J moments #2

J: mummy see see saw.
Mummy: what
J: seesaw. Seesaw!  (pointing to the big ikea clip that wee use to seal up opened plastic bag. He opened it so it lies flat )
Mummy:oooooo (kids are so imaginative)

Mummy: baby eat bread (giving him the potato bun)
J: no!! No! Too big
Mummy: J eat bread, it's not bread
(after trying for a while, I gave up and break into smaller pieces and shoved into his little mouth)
J: yummmmmm (satisfied face)

Note: same case happened last weekend when I gave him grapes..all these while he took within fussing. I took the grape and bite half of it then passed back to him and he ate it.

J moments #1

There are a lot of things that I would like to record down about how baby J doing things, talk, or progressing. I am creating a new series of logs on this. I will try to recall and write down a few that I remembered from past weeks

Moment 1-1
Mummy: J, says dinasour
J: sai-no-no
Mummy: nono, dinasour!
J: sai-no-noooooo!
Mummy: okay... (thinking that he can only usually only catch the last syllabus "sor" but he made it into "sai" as the first syllabus sound "ai". to complete the whole word, he needs 3 syllabus, so he just put dino to sino (sounds sai-no) and repeast "no" to make it 3 syllabus making sai-no-no)

Moment 1-2
J: Mummy, knock knock bloon. bloon where? (bloon is how he pronounced balloon, hand knocking his tummy then quickly hold the balloon behind him)
Mummy: huh? (
J: Mummy, knock knock bloon where? (repeated this a few times until I finally caught what he was trying to say)
Mummy: Oohh. knock knock balloon (my hand knocking his tummy)
Mummy: baby, where is the balloon?
J: Here!! (grinning and pull out his balloon, so repeated this cute actions dozen of times)

Moment 1-3
J: Mummy, kipendor
Mummy: ???? (puzzled)
J: Mummy, kipendor (looking impatient already after 3rd time saying this)
Mummy: Oooo!! Key - open- door. Say properly baby, it's "take the key to open the door".

Moment 1-4
Going to our car park at our condo, we have to go down a flight of stairs. Quite many stairs for a toddler that picked up walking steadily just less than a year.
J: Mummy, down! down! walk! (gushing down my body when I was carrying him and pushed me away)
Mummy & daddy: Wait baby, wait... (going after this monster that's trying to walk down the stairs by himself)
J: Mummy, go ! go! (told me to go away, and not to hold him)
Mummy & daddy: Careful baby (stiff body and still a stair away from him, heart beating like crazy)
J: Mummy , go! go! (pointing away)

For that, we have to let him walk down the ~15 stairs by himself with the hope he doesn't fall off and if he did, we can catch him in time.

Moment 1-5
Every once in a while at home wanting to drink juice
J: Mummy, no more make juice.
Mummy: Ya, daddy not making juice now. You already had it in the morning
J: Daddy, no more make juice
Daddy: yaya.. no more make juice

draw or throw

Sometimes I am not sure whether my son says "draw" or "throw". Both sound similar to me from the way he is pronouncing them. It sounds like this " dhow".

There are times he mischievously calling mommy as babi making be feels like being called a pig. He short formed daddy to "deeee" too whenever he likes.

He is frustrated when we didn't understand what he was trying to convey like last night he woke up at around 3am then had been fussing for 5-10 minutes pointing towards his drawers. I was trying to shove the pacifier into his crying mouth but he refused. . He pointed to the milk can when I was filling his tumbler with water but I know he wasn't hungry. He was just distracted by the milk can. I let him sip water and put him back to bed, patted his back for a while and he came back screaming. I touched his abdomen and realized that the head of his pants was wet from his own pee. His pee shot up and wet the pants! Now I got it why he was pointing to his drawers where I put the diapers on it. So I quickly took out his pants and he stopped crying immediately. Changed diaper and put a clean, dry pants on and I've got a sleeping toddler.

I hope he can communicate better to us so he can be understood :) One day, he will.

