Lara climb tree

After several practices over a period of time, Lara can now climb the Magnolia tree in our front garden!

She makes me baked beans

When asked why she loved her Mummy in daycare, Lara replied "she makes me baked beans". What about all the other food I loving prepared? All I have to do to make her happy is to heat up baked beans in the microwave...

"I'm very good at skating." - Lara tried to convince me she wanted to go skating after we watched people ice-skating at a shopping centre.

"What is happening to me?" - when Lara couldn't get her poo out (no doubt from holding it for too long!) That's another long story:)

"I want to wear the new purple shoes Ruby bought me" Lara said referring to Ruby's old shoes. "I want five minutes of peace and quite from you lot", Lara's response to me asking why she was whispering in the car. "I'm hungry", Lara says when she sees something she wants to eat, most definitely something sweet and not dinner.

Lara does not have any concept about days, hours, last week, next year at this stage. So everything is "yesterady" or "tomorrow". She can count to 29 without missing a number. Thirty (30) is twenty ten.

Steamboat

A new Taiwanese friend invited me over for steamboat last Saturday. It was very nice sharing steaming hot food in the middle of the table in a cold winter day. I decided to try it at home. Simon suggested we use the electric frying pan instead of burners and proper steamboat pots that we don't have. We bought a variety of pre-made frozen ingredients earlier that day and started cooking at 6pm. Lara was very excited watching raw ingredients being cooked and thought it was a great 'tea party'! We all had lots of food and were very full at the end of the night.

Work around the house

New back fence $1500 (our share)

New wires in one part of the house (replaced old copper wires) $1000

New Ikea kitchen cupboards $850

Considering/Working on:
Reverse-cycle air-con in bedrooms.
Heater in 2nd bathroom. (It's freezing there!)
Under-house ventilation.
Wiring in other part of the house?

Pregnancy inconveniences

With the first preganancy, I knew exactly how many weeks I was and how many weeks left to go. This time around, it was only when my check-ups went from monthly to forthnightly that I realised it's getting closer to the end. I generally feel pretty good and don't have a lot of complaints. The two new 'experiences' this time around are:

Dizziness/Light-headedness
These dizzy spells made me late in the mornings sometimes. I was told this is probably due to low blood pressure (the lowest recorded at home was 85/59) and/or low blood sugar. Obstetrician recommended instant sugar in the form of jam on toast in the morning and iron tablets twice a week.

Back-ache
More a pain on the left side of my hip and it makes walking painful sometimes. Despite an one-hour massage last weekend, the pain's still there though not as bad. Obstetrician said this is probably due to pelvic bones moving and recommended not putting too much weight on one foot. That is, sit down when putting trousers/socks on and when getting out of the car, swing both legs out of the car before getting up.

I did yoga and read many birth/parenting books last time. This time, I feel really unparpared because I have not thought about the birth much. If giving birth is a test I have to do tomorrow I don't think I will pass! I'm really looking forward to the few weeks I have off to be mentally prepared for the next stage of our family life.

Deceitful breakfast

I have a big breakfast at around 7.30 every morning. It usually consists of toasts, an boiled egg, some cheese and salad. Simon always laugh at how much I eat in the morning but it is really not as big as it looks.

I do feel hungry all the time!

Best friends

Lara's best friend in daycare is Matilda. They both like to giggle, do funny things and make people laugh. Lara told me Matilda and her were 'twins' and Matilda's Mum said Matilda talks about Lara all the time. Last year the teachers in daycare commented how Lara and Matilda enjoyed each other's company. It's so nice to see the friendship growing this year!

They gave each other nicknames: Matilda calls Lara "Laro" (Matilda likes to put an "o" at the end of the things she likes I was told), Lara calls Matilda "Matildo".

They invented games to play together. Lara described the game "piggy jump" she and Matilda plays - "you stand on a beam and hold hands, then when you jump off you have to laugh". Sounds like a fun game!

