Julie

What Jonathan Boy is Up to Now

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I decided to stop posting on Jonathan boy’s monthly update as he is 1 year old now. Nevertheless, I won’t stop posting on his new achievements or milestones from time to time as I won’t be able to remember so many things with my deteriorating brain.

His upper left and right first molar has fully erupted. Now I can introduce more food to him. I no longer need to mash or grate the porridge ingredients. Just dice into smaller cubes or break into smaller pieces. And instead of leaving the porridge to cook for 45 mins, I reduced it to 30 mins. Soon, I will substitute porridge with rice.

His new fond play item is the toilet bowl. He tend to put his hand into the toilet bowl to reach for the water. He will grab a toy and drop it into the toilet bowl. When I instructed him to pick the toy up, he will do so. Jonathan boy, do you know the water in the toilet bowl is so dirty? One day, he may climb into the toilet bowl. Yiiiicks….

He is very good in manuevering around the house with his Thomas scooting train and Mr. Tolo scooter….moving forward, run through a bumper, go astern, turn left and right.

Like I mentioned before, he inherited my character and personality – SHY. He refuses to wave goodbye or smile. He will pull away when someone try to hold his hand. He will turn away hiding on my shoulder.

The greatest of all, he has started to throw tantrums. Just yesterday, I refused to give him the box with a broken toy in it. I grabbed it away from him worrying that the broken toy may hurt him. He then tried to pull the box from me and was yelling and screaming and crying. He is being demanding too. During meal time, if you don’t let him hold his own spoon, he will cover his mouth with his arm and hide his face down trying to get the message accross to Mommy that, “If you don’t give me that spoon, I won’t eat! It’s either you win or I win.” He just want to play with the spoon. Once you gave him a spoon, he happily let you feed.

From gliding to crawling on four and now walking on two. Just last weekend, he was still clenching to our palms while wandering around. The next day, he is letting his hands free in the air. How long will he hold on to our hands?

Jonathan’s Meal #3

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Darling loves bitter gourd so he thinks his Junior has too favour bitter gourd like him. He has been pestering me to let Jonathan boy try out bitter gourd. I was a bit reluctant cause from the name you already know it’s bitter so do you think a baby would like it?  I, myself don’t like bitter stuff. I only take bitter gourd if it is cooked with scrambled egg, tau chu (fermented soya beans) or deep fried (for banana leaf rice).  They say bitter is good. That’s the reason all medicines are bitter especially chinese medicines.

So here, I bought the baby bitter gourd. I cut into thin strips so that at least if Jonathan boy dislike it, I can put aside the bitter gourd but give him the porridge only instead. I put in some diced carrot and wolfberry for the colour. I also added red dates to give some sweetness to the bitterness. Since this is a first try, so no fish is added otherwise some fish or meat will provide additional nutrients.

I tasted the porridge myself before giving it to Jonathan. Bleeek…it’s bitter. For that moment I thought the porridge will go to waste. First try…give him the porridge first and he swallows it. Second try…give him the bitter gourd and he chews it. Lastly…he finished everything as though he has lost his taste bud.

Since Jonathan boy can accept the bitter gourd, I chopped the bitter gourd on my next try so that it mix well with the porridge and I added some fish too.

I read from some articles that to reduce the bitterness, the bitter gourd is salted and exposed to direct sunlight for few hours. After few hours, its salty, bitter water is reduced by squeezing out the excess by hand. Then rinse with water a few times. I’m going to try this method on my next cooking. So, happy trying!

Can’t Wait Till Christmas

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Crossing away each box on my table calendar. Looking forward to reach the box with number 19 in the month of December. Yup, that should be my last day of work before I go off on Christmas holiday (that is if my boss approve my leave. *finger crossed*). 

I am so excited that it’s November now. And that gives me a good reason to shop and spend.

HE: Why are you buying this, Darling?
ME: Oh, for the kids’ Christmas present!
HE: *Nod his head indicate can buy*

So now you get what I meant by good reason to shop and spend? I have a collection of stuff which I bought over the time whenever I spotted a good bargain and nice stuff. So when it comes to someone’s birthday or Christmas, I don’t have to shop at the last minute. I rummaged through my collection yesterday and fulfilled almost 60% of my gift list. Leaving the remaining 40% as a reason to shop. Hehe…

My Christmas gift list is getting longer each year as we have new addition in the family each year. Gifts for my Darling, Jonathan boy, my parents, 5 sisters, 7 BIL, 8 nieces, 3 nephews, MIL, 2 SIL, 1 SIL-to-be. One family needs to buy for almost 20 person and so I have 6 of us (my sisters & me) in the family, that makes 20 x 6 = 120 gifts. The foot of the Christmas tree will always overflow with lots of presents and some hanging on the tree.

That was our 7 feet Christmas tree last year. 

That reminds me that I need to shop for a Christmas tree this year as I gave away my Christmas tree to my sis. I’m looking for a much bushier tree. I know there are names to different kinds of trees. I’m also thinking of a fiber optic tree. Any recommendation?

A Sand and Sea Time…

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Praise the Lord for the good weather. It was a bright and sunny afternoon. All set for a great beach time. Sis and I each prepared some snacks and finger foods.

Baked chicken wings, baby potatoes & broccoli salads, fresh fruits from me. Vietnamese spring roll, inari and guacamole as the dipped for nachos from sis.

We headed to Pantai Morib which is the nearest beach from Klang but ended up at Pantai Kelanang about 5km from Morib. It is a mangrove swamp which the Selangor government turn into a major seafront 4 years ago. We had been there 2 years back so this time was a revisit.

All set to swim but it did not materialised because the beach water is too murky as it’s a mangrove swamp.  So the kids ended up playing with sands on the soft sandy beach.

I put Jonathan to stand in the water but he got scared seeing the waves rushing towards him. He had a great time playing with sands and the beach toys. He is smart of not putting sands or fingers in his mouth.

It pays to gain some fun and so we ended up with itchy legs from the sandflies bites till today. *scratch…scratch…*

For Egg & Burger Lover

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My Darling is an egg lover. He can’t live without eggs. His favourite is half-boiled egg but funny thing is he himself could hardly done up a perfect half-boiled egg.

Let me share with you my Darling’s own recipe of burger with egg. For those of you who are health concious, this is definitely something you are not interested in. But no harm trying it once, who knows you may fall in love with it.

First, place a piece of burger meat in a bowl.

 

Then, break the egg on top of the burger meat. Tap some pepper and/or soya sauce. Put it to steam until the burger meat is cooked which is approximately 10 minutes.

 

Here, serve with chilli or tomato sauce and mayonnaise.

 

I’m not a professional photographer so the pictures don’t look so great but the taste sure are! But we find that the burger meat is not as tasty as before.