If Only I Could Turn Back Time...

In my uni days, oh so long ago, my flatmate and I used to spend countless hours chatting in our rooms. Topics ranges from latest crush to religion to fashion to family. The question about regrets, say, if you could turn back time, when would that be. I used to be stumped because as much as I would like to say that I have a particular date/time which I would like to relive - truth is, there isn't one.

Well, ask me again today, I can give you the exact day and time! Tuesday, 12th February 2008, 10am. I did the unthinkable of deleting my whole photo and video folder by accident. Gasps. Jaws dropped. Eyes popped open. Tears. Regrets. Too late - damage done.

Fortunately, I have been semi-hardworking and backing up the photos on CDs but I did lose a bulk of his videos and recent photos that I have not backed up yet.

So I hereby serve as an example of why you should always back your precious data/photos...etc because one awful moment could wipe it all away and no amount of tears can bring them back.

As you can see I am still sore about it. Of course, being the typical first time mum, with millions of photos and videos - losing even one blurred shot is bad! So try to imagine the pain....sniffles...

Depressing matters aside, my little man is standing on his own now!! He hates it when you make him do it but I can see that his balance is improving. To all his grandparents, sorry, still not ready to walk yet.

He has also started holding his bottle to feed himself. I still need to do a round two to get him to finish but it is a start.

And here's what happens when you pass him the mobile phone and say, "Ring, ring..."

Right, that's all the updates for now - cheerio folks.....wait a minute, talk about cheerio. Got a cool pic of him with a Cheerio stuck on top of his lips.

Happy Chinese New Year

My pathetic new year goodies comprising of a small pomelo, some tiny oranges, packet of groundnuts and one ang pow for Josiah

This is my first Chinese New Year away from family. We had a lovely chat with my relatives who were having reunion dinner at my mom's house via Skype. I tried to keep up with family traditions with the limited resources available. We did have a reunion dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Had some yummy sweet and sour pork, some fancy prosperity-named tou foo and my favourite "tou miu" vegie. I then made some sesame filled rice balls with sugar and ginger at home. Not too bad for reunion night. The next morning, S got up early as he has a whole wardrobe of new things to wear to work! New shirt, tie, glasses, shoes....

Josiah woke up early too, so we gave him his 'ang pow' packet. He was so happy and looked at it for a good one minute then just passed it to me. Good boy.... heh, heh...

I did put on some new clothes for Josiah and took him out to the playgroup. For lunch, I made a big feast for myself - Indo mee with egg and fish fingers!! Sniff....better than having a cold ham sandwich.

We then had an appointment with the dietitian at St Mary Hospital. She was a nice lady and gave me a list of things to do to try to get Josiah to eat more textured food. She thinks he is having too much milk and want me to cut out night feeding immediately. Easier said than done, really! He loves his milk and has a t-shirt with Milk-A-holic written on it.

So to all celebrating Chinese New Year, enjoy all the yummy food - eat a portion for me!

Here is my little man in various styles of dungaree - I think he looks cute in them!

Happy Chinese New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

Baby no more....

I did not know that once your baby reaches 12 months - they are no longer referred to as a "baby". They are now called toddlers! In my mind, toddlers are little brats whizzing around the house like a maniac, screaming non-stop whilst a frazzled mum tries to catch hold of 'em. How can my baby be called a toddler - look at him, still crawling about the house on his tummy. Yes, he does like to mess things up a bit but none of that running/maniacal screaming/throwing...so how can he be called a toddler???

Sigh. As you can see, I am losing my battle to hold on to my baby, even for just a little bit more. As much as I'd like him to start walking and running, I still want to hold on to his "babyness" for a while more. Errmm, not the bit of him waking up at night for a feed tho...

Soon, he would be going to school, no more kisses for him and slamming the door in my face when I want to talk to him. Mummy would just be in his way. So let mummy have a little bit more cuddle time with my little man, please...

