grumbles

There are many challenges on living in China. Here are some of the recent incidents that had me tearing my hair in frustration, surrendering or just plain amused -

• a transfer from our Singapore bank account to our account in China of the same bank has taken more than a week to effect. The reason? The transfer form listed only 1 of the account holders as beneficiary. Hellooo? does anyone in China know what a JOINT account means?
• a friend booked both the BBQ areas in our condo for a big party one friday. On the day itself, it was discovered that 1 of the areas had been mistakenly double-booked. This came as no surprise because the management office's booking system was crap. Bookings were all manually written on a piece of paper based on when the booking was made rather than when the booking was for.
• to be kind to the landlord, instead of banging a couple of nails into the walls to hang our pictures, we used 3M's wall hangers which can be removed without removing the paint as well. Well, not so sure if we did any good because when we cleaned the wall with an alcohol swab to rid it from minute particles, we cleaned off a good layer of paint as well! :D so much for Chinese paint....
• paying for items in departmental stores entail taking a bar-coded tag to the cashier, paying for it, then taking the receipt with the tag back to the sales lady where your item is located Before she would hand over your purchase. It's such a Soviet style convoluted process.
• DH was playing ball with minibeanie one evening when he bounced the ball in our living room. No biggie except that the bounce managed to implode the sealant between the floor tiles. There's now a 3cm long gap between the tiles. Chinese quality.
• there's only ONE model of baby gate in the whole of China. I kid you not.
  

minibeanie is 10 months, 4 weeks & 1 day old

Bye bye!

minibeanie waved "bye bye" for the first time today! This comes after weeks of hugely exaggerated arm movements whenever one of us leaves the room :D

It's strange, this arm thing. For weeks now, he's been using his arm to beat to music - any music, from a catchy commercial tune and Sesame Street to mummy's 'ABC' song. This is usually accompanied with the bobbing of his head. (I tell you, he's a rapper in the making!) Recently, a new variation has emerged. He sways sideways to music.

minibeanie is 10 months, 3 weeks & 5 days old

First step

This is a moment to be remembered. A couple of moments ago, minibeanie took his first unaided step towards me!

minibeanie is 10 months, 3 weeks & 3 days old

Happy Birthday, dada!

On Saturday, it was DH's birthday :) The whole family was up at 0630 because minibeanie refused to return to bed after his 0500 feed (one of those). And so it was that a bleary-eyed DH came down with minibeanie to find a tray of birthday cupcakes with a lit candle approaching him.

Hummingbird cupcake with Limoncello cream cheese frosting

It was a strange name for a cake but I think the cake had southern roots and it was characterized by pecans, banana, pineapple with a hint of cinnamon. The end result was a wonderfully moist and delicious cake. And at 7 in the morning, it wasn't quite a healthy breakfast but at least we were having our fruits, nut and dairy! :D

I decided to give the traditional cream cheese frosting a touch of Limoncello, a lemon liquer from Southern Italy, since there's a bottle of it in my fridge. Besides, it would set off the citrus-y flavour in the cake. Unfortunately, the frosting had too little of the taste of Limoncello. I found myself in a situation where I'd to add a lot more icing sugar than I wanted just to keep the consistency suitable for piping. The icing sugar then masked the taste of Limoncello and also made the frosting a tad sweet. It was a catch-22 situation! After awhile, I decided to go with more cheese than sugar so I removed half the frosting from my bowl and beat in the remaining cream cheese I had. I now have a container of cream cheese frosting in my fridge waiting for me. Perhaps a carrot cake?


All in though, it was a wonderful recipe :) Thanks to chockylit!


minibeanie is 10 months, 3 weeks & 2 days old

zombied

At 10 months, you thought that night wakings are for newborns or finicky babies. But for the past few nights, minibeanie had been waking up at 4am and seemed to take forever to return to sleep. He would have a huge appetite for milk, as much as 50% of his daily intake, and be wide awake standing by the crib railings and calling out to his comatose parents. And when he didn't get any attention, his babblings quickly became a shrieking crescendo. Finally, one of us would break. Last night, it was DH who stumbled out of bed at least 4 times to feed him twice and to pick him up. I was feeling the beginning of a cold with a sore throat and felt bone tired.