Birthday cards from baby J's cousins

The parcel from my sister came on the day before baby J's birthday. Inside, they are a pair of clothes and 2 cards. One from each of his cousin sisters, age 5 and  4. They drew a rainbow in the interior of the cards. Cheryl knows how to write therefore the letters on the card however it's wordless on Celine's card. Hahaha

They are innocently cute. We are happy to receive the gift from my sister's family

Baby J is One: Celebration & People

This is the birthday boy! He is a year old now. I posted this write up in my status in facebook on his exact birthday.

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He didn't give me morning sickness during pregnancy, made my skin glows and hair so voluminousness. He is a good baby since I carried him, only back pain because of my weak back. This time a year ago, my baby just came out to the world smelling fresh. We are happy parents until today though there are times whining and fussiness are all over him, but it's normal for a baby who is as active as him. He has been crawling, walking with support and without support since becomes mobile. He laughed when daddy played with him. He looks for mommy when he is sleepy and hungry. He remembers where he hid his toys and sit there hours to retrieve them although they fell into unreachable space. He smiles at daddy when daddy flash the camera at him. He has 8 white shinning teeth that can eat full solid food. There are many more fond memories of his little actions and baby mischievousness and we hope for many years to come. I hope he still let me kiss him when he grew up. Mommy and Daddy love you very much. Happy 1st Birthday to our little man! 

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Baby J mingled around. We invited 11 people and it brings to total of 23 adults and 7 babies/kids.The guests came with spouse and I counted myself, my hubby and in laws.. That's how the number came up to 23. The house was very crowded. I would like to invite more but it's impossible to fit them in our tiny home.

The Sii brothers

I like this picture because it shows the decoration I put :)

Baby J with Terry and Kai lin

Tze Yee took the camera and snap picture of the Wong's family. However he meant to show himself in the pic because we can see his reflection in the mirror. Look, there is FF and HH too !

My buddy, Xiao Wei and her lovely hubby Leo

Group photo <3>

Baby J was so excited when daddy sang birthday song for him!

Another excited baby J photo. He loved it when we put him in the paper bag for a photo. Thanks to everyone who came and gave baby J presents and angpow! The presents are lovely and the money can be put to good use for baby J.

Baby J is One : Food

I am still in post party mood. We had baby J birthday celebration on weekend. This is the table setup where we put the birthday "cake" and cake cutting happened. I printed some colourful UP posters and sticked them on a brown hay string as decoration flags at the table. There's the ballon tied together with colourful metallic ribbons above the heads and also "JASPER IS 1" birthday banner. 

Here's the food. We didn't manage to capture all the food because some of them were taken up very quickly and there is only one photographer whom are also my husband. So he was very busy and didn't have time to photograph everything. I am thankful that I have a talented husband that can take nice photos like this.

I made this marshmallow sticks covered in chocolate and dipped into sprinkles. It's not a big hit because of the sweetness but I like it as it's really pretty.

I also prepared this cheese plate. I assembled the blueberry, cheddar and cheese cracker together. It's awesome combination however being in Asian country, I don't think everyone will think this is awesome as I think it is.

We also got a french vanilla mille crepe and I prepared a jug of refreshing pomegranate & lemon juice.

This is our birthday "cake" . I showed my idea to our patissier and want her to bake 25 mini cupcakes with colourful frosting as the ballons while I provide a 3D house for her to stick it at the end and attach some ribbons to the chimney of the house. It looks perfect with the royal icing on the random vanilla and chocolate cupckes. The patissier is my good friend and her shop is going to open soon in Nagore Road . The shop name is Mon Delice Patisserie .

I ordered a few other stuff from here like the mini quiche with mushroom and bacon fillings however no photo on the quiche. Here's another dessert which is made especially for kids and babies because it's made from all natural ingredients. Even the vanilla bean is imported from Madagascar. This is panna cotta with raspberry gelee.

Here's the highlight of the day! This is called croquembouche, a tower of  40 cream puffs with random mango/chocolate filling. Yummy

Till then..

Baby J is One

Today we had birthday party for baby J. The birthday theme is UP. I had planned this since November, making some printout, 3D  craft paper figure, props, thank you favors etc. Here are some of the stuff I prepared. More photos on the birthday participants and invitees later.

