Preparing for Raelynn's arrival

After Dr Wong reminded me for the second time yesterday to take out old clothes to wash, I decided not to procrastinate anymore. :P Just passed a basin of RaeAnne's old bb clothes for Filamie to handwash. Still got a bag of new clothes and a lot of nappies and blankets. Better wash bit by bit lar, nowadays weather so unpredictable. Also don't know whether will rain or not. Wait the clothes difficult to dry especially once monsoon season starts. :P

Decided to take a pix of the stuff I've bought for Raelynn so far. Most of the clothes were bought from BP or from Taka/Robinsons/BHG sale. The 3 piece ducky and pink sleepsuit sets were only $10 per set from BP. The cow shirts/pants are only 3 for $8+. :)

The loot excludes NB diapers and the bb cot we bought from Metro and a few items that I have not received from BP yet. Next time, she cannot complain that Mummy and Daddy 'pian xin' and that she only got hand me downs from cheh cheh liao. hee hee. ;)

32 weeks, 8 more weeks to go.... :)

32 weeks now, saw Dr Joycelyn Wong at TMC in the evening. At 31 weeks and 6 days. Baby Raelynn is 1.8kg and I've only put on 500+g this time. Weight now is 54.4kg and my waistline is already 39.5 inches. Faint! :P Raelynn gained 400g so hoping my weight gain has reach a plateau, already gained 12 kg so far from 42kg. ;) Dr Wong projects that Raelynn will be 3.2kg at 40 weeks. Her head is 29cm (average for now) and she's head down since 28 weeks so gynae said she'll stay down cos no more space for her to move up. Head is not very low and not engaged yet so no need to worry about preterm labour.

Dr Wong will start seeing me every 2 weeks from now on to monitor my progress. She also reminded me of the labour signs to watch out for (water bag burst or bleeding or contraction pain that gets worse and worse) :)

If contraction pain, need to activate hubby once it reaches 10 mins frequency and need to leave home for hospital once it reaches 5 mins frequency. Checked with Dr Wong regarding pain relief. She said for second time MTBs, if want epi, must take it between 3-4cm dilated. If dilated beyond that, then too late liao. Still have not decided whether to go for it cos my first dilation was very slow. She was reassuring as usual. She said for her no. 2, when she went to hospital with pain, she was only 2cm dilated, so decided on epi. She said for most 2nd MTBs, the really bad pain lasts for 1.5 hours if never use epi. She also shared that the gas and pethidine don't work well for the pain. Oh well, we'll see. Hope I make the right decision when the day comes. :P

Chicken stew with potato and carrot

Tried making chicken stew today. Wanted to make English chicken stew but I searched online and there were so many different recipes so I mixed and matched the steps and ingredients and ended up with a 'char pa lang' English stew. ;) As long as it's different from the ginger oyster sauce chicken stew that I usually made cos that one reminds me too much of confinement food.

Ingredients (Preparation time: 1 hr, serving size: 3 adults and 1 toddler)
3 chicken thighs (remove fats and skin)
2 med carrots (cut into slices, about 0.5 cm thick)
2 potatoes (cut into 1 cm cubes)
Half a yellow/white onion (sliced) - can use less onion if you are not an onion fan
8 cloves of garlic (peeled)
2 cups of chicken stock (I added more cos I had a lot of frozen stock)
2 tablespoon of flour
Two 1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of oil
1 sprig of parsley (finely choppped) - can be omitted if don't like parsley

1. On a plate, combine the flour, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and the pepper. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture, shaking off the excess. In a nonstick Dutch oven, heat the oil until hot by not smoking over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook until golden brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

2. Using the remaining oil from the chicken (add another tablespoon if the oil has disappeared), add the garlic, onions, fry until fragant. Then add carrots, potatoes, and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt to the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables begin to brown, about 5 minutes.

3. Return the chicken to the pot and add the broth. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce to a simmer, and cover. cook, turning the chicken occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender, about 20-30 minutes.

