Rub-a-dub-dub, a baby in the tub...

Here's Faith in her bathtub, in the living room with all her clothes all :) Naah... there's no water in it.

We usually wash Faith's clothes once every two days. At times when the load is heavier and there are more items, my mom would haul out Faith's bathtub and dump all her washed clothes in there for hanging. Of course, our little baby gets really excited whenever she sees her tub out. She loves her tub.

She would usually crawl on over, yank all the items in the bathtub one by one and haphazardly strewn them all over the floor before climbing into the tub. She did the same yesterday when my mom took out her bathtub of clothes.

I decided to take some pictures and capture them for posterity.

Vertigo

Vertigo, or dizziness, is a symptom, not a disease (I stress). The term vertigo refers to the sensation of spinning or whirling that occurs as a result of a disturbance in balance (equilibrium). It also may be used to describe feelings of dizziness, lightheadedness, faintness, and unsteadiness. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US, about 40% of people in the United States experience feeling dizzy at least once during their lifetime. Prevalence is slightly higher in women and increases with age.

Vertigo is what I am experienced tonight at the Singapore Flyer. I am not a woman so I can only guess it is due to my age. Lao liao.

Eve and I have been looking forward to this evening of fun - essentially a day out for us and Faith on a weekday on the Singapore Flyer. I came home earlier today - at around 5:15pm and by 6, we were all set to go, with Faith's food and all in tow.

The trip was a little eventful to say the least.

First, it was pouring when we reached the car park of the Singapore flyer. All the time, we were keeping our fingers crossed that we would get to see the magnificient skyline of Singapore in spite of the drab weather.

While we were keeping our fingers crossed, our little girl answered our prayers by deciding to wet her pants. So we spent sometime changing her in the car and lo and behold, by the time we changed her, the sky had cleared. So it looked promising definitely - this trip on the Singapore Flyer.

We happily strolled her into the Singapore Flyer and asked if there were places we could feed Faith before we went up to the Flyer. Our tickets were for 7pm and we were told to be there by 6:30pm, so we had arrived there earlier to feed Faith. There was a nice usherer who showed us to the reception (whereupon she found to her dismay, there were no seats - well, at least she had the kind intention), and then to Popeye restaurant. We promptly settled down to feed Faith, but not before the usherer gave us a useful tip - it did not matter that our tickets said 7pm - we could take any "flight" we wanted, so we didn't have to rush. That was great news.

But being the clever consultant I was, I had asked the usherer - then would it mean that we would wait for half an hour to catch the next "flight"? After all, one trip was half an hour. To this, my dear wife looked at me with dismay. It's like a ferris wheel - the wheel doesn't stop - you just hop on when the bubble comes past you - if not the wheel would have to stop each time it picked up passengers, silly. Ah, so. Let me remind everyone I have a Stanford Computer Science degree and an INSEAD MBA and blah blah blah. To save me from embarrasment, the usherer had tactfully kept her mouth shut.

By the time we finished feeding Faith, the rain had pretty much stopped. This was great news. And we happily packed our stuffs and went up to the ride. But first, we had to check-in our pram -no prams aboard. (I kept using the word trolley, but Eve kept correcting me - it is pram. Again, I remind you that I am from Stanford). You could tell this was a new establishment, because the usherer very happily ran to us and gave us a check-in chit for our pram (see I learn fast). She had taken this chit from this table where all the thick wad of chits were lying. I could tell immediately that they rarely issues such chits. Trial-runs. I could imagine this usherer doing next-morning reporting "I issued No 7 chit to a couple by asking the guy his name, writing down his mobile number and then tagging his pram (not trolley). Very smooth - no operational issues. No need to streamline further".

After we cleared "customs", we promptly walked up a ramp and was ushered into an express queue. We sped past some baffled onlookers who seemed to be waiting at some other queue and we were wondering why we had this special treatment - perhaps due to Faith in tow.

Anyway, it was all quite quick - before you know it, we were ushered into an oncoming capsule with two other couples - both younger than us. They were quite lovey-dovey and as an "elderly couple", we felt it our entitlement to ask one of them to take pictures for us. Err, can you take pictures for us. And the guy was just getting into the mood. Alamak he must have thought. But in all sportsmanship, I had offered to take their pictures as well. The couple nicely refused and went on to take their own pictures with outstretched camera...

The trip started quite nicely, and as the capsule was rising, I had looked out the capsule and looked at the view. Quite nice. A bit blocked by the remnants of rain outside the capsule, but nonetheless quite nice. The nice thing about this timing was that we had the chance to see the day and night view. At this moment, I was carrying Faith and she was a little bit her usual self wanting to crawl on the floor etc. I decided to keep her occupied while Eve busied herself with the photo-taking. It must have been only five minutes, when I looked up from holding Faith, that I realised...hmm, quite high ah. I think at that point I had thought - better stay where the benches are and not venture too far. Vertigo sinking, sigh.

