Mr Grumps

You lookin' at me?

Someone's sure nailed the grumpy look.

Sorry sweetheart, you're gonna hate having this picture posted, but mummy sure thinks you still look heavenly, even with that stare and the unkempt hair!

Baring it all for you

Everyone's got a public and a private self. The distinction between the two selves varies from person to person. Mine, they're almost two distinct and separate persons. Why? I can't go into too much detail, only to say that I grew up learning that if your closest of kins cannot protect you and in fact will harm you (albeit unconsciously and intentionally), then my only choice was to withdraw and protect myself, to run to a place I could get some peace of mind. However, this didn't prevent me from constantly wondering what I did wrong. So the public self was always agreeable (well, most of the time at least) while the private self doubted everything and rebelled without reason, just because their was always an issue with authority figures.

Wearing this mask for a long time only served to gnaw away at my inner core, my true self. Slowly and gradually, I never wanted to be at home, hiding in my room was no longer good enough a refuge for me. I wanted to stay away, but there was no where I could go or stay for long. I planned to leave the country but didn't know what I could do and even which country I should choose. I just wanted OUT!


Until ........

Vader came along. When we were just learning about each other, he was the most annoying person ever, because he never allowed me to retreat too much into my cave without first talking to him about issues. I could probably write a novel on this, but it wouldn't even sell lar, maybe only Vader would want to read it. hahaha

The process of coming out of my shell carried on after baby Vader was born, it carries on even now and I will need an entire lifetime of learning. I am thankful for the lessons though.


Last Saturday evening, baby Vader refused all his food, because he saw that Vader and I were having burgers and fries. After much screaming on his part, we let him eat some bread and his fruit (of which he only allowed us to feed him half), then he went to sleep with his bottle of milk. The following day, he started his lunch by pushing away his food and my hands and pointed to my lunch of macaroni soup. I gladly scooped out some for him and gingerly cut the macaroni into smaller pieces for him. He ate 3 or 4 pieces, with his soup, then started whining to be carried out of his chair again. He also toppled his bowl of macaroni on the floor! By this time, I was overcome by worry at the meagre amount of food he was getting into his system, so I raised my voice at him, ignored his whining, picked up all the food on the floor and threw the metal bowl into the sink from the dining table (1.5 metres away), making a loud clang as it landed. Then, knowing that he still wanted me to carry him, I pushed his chair away from myself forcefully (but without any harm to him, thankfully!). My instinct right then was to walk away, to run to another room, but I could not, absolutely could not, because he needed me.

I was torn between my need to get away and his needs and wrecked by guilt at having pushed him away. And I was alone with him at home.... That was when I started crying in front of him. I moved closer to him and held his hands. apologising and explaining why I had lost my cool, while the tears flowed uncontrollably. Baby Vader looked me straight in the eyes while all this was going on.

Then you know what? He smiled at me, then reached out to wipe my tears with his hands. He knew they were tears, because if he was touching something strange, he would have scrunched up his face, looked at his hands and rubbed his fingers. I was being comforted by my own child, still in many ways, a baby........ I can't even describe the feelings evoked within me then. (He then proceeded to finish all his lunch and fruit shortly after that.... phew!)


Today, as I reflect on this episode, I am still reduced to a puddle of tears and reminded of this clip on "Vulnerability" by Brene Brown. Click here to watch it.


Thank you for making me feel loved, Vader, baby Vader and the little one within!

What's for lunch today

Here's looking at one of my favourite chinese dishes!

Braised minced pork in chinese five spice:

Recipe courtesy of http://www.kitchenexperiments.net/. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I stumbled upon this food blog recently, and was shocked that this was categorised under "simple cooking", because in my mind, I imagined the cooking to take hours and the recipe to require all sorts of chinese spices I would not know how to buy. It was really simple actually, and the smells emanating from the pot while I was cooking further encouraged me that this was a worthwhile endeavour.