Verdict
RaeAnne loves the stew. I had lots of gravy so we poured over her rice. Guess she loves mushy, savoury rice more. Hubby didn't have anything bad to say this time and actually said it's nice. I thought the onions and parsley was overpowering (cos I'm not a fan of either) but he likes it this way. :)

Note:
i) The recipe said can add 1 cup of dry white wine and cook for 3 mins (after the vegetables have browned but before adding the chicken). But I didn't add wine cos cooking for RaeAnne.

ii) I added slightly less pepper and salt than the recipe called for cos afraid it'll be too hot or too salty for RaeAnne. Can use actual amounts stated if cooking for adults.

iii) I simmered the stew uncovered cos I had a lot of stock. Plus I was removing the scum from the chicken thigh bones which appeared as I started cooking.

iv) Best to use a real non stick pot. I use corningware pot cos my WMF stock pot was too big and my non stick saucepan is too small. Nearly spoilt the dish cos corningware is NOT non-stick and some parts was getting burnt after I took out the chicken and added the garlic/onion. I had to remedy that by adding more oil and adding stock before vegetables are properly browned. :P

Oh ya, RaeAnne said Rabbit yesterday and said onion today. She also made a good attempt to imitate Daddy saying Me, he, she and they. ;)

But the naughty gal poured the bowl of rice with ingredients and some soup at my mum's place when she got 'tired' of eating. Beat her hands but she has no reaction at all. My dad said I should beat her when she do it instead of shortly after. Little did he know that I'm counting to 10 to calm myself down. If not, I'm afraid I'll spank her even harder.

My younger bro (who is not married and has no kids) thinks that she has no reaction cos I didn't beat her hard enough. Well, first of all, he didn't witness the whole saga, I did beat her hard on her hands (not on her diapers cos that'll be cushioned). Secondly, a lot of toddlers this age are testing boundaries so I don't know whether it's worse to give her a reaction everytime she does something naughty or to ignore her antics so that she doesn't get a kick from doing it anymore.

Eg. she used to bite her nails all the time a few months ago and we'll keep shouting at her not to do it, pull her hands out, make a big huha. But after we gave up, she actually stopped doing it. Anyway, it's a fine balance that we need to find as parents. :P

Today, she bent my specs out of shape when I was on the bed in a drowsy mode after taking my cold medicine. Tried to bend it back and broke one of the handles. Sigh, got to go and replace my specs soon. Should have done lasik before conceiving no. 2. Then my problems would have been solved. :P

Risoni with homemade pasta sauce

Tried a new recipe: Risoni with homemade pasta sauce. Bought risoni at NTUC when I chanced upon it cos it's not as 'kiddy' as ABC pasta but yet small enough for RaeAnne to swallow so no need to cut unlike elbow macaroni.

Checked out the ingredients of pasta sauce bottles and reverse engineered from there cos I don't dare to let RaeAnne take bottled pasta sauce yet. Tried out the recipe on Tues and decided to cut down on the onion used and increase the tomato puree from 1 tablespoon to 2 tablespoon. Thought she might like it since she loves the stir fried macaroni, which is also ketchup based.

Ingredients (Serves 3 adults & 1 toddler)
1 teaspoon of oil
1 teaspoon of garlic (chopped)
Half a white/yellow onion (chopped)
3 ripe tomatoes (cut, scald and remove skin then chop)
2 tablespoon of tomato puree (for taste and colour)
3 fresh mushrooms (chopped)
1 sprig of fresh parsley (chopped finely) (Can also use dried italian herbs or dried parsley instead)
3/4 chinese bowl of minced chicken
1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese (can add more if desired)
2 chinese bowls of Risoni (pasta that looks like rice bought from NTUC)

Steps
1) Boil the risoni with water with a few drops of oil (can add salt if you want). Drain the risoni and put into the serving bowls.
2) Use a thick base pot, use low/medium fire, add 1 teaspoon of oil and fry the garlic until fragant
3) Add the chopped onion and fry until it softens.
4) Add the chopped tomato and tomato puree, then turn to med/high heat, cook until onions and tomatoes soften.
5) Add parsley and mushrooms and stir.
6) When mixture boils, add the minced chicken until it is cooked
7) Add the parmesan cheese and stir through until melted.
8) Pour the pasta sauce over the risoni and serve. :)

