Angel Says Thank you!

Angel would like to say a big thank you *and kiss kiss* to all blogger mommies for their Birthday Wishes and gifts. You all have been so kind to our little girl but unfortunately as some of you might know, we are still out of the country with daddy and will only return by end of next month :) That’s why we are unable to post up all of your sincere birthday gifts for our little Angel until much later when we return so if you have sent a surprise gift for our little girl, I would like to apologized for not knowing it and say a big thank you for your kindness in trying brighten up our little girl’s day. We sincerely do and thank you so much my dear friend for the nice gesture :) I shall post them up once I return and thank you all for your wishes for little Angel :)

Also so sorry for the delay of posting up Angel’s birthday celebration as I am still in the midst of sorting out (or should I say not started yet) the pictures. It’s really not an easy task to pick few pictures out from the bunch but no choice as our internet connection / the blog hosts take ages to upload my pictures lately. I will try to post it up ASAP ya :)

So Dark!!

Yippie ….. an hour of pure silence of candle light night!! Our 60 Earth Hour was a pleasant experience for our little family actually. We switched off almost everything in our house except 1 fan in the living room (Ya …. Not prepared for a sauna at that moment yet :P). When the clock strikes 8.30pm and we switched off the final lighting in our house, 15 minutes later, we could feel the difference …….. Our house is not as hot as before, we can actually feel the cold air circulating inside the living room with no unnecessary heat generated from the computer, the TV, the standby DVD player, the lightings, etc. Really cannot imagine how much heat was produced just from these electrical appliances and the lightings alone. That’s certainly something that our little family hasn’t really experience before and I am glad that we did participate in this event and real life experience will always makes stronger statement / impression then anything else. We did feel the difference ourselves. I am sure from now one, we will have this 60 earth hour at our little home sweet home pretty often guess as we still have the remaining candles, isn’t that great?

Angel is quite happy to see the candles and lights off actually but as our naughty girl running around the house with dim candle lights, it’s a bit tough to make sure her don’t hurt herself as she cannot see her way clearly and nearly knock into the corners of our dinning table a few times :) I will make sure we come to a solution for that area before another round of ‘candle light night’ again :)

All and all, we are glad that we did it and also we are happy that our 60 Earth Hour experience is not just a ‘do for fun event’ but a event that has make a change in our lifestyle from now on.

Sooooooo dark in our living room, can’t really see a thing :P
Oh, Who’s that?? Can you see Angel’s face …. (eerrrmm, shadow) in the picture?? LoL
**********************************
Updated 30-3-2009

Photos from Agence France-Presse, Sunday March 29 2009, Source here

Malaysia
Athens
New York City
Jakarta
HongKong
London

Oue Preparations For Earth Hour 2009

I came to know about Earth Hour few weeks ago from Cath’s Blog. It is a global WWF Climate Change Awareness Campaign urging people all around the world to show support of action for climate change by turning out our lights (unessential lights) for 1 hour, on the 28th March (Saturuday), 2009 at 8.30pm local time. This is an annual and global event which trying to influence people’s attitude towards energy consumption (carbon reduction) and it’s impact on the planet. This event has been carried out very successfully and this year 2009, it aims to reach out to 1 billion people around 1000 cities including Malaysia where a lot of individual, bodies and huge companies naming a few such as our famous landmark

• PETRONAS Twin Towers (KLCC), Dataran Merdeka,
• shopping centers such as 1 U & Mid Valley & The Curve at Selangor,
• up north to Penang Bridge,
• down south to Aeon Bukit Indah Johor,
• retails such as Starbucks & Jusco & Tesco all around the country,
• Starhills, Genting, Sunway Group, IOI group etc
• Various Banks & Universities & Hotels , .....etc
• and many more (the list is sooooooo long),

all will be joining hand in hand to show supports for Earth Hour. This should be a very huge event and I am glad we as Malaysian will be able to show our concern and support towards this meaningful plead by WWF for climate change around the world.

More information can be found at here http://www.earthhour.org.my/main.php

I am so anxious to participate in this event myself as well and also registered to become a member with the organisation. I will switch off all my house lights, computer, TV and all the non essential lightings and electrical appliances in my house for an hour. But in order not to frighten Angel in a total darkness in the house, I have prepared for these ….

