Happy Birthday Singapore!

Happy 43rd Birthday, Singapore :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O67SyJiyzY (Thanks Mari for sending me the link)

minibeanie is 1 year & 2 weeks old

C is for cup

Day 3 of Cup Training

It's not going well at all. minibeanie for some reason hates the cup! He wouldn't even attempt to drink from it. Still, there had been progress, however slight. For the first 2 days, he wouldn't bring the spout to his mouth - today he did and made a motion to drink but stopped short when the cup was tilted. It's driving me nuts! Still, I must persevere :P


minibeanie is 1 year, 1 week & 5 days old

Pink is for boys

I was certain I didn't want to be a parent who enforce gender stereotypes. But like so many rules, such as no tv before the age of 2 as recommended by pediatricians, they are turned on their heads once we actually confront them.

Recently, in the bid to wean minibeanie from the bottle, I was trawling taobao.com for suitable Tupperware training cups. Alright...Tupperware isn't exactly known for kiddo stuff but I did hear from a friend with 2 boys who had used it when transitioning from the bottle. And so coming back to the issue. I found a suitable package with a 200ml cup (the perfect size that's not too large) with a lid on the spout. I was adamant it wouldn't be a sippy cup because research had shown there would be further problems when transitioning to a real cup. It came in blue and, of course, pink. And as it was a March package, supplies were running awfully low.

My first inclination was to go with blue. For some reason, it proved really difficult finding blue stocks (more boys in China?). Then, I turned the assumption on its head - why am I limiting my selection to blue? Honestly, I find the pink package more cheery than the muted blue. There was an internal struggle that lasted for half a day (hahah, see what I'm preoccupied with? :D ) before deciding that I wouldn't put minibeanie into a preconceived culturally influenced mold. Why can't little boys wear pink? Or big boys either? ;) In the past, I'd bought minibeanie a Ralph Lauren pink polo shirt. I also know of a 3 year-old precocious boy who would consciously pick out bright coloured clothes for himself, even pink ones. So, pink it is :)

Why do we put little children into straight jackets of colour conventions? I remembered having a hard time choosing 'nice' clothes for minibeanie in Finland. Little boys' fashion palate seems limited to browns, blues and greens - all of which can be somber and dull, imho.

For the sake of an academic discussion, the current idea that "pink is for girls & blue is for boys" didn't come about until mid 20th century. In fact, an American newspaper "The Sunday Sentinal" wrote on March 29, 1914,

"If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention."

And in the Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918,

"There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

So what changed the trend? According to a website "Gender Specific Colors", by the 1930s, pink had already become associated with girls. This was demonstrated by the NAZIs use of a pink triangle to identify homosexuals. (The NAZIs had a complex system of colour and symbol coding such as the yellow star of David to identify Jews.



minibeanie is 1 year & 6 days old

Taking a walk

I can't begin to imagine how strange and fascinating everything must be for minibeanie. At probably 80cm tall, everything must feel loomingly huge. At this height, one will be up close & personal with the doggies, the leaf on the ground and the teeny ladybug in that shrub. What does he think of all these strange and exciting things?

He now points at everything that fascinates him. He squeals with joy at the sight of a doggie, but that's easy to decipher. Most times though, he squeals and points with an majestic air but we've no idea what has captured his attention or imagination. Is it the bin or perhaps it's the clock? We can only affirm whatever he points at with a 'knowing', "yes, that's right darling baby."


minibeanie is 1 year & 4 days old

Big Party: Happy 1st Birthday!

The little tyke is a year old! Where did all those months go? I can't believe he's officially no longer a baby :(

Saturday, July 26th, went really well. The food was on the table without too much delay, the weather held up (mostly) during our lunch at the poolside bbq area, the guests were amiable and the presents were fun. Most importantly, it actually appeared as if minibeanie knew what was going on and was on his best behaviour! Well, given that he'd normally cry when approached by enthusiastic strangers, DH & I were hugely surprised when he didn't whimper once during the whole party :) In fact, he sat in his high chair in a lordly fashion presiding over the entire singing and cake cutting ceremony. Then he made a royal mess by squishing his creamy mouse cake with both hands and smeared his high chair (& bits of my hair) with cream. Ok, since that was a very special day, all was forgiven quickly. minibeanie even got some concessions that mummy wouldn't even consider on normal days - he got away with sticks of chocolate biscuits when offered by Auntie Bernadett. All's well :)



But here's a behind-the-scenes story of the party.

