I love to cook and bake, but am doing less of it since Zara was born.

When I was 8, 9months pregnant with Zara, for my 1 hr lunch break, since I was such a greedy pig I used to bake pies or sausage rolls at home (since I was getting very heavy and lugging the notebook to and fro the office was hurting my back, I was spending most of the later months working from home). I also used to bake new years cookies for both my mil and our home but didn’t do it this year because I was busy with Zara.

After Zara was born, I was spending less time in the kitchen. When I did, it usually was because I wanted to make something for Zara. When she started solids, I prepared her food on weekends like stewed fruits; steamed or, when I was adventurous, Mediterranean style vege; pureed them, and then froze them in ice cube trays and the following day just popped them out and store them in zip locks bags.

It was only when she turned 9mths old that we introduced meat and hence porridge to her (before it was all pureed vege or fruits mixed with organic rice cereal). No more need to do bulk cooking for her on weekends. Her porridge is mainly done by Tuyam, our maid.

When we moved to our new place this March, I wanted a good oven, because our old cheap one was not cooking cakes or cookies evenly. We bought one with full feature (not the Teka or Pacific self-cleaning-catalytic-oh-so-expensive type). The only piece of equipment in the house which I had full say on since this is my forte (the rest of the gadgets I left it to Daddy).

I had probably just baked a cake, roasted some sweet potato and potato and that’s about it for this whole year.

MIL and SIL were coming over for dinner yesterday, and it was also our marketing day. So I thought maybe I can get a fresh chicken and roast it for dinner, and try out the rotisserie.

The chic was a medium sized chic, I seasoned it the minute we got back from the market. I used light soya sauce, a bit of dark soya sauce, brown sugar, ginger juice, minced garlic, a pinch of cinnamon powder and salt.

At 6pm, I got Daddy to bring Zara to the park because I had to cook. I stuffed the chicken with garlic cloves and ginger slices, and skewed it through the rotisserie rod. Once it’s in the oven, I just set the timer, and left the kitchen to do some blog surfing (hubby of course didn’t know it was that easy to roast a chicken).

I went to the kitchen to check a few times, just to make sure things were ok. In the process, I got burnt by being careless while moving the tray and the rotisserie rod about.

The chicken was ready in an hours time and turned out to be quite nice; evenly cooked, juicy in the inside, and best of all, all the fat has dripped to the tray. For the ultimate test, we gave some to Zara. Alas, she being a fish person, preferred the steamed garoupa to the chicken. I kept the left over breast for her though, we’ll use it to make sandwich for her for lunch.

I’ll start to spend more time with the oven now that I know how the rotisserie work, and if Daddy didn’t mind looking after Zara, I can bake cookies again for the coming new year.

I took off on Friday, and met up with King’s Wife and her girls for another day of shopping (what else can you do in the afternoon with 2 kids and 1 toddler on tow?).

Before we hit the mall, we went to the famous jeweler’s place to collect some exquisite crystal bracelet I’d ordered. I love crystal (semi precious stone and diamonds!) jewelry because of the different healing properties the different crystals hold. and I love them simple and wearable all the time, something which I don’t have to remove even when I’m in the shower.

The famous jeweler was busy completing the last bit of stringing, leaving her twins to host us. Zara was one who never stand on occasion, she made herself feel right at home; she spotted the twins’ bike, and immediately climbed on it; she saw any thing resembling a toy, and started taking and playing with it. Until one of the twin could not stand any more and went to complain to mummy.

*See where her fingers were in the photo, she even wanted to control what was to show on TV*

I got 3 different bracelets, one using garnet, another using peridot, and one more combining amethyst and rose quartz. For the latter design I got one for Zara as well. I also got a pair of earrings for my niece, Alicia since she’s into jewelry now. King Wife’s got herself a pair of earrings as well.

They are all quite pretty and dainty, and reasonably priced. Zara loves her bracelet as well. When I put it on for her, I’ll tell her, “See, pretty pretty”. She would then walk to Daddy and point to the bracelet, and then to her kakak and do the same thing. After ‘showing off’ to whover is around, she would then remove it, very swiftly. Probably a bad idea to get jewelry for her.