Candles …… that’s the only way I can participate with a young toddler at home :P
According to the Champaign, if I were to use candles, I am suppose to use100% beeswax or soy candle which are smoke free, non-toxic, non allergenic and made with natural product and effectively carbon neutral (the CO2 they emit has already been taken from the atmosphere to produce the wax) but I am not sure whether the candles which I bought fit into the categories but it’s stated 'Smoke Free' though. Ah well …. I will stick with these candles since I have already bought them :)

So lets support Earth Hour in fighting global warming with the switches in our house!! I hope that Angel will not mistaken it for her birthday 'again' when I switch off the lights :P Who else is participating?

Progressing with Shapes and Colours [1Y9M]

I am glad that Angel loves to learn and especially these few days / pass weeks, she was the one who took out all her learning tools and make me or hubby sit with her and repeat her picture book / stories book again and again and again and again until we almost threw-up by just looking at that particular book / story LoL However, we will and will be more then willing to continue our effort in supporting her constant desire for knowledge and the passion to explore with new things in her life. Although I might not come equipped with the knowledge and tools in this particular area (so pai-seh to admit this but it’s true :P) but I am trying my very best to upgrade myself everyday as well as constantly attended to her needs in expending her knowledge through some very useful yet entertaining learning kits or cards or books around us, as well as obtaining more real life experience from doing more outings together as well as from quite a number of very inspirational blog of some very experienced and dedicated mommies in the ‘blog’; and also from the extensive learning resources from the internet for some very fun + interesting activities to play or to do with my little Angel at home :P. It can be a ‘good pass time’ activities for me too coz it certainly requires a lot of preparation work before hand :P

There is no doubt that the main source of knowledge as well as the new skills learned by Angel are from what she normally sees and senses around her everyday. I am not speaking / referring to knowledge in terms of academic terms in the future at this moment (oh no … that’s certainly not my MAIN purposes), but more of learning to maximized her potential as well as fulfilling the thirst of knowledge at her age now, at her own time (normally 15 - 20 minutes per day), following her own pace / speed (e.g. through singing, exploring with colours and numbers, arts, animals, words, creativities work, role play, tracing, cake baking - yup :P, outings, etc) without sacrificing the fun of it. I do believe that playtime is the MOST IMPORTANT activities for her age at this moment so I will try to make the best out of her playtime too. FUN is very important not only to her but to me especially LoL I hope that I am able to cope with her constant thirst of learning new things everyday with the hope that my little girl will enjoy the way she and Mommy are learning together, playing together, spending time together and growing up together :)

My little Angel’s development following her ABCs and 123s :

So far, Angel manages to point and tell the following with her 'baby' pronunciations.

Colours
1) Red - Wret
2) Yellow - Ye-o
3) Blue - Byuu
4) Green - Geen
5) Orange - Or-wen
6) Black - back
7) White - white
8) Purple - per per

Shapes
1) Triangle - ang-gle
2) Square - wear :P
3) Circle - Cir
4) Oval - ovel
5) Diamond - ah-mond
6) Star - star
7) Heart - heart
8) Crescent / Moon - moon
9) Cross - Kross
10) Rectangle - tangle

i = 1, q = 9 & Craving for Food.

All these while I am showing Angel ABC in the capital letters with only a smaller lower case at the bottom and today, when she keep pulling me for her ABC session again while I am having my breakfast (oh no, not again, sigh …..), somehow due to hunger or maybe I am still half way in my dreamland, I just pointed at the lower case then she reads in a slower-then-usual pace “a,b,c,b,0,f,9, …,1,1, …, ect.” I didn’t realize it at first but wonder how come she is not paying attention anymore until I saw where my fingers were pointing at. No wonder i = 1, g and q = 9, I haven’t introduced Angel to the lower case as yet, I don’t want to rush things :) Anyway, I am glad that she is paying attention to what she reads after all. Sorry girl, it’s mommy’s fault :P

But at the mean time, q does looks like 9 and so does g ……oh dear. How am I going to teach her the lower case which is much more complicated then capital letters and tell her A is ‘A’ is the same as ‘a’, and B is ‘B’ and ‘b’ *scratching head* Or should I proceed to the word approach now and comes back to the phonics later?

**********************

Angel is extremely hungry today too. After finishing her 1 bottle of 9 oz milk early in the morning, 10 minutes later she asked for “Nen-Nen” again (seldom happens) and after looking at her flat tummy, I give in and there goes another 9 oz of milk. Then 1 ½ hour later, she asked for maam maam again but didn’t finished her cereal though :( She is craving for food today :)

P/S: Just in case you were wondering, lately Angel has been making a lot of initiations for me to teach her new things / words and I am trying to attend to her constant interest / thirst to learn.