At last my globe is up for good use. I assembled all the items I made together and created this props at the entrance into our home. 

The birthday banner! It's simple.

 I borrowed the doll house from a colleague. Got it a day before the party and the colleague paid RM2 to his daughter to clean the house before passing to me. I guess I need to pass him RM2 as well. I stick Russell sitting at the door step of the house, hang some colourful ballons from ceiling and tie ribbons at the end before securing them to the roof. We didn't get helium ballons, just did some DIY way to make the ballons float.  

The thank you favor is simple stuff. I bought some tic tac candies and remade the label. Then give to each invitees. There is Carl with his walking stick at the back. The birthday "cake" is actually some colorful royal icing mini cupcakes tied to a paper 3D house. I ordered the cup cake and the fondant blue sky board from my good friend. I also ordered some food from her. I will show more on the food I ordered and I made my own  in next entry.

Till then :)

Not easy to take picture of baby J

We didn't celebrate Christmas but we went to friend's Christmas party and baby J received some presents too. He received toys from his baby sitter's family members. They are so sweet. This photo was taken in Adelene's house. We cannot make baby J sit still for the photo however it's good enough to have him facing the camera

This photo was taken last week in pre-CNY dinner with our friends. Baby J was struggling so hard that I had to stand up to relax him. Everyone was waiting for Mr. photographer to setup the camera.

See how everyone smile happily for the photo and baby J was struggling to get loose? I just feel lucky that he hasn't slip off despite all the pushing and kicking. 

See how much has he grown over the past 11 months. He is almost 1 year old and we are having his birthday party this weekend. Can't wait to post the nice food that I am going to make and ordered. I have a lot props setup too for the birthday.

Baby J is 11 months old

In less than a month, my baby will be 12 months. That's a great milestone. His 7th and 8th lower premolars came up on Sunday. He can eat all my yummy food in short. Each day is precious in early development because he learns new thing every single day.  He raised up and stood by himself last week (7 Dec). Yesterday he made his first 3 steps before jumping over to daddy. Soon he will be running wild. I am going to miss all these special moments. Wait until he calls mommy! I am preparing for his birthday party. Stay tune!

BF: Remarkable 8oz day

Okay, this is something that I don't usually post here. But I am too happy not to tell the world. Today I feel happier than usual grumpy days. So I managed to express 8oz of milk in the morning session. For those who don't understand, I am still breastfeeding and I have to express milk for my baby during work so that he has milk to drink at care taker's place. Due to my grumpy mood everyday which I can't avoid due to the stress and misc, my supply drop to 4-5oz in the morning session which means I don't produce enough milk for my baby everyday. He drinks 6oz each time and 3 times at care taker's place. So I have to work extra hard to express milk for him during weekend and late nights (my OT) since I only pump twice at work and that's taking up a hell lot of my working hours. 

However I don't feel as happy anymore during the second pump session because my hubby actually don't remember our anniversary so it's back to low low supply milk. Added up I still get extra 2oz comparing to usual days so I only needed to fill up 3oz tonight. Yay! Hopefully it will. I will try to keep a happy mind but it's just not possible. People say I smile and laugh all the times and I am very happy. Okay, no comment. Anyway yes I am happy for the first half of day today. Thank you very much happiness. You made me need to work less harder tonight and coming weekend.

Baby J eats zuchinni and anchovies mee sua with baked salmon in virgin coconut oil



Since it's weekend and I plan not to cook for our adult's lunch, I think I will spend extra time to prepare baby J's food. On Saturday I made him this, mee sua. I simmer some washed anchovies in 2 bowls of water to make the stock. I cooked the mee sua in another pot of boiling water, then discard the water and put them into the anchovies stock after I sieved off any remaining anchovies. This is to ensure the mee sua is clean from any salt or dirt that stick to them during production. Take a pair of clean scissors and cut the mee sua into shorter length. At the same time I put a cube of salmon in aluminium foil, drop some VCO on the salmon to avoid it dries up in the oven. Heat the oven and baked for about 15 minutes at 200 celcius. Then took it out from oven and shred into smaller piece and mix into the mee sua :)

