething. He eventually ate two bear biscuits.


After that, we brought Tobey to the National Sea Life Centre. We made use of a Buy-One-Get-One-Free Voucher from Tesco and only paid £15.50 for 2 adults and a toddler. It was educational..really, both for Tobey and for us. Who knows a Barracuda is the next most dangerous predatory fish after the Shark.

One of the many aquariums with colourful fishes

We tried our hardest to scare the puffer fish just to see it double in size, but it remained calm..hehe.

SK and Tobey, string-ray spotting

This is the Sting-Ray section. Not very clear from the pic, but string-rays were popping their heads up at the surface of the water above. The caretaker actually told the visitors to not touch them as they are capable to bite fingers off! When you look at the bottom of string-ray, you can actually see a pair of eyes and a smiley mouth. I found that so cute.

Here's the Jelly fish room. Tobey found it awesome when his beloved muslin started to glow.

Then we also visited the Otters, Turtles, Sea horse and a mirror maze area.

We ended Tobey's sea life introductory session with some souvenirs. Mr. Crab can crawl sideways when it's winded up. Tobey kept running away from it. Ms. Fish feels very real and can be stretched in all direction without breaking.

After that we walked around more and went back to the Hotel for a rest. Then we went for dinner in Chinatown.
By end of the dinner, it was way past his bedtime and he was getting really cranky at the restaurant (as you can see from the pic above).

So did we went down for a drink in the bar when he's finally sleeping on the bed in the darkened room? Hell no! We both read quietly in front of the only light source in the room, coming from the bathroom! Cheers to parenthood!