After jewelry shopping, we went to Mid Valley. I used to go to there everyday when we were still staying in Seputeh, but rarely now since we moved. I had forgotten how bad traffic can get there. It was a working day, but the traffic was hellish, and the car park was very full! It took me almost 1hr to get a parking spot! Such an anticlimax for a shopping spree.

As usual, we just walked around and browsed at things, the only objective we have was that Samantha (King’s Wife’s youngest) wanted to buy a Christmas Present for Zara. This 8yr old niece of mine is such an angel, wanting to use her own pocket money to buy a gift for her cousin. I told her not to spend any money on Zara, but she insisted. She told me in advance she didn’t have a lot of money, so I suggested she get Zara hair clips, since Zara had none. She chose a very beautiful pair in the end.

This year, the Christmas deco in Mid Valley was very nice. The theme must be White Christmas, because every where and everything was in white. All so gorgeous!

This shopping spree didn’t cost us much, just got some baby biscuits and diaper for Zara, and then a pair of sandals with heels for myself (since there is a dress code in the office now, and my colleagues have been commenting on the flat comfy sandals I’d been wearing). Again, Zara was such a sport throughout, no complaints or fretting. Then again, she has her best pal, Samantha che-che with her.

I have another 2 more days of leave to clear before Christmas, which means 2 more retail therapies to go to!

As mentioned in my earlier post, while Zara eats, she needs to have some food on her own plate to self feed or play with.

Here are some photos taken during the weekend where she attempted to self feed herself with some rice.

I was so glad my eldest sis brought along her maid, Sandra, and she helped me with feeding and entertaining Zara (I normally don’t bring along Tuyam, our maid, because I prefer Zara to be taken care by only Daddy and myself during weekends, I think Zara needs a break from Tuyam after spending 5days with her).
Zara : Mmm, chomp, chomp!
See the mess, luckily I don’t have to mop the floor later

Zara : Hahaha, This is so much fun!

Zara : Oh o, looks like my plate is empty already!

Aunty Sandra : OK, wipe your hands now.
Zara : beh-beh, power, putter-pie *suddenly took an interest in the bear, flower and butterfly motive on the plate*
Zara : Hug Hug. Thank You Aunty Sandra for playing with me while my mummy pigged out.

How many of us are guilty with not helping with the photo development industry after getting our digital camera? Not having any hard copy photos to show and tell?

My house has a few framed up photos of my nieces when they were young, but none of Zara’s. I am so guilty.

I used to develop photos very often when we were still using the good old camera which required films. After we changed our camera to a digital camera, since Nov 2003, not a single photo had been developed even when we’d taken tons of photos. All of them were burnt into CDs or just residing in my HDD.

After seeing Mom2ashley blogged about Pixart, I decided I should get an album done for Zara. It took another 3months before I submitted the files to Pixart. Being kiamsiap (stingy) Wanting to stretch my dollar further, I selected the best photos from Zara’s first year and compiled them into a photobook.

You use the pixart software to select a theme, arrange your photos, put in your caption, and then ftp the file over to pixart once done. Payment is made via the web.

There are 2 types of paper you can print on, one is photo print (pages are just like photos you developed in the shop), another is digital print (using 250g paper, which is like those very good quality magazine papers). I chose photo print, because I wanted the book to last as long as it could (photo print papers have been said to be able to last up till 50yrs without fading of colours). For a 17 pages photobook, it costs me RM135 including postage. You should see Daddy moaning, when he learnt of the price, not that he’s paying (That’s why I can’t be a SAHM, he’s always ‘moaning’ even when I’m spending my own money)!

We got the photobook on Monday. All nicely bound up, very professionally done. It is a hard cover coffee table book kind of album.

The cover

One of the pages

The only problem with the printing is the darkness of the photos. Some of them looked darker when printed than it was on screen. It was also my mistake for not brightening them up (available in their software) before submitting them for printing.

Next time, I’ll do better.

