To the beginnings of super porridge

Today, I've decided to cooked some mix of brown/red rice together with a little carrot and puree them for Faith. She loves it! And ate and ate and ate so much that my mom and I were a little worried she might overeat. Her stomach was puffed up after her lunch :)

I'd bought some little carrots (each about the length of a finger) and small potatoes, which I plan to cook together with the brown/red rice before blending them. If she takes to them, I should be able to introduce more food items as we go along. There just doesn't seem to be enough days in a month to introduce her on account that I wait 4 days with the introduction of every new food item.

Its rather fun to see her enjoying her food and sitting in her stroller to eat her meals when we have family dinners on weekends. Everyone in the family were pleasantly surprised that she's now big enough to start on solids and seems to be enjoying her food. I can't wait for the day when she would be stable enough to sit in one of those baby hi-chairs at the restaurants -- although I might rue the day she does cos she might start banging and throwing items ;)

In mid Oct, Louis, Faith and I would be taking our first solo overseas trip to Bintan. Now that she's steadily eating her solids, I'm sure we will be carting lots of things just for a 3D2N stay;- mini-crock pot, blender, rice, vegetables, sippy cups alongside with her 101 daily necessities. We'll have to see how Louis and I survive the 3 days with her without any help ;)

Addiction

Have been rather quiet and not posted any blog since last week. That's because I'm currently addicted to Facebook and am popping in every so often just to nose around, doing silly things based on the growing applications that I've installed (e.g. becoming a vampire bride and trying to convert and bite as many people to score points, having virtual pillow fights and playing online scrabble etc).

If its a fad, its a rather interesting one at that :)

Faith at nearly 6 months

Finally, both Faith and I are on the road to recovery after being down with both viral and bacterial infections for nearly 2 weeks. The flipside to bringing Faith out often -- largely weekends -- invariably means that she's more susceptible to bugs and viruses floating around in the atmosphere.

Still, life has to go on. Yes, our lifestyle has changed some to adapt to having a little one. Yet, we are reluctant to coddle and protect our little one too much. That's not to say that we would embrace the other end of the spectrum and bring her out everyday, for long stretches at a time. That would be silly and tempting fate. But we hope to find a good balance of maintaining our previous lifestyle where weekends are meant to catch up with families and friends, while at the same time, allowing some down time for Faith to calm down and catch up on her short power naps.

In another 2 days time, Faith would reach her full 6 months milestone. The last one month has seen significant developments for my little baby. She's started on solids and has experimented with a few different types of food. She's definitely more aware and curious of her surroundings, objects and people -- stretching and straining to grab everything within sight and reach of her little busy fingers. She's also developing well physically in terms of motor skills. Slowly but certainly, she's getting playful and naughtier by the day.

On food, Faith still likes her food well pureed or strained -- no lumpy puree, please. She's tried store-bought rice cereals, brown rice, butternut squash, Japanese pumpkin, sweet potatoes, avocados and pears. Of these, she loves rice cereals, brown rice and butternut squash best. I think its becos they are fragrant. She isn't too fanatical about avocado (I'm being optimistic here). She's neutral about sweet potatoes, Japanese pumpkins and pears, provided that they are well pureed. However, she tends to poop all her sweet potatoes, causing some minor alarm for me until the paedi said that "carrots and peas poops" are common for kids up till 3 years of age. Still, it is rather unnerving that she poops sweet potatoes in all its entirety. There's absolutely no smell in her poop and it continues for as long as I feed her sweet potatoes.

Her finger grasping skill is improving. While she rakes most of the objects towards her, she's generally able to grasp pretty much everything within sight. She has a particular fetish for grabbing hairs and yanking on them. I don't know why, but all babies seem to go through that phase *shrug*. So, those of you with long hair, be forewarned. In the mornings when she wakes and if Louis and I do not turn and greet her, she would pawed at us until we pry our eyes open and smile at her. To which, she would coo a little and smile at us.

Flipping... hmmm... she's getting rather good at it. She started only being able to flip on her left side while on her back. Then, she graduated to learning to flip from her back to front and front to back. After which, she accelerated to learn to flip on her right side, back-front-front-back. Now, she's just flipping all over the place and no mattress nor a king-sized bed seems big enough for her flipping gymnastics.

And it amazes me that once children learnt a skill, they subconsciously continue to "practise" it. For the last few nights, she decides to flip onto her stomach halfway through the night to sleep. When I wake up noticing her on her stomach, I would flipped her back on her back again. You can bet your last dollar that soon after, she flops back again on her tummy. All the books I have read warned against letting infants sleep on their tummy, but I'm wondering that now she's more dexterous, is it still as dangerous that they might on occasions sleep on their tummy? Faith seems to know to flip her head to the side, so that she can breathe even in sleep.