On Saturday night, we let him 'cry it out' which was a sleep training method. We decided that it was too cruel and heart-wrenching so we changed track and last night, we tried the PU/PD* method which would work in principle if the baby wasn't hungry! And judging by the amount of milk minibeanie drank, I'd say he was ravenous. Which begged the next question, how/why did his feeding schedule become so warped that he started consuming most of his milk at 5am? It could be that we were subconsciously giving him less milk during the day because we were now on powder formula. Previously, we had the convenience of 'pret-a-boire' formula milk - just open the packet and pour. I'd try stuffing him silly with milk today and see how it goes. Then again, one couldn't keep a baby that hungry during the day - could it be a growth spurt?

Night wakings appear to be a common 'affliction' among 10-month-olds. I read of similar experiences and 1 explanation of it could be separation anxiety brought on by their increasing independence.

*Pick up/Pick down

minibeanie is 10 months & 3 weeks old

little Houdini

For a (not so) limited time only - catch the little Houdini getting out of tight situations!

Yesterday, I placed minibeanie in his Stokke high chair & turned my back for a minute. The next thing I saw was him sitting on the dining table looking smug at me! In that span of a minute or less, he'd wriggled out of the Tripp Trapp's safety bar and climbed out - something which I didn't think possible. That proved he had to be put under maximum security watch ;)

And as I put him on the bedroom floor today, hitherto a safe place, while I busied myself with the blankets and his diapers, what do I see? In a flash, he was perched precariously on the edge of the bed. Man, he had just climbed up the 40cm-high bed. On hindsight, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. minibeanie had been climbing up our staircase of 18 steps without any problem so what's one bed? I'm constantly having to revise my expectations of what's impossible for this little Houdini of mine.

minibeanie is 10 months, 2 weeks & 2 days old

The little barbarian

I've said it a dozen times - it's amazing how fast little babies grow! 2 weeks ago, we could actually have a real game of hide-&-seek. I'd start the game by saying, "where's mummy?" before scrambling off on all fours round the sofa or into a room. minibeanie picking up on the cue would then crawl pitter-patter to look for me. The reward when he found me would be a most delightful squeal of pure joy :> Sometimes, I'd be mean and climb onto a bed or to the sofa and he wouldn't find me where he expected. Then, there would be a cry of half panic half frustration and whose heart wouldn't melt at that point? Ooohhh......

We installed our baby gate over the weekend because we found out that he could climb the stairs. He also has an insatiable curiosity on what lies inside drawers and cabinets. He first started pulling open drawers especially those with handy handles when we were staying with our friends (the "commune") in their house. That was in mid May. Yes, we are a little tardy in childproofing the home :P I think it's high time we buy a couple of baby locks for our drawers and cupboards.

And boys will be boys. minibeanie has an unholy fascination with remote controls. Anything with buttons. He grabs it first before letting his mouth examine it then proceeds to chew & stomp on it. As a result, our tv and air-conditioning unit goes on & off intermittently :D

minibeanie is 10 months & 1 week old

A green-less salad

I had a couple of not-so-new potatoes that I wanted to use up so I thought I'd make a simple salad for dinner. In my fridge was a bunch of chives bought yesterday that would be 'Stir-fry Chives with Pork' one day next week. There was also a batch of natural yoghurt that I'd made last night destined for Chicken Briyani tomorrow. Perfect!

I love the taste of chives - very garlicky and pungent, so it would complement the bland potatoes well. For a twist, I thought I'd add an apple for that extra dimension in flavour. Hey, didn't that make it the Waldorf salad, I wondered. Some research later, I learnt that technically, a Waldorf salad comprised of apple, celery and walnut combined by a mayonnaise dressing. More trivial on the Waldorf salad. It was supposedly created in 1893 in New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel. One can only imagine that it was a salad served to the upper echelons of New York's society. Imagine Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence.

So here's my Waldorf-Potato Salad.

• new potatoes, boiled whole, cubed
• eggs, hard-boiled, cubed
• chives, julienned
• apple, cubed
• pine nuts, lightly roasted
• ground black pepper

Dressing:

• natural yoghurt
• olive oil
• salt

Place all salad ingredients except pine nuts into a large bowl. Make the dressing by stirring in the olive oil well. Add salt to taste. Pour the dressing into the salad and toss well. Sprinkle on pine nuts and freshly ground black pepper before serving. Enjoy with generous slices of bread with camembert.

Tips: mayo may be used in place of yoghurt but the latter can be a healthier choice / if chives are not available, perhaps spring onion? / substitute pine nuts for walnut in the true spirit of Waldorf / I may substitute apple with moist chopped figs in a later version


minibeanie is 1o months & 6 days old