Back to the daily drone (I mean fun!), I have finally started taking him to a regular playgroup down in Paddington. It is a medium sized group and has a good mix of British and other European babies plus the occasional Japanese ones too. Our first time there was quite a rush as my little man likes to sleep late ie 10pm and wake up late 9am. Since the playgroup starts at 9.30am, we are sooo late arriving at only about 10.45pm. His eyes were just soaking up all the babies and noise at first. A helper offered to take him from me but I know that he needs just a little bit more time to get confortable. Took him to the nearest cool toy around and he was just suddenly all confortable. He started playing with it and with some of the smaller babies around and I could even step away to chat with some other moms. Looks like I would have to be more hardworking in getting him to such playgroups. He certainly enjoyed the new toys, the singing and later pushing a small chair around the room! I must say, I am glad to see he is not as scaredy cat as I think he is!

On a sad note, S grandmother passed away 2 weeks ago and S made the trip back for her funeral. We did not follow because S had an important meeting and could not extend his stay. So I spent 6 days alone with Josiah who was lovely right up till the night before S was to come back. Josiah went to bed that night as usual but woke up hours later and I gave him a feed. He then went back to bed for another hour and woke up crying again. So I gave him another diluted feed, he was just about to go back to sleep when he suddenly started crying. And this crying just went on and on for almost 3 hours! In that time, he puked twice on me and was just inconsolable. I lost my temper somewhere in the second hour and gave him a good whack on his bottom which only made things worse! But I was honestly out of ideas on how to get him back to bed or what was the problem. I mean, he not only wanted to be carried but I must also be on my feet, the moment I sat down, he started again - now this is just too much. Anyway, the whole drama ended when I took him out to the rocking chair - first time I have had to use it since he was a wee baby suffering from colic. The rocking did calm him somewhat but mainly he was just tired out from all that crying. I did my share of crying too and was reminded why I did not want another baby.

On the cooking front, I cooked spagetti carbonara from scratch other day. It was yummy and really easy to cook. Got the recipe from my friend and here it is...

Bacon, chopped into small bits

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 single cream

2 portions of cheese - I just used those triangle spreadable cheese

1 egg yoke

Basically, just fry the bacon and garlic until it begins to smell lovely. Add in the single cream and bring to boil. Melt in the cheese. And just before serving, add the egg yoke. Easy peasy...

Cute stuff that Josiah has done lately:

He knows that he is not supposed to touch the oven because it is "hot". As I was going to feed him, I mentioned that the food is still "hot". He then started waving 'no,no' and refusing to eat because I said food was hot! Smart!

I normally dress Josiah is a bodysuit, so his tummy is never exposed but the other day I only put on a shirt for him without the bodysuit and all he does is sit around pointing to his belly button...Oh, yes, he is also fascinated with our belly buttons too and will now try to look under your shirt to poke your belly button whenever you are lying down.

He does all these cute sounds when he is bored. Whilst at the library with S, he got bored and made kissing sounds to get S to go home. When he sees his teddy, he gives this high pitch lovey dovey sound and hugs and kisses teddy to death.

When asked if he wanted to sing "Row, row, row your boat" he will hold out both his hands so you can rock him back and forth like in a boat! He does quite a good rendition of Old MacDonald - only the infamous Eee Yaa Eee Yaa Ooh part of course. He can also singing 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' - ermm, only the 'star' bit. He has current fascination with stars and wheels and will point it out whenever he sees one.

If he see a tiger / lion, he will do a roar. If you asked him how to yawn - it sounds a bit like the roar too. He also has the whole 'snake' hissing and wiggly finger act to amuse the grandparents. He knows when he sees ants to squish them with his little fingers. Oh, yes, and he does a good impersonation of S snoring too :p

When he plays with his shape sorter, he will grunt when it gets stuck

So to my lovely boy - you will always remain as my 'baby'. You can roll your eyes at this statement when you are older.

Here he is, the little 3 tooth (only!) terror of my house.