Lara also enjoy Abigail and Kiki's company in daycare.

I'm very grateful that Lara meet these little friends and seems to be very happy at daycare.

Grow old

Parents-in-law moved into a retirement village close by three weeks ago. They have been contemplating such a move for some time as they found it harder and harder to keep their old house clean and tidy. No doubt they are also thinking ahead into the future. The move was smooth and we ended up with some of their furniture!

They are the 'young' ones in this retiremet village - average age of residents is 86. As family of the residents, we get to use some of the facilities. Lara swam a couple of times with Grand-dad in the indoor heated swimming pool. We had a meal in the dining hall and Simon played snooker.

It was a little depressing to see very old people with sticks walking around or on wheelchairs. It was also strange finding a nurse distributing drugs to the residents at dinnig tables. When I made this comment to Simon, he shrugged and said how lucky these people are to live to this old age. Indeed! Especially after the bad news we heard about next-door's son. Next door's 23-year-old son was diagnosed of stomach cancer 18 months ago. After unsuccessful chemo, his stomach was taken out a few months ago. His mum told us it's like looking after a new-born again as he needs intravenous feeding and help with everything but 'every day he remains with us is a blessing' she added.

It is not sad to get lots of wrinkles and walk with sticks if you put things into perspective. Some people never get the chance. It is indeed lucky to be able to grow old!

Lara's drawings

Family.
The latest drawings have eyebrows too!


Words.
Lara recognises all the numbers. She writes them mostly left-to-write or up-side-down. (ie number "9" can look like letter "b" or "p") She recogises and can write some leters (A, W, S, O, E, L etc). We started playing 'eye-spy' in the car after reading an 'eye-spy' book. She knows "L" for Lara and lion, "B" for blanket, "C" for cat etc.


Monsters. (The figure that looked like a "2" on the left top corner is how Lara writes a 'S")

Books - first half of 2010

My life in France - by Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme
Julia Child was a very likable person in this book with lovely photos and insights to the makings of her cook books (the first one took years to publish!, the good life (wine and rich food all day but stomach ulcers at the end of their first year in France!) and the setbacks. Very interesting read.

Final exam - by Pauline Chen
A surgeon's reflections on mortality. The author described how doctors were trained (or not trained really) to handle mortality and how that impact the patients. A lot of interesting facts and food for thoughts. For example, both surgeons and hairdressers hold their scissors with the thumb and the forth finger - apparently it gives better control. Or shocking revealation when the author asked for advices just before the end of her internship and received the most useful one - to prepare for "the day she kills one of her patients" because all doctors do(or surgeons) sometime in their life. There are many life lessons in this book. It's good to know some doctors do care.

Reading:
Men's search for meaning - by Viktor E. Frankl
Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix - by J. K. Rowling

Monday night dinner

Chicken pie. I added leek, carrot, beans, sweet potato and peas to the chicken pieces. A good way to use up left-over veggies.

Sambal and Tamasek

I currently have a craving for spicy (Malaysian) food. I love having laksa or stir fried noodles with lots of chilli for work lunches. We seek out Maylaysian restaurants to go on the weekend. We went to two in the last couple of months.

Sambal (North Ryde)
Sambal was close to where we live but hard to find. We missed the entry(via MacDonald's) and had to make two equivalent U-turns on big busy roads to get there. We didn't book and waited sometime for a table. Food also took sometime to arrive. We had salt and pepper squid, prawn laksa and Hainanese chicken rice for Lara. The laksa was very ordinary. I liked the chicken rice but Simon preferrd the squid. The food was quite alright but not memorable.

Tamasek (Parramatta)
Still has the best laksa we know. We went on a Sunday and luckily found a parking almost outside the restaurant. We took a walk along Parramatta river first and arrived at the restaurant around midday. It was not overly busy, we sat down, ordered and food arrived only a few minutes later. We had Hainanes chicken and char kway teow (with chilli on the side) in addition to the prawn laksa. It was a good combination of food with different flavours. Char kway teow was quite sweet and Laksa frequent and spicy. The only complaint was the cold chicken pieces (I would preferred them warm). We also took away two frozen containers of beef rendeng and had one mid-week. Oh it was the most delicious rendeng we have ever had! And we have more in the freezer!