Where she used to be contented and happy when we pull her gently upright into a sitting position, now, she strains to stand up. And when you let her, she happily grins and starts stamping her little feet. Slowly, I'm training her to put her hands out in front of her while in a sitting position so that she can balance herself all on her own. Well... it lasts only about a few seconds before she topples over. Hahaha... fret not! We only do it when she's on the bed.

And the vocal chords! Geez! Faith must be enormously fascinated at discovering the different range of vocals she has. Unfortunately, she's decided that her favourite is a high pitch little scream (or maybe its a screech?). And so, my little one now screams a lot for the past week. No particular reason for her screaming. She screams when she's lying down, when she's bored, when she's happy. In fact, she seems to think that the only way to communicate with her parents and grandma these days. It amuses us in the beginning but when she screams incessantly for a couple of minutes each time throughout the day, it gets dreary and not so amusing anymore.

Louis, however, thinks otherwise. He keeps asking me when Faith will start to be able to talk and he's sure looking forward to that day. Me? Faith's definitely more fun and bubbly now to play with, conversely, needing a lot more attention than before. I'm at times tearing my hair out or laughing at her antics. Still, I mostly try to remind myself to enjoy her every phases of growth. Speaking of which, I shall leave you with an updated collage of Faith's growth over the months :)

Still sick... boo hoo hoo

On Thur, we brought baby back to the paedi again as her runny nose seemed to trouble her still with no improvement, plus, she had started to develop chesty coughs (coughs with phlegm). It was a good call that we did cos the paedi told us that her lungs are a little infected.

He's a little worried that it would worsen and develop into bronchitis and so, we were told to use a nebuliser (its a little devise that vapourises ventolin-typed medications to be put near the nose and mouth area to aid breathing) on her 3 times a day and come back again on Saturday for a review.

Thankfully, she slept better that night when we started her on the nebuliser. She seemed to be able to breath a little better and the hacking coughs didn't keep her up at night.

Sat morning, we brought her back to the clinic. Seems like a whole lot of children are sick these days and a few of the patients were back for review and were also using the nebulisers -- paedi did remarked that a lot of kids had to be given that recently.

While her condition didn't worsen, it didn't really improved. In fact, her mucus has turned from clear to a little yellowish. The results of the nose swab that the paedi did for her on Thur wasn't out yet but a quick check with the lab indicated that they were growing the bacterial to ascertain exactly which strain of bacteria was she susceptible or immune to. Paedi decided to start her on antibiotics.

Sigh... this particular bout of sickness seemed to last a long time. Wonder how long much before Faith would start to recover. I feel so sorry for my little one :(

Darling Faith, hope you would get well soon.

Raspberries & Chocolate Chip Muffins

Raspberries and chocolate chips seems like a nice combination for a muffin, wouldn't you? That's what I thought would be a perfect mix, although Louis seemed a little puzzled by my choice of ingredients for the muffins at the beginning. However, he soon changed his mind when he sank his teeth into one. *grin*

Imagine the tartness of raspberry, combined with the sweet, velvety smoothness of chocolates. Mmmmhhh.... and that was exactly how my raspberries and chocolate chip muffins turned out. Lovely with its cake-like texture, each bite into the muffin might give a sudden burst of the slight sourness of cooked raspberry, mingled with the bitter-sweet taste of chocolate.

This time around, I actually bought raspberries with the intention to make a raspberry and chocolate cake from Clothilde Dusoulier's Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook. However, the ingredients seemed altogether rather sinful and rich, as it was almost like a flourless fully-cook fondant au chocolat (aka warm chocolate cake), except that it has mashed raspberry added. Plus, I wasn't feeling too good for the last week on account of restless nights looking after a sick Faith, and that I myself was recovering from my bout of gastric/stomach flu.

Rather than letting the raspberries go to waste, I decided to use them for muffins, with the addition of some bitter-sweet chocolate chips. The recipe for the muffins were the same as my blueberries and apple muffins posted earlier, but replaced this time around with the 2 other ingredients.

Raspberries and Chocolate Chips Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

250g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp

180ml milk

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

113g butter, at room temperature,

190g sugar

1 punnet raspberries (approx 170g, I think)

50g chocolate chips (approx cos I forgot to measure. I just threw in what seemed to be a good amount)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Shift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, blend milk, egg and vanilla extract.

3. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, cream together the butter and sugar until light and smooth in texture. Add the flour mixture in 3 separate additions, alternating with the wet ingredients in Pt (2). Then, increase speed to medium and mix until the batter is very smooth.

4. Fold the raspberries and chocolate chips into the batter, working gently and just long enough to distribute the ingredients evenly.