Drawings Or Doodles 2 ?

This is what my little Angel has been up to lately, still loves drawings or doodles as usual. She will not be doing this everyday but instead, she will asked me for “draw draw” whenever she feels like it, normally 1 drawing every 2 days. She started learning to draw some object but still, I can’t make out the object from her piece of work yet :P I’ve always asked her what is she drawing about but she will either remain silence or will baby talk to me ……. apart from the 1st piece of drawing below “The Sun, The Moon and The Stars” where she tell me exactly what they were while pointing to me :) Enjoy the work of my little Picasso at home :)

^ ^ The Sun (orange), The Moon (yellow) and The Stars (green)

^ ^ The Big Bang

^ ^ Flies Do Fight!! ^_^

^ ^ Lavender ….

^ ^ Can you Spot A Micke*y Mouse? ... Sort of :P

^ ^ My World, My Rainbows

^ ^ Party Crackers!

^ ^ Fire Crackers During CNY

^ ^ Mommy’s Vision When I Am Naughty :P

Colour Within Lines [1Y11M]

I first started Angel with crayons when she was 21 months old. I prefer and encouraging her to draw on a blank piece of paper rather in a drawing book with characters hoping that she would be able to learn drawing starting from zero, colour them wherever she likes, no boundaries, no rules to follow and that piece of paper is her only limitations. I do not wish to suppress her little imaginations with lines and rules as a start.

So after few months of drawings, finally I bought her one of those Micke*y Mouse colouring book and she seems so happy to see it. (Yes, she loves Micke*y Mouse) I show her how to colour Mickey Mouse’s ears but she refused to pay attention to be and continue scribbling all over the pages like what she used to do with her plain drawings block. Well, I just let her be and move on to do my own things. After awhile, she is telling me …..

“Nose ~~~ Nose ~~ ”
“Ok Angel, you see nose is it? Yes, nose! Mickey’s nose …. ” and continue with my laptop without looking at her

“Eyes ~~ ”
“Eyes ….. Yes, Eyes. Where is the eyes, lets show mommy ….” So I put down my laptop and I saw this this ……

^ ^Left: She tried to colour Pluto’s nose with red colour and also Pluto’s eyes and mouth with black colour …… but of course, she can’t do them nicely yet ^_^

^ ^Right: Few days later, I saw her drawing these freehand lines on her colouring book, I even asked hubby was he the one drawing them and he said no.
Yes …. My girl is started to understand what lines are and also since I started her with colours couples of weeks back, I can see that she starts to observe her world in colours now although sometimes still mistaken purple for blue, pink for orange, etc. I am impressed that she is showing positive signs of development :) Here are some of her first time colouring work (Yes, colouring within those lines for a start) although it’s not perfectly done yet and the colour is not correctly placed too LoL But at least she has gotten the idea of doing it now. These few pieces of colouring work really have such special meaning to me :) My little girl is really growing up fast now :)


^ ^Top Left: All characters was in orange
^ ^Top right: Green Mickey Mouse?
^ ^Lower Left: Eyes were brown in colour but I am not sure about Daisy’s eyes though
^ ^Lower Right: Her first trial of colouring, she do all of them except Micke*y’s ear was done my me :P

Tag With Awards

I receive this wonderful award from lovely Cath again and thank you so much Cath for the award :) What’s so special of this award is it comes with a tag too :) So here it goes

*start copying*

Name 7 things/persons that you love and then pass this to 7 other bloggers.
1) My hubby
2) My Angel
3) My Family
4) My friends (including my blog friends too …..)
5) My handphone
6) My books and magazines
7) My laptop

*end of copying*

I would like to pass this to :
1) Mummy Gwen
2) Serene
3) Linda
4) Agnes

5) Queenie
6) Mery
7) Kristie (Jayden's mummy)

Mouth Ulcer After The Fall

24 hours after the fall, oh my poor baby ….
Here is some update on Angel's condition after the fall in my previous post 'Swallon Lip and Tongue'. She is feeling much better now and thanks for all your concern *hugs* Her swollen is almost subsided as well as the red lines on her face has totally disappear leaving a small red patch on her outer upper lip.

Somehow she developed mouth ulcer from her minor incision on the inner lip …… oh, poor baby, it must hurt a lot ..... This is the first time I am facing problems with mouth ulcer in toddler but I will bring her to her paediatrician if the ulcer is not getting any better in a day or 2. But at the mean time, any expereince in healing / dealing with her mouth ulcer?