Added at 7:15pm :
The guy from Pixart dropped by just now to collect my photobook for reprinting of one page (and of course rebinding of the whole book, for free) since they accidentally cropped one of the photo. He showed me some very nice photobook samples for special occasion like a wedding, a full moon party, and photobooks printied on digital print (i.e. pages are like very thick magazine papers).

They are very nice, I think they are nicer alternative to those wedding albums that we traditionally have, what more you can put your own caption, and not those default non-meaningful (or even incomprehensible, sometimes) captions that normally come with the bridal house albums.

Aw.. Looks like I’m going to do more album for Zara, and maybe, just maybe, I will scan all my wedding photos and make a wedding album for myself.

Last week, while waiting for her to fall asleep, I just got her to speak after me on the words that she already knew.

Half way through, she started talking in her baby language, and giggled. To listen to the recording of the ‘conversation’, click here .

Zara is spending too many hours or nights sleeping in our bed with us. I really don’t mind her sleeping with us, but our bed is a Queen size bed, and she’s growing bigger, and tossing and turning more in the middle of the night. We have to squeeze ourselves to the sides of the bed so that she has more room in the middle.

On a normal day, after I’d nursed her, I would lie on the bed with her until she’s asleep. I would then carry her and placed her in her cot. If she woke up in the middle of the night, she would sit up, and start faking a cry. I have to then carry her to our bed, she normally will immediately fall back asleep when sandwiched between us, waking up only in the morning. This (wanting to come to our bed) can happen anytime from 1:30am to 5:30am.

Yesterday, I tried to ‘train’ her to fall asleep in her cot. After nursing her, she’s dopey and almost going to knock off; I put her into her cot. The minute she was laid down, she opened her eyes, her hand reached out for me. I said, “Zara big girl already, sleep on your own ok?”.

She sat up, tears welling up, and then the crying started. “Wah, Wah, Wah!”. Very pitiful, her eyes following me.

I told her, “mummy’s bed is just next to you, you want mummy, mummy will come, but today you sleep on your own ok?”

“Wah! Wah! Wah!” was her replied. Tears were flowing down, by now, she stood up and her arms reaching for me.

I tried to be firm, and said, “Zara sleep on your own, mummy hold your hands, you lie down and sleep.” She shook her head (NO NO NO). I laid her back down and held her hand. She sat up again, this time howling, and occasionally, not sure if it was acting, she made the vomiting sound, as though she’s going to puke if I don’t pick her up soon.

Gosh, what am I to do now? The books said I should lay her down firmly, and tell her it would be ok, and be nearby so she can see me. But look at her, I can’t do it. My mind working to look for an answer. Ok, Ok, I’ll compromise. I carried her up. Immediately, she laid her head on my shoulder, the howling stopped, but she was still sobbing. I said, “mummy pat pat you, then you go back to sleep in the cot ok?”. After the word has spoken, she raised her head, shook it, and started crying again.

Ok ok, comfort her first. I started patting her again, and she calmed down. When I thought she was calmed, I put her back into the cot, and said, “Good girl, Zara, sleep on your own ok?”. The howling started again. This repeated a few times.

Daddy heard the commotion and came in to kay-poh(nosy) investigate. “What happened?” He asked. “Trying to train her to sleep on her own, but she’s making a fuss.” I replied. “Aiya, just let her sleep with us then.” Zara saw Daddy to the rescue and started making the vomiting sound again, “URK! WAH WAH WAH! URK”.

Ok, I give up! I put her down on our bed. Miraculously, the tears stopped, but she still looked at me pathetically, it’s like giving me the “aren’t you going to sleep with me like you always do?” look. Ok, ok. I laid down next to her, and immediately, she wrapped her arms around mine, still sniffing, but drifting off to sleep.

Zara 1, Mummy 0. Aigh.
See, the small space I have to sleep on every night.

So I got tagged by Ipoh mari (come from Ipoh) Helen. Since she said she’ll buy me Ipoh White coffee when I visit Ipoh the next time, I have to oblige.