Leisure ladies lunch

23/04/2010 - Lunch at Jenny's

Jenny called to see if Lara and I would like to go over there for lunch, as she felt like doing something especial on a Friday. We arrived to baked trout, baked potato and salad! I took some pasta for Lara but she had and liked the trout too. Oh I like Fridays.

Trying different bread

I usually bake two small loaves of bread a week for breakfast and weekend lunches. My normal recipe is the traditional white bread recipe from my breadmaker book. It uses 3 & 1/4 cups of flour with yeast, sugar, salt, water and a little margarine. Just put all ingredients in breadmaker, let it knead and rise once (around 2 hours). Divid dough in two and let them rise for another 1/2 hour (more if cold) in tins (they don't shape well otherwise). Bake in 200C oven for 1/2 hour and voila it's ready!

I tried some new recipes in the last few weeks. Firstly, the 'soft American-style white bread' (pg 204 from 'Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day'). In addition to the usual ingredients, it had 100g of unsalted butter. This bread requied no kneading and it was baked in 180C oven for 45 minutes. The resulting bread had softer crust. I also tried the Challah dough (pg 180 from the same book) with 4 eggs and 1/2 cup of honey(for 4 loaves) in addition to the usual ingredients.



With the leftover Challah dough, I made spinach and marinated fetta bread for lunch- details here. I didn't add pine nuts and used flake almond instead of black sesame (improvised based on what I had in the pantry). The braiding was easy, it came out of the oven looking nice and tasted delicious. Nice cold too. I'm keen to try again following the recipe properly and also try other fillings. Time to make another batch of dough!

I wish I could do that

There are two things that impress Lara: being able to surf and play drums.
Lara loves watching the surfers at the beach. She repeatedly told me "I wish I could do that Mummy" while she held out her hands and pretended she was balancing on a surf board. She wanted to take her floaty board every time we went to a beach. She stood on it and pretened to be surfing.

Looking for a better surf elsewhere.


She also seemed very interested with drums. We had lunch at 'Lagoons' a few weeks ago for Parents-in-law's 50th wedding anniversay. Lara spent a long time at the lounge area at the front watching the band performing. She was particularly impressed with the drummer. She told me again and again "Mummy I wish I could play drums like that". Now she frequently uses two pens and whatever is lying around as her drum kit and practises her 'drumming'.

Umm...surfing and drums... I wonder what Lara will be when she grows up!


'Surfing' at Collaroy

Dee Why beach

We drove to Narrabeen and Collaroy beach on Easter Friday. The weather forcast was rain and it felt cold when we left so we didnt' take any change of clothes with us. When we arrived however, it was warm and sunny, not a cloud in sight. All we could do was a walk on the beach due to lack of spare clothes. The only consolation was the nice fish, chips and burger we had at the beach. Last weekend, we thought we would check out Dee Why beach, a little futher along. Somehow, we made the same mistake and didn't have the full set of gear we needed or a towel. Simon and Lara managed a small play (about an hour) at the shallow end of the sea.



We haven't been to Dee Why for ages and didn't realise the beach was lined up with cafes along one side. A late breakfast would be nice, but it felt too nice to leave the beach so we had burgers, chips and sushi sitting on the sand. Simon also had a little nap after lunch. We promised each other to always have change of clothes and towels in the car so we don't make the same mistake of not being able to fully enjoy the beach again! And we should also come back and try breakfast here.

Lost rings found

I lost my engagement+wedding rings some time ago. The thought that I threw them away accidently while packing to move made me feel sick in my stomach. We half-expected them to turn up when we were unpacking and thought they were lost forever when they didn't show up.