Swollen Lip and Tongue

Angel fell down at the play ground during our outing today. Me and hubby watching her closely but still, it happened!! Sigh …!!!

Actually she was happily playing on the slides, climbing up and down the stairs and running around the play area while me and hubby chasing her all over the place. After a good 30 minutes of playing, she was sitting down at the top of the slide again ready to make her way down sliding while me and hubby standing at both beside of her ready to catch her if anything happened. But instead of sliding down, she tipped over to her side falling to the metal platform (about 1 feet lower) and landed on her shoulder and face!!! I tried to catch her but since she tipped over to hubby’s side, I can’t reached her while hubby also didn’t noticed coz his vision was block by the hand bars. It happened so fast and I alerted hubby and quickly ran over to get her ….. she was crying furiously and tiny bit of blood coming out from her mouth. After making some inspection, the blood was actually from the wound on her tongue and her upper lips on the right. Her teeth must be cutting into them while she falls.

I am thankful that it’s just a small cut apart from a red line over her face (still visible after 12 hours now) and also her lips was a bit swollen. However her mouth seems to be in great pain and once in awhile, blood still coming out from her tongue. So my poor girl refuse to eat her dinner tonight despite that she was very hungry and keep asking for food. So at the end, hubby manages to feed her some bananas in rice cereal. I think for a day or 2, she will not be having any hard food until her wound gets better. *so heart pain*

A Perfect Blend Of Friendship Award

I receive this sweet award from the sweet mommy Stacey. Thanks for your award Stacey, I appreciate it very much and also thank you for being a real sweet friend of mine too :) *hugs*

Now, I would like to pass this meaningful award to

1) LemonJude

2) Leann (Leann surely will pass it to all the multiply kaki :P)

3) Bonnie

4) Esmeralda

5) Cath

6) Yen Ping

7) Joanne Tiew

8) Anggie

Strawberries Intolerance

I think my decision to delay the introductions of Strawberries to Angel was correct. As information gathered from the internet, despite all the goodness which can be found in the fruit itself, Strawberries are also one of the potential high allergen fruits which is advisable for babies above 12 months old and also advised to be avoided longer if the baby have high risk of being intolerance to strawberries. But since she is going to be 2 next week, I wanted to give it a try to see whether she is ready to accept the fruit.

Hence few days ago, I asked hubby to pick up some strawberries from the supermarket on his way back from work. Too bad those pretty bright red coloured strawberries were not as sweet as it looks. At first, I thought that Angle wouldn’t want to eat them after her first bite but on the contrary, she loves it so much despite it’s a bit sour. She can’t even wait until I finished washing the fruits and start crying hinting me to give her those strawberries :) She really enjoyed her fruit so much!!


But after having a few of them about half an hour later, she starts having diarrhoea which is one of the sign of food intolerance! I am glad that she is just having some loose stools without the sign of tummy cramps and no rashes appear on her mouth, body or bottom. *phew* So I guess I will have to eliminate strawberries from her menu for the moment being still until her tummy and body is stronger enough to consume the fruit again with the hope that she will outgrown her food reaction towards strawberries real soon :) So is that also an indication of no oranges for her still? I am still considering ………….

Nice try though …. She can’t have them for now but at least she knows how a strawberry looks like and taste like :) We had a good day exploring with the fruit, let her feel the texture and show her how bright and nice a strawberry can be :)

16th In Total

Today 2 upper cuspids of Angel finally erupted showing two dash of whites on her gums making her a total of 16th teeth before the age of 2. She has not shown any sign of teething for the pass few days which is great, just very clingy as usual and also having her rice with not much problems. I am happy that she is getting more teeth now. Supposedly she would be expecting her lower 2nd molars 3 months ago but so far, no sigh of them as yet. Hopefully I will see them erupting real soon together with her upper 2nd molars.

P/S: That's Angel's little finger pointing at her own teeth in the picture :P

Char Sao (Barbeque Pork / 叉烧)

The cooking heat is on :) After the Crispy Roasted Pork, we are asking Yoki for the Char Sao (Barbeque Pork / 叉烧) recipe instead and she is so nice enough to actually show us how to make it. (Thank you so much Yoki, really am!)