Here are the 5 food that I absolutely loved during my childhood, and no longer eat or able to find them :

1) Bak-yu-pok (Chu Yao Cha, ???/?, Fried lard) :

Mum was such a fan of this, every time she went to the butcher, she would ask for a big piece of lard. When she reached home, she would cube the lard, then fry it in an un-greased wok. She would fry until all the oil from the lard was released, and the lard cubes turned crunchy. She kept the oil for cooking (later), and served the crunchy lard cubes as snacks! (We ate so healthily when we were young!)

When we ate Hokkien Mee, we always asked to add more lard cubes, and all of us, including my mum would have a chop stick fight over the noodle to see who could grab the most lard cubes!

I lived with my maternal grandma when I was 7 till 9years old. Every time after school when I climbed up the stairs to enter house (grandma lived on the 1st floor of a shop house), if I could smell the fragrance of lard frying, I would jump with joy. In grandma’s house, nobody fought with me for the lard cubes, I have them all!

I’d been a non-pork eater for almost 12years now, so, no more lard cubes for me, but this tradition is still practiced in King’s Wife‘s house, King (my brother) would fight with his daughters over the lard cubes.

2) Grandma’s Kon-low-mee (dry noodle, ???) :

Most of the time for lunch during my stay with grandma, she would cook cintan-noodles (???), stir in lard oil (but of course!), soya sauce and black soya sauce, and then sprinkle just a bit of Ajinomoto on top of it, and viola, my very delicious lunch.

Forget about getting a balance diet of vege, protein and carbo, or even MSG-free food. Back then, life was simple!

Maybe I don’t take pork and MSG now, I could never make my home cooked kon-low-mee as delicious as my grandma’s, even if I added lots of ingredients.

3) Pink Keropok (tapioca cracker) :

On weekend, when my mum visited grandma and me, she would always dropped by at this sundry shop to buy a big pack of pink keropok. One big pack would contain 30 smaller packs, each pack held two pieces of those pink keropok (shaped something like pretzels).

That to me, was the best treat. I think I could whack 5 packs in one sitting. Our whole family would sit in front of the TV and munch on this, the whole big pack gone in a day.

I wonder where you can get the same ones these days.

4) Canteen Curry Mee :

My grandma would give me 10 cents a day as pocket money. With the 10 cents, I would buy myself a small bowl of curry mee. They were just plain noodles with curry gravy, no condiments at all, but they were delicious. No curry mee ever tasted the same.

5) Kong-Bak (Stew pork Hokkien Style, ???):
My grandma made the best Kong-bak in the universe. Big chunks of semi fat pork stewed in rich soya sauce and thick soya sauce, together with hard boiled egg. It was just yummy!

For dinner, we always had rice drenched in the sauce, chewing on the devine pieces of pork, almost licking the plate clean every time. If there’s any left over the following day, it would taste even better than the first, and more fighting on who got the of morsel.

When I moved back in with my mum, she made that as well, and hers was as good, but being the apprentice, the stew pork cooked by her still lacked the umph!

Both my grandma and mum had passed on, and their recipe now lies with King’s Wife. I can’t comment if she did a mean stew pork like my grandma because I had never tasted it, only my brother, the King, can comment.

Today, I changed the recipe a bit and replaced pork with chicken instead. It tastes good, but you can’t get the creamy fatty sauce (made by the lard) with chicken.

Now, I wonder, when Zara grows up, what would be her unforgettable child hood food, just maybe it’s the delicious breast milk mummy produces. *grin*

The 4 people who were tagged before me :
1. Beer Brat
2. Sngl Guy
3. Yvy
4. Helen

I would like to tag :
1. The Diva – For someone who loves food, I just want to see what was unforgettable from your child hood.
2. Jesslyn – What was it like in Johor? I’m curious to know
3. Egghead – I don’t believe you’d done this before? Kekeke. Either J or your contribution is fine!

Do list down the 4 people tagged before you. And tag another 3 (or more) people.

On Sunday morning, we went to the hospital to visit my friend, Sandy, who’d just given birth to a baby boy.