What made the trip more uneventful was that halfway up, Faith decided to poop. So essentially, we were in this air-tight container so many feet above ground with two other couples who were probably hoping to smell more love than poop. Oh well, c'est la vie. Eve and I decided in our good sense to not change her in the capsule. See, we're so considerate.

Anyway, half an hour later, the trip ended. I was a bit woozy when I came out - not the spinning kind of woozy, but the kind of feeling you get when you know you are not completely normal - a little out of sorts. But it was fine. The attraction had a $15 picture of us, taken when we were at the entrance, which we promptly rejected - a bit touristy for us.

My verdict: Was really glad that we had the chance to go up the Flyer and experience this for ourselves. Glad we're doing this in Singapore first and not London - supporting our local attraction. Will we go again? Err..probably not too soon. I think a break for now will be in order given that I'd be going up a helicopter during my reservist in two weeks time.

The protective father

Is it normal for most couples to argue, bicker and quarrel over the responsibilities of parenthood, the kids themselves or the different styles of parenting? Something along the lines of say...once every 2-3 weeks? I sure hope so, or otherwise, it would appear that that we' the odd ones out in this parenthood thingy.

Sure, the two of us have our usual arguments and quarrels though we make up quite quickly. Our wedding preparations was a breeze, as we had the same ideas and perspectives on how we wanted our wedding to be. Maybe its becos we were straddling between this honeymoon stage of couple hood and impending marriage. Hence, we were both more accommodating of each other.

Choosing the right home and agreeing on the styles of how we envisioned our ideal home to turn out became a surprise to us becos we started to have differences in opinions. Each of us wanted to preserve our preferred themes, style, furnishings and fixtures in what would become our cosy little haven. Eventually, we managed to strike an amicable compromise without going at each other's throat.

Parenthood, however, presents a different ball game. Of course I'm not surprised that we would bicker. On the whole, we share very similar views about the upbringing of our child(ren) and the values we hope to be able to inculcate in them. So far so good, yeah? Well, that represents just about all that we agree upon. The finer line on the day to day nitty-gritty details seem to be where we choose to "pick our fights" :)

Hahaha... anyways, this wasn't meant to be a serious post, neither are we both encountering any grave discord between us. Its just a wondering-aloud type of post :)

A case in point to illustrate our "differences" in parenting style is the picture above. Maybe Louis is more warm-blooded than I am, but I'm always feeling warm, or glowing (read perspiring -- I believe that women do not sweat or perspire, that's for animals and men ;) we glow ;)) from the humidity of Singapore's weather. I loved going out in the cold when its winter (but am not insane enough to enjoy blizzards).

Thus, I'm always of the opinion that Faith would feel warm whenever I feel that way. Whereas, Louis is of another opinion. We usually require a 3rd person's opinion to confirm which of us is right. So that we can decide whether Faith should wear a jacket or not ;)

I was feeling just right yesterday night, but Louis felt it was a little chilly in the house. Since I was washing the plates and stuck at the kitchen sink, he took the liberty of grabbing a blanket and wrapping our little baby in it :) Hahaha...

I like to think I'm right most of the time. And I take pride in telling him so, especially when shortly after, Faith's hair was all drenched in golden dew (read sweat), and her back was a little clammy, while she was nursing for her bedtime feed ;)

Red Alert

Mentioned the word "antibiotics" to me these days and a sense of dread would overcome me. Especially when it means either Faith or I would be the one having to take antibiotics. As I've mentioned before, Faith is rather sensitive towards antibiotics as they cause her to have loose stools and a raw backside if the diapers are not changed quick enough.

Yesterday, she pooped a total of seven (7) times, inclusive of her normal poop and some loose stools. This is marks the highest record for her so far. And she's not even the one on antibiotics. I am. Or I was until yesterday morning.

I had a bout of dry cough nearly 2 weeks ago, which turned into a slightly chesty one, along with runny nose and a sore throat last Thursday. In a bid to recover quickly from the cold, lest I pass it on to Faith, I went to the clinic and was prescribed antibiotics.

It was the same antibiotics that I took a few months back and I remembered that Faith didn't have any averse reaction to it. Plus, it was safe to consume while I am still breastfeeding.

Perhaps it is a combination of diarrhea from teething and a reaction to antibiotics, passed through the breastmilk. Towards the late evening, her backside started turning red and by night, it had turned into a big angry red patch.

Thankfully, it didn't seem to hurt as much as previous times, when Faith was the one on the course of antibiotics. Regardless, I decide to stop eating them, even though I'm supposed to finish the course and its only been 3 days since I've started.