5. Divide the batter evenly amongst 12 muffins cups/moulds. Bake for about 18-20 minutes. Let muffins cool in the pans on a wire rack for 5 minutes before removing.

This time around, I poured some of the muffins into little disposable muffin cups. I think they looked cute! Between these and the blueberries and apple muffins, Louis like my latest muffins better. So do I, actually :)

My baby is sick :(

I was sick as a dog on Sunday, having been hit by some kind of virus that left me utterly lifeless and lying prone on the bed for the larger part of the day. I rather suspect its either stomach or gastric flu becos I've been feeling queasy and though I can keep my food down, I don't have much of an appetite and needed to go light with all my food for now.

Thankfully, Faith was shepherded to my MIL's place for the afternoon so that I could rest. Even though its wishful thinking to hope that she would escape unscathed while I slowly recovered from the viral attack by the 2nd day, Faith started to have runny nose on Monday night. That night, she slept fitfully and you could hear that her breathing was a little blocked, was also coughing a little and although she wasn't running a temperature, her body was a little warm. Louis and I took turns to spell each other, holding and cuddling her.

We brought her to see the paedi on Tue morning. Indeed, she's had a viral attack, with runny nose, fever and cough. As a precaution, her paedi advised us to look out for a few signs, especially if she's having difficulty breathing or a drastic drop in appetite and to call him if she exhibits any of these.

Last night, she again sleep fitfully, this time, more restless than the previous with bouts of crying (she must be so uncomfortable) and periodic coughing. It was rather heart-wrenching to see her go through it and that she can't articulate her discomfort or distress to us :( As she was prone to coughing when lying down, I resorted to carrying her in my arms for most part of the night.

Sigh...the paedi did say that the 3rd or 4th day might be the difficult phase that once she gets through, she should be on the road to recovery. Keeping my fingers crossed that she would be able to sleep better tonight.

An exhausting Saturday

To say that Faith was exhausted by all the events on Saturday is an understatement. In fact, it was too much of an excitement and overstimulation for a 5 1/2 month old baby, much to my guilt. And I'm feeling guilty becos I had a whole lot of fun... so much fun that I forgot that my little baby might be overwhelmed. And we did pay a price for that. She slept fitfully that night, keeping both Louis and me zonked out the next day.

We had dim sum for lunch at Hua Ting at Orchard Hotel as a belated birthday gathering for me. Till today, Hua Ting is still unequivocally my favourite Chinese dinning restaurant where Cantonese cuisine is always served refined, nicely done without the MSG-laden and overly salty dishes.

Now this is a little funny episode that I absolutely have to recount... for when my little one is older and I can remind her of how she scared the wits out of Aunty Stella. As Faith is still experiencing stranger anxiety, we let her warm up to the many "strangers" at the table before the guys started turning turns carrying her. Now, Aunty Stella was beaming with joy when Faith acquiesced to let her be carried and she happily went "shopping" with the little one. Some minutes later, as I was on my way to the ladies' room, I could hear the strains of a baby crying, getting increasingly louder. I stood for a moment to identify where the sounds were coming from and wondering if it could be Faith crying. Lo and behold, I saw Aunty Stella very soon, practically running with a bawling Faith in her arms, panic-stricken.

As the story goes, Stella told us that she was happily window-shopping with Faith when an acquaintance stopped her and started to chat. That's when Faith decided that she didn't like the look of the new stranger and cried. And since Stella was quite a distance away from the restaurant, she frantically ran back with Faith. If only I had a camera on hand, I would have loved to capture that particular scene.

After lunch, we headed to Dempsey Hill for desserts and ice-cream at the Ben and Jerry's outlet. Overall, I thought that dessert was a little pricey there. I had an apple pie with a scoop of ice-cream that cost nearly $10. The apple pie serving was generous in that they had big chunky apple cubes in the pie, along with raisins. But frankly, it wasn't worth that amount of money.

As a belated birthday "cake" -- ok, it wasn't exactly a cake and shared amongst 6 adults at that ;) -- was some mixed berries trifle. We did take a family picture but by then, Faith was exhausted and took a nearly 1 hour nap in the arms of her daddy. Hence, the family portrait only showed the back of her head *grin*

By then, it was approaching dinner and we decided to meet the family at the dinner venue at Riverside, instead of heading home. Dinner was at Liang Kee, a Teochew restaurant which served homey, comfort food, followed by a slow stroll along the riverside. Given that it was early, we decided to head to the TCC outlet, where they put us in a separated room, all by ourselves. It was comfortably furnished and we were told that we could reserve the room for functions simply by calling in advance -- no minimum number of people nor spending. Of course, we took a little more pictures and this time around, a nice one of the grandparents with the 3 grandchildren.