I’d forgotten how fragile and small a new born baby is until I have the little fella in my arms. The little fella was quite a busy body though, scanning his surrounding with only one eye, as the other had some discharge which has stuck the lids together.
(I felt so bad, when I took this photo, the flash just went off and gave him a startle, sorry little fella)

I was carrying him half the time we’re there, while Daddy entertained Zara. Zara was very curious about the baby. When she was near the baby, she tried to poke her finger into the little baby’s mouth when he yawned, and also tried to poke his eyes. After that, we have to make sure she’s far away from the baby, just in case she hurt him without realising.

She also tried to imitate the baby’s whimpering, and laughed at herself after that. For the ~2hrs we were there, she was very well behaved, playing with Daddy, looking at the baby from a far, walking about the room and checking out things, and of course eating (the bread my friend baked before she went into labour). When she became too chatty, and raised her voice, Daddy brought her out of the room for a walk.

I have been encouraging my friend to breast feed, and sharing with her all the benefits (my experiance with Zara). My friend who didn’t breast feed her first baby because of lack of information, is trying to do it for this little boy now. She was telling me the Pediatrician told her that it’s best to mix feed the baby for the first few days so that the baby won’t get dehydrated, and then get jaundice. Although I think that’s crap not true, I don’t want to discourage her as well, and just said do what she thinks is best. It’s better for the baby to consume even a little breast milk then totally none at all like her first child.

After we left the hospital, while in the car, Daddy & I were chatting about how small and helpless new borns were, and it’s hard to imagine 12months ago, our boisterous little girl was just like that, it’s just amazing how much she’d grown. It would be nice to relive those days of caring for a new born, so, we’ll have to work harder on the ‘project’. I just hope it won’t take us another 6 years to get there.

I hope my friend’s journey to breast feeding will be a successfully one, and all the best with her new born baby!

Added at 11:05am :
Breastfeeding does cause jaundice, but this is mainly due to insufficient milk for the first few days, and it’s not life threatening. Readings :
–website 1
–website 2

I love these few shots of Zara. Despite Daddy’s Fear, I’ll still post them.

Zara was trying to fake a cry to get her way with something.
Zara was giving her favourite che-che (big sister), Sam a hug. This was taken during her birthday, when she wasn’t feeling very well, and she just wanted to ‘manja’ (get pampering from) her che-che.

Zara playing with Daddy, part of her nightly routine.
And the best of the lot, Zara giving me a kiss on the lips after lots of pleading from me.

Daddy doesn’t read my blog that frequently, if he did, he always have something to say, either I could improve on my English, or my English has been improved, or the photos are nice etc. etc. I always just rolled my eyes and pretended I didn’t hear anything when he made comments.

This time, he was looking at the birthday and the milestone post, and this conversation took place (based on my memory because it happened last week).

D: *folded his arms, stood at the back of me, watching the the screen* Wah, you put so many photos on your blog?
M: Yeah, nice hor?
D: Nice, but there are photos of our house, our faces
M: *roll eye* (what is his problem?) So?
D: Zara is getting older already. You should stop posting photos of her in your blog. *saw my eyes rolling* I mean, you can still blog, but just don’t put photos
M: Part of making the blog interesting is the photos, and I love photo blogging.
D: You don’t know what kind of people out there who are reading your blogs.
M: And?
D: And these people may be weird, and may stalk Zara..
M: People who read my blogs are parents themselves la. Aiyo! *slapped my hand on my forehead*
D: They may pretend to be parents.
M: …. *my eyeballs are fully white by now* We have met some of them in the bloggers’ meet ma
D: Those you know are genuine (Twinsmum, Egghead, Sue, Loc Kee, 1+2mum confirmed genuine parents), but you don’t know if there are any weird ones lurking out there.
M: You have to take the fun out of everything huh?
D: I’m just telling you, just be careful, especially now she’s older. *walked off*
M: *pointed middle finger at his back*

I’m not sure if any of you feel threatened by posting your kids’ photos on your blog, or even posting your own. Or if you chose to remain anonymous (photo wise), what was the reason. I never thought about it like Daddy did, but Daddy is always worry about too many unnecessary things.

So if one day I stopped posting Zara’s photos, it could only mean that my censorship board has started tightening his grip on my blog.