This is much more complex then making the roasted pork for me but still, I am so eager to try it out. So after cooking and marinated the pork, there goes the pork into the wok and braised. Ta da ….. that’s my first Char Sao!! It does look a bit pale from the inside and because I am not using the red colouring, so its colour does look a bit ‘darker’ instead of the normal bright red outer layer :) I also love the sweeter version of Char Sao so I did add in extra 4 tablespoon of sugar into my Char Sao before cooking :P The outcome is nice and sweet although not really taste 100% like Char Sao LoL. However, Hubby and I managed to finish the entire dish all by ourselves that night. And also because this round my Char Sao does taste a bit salty then usual so I didn’t give it to Angel. Maybe she has to wait for my 2nd attempt, yes again :) All in all, it was surely a very appetizing dish to have and I will make it our regular dish from now on :)

Thank you Yoki for sharing such a nice recipe with us, I love it so much and I will work harder to get the recipe right :)

(Translated from Yoki’s recipe)

Char Sao Recipe

600g – 700 gram pork, cut into 3 cm wide strips
- loosen meat by hitting the meat with the back of the knife

Sauce
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
4 tablespoon oyster sauce
4 tablespoon soy sauce
3 tablespoon Siu-Heng cooking wine
1 tablespoon rock sugar (melted with a bit of hot water)
2 teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 small bowl of water

Thickening
1 teaspoon corn flour + 1 tablespoon of water

Method of cooking the sauce:
1) Heat wok with 2 tablespoon of oil, stir fried garlic until fragrant
2) add in all ingredient for the Sauce, stir occasionally in low heat until boiling
3) add in Thickening gradually, keep stirring until sauce is thicken.
4) Marinate the pork meat with the ready sauce for a minimum of 4 hours or overnight.

Method of doing Char Sao
1) Heat wok with 1 tablespoon of oil, fried pork until fragrant
2) Add in a small bowl of water, simmer in low heat until the sauce is thicken, (may take out to serve as char sao sauce)
3) Turn on high heat to darken the meat (until slightly burned)
4) Slice and ready to serve


*******************************************************************

2 days later, I am craving for the Char Sao dish again so I went to buy another piece of pork for my 2nd attempt. When I went home, only I found out that I have ran out of the cooking wine and fish sauce ….. oh boy!!! What to do …… so after searching high and low in the kitchen, I found a bottle of ready made Char Sao Sauce which has been sitting in my fridge for don’t know how long, must be hubby who bought this without telling me! So since I can’t follow Yoki’s version due to shortage of ingredients, I use the instant sauce instead. According to the recipe at the back of the sauce, I must baked my Char Sao instead of braising. So here I go, baking my Char Sao in the kitchen watching closely in front of my oven and ta da ……… the outcome is just as nice!! Although it still doesn’t taste 100% similar to those Char Sao I had in those Wantan Mee stalls but the texture and out look are close enough! Furthermore, our own cooking is surely much healthier without the colourings and the portion is much bigger as well! The meat is also very moist and tender as compare to those we had in the restaurant because it just come out of fresh from the oven.

Hubby loves it, I love it and so does our little Angel. She even pointing at the Char Sao before we had our meal indicating that she wants to eat those LoL I told you how picky my little missy was and still is when it comes to her food, basically she has turned into a carnivore at this point! Surprisingly today for this particular dish, I do not have to introduce much to her and by instinct, she knows that’s her favourite meat dish (although the colour is so dark) and voluntarily hinting me that she wants to try them way before we started our dinner! LoL

Random Daily Meals

I haven’t been cooking any new menus for Angel for the past week as the battery of my brain is running low after ‘The Battle’ :P Now that she is slowly back to her healthy eating habit, so I was thinking not to overwhelm her with any new food / stronger flavoured food for a week or two until she settle with those she normally eat and also those she used to love, then only gradually progressing back to those stronger flavoured food. It’s a good chance for me to evaluate and find out any changes in her ‘preference’ too. I must say that it’s a good start for me and a good start for my Angel as well. Below are some random meals the ‘mild taste categories’ which she is having without much hustle.

^ ^ RED PORRIDGE: Porridge with Beetroot, Apple, Cauliflower, Chicken Breast Meat in Homemade Chicken Soup Base.

^ ^ CORN SOUP MEE HOON: Mee Hoon with sweet corn and Pork rib. Although the meal looks plain but surprisingly she loves this one a lot.

^ ^ (Left) Bitter Gourd (苦瓜)Soup with Alphabet Pasta.
(Right) Carrot + Shredded Pork with Vege Animal Pasta.

^ ^ VEGE PORRIDGE: Porridge with Corn, Onions, Broccoli, Carrots (not in the pix), Mince Meat in Homemade Pork Bone Soup Base.