As we headed towards the carpark, coincidentally, we met Lynne who was on a flying trip to Singapore and who wanted to have do dinner with us, only that we saw her email too late and had made prior arrangements by then. It was a mini gathering of ex-Inseaders and since I had a camera handy, we took more photos.

Unfortunately, Faith cried a little when she saw more new faces. We hope our little one would get over the phase soon, although I'm not sure if it would be happening anytime within the next 2-3 months, with separation anxiety expected to hit around the age of 8-9 months. We can only hope that as we slowly expose her to more people and friends, she would get over it faster.

Blueberry & Apple Muffins

A number of moms have been blogging about their home-baked products of cupcakes, birthday cakes and muffins. With some blueberry and apples sitting demurely in the fruit compartment of my fridge and spurred by these moms, I thought that I would bake me some muffins too! Since I'm not a chocolate fanatic, I'm rather happy with my blueberry and apple combination.

I was using two different sets of silicon muffin moulds and hence, you can see from the picture that my muffins turn out in 2 different sizes and slightly different shapes. Regardless, I think they tasted yummy.

Here's the recipe that I'd adapted from the "Baking at Home with the Culinary Institute of America":

Blueberry & Apple MuffinsMakes 12 muffins

Ingredients:
250g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
180ml milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
113g butter, at room temperature, plus another 1 tbsp
190g + 2tbsp sugar
100g blueberries
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced in 0.5cm cubes (I use Fuji Apples)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Shift flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon powder into a bowl and set aside.

2. Heat a dry frying pan and add the 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp sugar. Let sugar caramelised and then add the diced apples in. Stir and mix well to coat apples. Leave them to cook for about 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, blend milk, egg and vanilla extract.

4. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, cream together the butter and sugar until light and smooth in texture. Add the flour mixture in 3 separate additions, alternating with the wet ingredients in Pt (3). Then, increase speed to medium and mix until the batter is very smooth.

5. Fold the blueberries and cooked apples into the batter, working gently and just long enough to distribute the fruits evenly.

6. Divide the batter evenly amongst 12 muffins cups/moulds. Bake for about 18-20 minutes. Let muffins cool in the pans on a wire rack for 5 minutes before removing.

Viola! You've got yourself some delicious muffins. Bonne la cuisine!

I'm a big girl now

Now that I'm starting Faith on one meal of solid per day, it makes a whole lot of sense to put her in a hi-chair, especially when she can't sit up on her own as yet. Granted, I could hold her in my lap and feed her, but I would rather that we both be as comfortable as possible without the risk of either of us upending the bowl of food over ourselves. Besides, its a matter of time in which I feel she needs to learn to sit in a hi-chair for her meals and now is as good a time to start as any.

The reason why I'm only giving her one feeding of solid is that she's not fully 6 months yet and at the risk of sounding theoretical to some of my friends, both WHO and the American Academy of Paediatrics* (AAP) advocate the introduction of solids only at 6 months.

Till they are 6 months and their digestive systems are more matured, breast or formula milk are the best nutrition for babies. Besides, I'm a little apprehensive that going on solids would decrease Faith's desire for breast milk. As it is, there are 1 or 2 meals in a day in which my little baby isn't interested in drinking (I'm wondering if its becos she's 5+ months and still on a 3-hour feeding routine). Hence, I'm using the one-meal-a-day routine simple to let her get use to eating with a spoon, experiencing the wide and varied tastes of as much food as she is able to eat for now.

Now, having dedicated 3 paragraphs of this post jabbering about other stuff, let me get back on track and talk about the hi-chair that we got for Faith this weekend. We have been scouting around for one for a few weeks now and we wanted one with a reclining function becos Faith can't quite sit upright on her own as yet. And I rather like the ones that could convert to become a little table and chair when she becomes a toddler.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the designs and range of hi-chairs being sold in the retail market is sadly dismal, compared to the range of strollers and baby what-nots. Interesting, considering that babies would need to use a hi-chair for quite a while. Unless a lot of people make do without one??

We went to Robinsons, Takashimaya's Baby Fair that is currently ongoing and Kiddy Palace. In the end, we decided on a green and yellow coloured hi-chair by Mama Love from Kiddy Palace. Have no idea about the brand, but it looks rather nice, fitted our requirements and wasn't too pricey.

Does Faith like her hi-chair? Hmmm... I think she's ok in it. She flops to one side while in it though - her back still isn't that strong. So, we stuff a little pillow by the side to support her. However, she's got a bad habit of propping her feet up on the tray of the chair while sitting in it. Not only is it undignified, its certainly not proper table manners. At her tender age, I guess she's oblivious to social norms for now.

*Note: The AAP in its book noted that the views amongst its members were divided about the age of weaning to be between 4-6 months.