Verdict:
i) RaeAnne ate enthusiatically initially but lost steam after the 5-6 spoonful. Maybe she's not very used to the sour taste? :P Interestingly, after hubby started feeding her muffin, she started to pick up the spoon and eat the risoni herself on her own. Maybe the muffin was sweet so she prefers 1 mouthful of 'sour' followed by one mouthful of sweet stuff, more 开胃。 At least she ate more risoni than the cheese baked pasta but maybe can try adding some sugar to the pasta sauce next time. :)

ii) Hubby as usual was not very encouraging. He said he doesn't like the texture of risoni (found it too hard). Duh, it was cooked aldente and each risoni's so small, how hard can it be? And that he prefers a thicker sauce (that can be easily remedied with more tomatoes and cheese but I'm afraid RaeAnne won't like it too cheesy and tomatoey). In fact, he joked that we should feed RaeAnne muffin for lunch and muffin for dinner next time. She'll eat faster. Sigh, so demoralising to cook sometimes. I had to take time/effort to plan the weekend menu, buy ingredients, cook and try out the risoni recipe on Tues first, then improvise and cook again for RaeAnne today. Sometimes, I wonder if I just stop cooking and tapow food or order tingkat for all the meals next time. Save my efforts and time. :(

Oh ya, when she wanted to eat the sweet muffin instead of the pasta, hubby said you so smart ah, want to eat the sweet stuff only and she mimicked and said 'mart'. The 's' sound dropped as usual. :) Just now, she pointed to my feet and said 'big, big', I was wondering why she thought my foot was big. Then remembered that I had taught her about her 'big toe' last time. Haha.

Brushing teeth

Upgraded RaeAnne to stage 3 pigeon toothbrush (short soft bristles similar to adult toothbrush) since most of her 16 teeth are out. Bought a new strawberry flavour pigeon toothpaste for her too since she doesn't like the first teeth toothpaste anymore.

But once she tried it, she doesn't like it. Guess it must be still too hot/minty for her. Difficult to make her brush her teeth properly anymore. But at least I taught her how to spit out water from a cup after brushing her teeth. Must be consistent so that she won't end up swallowing the water. :P

I went to Taka member's sale with a friend yesterday. Bought some cheeky bon bon pillow case, bolster case and fitted sheet for RaeAnne, price was good cos less 20% plus less 15% for card members. Went to Tampopo and had the black pork shabu shabu and mini ramen. Satisfy my craving. :)

Had a cold since yesterday morning though. Sneezing yesterday, runny nose started today, took yellow pills, Vit C, echinacea and Augmentin. Self medicating, hope will get well soon. Filamie also started to sneeze today. Sigh, with both of us sick, hope RaeAnne won't catch the cold bug. :P

RaeAnne said 'Monkey' instead of 'wu wu wu' (her usual 'word' for Monkey). She also said '娃娃' when she saw the long forgotten 'new' doll that ye ye bought. :) Still trying to train her to say 'dog' instead of 'ow ow' and 'cat' instead of 'Mao' ;)

Singing & talking

RaeAnne is starting to parrot what we are saying, sometimes not 100% accurate but enough for us to guess what's she saying. She said 'remon' when I said lemon and she said 'Milk' with an US accent, (influenced by Filamie?) today too, LOL. I let her try some Koko crunch with fresh magnolia milk.

She likes us to sing to her too. So besides being car deejay, she'll dedicate songs and we have to sing for her usually around bedtime when we are trying to coax her to sleep. If she says 'ang ang ang' or 'mon', I have to sing the doraemon song. Nowadays, I'll sing and let her complete the last word. Eg. Ang ang ang, totemo daisuki dorae.... and she'll finish with 'Mon'.

She likes the "Pat a cake" song too cos there is an illustration of baby in the lyrics "put it in the oven for Baby and Me" in her the picture nursery rhyme book which we bought from a TMC push cart. Turns out to be a good buy cos they illustrate each nursery rhyme with many pictures instead of just 1 main picture for each nursery rhyme. Only problem is sometimes she wants to run back to the living room to get the book after saying baby, baby. She also likes the incy winsy spider song, she'll put her forefingers together to 'symbolize' the spider climbing up the spout. We put our thumb and little finger together to show the spider climbing but she can't quite get that yet. Haha.

Oh and she knows how to count but only 1 and 2. For one, she'll write 'yi' as taught by MIL. The other day, when we received the Parklon Pooh Multipurpose mat which we bought to put beside her little bed (delivery was sent to ILs place). MIL said she wanted to drag the big bumper mat out and said '2' and gestured with her fingers 2. hehe. :)

Strangely, she has been fake crying when I leave her at playgroup these few mornings. She has stopped doing that for some time. :P

Belina, my feb08 mummy friend recommended 2 books "Big sister" and the Usbourne Phonic series (with a hidden yellow ducky on each page), her daughter loves it. Will try and order from book depository soon. :)

Ng ng = shh shh?