Truth is, party planning started a month ago with planning the menu, shopping (stuff in Chengdu has a tendency to be stocked out so buy-&-freeze is the best strategy) and ordering party paraphernalia from the States.

T minus 14 days, I baked the tomato flavoured foccacia and Tuscan olive bread and froze them. T minus 3 days, I made the chocolate and peperonico cupcakes. T minus 2 days, the sour cream was made with the yoghurt machine (can't find sour cream here) and 2 fillings for the Finnish sandwich cake, voileipakakku. T minus 1 day, the pasta and Waldorf salads were made, the sour cream and salsa dips for the chips were made and the voileipakakku was assembled. Finally, on the day itself (T), icing and decorating the voileipakakku, icing the cupcakes, thawing and heating up the focaccia and bread, tweaking the salads to taste and generally a 101 things before everything's deemed fit for presentation.

On the table was an antipasti plate (black & green olives, salami milano & bresaola), cheese platter (danish blue, camembert & gouda), bread basket (tomato focaccia, tuscan olive bread, Finnish rye crackers & salted plain crackers for the cheese), Waldorf salad, pasta salad & ham & egg voileipakakku. For dessert at our apartment, the birthday cake from Breadtalk, an assortment of cookies, chocolate & peperoncino cupcakes and a selection of teas and coffee.

Phew, I was glad I managed to pull off the party! It would have been impossible if it wasn't for the help of my Ayi and a friend who popped by.

The next morning

minibeanie is 1 year old!!!

Online shopping

Following my earlier post on shopping at Partypro.com, my current obsession is with a Chinese ebay-like site, TaoBao.com (淘宝网) My obsession has to do with the following:

• Being able to shop in peace when all's asleep
• Have the entire market at my fingertips without moving my arse from the sofa/chair
• Trawl the entire Chinese market from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Zhejiang at the same time
• Compare prices from multiple vendors at the same time
• TaoBao sells everything one can think of; from Manolo Blahnik, fake Louis Vuittons to babies' formula milk
  

TaoBao is the perfect example of the economic model 'perfect competition'. Many buyers and sellers, (almost) perfect information (if you discount for information overload), transparent prices. I love it! :P It took awhile in setting up the paying process because I'd to get Internet banking, understand how the payment system works with my limited Chinese, overcome system glitches because the da*n thing works only with Windows and IE (& of course, most systems in our house run on Mac) blah, blah, blah. Finally though, after much mucking about, I made my first transaction 2 days ago. And since then, there's no stopping me. So far, I'd gotten 4 pieces of clothing for minibeanie, 2 sets of 3 baskets and another 2 baskets. That's a lot of baskets - I guess I'm a basket-case. See what I bought in the picture above. Heheh, I can't wait to see what the delivery man brings next week :)

Big Party planning

In exactly a week's time, minibeanie will be a year old! What a milestone! :) I still can't believe he will be leaving babyhood so soon. Already, he is displaying traits of toddlerhood by exercising his independence and will (usually at nap & mealtimes ;) Hmph, and a couple of months ago, I was wishing he would grow up - what, and leave the pliant & easy-going baby behind?

But we must move on ;) Preparations for the Big Party have been well underway. Not to shock folks who don't know me, I've made my excel sheets on guest list, menu => grocery shopping list, party supply order etc... :D About the latter, faced with the limited choice in Chengdu, I'd turned to Partypro.com. It was great! I'd to curb the shopping fanatic in me and not get party plates, hats, napkins, decorations for his 2nd, 3rd birthdays, our 5th, 10th anniversaries, Christmas.... you get the idea. It wasn't so much the cost of the items that prohibited this hitherto hidden streak in me (I pride myself on being a prudent spender), it was the darn shipping cost! To sum it up, the total damage was USD199, with USD59 being the shipping :P Happily, I'd gotten a friend/neighbour to share in the booty, a friend who lives to shop and has 2 little boys' birthdays to plan ;)

I just wish I've my dear friends from Singapore and Finland to share in the day.


minibeanie is 11 months, 3 weeks & 2 days old

Food prowl in Shanghai

Our last full day in Shanghai was spent fulfilling our duties as tourists, namely taking a few obligatory pictures at the Bund （外滩）, stuffing ourselves silly at the Whampoa Club buffet brunch and then eating still some more.