^ ^ VEGE PORRIDGE: Porridge with Ridged Luffa / Gourd (丝瓜), Corn, Chinese Wolfberry and Mince Pork Meat.

As she will be marching into her 2nd birthday real soon which means her body is getting more prepared for choices of food in terms of texture as well as taste and flavour, I am also scratching my head and busy looking for more recipes and menu which is suitable for a young toddler. Any yummy recipe for your toddler(s), mind to share?

[1Y9M] A Battle With A Picky Eater

This was what happened 1 1/2 month AGO ……..

It’s been a nightmare for more then a month now when it comes to Angel’s meal time. Previously cooking and watching her taking her meals ware such blissful moments and sometimes, she would asked for a very large portion and would eat almost anything that’s lying on her table polishing her bowl squeaky clean. Everything to her was a feast and all food for her was delicious. But since her sudden changed in her appetite after CNY (i.e. becoming a picky eater after helping herself with junk food and salty adult’s food for few days), watching her finishing her meal is such a torturing process and basically asking her to finish her meal or even 1/4 portion of it is a mission impossible!

I have cut down on the portion of her lunch and dinner to almost 1/.2 of what she normally eat and yet, she would just simple dig in and have a few spoons and then tells me she wants to get down from her high chair (i.e. she is full already). So I thought that she don’t like her usual dish so I have changed from porridge to rice, spaghettis then to mee hoon, mee, pastas (with soup or dry) then also bread and homemade cakes, etc the results is still the same. She would try to have some carrots in the porridge and tells me

“YUCKSSS~~~!!”

then she don’t want to eat anymore. Or she would try to dig in and after taking the first spoon then making a vomiting face then stopped totally (but those food are not a new food to her). Even the veges in the ABC soup which she used to love so much was ended up on the floor with another few “YUCKKS~~~!!” (don’t know where she learn that words from ….) because she thinks the carrot, the potatoes, the onions, sweet corn, everything in it taste horrible, looks gross except for the meat (oh ya …. ) but strangely me and hubby also having the same soup but found nothing wrong with it at all!!!

In order to tried out what dish she likes, I let her have a varieties of vege and meat with her normal carbo and she would picked out all the meat from her carbo and eat them and left the vege and rice lying there, untouched! So in her next meal, I mixed the vege and making it into a meat ball hoping that she would eat them, at first she is very happy to see her ‘meat’ and once she chew on them then taste the vege, she would try to swallow them for the first few attempts then starts to spit them all out one by one and fuss + refused to eat anything anymore! She even reject tomatoes, tofu, sweet corns, sweet potatoes, cucumber (she used to love it so much and would eat them raw last time), pumpkin, mince meat, carrots, etc …… basically everything and only opened her mouth wide when it comes to pork meat which is from the soup bone, chicken drumsticks and fruits!! She even rejects tomato ketchup totally which normal kids would love to bits. If I was to offer her mee hoon, she would only eat the mee hoon plain but still, few bites then started to push all her food away or sometimes even dropped her plates on the floor making a mess!

If she was having bread, she would only eat them plain, also a few bites. If we were to feed her rice, she would eat them plain with soup, same …. Few spoon and she is full but will come asking for milk 10 minutes later. Cereal she would reject totally! If we try to feed her adult food, a dash of onions / garlic / any herbs you name it, she would make the gesture of wanting to vomit then spit them all out!!! (She rejects spaghetti sauce totally because there was onion in it!! And she hates tomato sauce too.) But I guaranteed potato chips / junk food which loaded with garlic / onion / even chillies she would eat them with her mouth opened wide LoL. I am so stress at times and even hubby who is so linear with her can’t even tolerate with her constant bad behaviour on the dinning table + extremely picky eating habit and once took all her food from her table and throw them in the sink and demand her to go to bed without her dinner. So there was few days that she is going to bed without having any solid for the entire day, just her milk, milk and more milk! Coaxing, talking nicely and even bribing her is just no use at all, she just doesn’t want to have anything to do with it when it comes to proper food! I even have tried rushing in and out of the kitchen just to cook her another different dinner after she rejected her first meal just hoping that she would eat her solid but then, she still prefers just to drink her milk only ……. I am so stress out!! I am worried that she won’t be getting enough nutrition and minerals she needed for a healthy and well-balance diet, I am worried that she will overly depended on her milk intake for the rest of the day, the month and the year, I am worried she is not taking any solid at all! :(

This was what happened 1 month LATER ……..