Ever since we moved RaeAnne to her own room, she's been waking up around 6+am. I suspect she always wakes up at this timing cos of the commotion in the house. First, the maid will get up, have her breakfast and clean up the living room. Then hubby will get up and do his morning routine of getting ready to go to work. Anyway, this morning when I carried her back to our bed to sleep, she took a long time to settle cos hubby was in the bathroom showering and the light was on.

After tossing and turning on the bed for some time, she pointed to her diaper and told me 'Ng Ng'. Was surprised cos she just pooed last night, should not be pooing so fast again. Then, when I touched her diaper, I realised that she just peed cos her diaper was very warm. I think she's trying to tell me that she wants to pee but doesn't know how to say shh shh, only ng ng. I changed her diaper lar since she is trying to communicate to me and I want to encourage her efforts. Haha. Still, it's an improvement, I've just ordered a set of 3 layer Minnie training pants for her from BP. Maybe can try letting her be diaperless this weekend. :)

Ng Ng...

RaeAnne didn't poo at all today at home or at ILs place. Then after her last milk feed, when I was lying down on the toddler bed with her, she said 'ng ng' to me. Ask her if she wants to 'ng ng' (poo) and she nodded her head. So, quickly brought her to the toilet. Put the child potty seat on the toilet bowl but she sit there for a while but no 'inspiration'. Put her on her potty instead and she started to poo after a short while. Think the low potty is more 'ergonomically' designed for her to poo poo. Anyway, I'm happy that she managed to tell me 'ng ng' today before she pooed instead of after the fact. Praised her 'clever girl' many times. :)

Raelynn is 31 weeks now. Wow! Just 5 more weeks before Dr Wong said I should pack my hospital bag and 6 more weeks before she's considered full term at 37 weeks. Think I better start washing her clothes in a few weeks time. ;P

The princess and the pea

No, we DO NOT have a hundred mattress in the house but after buying another cot today, I'm reminded of Princess and the pea because the number of kiddie beds/cots stands at a grand total of 3! Seems like an overkill since we only have 2 kids. :P

The 'baby' room already has an ikea queen size sofa bed and a big white Taurus cot belonging to RaeAnne. I also have a Arm's reach cosleeper bassinet beside our bed which we never kept though we only used it until RaeAnne was 6 months old. The bassinet is not recommended after 6 months or once the baby can turn/flip because there is only one level and 1 side is 'open' concept.

Debated whether to buy a second cot cos the house is really too small but I wanted to start sleep training for Raelynn on the right foot. For RaeAnne, we made many mistakes, in the day, she was sleeping on the bouncer in the living room, then she slept on the queen size ikea bed with the CL during my 40 days confinement. At ILs place, they put her to sleep on a bouncer and even tried the sarong. Then after confinement, she slept on the cosleeper bassinet in our room until 6 months when we moved her to the big white cot in her own room. When she refused to fall asleep in the cot, we put her to sleep on our bed then moved her to the cot in her room after she has fallen asleep. Then, when her teething hit big time in June this year, she coslept with us on our bed cos hubby was too tired to keep patting her back to sleep and putting her back to her cot only to have her wake up and the cycle starts all over again.

I think the easiest time to sleep train is when she is still a baby. I heard of parents whose babies have no problem falling asleep on their own in a cot because right from the moment the baby left the hospital, the baby was left alone in the cot to fall asleep on his own. Parents should not rock or use other sleep aids cos that will make the baby reliant on this sleep aids and as a result, they cannot self soothe and go back to sleep when they wake up. So, I thought if we have a cot for Raelynn, we can put her to sleep there right from the beginning and save ourselves the hassle of sleep training and retraining over and over again.

Got to know from forum that Metro was having a baby fair and there's a Shears cot on offer at $159 with free 4 inch mattress and free musical mobile. Couldn't find the ad on Straits Times (it was actually Friday's Today newspaper) but located the ad on the website.

Went down to see the cot today at Sengkang Metro and tried the cot side release mechanism. Very particular about this because for RaeAnne's cot, I needed two hands and 1 leg to lower the cot side. Very pek chek, cos I could NEVER lower it even with 2 hands free, let alone when one arm is already carrying a baby. :P The Shears cot was smaller than RaeAnne's cot at 65cm (W) x 124cm (L) x 120cm (Ht) and it has only 3 adjustable levels and feels rather flimsy. But the cot side is more easily released, best using 2 hands but still possible to do it with 1 hand with some skills.