It was an overcast day and drizzling a little but it wasn't enough to deter a little determined march across the river to gawk at Shanghai's most recognizable landmark, the TV tower. But first, the brunch at Whampoa Club.

In all honesty, it was over-hyped. And I didn't think it was because I had my expectations too high. Since one MUST have XiaoLongBao in Shanghai, it would be a crime not to order it from Whampoa Club's offering. Unfortunately, while the skin of the dumpling was light and thin, its meat stuffing was bland and forgetable. That was a shame.

We felt that Whampoa Club's redeeming feature was its interesting twists on tried and tested dishes. For instance, Singapore's chicken rice was made into a spring roll (although the accompanying chicken rice chilli wasn't garlicky enough) The Chilled drunken chicken from Shanghai fared a lot better. Tender pieces of chicken (not unlike Singapore's Hainanese chicken) buried under ice shavings tinged with alcohol.

The best part of the brunch was its dessert menu. The Ginger milk custard with osmanthus from Macau was smooth if not a little on the dense side. The best item of the day however had to be Singapore's aloe vera green lime sorbet with lemongrass jelly. Heavenly!

With the brunch ending at 3pm, we felt that it would be impossible to do justice to Le Platane. So there goes the Risotto with wild mushrooms that we would have ordered :( Nonetheless, we went to XinTianDi with the objective of meeting a friend from Singapore whom I've never met before - it was a like a blind date! :D Eventually, we were led by DH's sweet tooth to a swanky (read: expensive) Chocolatier. Indulgent and excellent truffles and hot chocolate for dinner. What decadence.

At a tea house

minibeanie is 11 months, 2 weeks & 5 days old

Say ma-ma?

A conversation between minibeanie and me.

"Say ma-ma? ma-maaa..."
"a-pam."
"no, ma-ma. maa-maa."
"ta-pam."

It's intriguing how minibeanie says da-da perfectly while ma-ma is such a terribly hard word to pronounce ;)

Gastronomic Shanghai

It has been a great holiday so far!

From our hotel room, I see the neon lights of Nanjing East Road (南京东路）, Shanghai's answer to Paris' Champs Elysee, Singapore's Orchard Road. Nice! But as expected, having a little baby onboard means a very different sort of schedule - naps in the day, going out only after he has had his breakfast/lunch/dinner and to top it all, returning before he gets really grumpy for his bedtime. No matter, I think we've adjusted to the slower pace quite well :)

We wanted to sample Shanghai's street food yesterday and there's only 1 place for it - WuJiang Road （吴江路）. First, we had a flaky & crispy beef pastry （香酥牛肉饼) - minced beef nestled in layers of crispy pastry with a hint of sichuan pepper and generous amounts of spring onion. Then, we queued in a 20m long queue for the famous fried dumplings - XiaoYangShengJian （小扬生煎）. It was well worth the wait. It was like its famous cousin, XiaoLongBao （小笼包）, filled with soup. In fact, not knowing any better, I had to scald my arm with boiling soup when I bit into 1 hungrily. The base of the fried dumpling was crispy while the rest of the dumpling wasn't overly oily nor tough. In fact, the sesame seed speckled dough still retained a nice chewy elasticity. Hmmm...

XiaoYangShengJian

Next, we had a stick of barbequed little octopuses and a pair of succulent oysters grilled. Heavenly. Further down the street, we had stinky beancurd! It wasn't as stinky as I'd hoped :D Finally, we got a drink from 1 of the many juice bars lining the street. But what did we find? Durian milkshake! yesh! We were stuffed by then, but we couldn't resist the Portuguese egg-tarts :P

Octopus, oyster, mussel, pork, fish, chicken Grill

Today, we ventured to XinTianDi （新天地）. DH was missing good european food sorely so we had Italian at 'Va Bene'. DH's spaghetti with clams and white wine was on par with what we had in Rome but I was a little disappointed with my spaghetti with sea urchin and roe.

It will be another gastronomic adventure tomorrow. We've reservations with Whampoa Club on the Bund for its brunch and a dinner reservation with Le Platane, again at XinTianDi, a French restaurant helmed by a Singaporean chef.