After more then a month of persistence in offering her with variety of healthy solids over and over, but do not force her to finished her meal if she rejects and also spending more time with her lunch and dinner time, I could see some progress in her, accept her solid one by one, more and more each day these few days! Since she is approaching her 2 years old in less then 2 weeks time now, I think it shouldn’t poses any huge problem to start introducing tiny bit of salt and other healthy options of seasonings that I could find into her meal but of course, to the minimum. I also started to notice that Angel

- loves noodles more then rice, still loves porridge
- loves ABC pastas but hates her animal / vehicle pastas,
- loves pork more then chicken,
- hates western style of cooking but prefers Chinese style
- prefers steaming rather then frying (strange!!)
- prefers soft moist food with texture
- and also, she would eat her porridge if she could see chucks of meat in them!

So I tried to chopped the vege to as finely as possible and to dice those meat to be as easily noticed by bare eyes as possible. I have been eating the same food (porridge) with her too sometimes, making her watching me eat hoping that she will dig in with me as well, and also feeding her 1 or 2 spoons of the cooked veges before her meal time (while she was very hungry and looking for me in the kitchen) just to let her taste how sweet those vege could be then show how I add them into her porridge hoping that she would not reject the dark green colours of vege in her meal, also offering her raw cucumber as snacks (chilled them for awhile). And now, she is slowly eating her carrots, having her veges, eating her tofu and taking her broccoli and spinach …… I am glad to see her progress day by day, eating more and more each day, food ending in the bin also getting lesser and lesser. I could see that her appetite is almost back to normal now but still, she would still picked out some stuffs from her porridge if she doesn’t like them.

I am aware that my battle with a picky eater at home is not totally over yet and will not be over so soon I guess, but I am glad that she is happily eating her solid now and even told me they were “NICE ~~~” at times :)

Doodles ....... On Her Face?

That is what happened when I took my eyes off her for a few minutes …… I have been trying to search for a solution for this but can’t seems to find any resort to that yet so I was wondering …… Is there any BALL-POINT PEN in the market which is washable / erasable just in case that she drew them on the walls / books / her shirt or herself again?

A Not-So-Favourite Corner of Hers.

After the ‘deleting of my files’ incident here, I always be very alert once Angel starts touching my notebook again. Since my Hello Kitty* mouse when dead few weeks ago and has gotten myself a wireless mouse instead, I would be heartache if she accidentally dropped my mouse again. So there is one time that she got herself occupied with my notebook again, feeling despaired, I pulled her to a little corner, told her never to touch mommy’s notebook again, asked her to stand there for 2-3 minutes until she nodded and promised that she never going to touch the notebook nor the mouse again then I gave her a hug. That was the one and only time that she went to that little corner of hers in our living room more then a month ago.

Today when I was rushing to prepare her lunch due to wake up later then usual, after her milk I saw that she starts to play with my notebook and clicking with my mouse again! I was rushing for the lunch so I didn’t stop her but start to raise my voice a little as usual from the kitchen ….

“Angel ~~ Do not touch Mommy’s notebook!! You want to stand at the corner again, don’t you? You go and stand THERE! Mommy is cooking lunch for your, can you wait patiently for your lunch?? ………….”

Then out of a sudden I heard her crying out loud so I rush out from the kitchen worrying that she might hurt herself or something …… then I saw my little girl standing at her little corner all by herself, with tears rolling down her cheeks while raising both her arms asking for a hug without daring to make a move away from that little spot of hers. *Heart melted* My heart really melted right away, my poor girl must have thought that I am angry with her and really mean to ask her to stand at her corner, poor thing!! But normally she would never be so obedient and would totally ignore what I said all the time but I guess not today. I have loose my heart totally when I saw her crying so pitiful and standing there all alone ……. so I give her a long hug telling her that Mommy love her so much!

God has given me this sweet little girl who has never failed to melt my heart ..... ^_^

Purple Cabbage Porridge

That’s Angel’s meal for today, Purple Cabbage + Mince Pork Porridge. Information from the internet says that Purple Cabbage actually has the same nutritional values as those normal white cabbages but with an extra phytochemical (which gives the cabbage such nice colour) that acts as an antioxidant and also improves memory. Same goes with eggplant, prune and grapes etc. I personally likes the colour very much hence thinking to expose Angel to more colours when it comes to her meal.