I got a unexpected phone call from Carrie on Easter Friday saying that she found my rings in their holiday home in Lake Macquarie. I must have left them there last time we were there 2 years ago!!

Carrie & family came over on the weekend to return the rings and have a look at our house and we had a very lovely afternoon together. I was Carrie's bridesmaid but somehow we seemed to lose in touch with each other after the last Lake Macquarie weekend. Her son Michael and Lara spent a long time jumping on the trampoline while we chatted sitting on the grass. I feel like I have found more than the lost rings!!

Gold Coast holiday

We didn't get to go to the beach much this summer so we decided to make this holiday a pure "beach" holiday. Gold Coast was our destination and Splendido apartment our home for 5 days. Weather-wise it was just right with maximum temperature at around 27-30C. We spent every day at a different beach - Monday: Mermaid beach. Tuesday: Broadbeach. Wednesday:Burleigh Heads. Thursday: Surfer's Paradise. We didn't rent a car but it was very convenient travelling around by bus (two section off-peak unlimited travel ticket $5.90 per person).



Mermaid beach was two blocks away from where we stayed but we had the worst experience, probably because it was a very windy day. We felt very cold, rushed back after less an hour there and ended up at the swimming pool/spa. Both Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach have park facilities and very family friendly. We particularly like Broadbeach, it was not as commercialised as Surfer's Paradise but with many choices of cafes and eateries around.



This was Lara's first airplane trip, she was absolutely amazed when the plane took off! The taxi rides and bus rides were also exciting for her. The food on offer was quite disappointing(especially dinners at Nobby Beach) but we all enjoyed the beach very much. Every afternoon when we went back to the apartment, we were all exhausted, but when we were at the beach we felt like time had stopped and we could be there forever. Watching the waves crashing into the shore was very soothing and great at emptying our minds.



Thanks to Parents-in-law who stayed here while we were away and looked after Zeb for us. And it was very nice coming home to a lovely home-cooked meal! Lara really missed her toys and spent a long time playing with toys that were uninterested to her previously. It's good to be back!

Tokyo Ramen

Lunch today was at Tokyo Ramen in Hornsby shopping centre. We had take-away sushi from here often but this is the first time we eat in. The shop was tiny with limited sitting and it was very busy when we arrived just after mid-day on Monday.

We had Agedashi Tofu (deep fried tofu with a sweet gingery sauce),Gyo-za, Tempura Udon and Negi Shoyu Ramen. The tofu was hot and silken, with very tasty sauce - extremely good value at $4. The tempuras was piled up high on top of the noodles. Many Japanese places' tempura eggplants were bland and under-done but here it was soft on the inside and very tasty. I didn't try other tempuras but from the number of orders on other tables, it was definitly a very popular dish. The Nigi Shoyu Ramen (with a dark soup) was not what I expecxted, but nice nonetheless (quite hot).



The food though not gourmet, was good quality homestyle food. We are keen to try other dishes there.

Terrigal beach

We decided on Saturday morning over breakfast to go to 'a beach' because the day looked lovely. We took out the map book and somehow settled on 'Forrester beach' because it looked big and long and not too far away. We packed and set-off at 10:30am.



Unfortunately we found Forrester beach to be a little 'wild' when we arrived. There was no shade, greenery or shops close-by. It took us some time to find a small take-away and got some burgers for lunch (by then we were extremely hungry). It took us even longer to find a 'park' (any place with grass and trees) to eat our lunch. We decided to head down to Terrigal after lunch.



We were very lucky to find a car space right in front of the beach. The day was probably too warm to stay outdoor but at the beach with the cool water and breeze, it was beautiful. Lara spent a long time in the water even though she had a chest cold and we didn't plan to stay for that long. The beach was patrolled with lots of cafes and shops nearby, very differnt to Forrester beach. Note to self: buy a beach umbrella so we can leave things at the beach.



We finished the day with icy poles and got home just before 5pm. Hopefully we get a few more fine days like these before winter!