I admit it's little hard to feed baby J with this because it's so soupy. He opened his mouth just a little just to sip the soup and I had to made a lot effort to shove the noodle into his mouth. I think we didn't do this much as I used to feed him porridge and water with spoon during meal so he thinks this is the "water" and he just need to sip. We need more practice

Tips on making and storing baby food (1)

I was thinking to share on how I usually prepare porridge for baby J. I bought this useful ice cube maker from Daiso some time ago. It is a very good size for freezing puree and easily come off when I broke open the frozen puree. Important thing is it has a lid to cover the puree. Hygiene is a big thing in baby's food. You don't want to contaminate baby's food with other frozen  meat/fish/chicken in your freezer.

The green puree is zuchinni. 1 zuchinni yields 4 cubes. I just steamed zuchinni  (cut into smaller pieces) for about 10 minutes and process in blender. Then just pour the puree into the container to freeze.

Here is pumpkin puree. I only have 1 of the Daiso container so I transferred the pumpkin cube out into plastic container to keep. I remove the skin of 1/8 local pumpkin and cut into smaller pieces. Then just steam for about 15 minutes. Remove from steamer and mash the soft pumpkin with a fork. After that just transfer the pumpkin puree into ice cube maker to freeze. I usually will finish up these puree within 2 weeks.

Sometimes I cook the porridge in normal pot on stove. But it required constant stirring to avoid the "small" amount of rice from sticking to the base of pot. If I am busy or need to attend to other work in the house, I will throw everything into a slow cooker and add hot boiling water to shorten the cooking time. Even with hot boiling water, it requires about 2.5 hours to get a smooth consistency so sometimes I wish to just use the pot to cook it. Haha! Anyway, I will process the rice into smaller pieces in blender if I use the pot. I usually made and keep a batch of the processed rice to make the cooking express.

Baby J eats porridge + broccoli + pumpkin + fish

After introducing anchovies to baby J 2 weeks ago, today I gave him 2 new ingredients. They are fish and broccoli. He is used to pumpkin so I just keep the pumpkin in his meal for the familiar sweet taste. This time I added half a teaspoon of virgin coconut oil into his porridge for dinner. He finished up the porridge and dessert. His dessert is pear puree. I know pear can relieve constipation for babies however it works extra efficient for baby J. I worry the new ingredients will cause constipation problem to him so gave him pear today. I gave  him pear or apple puree at least twice a week.  He loved his dinner!

Baby J eats porridge + carrot + potato + anchovies

This weekend I introduce baby J new ingredient: anchovies. I took some anchovies and washed them. Then I dried them in oven, followed by processing the tiny fishes into powdery form. I cooked porridge with potatoes chunked into small cubes, some shredded carrots and the anchovies. Due to the presence of potato which later I mashed using fork, this porridge is very soft and velvety. Baby J finished the portion I prepared for his dinner. Can't wait to introduce him something new next week!

Baby J eats rice + pumpkin + green

I upgraded baby J food's texture into higher level of acceptance. This time I blended the rice into smaller particles before cooking. For the green, I cut some leaves of vegetables into small tiny stripes and cubed the pumpkin. Baby J likes the taste of pumpkin as it is sweet. I guess the pumpkin adds some sweet flavoring into the bland and tasteless porridge. I let them boil and simmer in pot until soft with constant stirring to avoid the rice from sticking to the base of pot. I did not blend the mixture and just let baby J eats like that. He accepted the texture and loving it! He finished 2 meals today with a pear puree. I hope this gives my little one a balance meal. I am thinking of introducing him some anchovies in another 2 weeks time. He already got 2 teeth!!! grrrr....

Baby J eats pumpkin + potato + green

I have been preparing semi solid food for Baby J. I started to add some varieties of different ingredients into his food lately. For the past weekend, I made pumpkin, potato and green leafy vegetables for his main meals.