This morning, the angry red patch has subsided in both size and degree of redness. Thank goodness for small favours :) I wonder if she would grow out of it as she gets older. For her sake, I certainly hope so. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that.

"What big teeth you have, Grandma..."

..."All the better to eat you!"

Remember Little Red Riding Hood and the scene when she was supposedly visiting her grandma but the wolf had eaten her grandma, dressed itself into the latter's nightgown and was in bed waiting to pounce on Little Red Riding Hood?

Well, I don't mean to imply that my daughter's a wolf in disguise, but really, don't you think she's got such very BIG upper front teeth?

Ever since the two of her upper front teeth appeared, my mom and I have been commenting about how big they were, especially in proportion to the lower front teeth. Each one of her upper tooth is equivalent to the size of TWO of her lower front teeth combined. I'm not imagining things becos just yesterday, both my MIL and SIL were commenting on their size :) And I hope everyone's correct and that when the teeth finally grow to their right size, the gap in between her upper front teeth would close up.

And I'm glad to report too that yet another tooth has been cut and is slowly growing right next to her left front teeth. Yay!

On a side note, I've once seen on a Japan television cooking programme where the cook/chef commented that children these days tend to have smaller teeth as their parents cut and minced their food to small, bite size portions, hence, requiring less chewing. At that time, I was thinking how true it was.

Now, looking at Faith's teeth, I'm not sure if she's really correct. I mean, she's got only all of 4 and a half teeth and so far, I've ensured that most of her food is soft as she's got this bad habit of not gumming her food but swallowing them most of the time, resulting in some nerve-racking gagging incidences when I tried to introduce different textures to her. So, I don't really know why she's gotten such big front teeth to start off with. I seriously hope tooth development is not genetic cos I'm not exactly enamoured of my two "bugs bunny" teeth, as my parents used to call it.

Well, the last thing I wanted to say is this... I've been looking back at some of my past 1-2 months postings and realised that I've not blogged much about Faith nor her development milestones. In exactly 2 weeks time, Faith's going to turn one and so far, she's been learning and doing so many interesting things that I ought to, want to and should post about but becos of pure laziness and inertia, have not gotten down to doing. I want to keep those memories alive and go through these postings over and over again and reminisce about how my little baby has grown.

So, I'm going to dedicate most of this week and next blogging about her growth and sharing some of the things about her that has made both Louis and I the proud, happy, sappy, nerve-racked, anxious parents we are :)

Stay tune!

Singapore Flyer

Yesterday night, Louis came home with these as peace offerings for the many late nights he's been keeping at work. He was rather excited by it. Two tickets to go on board the Singapore Flyer.

Yay! We've not been on board the London Eye the 2 times we were in London. Since this is a Singapore initiative and the latest icon, I'm glad that we would be able to go on board it especially since they have just started operations in March.

A colleague of his had these tickets but wasn't able to make. So, we're now the lucky recipients for these tickets. We've checked out that babies and kids under the age of 3 get to go on board the Singapore Flyer for free, so Faith's coming along with us too!

Hope to be able to take some pictures on the actual day :)

Food Blog Search

Its terrible, but I'm supposed to have posted a piece about our trip to Beijing but I've been procrastinating about it for the longest time. Probably becos the trip was a little of a disaster and I didn't take that many pictures.

Still, this post isn't about our Beijing trip. Its about this little gem of a search engine dedicated to searching recipes from food bloggers all over the world. Isn't it cool!

So, if you're now looking at my blog, you will noticed that there's this Food Blog Search icon and a search bar on the left panel, just below the little section about Louis and Eve's blog.

I came across the search bar while reading from Simply Recipes and Food Blog. The originator of Simply Recipes, as I know it, is one of the "founder" of this Food Blog Search and the function is able to search some 1,900 sites of food bloggers.

I've extracted an introduction about the Food Blog Search from their website below:

"Food blogs are a wonderful source of recipes, stories, and opinions about food. These blogs are the labors of love of countless people from around the world who are so passionate about what they cook and eat they spend hours photographing and writing about it. Food bloggers usually give much more information and personal touches to what they write about than commercial cooking or recipe sites. Search for a recipe among food blogs and you'll often be delighted by the hidden jewels you uncover.

Food Blog Search is a custom built search engine specifically for searching food blogs. It uses Google technology, through the Google Custom Search Engine program. Started in October 2006, Food Blog Search now searches over a thousand hand-selected, high quality food blogs. More and more food blogs are added to the list of sites searched every day."

Hope you will find it useful. Recently, I've gotten it in my mind to make baby back ribs and have used Food Blog Search to find me 2 recipes that I've shortlisted, one of which is from local boy, Chubby Hubby. Will make it sometime this week or next and hopefully get to blog about it.

Happy Searching!