The colour of the porridge turned out to be much nicer then I have thought. When I first saw it, I was a bit worried that Angel wouldn’t want to eat her meal as she hates black colour food. Hence when I place the bowl onto her table, I was anxiously watching her facial expression. The first word coming out from her mouth was “per-per” (as in purple)!! LoL That is definitely a sweet surprise, I didn’t know that she is actually paying attention to those colour cards I flash to her every morning after all :)

She accepted her ‘Purple Meal’ pretty well actually, managed to finish the portion which I gave to her. I personally think that the porridge is very healthy and very presentable too but purple cabbage tends to be harder in texture then the normal white cabbage, I had shredded them finely so she wouldn’t be having a hard time munching on them and rejects them later.

The Name Game

I received this interesting Tag from Esmeralda and Yaggya …. Thank you girls for the Tag!! It looks fun and I do hope that it’s easy as it looks :P

Rules:

1) Copy to your own blog, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 20 (if you have 20 in your list).

2) Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real...nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

I am scratching my head now :)

What is your name? Caroline
A four letter word: Care
A boy's name: Clarence
A girl's name: Camellia
An occupation: Chef
A colour: Charcoal
Something you wear: Cap
A food: Cheese Cakes!!!!!
Something found in the bathroom: Cup
A place: Cameron Highlands
A reason for being late: Car breakdown?
Something you shout: COME ON!!!
A movie title: Cinderella
Something you drink: Coke, Coffee!
A musical group: Carpenters …..
A street name: Chow Kit Road?
A type of car: Camry ….. who don’t love Camry!
A song title: Close To You
A verb: Cleaning

Who else has not been tag yet, feel free to grab this tag at the mean time ya while I will work that out later hopefully :)

Bento#1: Hello Kitty Vege Egg Sandwich

That is what I prepared for Angel’s lunch few days ago. This is not a proper Bento meal yet because for Angel’s easy access to her food, I did it in her dish plate :). I am trying to practice with all my tools which has been left untouched actually. It does take a massive time to prepare the bread because I am such a novice in this area still but after preparing the meal (and also having to attend to Angel’s crying and her needs on and off), I think I would only have time to do such meals again when I really have more time to spare or else, dealing with such details and Angel at the same time really was such a challenge :P

Angel can’t wait to eat her meals when she saw the Hello Kitty on her plate and call out “Ti ….. Ti …… “ (as in Kitty) but once I handle her the food, the first thing she dug into was the grapes instead @_@. However after the meal, I think the sandwich would be more suitable for older kids as the sandwich combination is a bit dry for little Angel to swallow without her bottle of apple juice. Furthermore, she didn’t really chew her food hence the bread would stuck on her throat most of the time. Other then that, everything seems fine with her. But I did mention before that Angel hates fried eggs so I thought to give this meal a little difference seeing whether she would love her fried eggs. I have add in not only vege to the eggs but some mince chicken meat as to add some flavour to the eggs as well. she does take a few bites on the eggs then, she keep feeding me the rest of the eggs and only save the piece of bread to herself LoL I guess I shall try other version next time unless I am feeling to have more fried eggs for myself :) Nice try though …. LoL

^ ^ On her plate (clockwise in the top left picture) were Black Grapes, Goat Milk Yogurt sprinkled with Haw Flakes (山楂), Some extra Vege Egg*, Hello Kitty Vege Egg* Sandwich. (*Vege Eggs = Egg, Cabbage, Onions, Carrots + Chicken Meat).

Doggie, Doggie, Climb Up The Stairs

This is one of the toy which I have been looking around for so long but couldn’t seems to get one. I am thinking maybe Angel might like it but I couldn’t find the penguins ones which I was looking for until I saw this doggie version which is even better (coz Angel loves puppies) at a toy shop and it was the last unit hiding at the back of the store! So despite they were selling it quite pricey, I happily grab it without any hesitation as I really liked it plus I might as well get it before I totally forgot all about it or Angel has outgrown the stage of playing with this kind of toy :).

Does she like it? Actually she was horrifed to see the puppies moving up the stairs at the very beginning and insisted that her grandma stay there and play it ‘for’ her. But after a few days of ‘warming up’ with grandma (yes, again …… poor grandma), she is more ok with it and dare to touch the doggie and make them slide down the track when I did not turn on the batteries power for her.

I have came across sometimes back in a blog that a mommy is also looking for a wooden piano (those traditional type) which we use to play way back then and she is willing to pay a high price in order to get a similar aged piano for her little kid too, maybe due to some sentimental value or sweet memories she has …… actually if possible, I would love to get one of the sports car racing track for Angel too as that’s one of my favourite toy way back then so that ‘WE’ (me and Angel) could play together …… actually did you have any sentimental toys which you used to love and would like your little ones have the same thing as well?