We love Shanghai! ...and not a little bit jealous that we're in Chengdu instead of Shanghai ;)


minibeanie is 11 months, 2 weeks & 1 day old

A mini holiday

It's off to Shanghai tomorrow for another business-slash-getaway type of trip. In a way, it's almost like a holiday. 'Almost', because DH will be holed up in the office half the time. Anyhow, I can't wait to see Shanghai!

It's a shame we won't get to meet a dear friend and her baby, Oscar, though. We met in Finland and she'd spent the last 3 months back home in Shanghai. It would have been awesome seeing them again and have a local bring us around.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing Shanghai - modern skyscrapers cohabiting with Romanesque colonial buildings, Shanghainese cuisine that's delicate on the palate (a definite change from oily & spicy Sichuan food!) and the exciting cafe & restaurant scene! Speaking of which, I've already booked us a window table at the Whampoa Club （黄蒲会）. In a weird way, if going to Shanghai is the Haj for the foodies in us, then dining at the Whampoa Club is akin to the Stoning of the Devil ritual.

minibeanie is 11 months, 1 week & 4 days old

Walk the talk

minibeanie is walking!

When we noticed that he was becoming more gungho at cruising about 3 weeks ago, we made a trip to Ikea to buy him a push cart. It was a good buy :) He now prefers to walk around the room instead of going '4-wheel drive'.

He's ahead in the area of gross motor skills but doesn't seem too inclined in the linguistics department. He's quite adept at calling 'da-da'; on a few occasions, he has even called me da-da :D I guess any 1 parent is 'da-da' for minibeanie.

Different takes on privacy

Our concept of privacy is culturally tinged. What is sacrosanct or impolite may not be viewed by someone else in a different culture. I've lost count of the number of times a 'well meaning' person on the street has remarked that minibeanie ought to put on a pair of shoes or socks. Nevermind that it's sweltering summer in May and June. I used to reply politely that "it's ok, he's not cold" but there had also been moments when I retorted, "it's no business of yours". Not proud of those times but really, it's NOYBB! More often these days though, I play dumb and not dignify it with a reply.

Privacy, or the sphere of personal space, is a cultural thing. It's a well-known joke that when an Arab and a Finn is standing in a conversation, the pair will 'dance' around the room. The Arab with his much smaller notion of personal space will inch towards the Finn. Then the Finn, who is known for not even wanting to see his neighbour's cottage while in his own, will inch away from the Arab. Hence, the dance. Joke/anecdote aside, I've had many strangers besides proffering their advice, pinch or touch minibeanie. I appreciate the compliment but he's not a slab of pork in Carrefour to be tested for freshness.

The latest incident that spark this tirade is receiving a mail from Haagen Dazs' marketing department. I signed up as a member online but I did not recall anywhere where I check I want to be kept notified of Haagen Dazs promotions. No biggie because there's the "delete" button. But what really raised my heckles was the moron who put everyone's email address on the cc list. My email is private and even though, in all probability most people on that list do not give a hoot who I am, I still don't appreciate my email address being circulated out in the open. And no, there isn't even an 'unsubscribe' line in the mail. This will NOT be happening in Europe or the US so perhaps in a densely populated country of 1 billion, the concept of privacy is a foreign one.

minibeanie is 11 months & 1 week old

Finger food

I've been giving minibeanie finger foods. Besides its too obvious nutritional value, there are 2 other more sublime intentions. It is good practice for perfecting his fine pincer grip as he chases a soft piece of pumpkin around his bowl (bringing together one's index finger and thumb together neatly is a milestone for babies! :D). Leading from that, there's the hope that in the hopefully not so distant future, he would be able to feed himself. Yikes, which brings me to another 'babyism' -

Mantra for new mothers: Crumbs are your new best friends. Repeat again.

There's a third reason for finger food. Entertainment. It is something for minibeanie to do while in a restaurant. Alas, its entertainment value is short-lived as we often find out. Last week, minibeanie turned our Anniversary dinner in a nice restaurant into fast food. Two courses is as much as we can manage and even that is stretching it.

Speaking of the Anniversary dinner, _I_ forgot our Anniversary last week! I couldn't believe it! I'd been so busy with the humdrum of daily life and planning minibeanie's 1st year bash that it slipped my mind. Thank God there's backup in the form of DH, my better half :)

minibeanie is 11 months & 5 days old