Went to Kiddy palace to compare prices and their cheapest and smallest cot was 67cm x 128cm and it costs $199 just for the cot and need to top up another $49 for the 4" inch mattress. Decided to buy the Shears cot from Metro since it's a steal since the price is comparable to Ikea cot or a second hand cot.

We were home rather late and RaeAnne fell asleep in the car at 1+pm. Reached home and put her to her little bed but she woke up soon after that. All of us went down to wash car since we have lots of second rinse water from this morning's laundry. RaeAnne was very excited and happy to witness the whole cleaning process. She kept running around say 'And And' cos there were many ants in the carpark especially under the big tree. She also dipped her fingers into the dirty water in the pail when I was busy giving instructions to Filamie about the windscreen. I already told her not to do that and pulled her away many times. Naughty gal, too curious and wants to join in the 'fun'. :P

Had facial at 4pm today so I rushed to pick up some missing ingredients at Tampines NTUC cos decided to try the Baked macaroni with cheese recipe from Little Gastronomy. http://littlegastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/09/macaroni-and-cheese.html

It was one of the more tedious recipes I tried (many steps and preparation) but I'm glad it turned out to be a success. Bad thing is I found out that RaeAnne doesn't like cheesy stuff (like Mummy) cos hubby said she ate around 10 pieces of macaroni at most. :P

Today is 中秋节but we were too busy cooking dinner to 赏月，it was raining anyway. But we did have pomelo to celebrate the occasion, nearly forgot about the pomelo in the goodie bag that we got from the celebration at the park last week. The pomelo was nice and sweet, just slightly bitter and helped to take away the 'jelat'ness of the Mac & cheese. Even RaeAnne likes it. :)

We were still left with half a dish of baked cheese macaroni after all of us have eaten (3 adults and 1 toddler). Duh, looks like we got to have that for breakfast tomorrow. Baked cheese macaroni, anyone? ;P

Hubby tried putting RaeAnne to sleep when I left the house for my facial but she refused to nap. So, we tried putting her to bed earlier today at 9pm. She got cranky cos she couldn't settle to sleep. End up hubby and I had to take turns to carry her before she finally fell asleep on hubby's shoulders then we transferred her to her bed. Sigh. :P

Happy Children's Day!

RaeAnne is a good gal today! Because she ate most of the stir fried macaroni for lunch. Maybe it helped that I ate my lunch with her while Filamie fed her. She even tried to scoop macaroni for me and wanted to feed me. Her romper and pants are all stained with ketchup sauce after the meal but it's part and parcel of her learning to self feed process. :P

Last night, RaeAnne woke up at 2.25am screaming for Daddy, daddy. Hubby slept very late and was knocked out so I decided to lie down beside her and soothe her back to sleep. The next time, she woke up, it was 7.15am so I consider this an improvement from previous nights.

I made milk for her at 1:15pm. She was a bit sleepy I think, at least she was willing to lie on her bed instead of running around but she kept farting and true enough she poo poo around 2:15pm (she didn't do it when I brought her to toilet at 2pm, she peed instead). Told Filamie to lie down on her mattress and pretend to sleep and ignore her whatever she do.

Finally, at 3pm, after she exhausted herself running from her bed (where I was lying down) to Filamie's side, and playing with the ABC mat on the floor, she knocked out on Filamie mattress with her body on the floor from waist down. She woke up at 430pm refreshed and in good mood. I was sitting on the floor using my laptop when she woke up.

Made pan fried salmon with some salt and pepper (it kept oozing oil on its own that I had to use 4 kitchen towels to soak up the oil before giving it to RaeAnne), got Filamie to fry egg omelete and I made local spinach soup using ikan bilis stock with fish cake.

MIL gave me the fishcake and it expires tomorrow. Paranoid about the MSG listed as one of the ingredients so washed it with water twice and soaked it with hot water. Since it's Children's day, asked hubby to come back a bit earlier so that we can go out after early dinner. Initially wanted to go to TM but decided on Giant so that I can buy big flower pots to repot my pandan leaves. Bought a small dustbin for RaeAnne (she loves to step on our house's pedal bins and 'Thow' things but most times she uses her hand to lift the lid.) So dirty! So I decided to get a small one for her to play and thow things in. Can ask Filamie to wash her little dustbin everyday. Also got her a barn puzzle game with die cuts of the animals. :)

We came back at 915pm and after everyone showered, it was 10pm when I gave her milk. Luckily, she fell asleep around 10:25pm tossing and turning on her bed with me beside her. Hope this is the start of earlier nights from now on. :)