I cleaned and cut 1/6 small pumpkin into cubes. Then I put them into steamer. I also laid down 5 leaves of small "bak choy" on top of the pumpkin cubes. I let them steamed for about 15 minutes. At the same times, I peeled about 8 baby potatoes and boiled in some water for about the same time ~15minutes or until soft. When both sides were ready, I mixed them into blender and add the water from boiling potato. Blend until soft and parted into 3 servings. I served the one in bowl to baby J once it cooled down a little to warm temperature and kept the 2 other servings into clean and sterilized containers. 

Baby J loves the sweetness from pumpkin and he needs the iron from green leafy vegetables. Potato is for him to build energy for his "active lifestyle".

Socks monkey

I wanted to make something crafty because my life for the past few months had been related only to feeding, cooking, and baby sitting. I checked and found something called socks monkey. Excellent!  This is what i was looking for. Simple, easy and quick. I managed to completed it in few days time considering I only work on it for short period of time everyday. However because I am lazy to trace the pattern, I just simply cut and hand sewn , the size of the arms and ears are not really proportional to its body size. Arms too short and ears too big. Anyway, they still look cute because that's what a soft toy should be, CUTE. I plan to send it to my niece for her coming birthday. I hope she will love it as much as I do.

Baby J eats first porridge

My baby sitter is down with flu so I took a day off today to stay home with baby J. I made him his first porridge! I only cooked 1 tablespoon of rice which I processed into powdery form. I shredded a bit of carrot into the mixture of rice and water then let it cook for about 25 minutes. Stir it from time to time to avoid the tiny bits of rice from sticking to the base. I hope he will love his first porridge

Baby J eats stewed apple

I haven't been writing much about anything else except baby J's development. I am still cooking but I am not cooking anything new. I have been making the same old food again and again like salmon spaghetti and herbal soup on weekend especially for father's day. Although we went for seafood dinner, and Nando's lunch, I still want to make something special for the new daddy.  Last week, I cooked the usual daily food except for one of the day which I made lion head meatball because the new daddy has been asking about it.

The company gave 2 apples on one of the day last week. I saved them up and make stewed apple for baby J. It's easy to make and healthier. I did not opt for the ready made puree for baby because I can make it myself, so why not? Baby J slept a little earlier today at 9pm so I quickly rushed and finished up some house chores then prepared the stewed apple.

How? I cut, core and cube the 2 apples. Spread them in a pot and add a little water just enough to cover the  base. Cook it for few minutes or until soft. Transfer over to blender or food processor then blend them into soft, smooth texture. Keep in clean sterilized containers and write down the date before freezing up. Whenever I want to use, I will just thaw and warm up the apple in hot water. This is the second batch I made for baby J. We have 4 apples :)

Baby J at 5 months

I introduced baby J to semi solid food since 2 weeks ago. I started weaning with rice cereal that was commercially prepared to get him get used to the softer and smoother texture of his first semi solid food as I mixed the rice cereal with expressed breast milk. He didn't accept the food so well in the first where he kept pushing the food out with his tongue. He could not understand the concept of swallowing food but now he will open his mouth when he saw his tiny cute weaning spoon approaching and close his lips to capture the spoon. He can swallow although sometimes bigger chunks of food still being pushed out from his little mouth.

I made mashed pumpkin for him. Steamed and mashed with potato masher , then serve to him with mixture of breast milk to thin the texture. I kept the left over in clean container and freeze them for subsequent feeding. I also tried mixing carrot into the rice cereal. Another food that I prepared for him is stewed apple, where I cooked apple cubes until they are soft and blend the apples. We bought some avocados and fed him on weekend too. The avocado has creamy texture and there is no early preparation or cooking required. I just mashed the avocado and mixed with a little hot water to thin the texture because I took the avocado straight out from the fridge. Baby J doesn't like cold food or milk. There are some left over that will be used for the rest of the week. We only feed him once a day , during dinner hour because that's the only time I can do this motherly task.

He started to roll over from tummy to back a week ago and subsequently in the next few days he was rolling like mad. He can roll on both sides now. Baby J was very fussy yesterday. He kept waking up after we put him to bed at night, every freaking half/one hour and cried! It was very tiring as he also woke up twice through night (after 12 midnight) and very early this morning.


We love him.