I would readily cook this for Vader, but I'm not sure how he would like it since it's a pork dish and I'm not sure it would go well with other meats.... erm... maybe beef.... no harm trying :)

You know how chefs like Michael Smith from "Chef at Home" advocate cooking without a recipe, and to just let the ingredients come together themselves? Well I could never do that. I don't even know what tastes good with what... so I always cook with a recipe. They are life-savers for fumbling green horns like myself. But Vader is a different story. He can and does cook without recipes I think.... he can tell what ingredients might be needed or are missing from a certain dish even when we're eating out. I've never asked him how he cooks his dishes, because I've always been afraid it'll be too complex for me, or that maybe he wouldn't be able to give me the exact directions that I would need to replicate a certain dish, just because he cooks by approximation.

I'm not envious though, because I've never dreamed I would be cooking in the kitchen one day, even if only for family members. I've always been the one who volunteered to wash the dishes because I like playing with soap suds and hearing the plates squeaky clean! I've always enjoyed being cooked for, haha! I guess, if I don't have a natural flair for something, I've just got to work harder or find ways to achieve at least an acceptable standard. You know what? I think I'm slowly making my way up this mountain! It's not insurmountable la, .......I think... I hope!

p/s I also managed to cook edible rice on the stove without burning the pot this time.

Hide and Seek with the multi-coloured strip

The bane of my gynae visits:

I'm due for my gynae checkup this evening at 7.10pm. On my check up days, I remind myself not to eat at least 3 to 4 hours before the dreaded routine urine test. In my first trimester, I couldn't allow myself to go hungry, so there was always sugar present when I did the test. On seeing this, my gynae wanted me to go for the glucose test on my 20th week, but by then, I had learnt to avoid eating before the test. I would arrive early to register, rush to get the routine test done, then ta bao sandwiches or a burger to wolf down while waiting for my name to be called. My tests have been clear of any sugar traces so far, so that's a good sign, at least I think it is.

I've always believed the tests to be inaccurate because apart from eating prior to the test, my regular diet does not include sweet drinks or sweets or desserts on a daily or sometimes even weekly basis. I could have had fruit or a few biscuits before the test (because I was that hungry!) and sure enough, sugar would show up on the multi-coloured strip. Or I could be self-deluded and not want to face the possibility that I could develop gestational diabetes, whether or not my diet encourages it.

For now at least, I'll still be playing hide and seek with the multi-coloured strip!

I cooked. Again!

Fishball kwayteow soup this time.

I have no idea how much time I took to cook this, only that it took less than an hour. It involved chopping, frying, defrosting stock and then combining the fried ingredients with the non-fried ones. So while it looks ok, and tastes quite good, I'm still no where near ready to cook this for the family (thankfully the children aren't eating table food yet, that gives me some time to practice still). But it sure was fun!

Clearing out the fridge

Today I made Latkes for lunch. Reason being I had potatoes and eggs in the house that needed to be consumed. I forgot to take a picture of mine, because by the time I was done with the cooking, I was famished. They weren't too bad, and by this I mean that they weren't burnt or undercooked. They looked something like this:

The thing is, I never knew what Latkes were until today - Potato cakes of Jewish origin. I initially wanted to make Rosti, but after I had shredded the potatoes, I realised (from Google) that I should have boiled the potatoes before shredding them. So I searched Youtube and stumbled upon this dish, which suited my still very wet, shredded potatoes. I was initially going to dump the wet potatoes into the pan to fry, but something warned me against it. It was then that I started googling for a recipe for Rosti.

You know, I've never revealed the extent of my lousy cooking to anyone until now. I suspect Vader doesn't even know I could never even fry an egg properly until a few weeks ago, much less cook anything else edible for the family. I've always stayed away from anything that had to do with frying because I've always always failed. The food would either be too oily or burnt, because I could never tell when to put in the ingredients to be fried. Only very recently, I've ventured into fried food, because if the food is inedible, I could just toss it. No one is relying on my cooking at the moment to survive. Vader makes baby Vader's food, thankfully.

So, still baby steps for me. Hopefully one of these days, I can cook something which Vader and the children will truly enjoy!

Thai Express

Here's us at Thai Express, Christine was back in SG for the CNY break. Mandy is also expecting, just a week ahead of me :) what excellent timing!