Help! I’m a closet…

semi karang guni (junk dealer collector)!

I can’t help it. To me, finding and picking up other people’s (good condition) castaways is unexplainably exhilirating! I get a high out of it. Seriously.

But instead of selling the “goodies” (ahem, one man’s junk may possibly be this woman’s find) I keep the stuff or pass it on. In this day and age, I’d like to call it recycling. Doesn’t that just make me sound so socially responsible? (lol) Then again, I am recycling even though that wasn’t (isn’t) quite the spirit of my actions.

What can I say? I’ve always loved a bargain and picking a free item just brings it to a whole new level. It sends me to the moon!

And my friends, Singapore is a junk collector’s heaven. Just see what I’ve picked up so far and you’ll know what I mean.

Remember this? Yes! I picked this up AND another one that is red!

How could I not bring this cute doggy home?

A cute stool for my little girl and a side table that's serving me well.

And this was my first find that started it all…

This lightweight stroller has served me so well and is still in good condition.

Hubby was a little embarassed and a little aghast when I lugged the stroller home but he got over it when I told friends/family I picked it up and they cooed over how new it looked. I felt so good. Yes, I even show off my finds! (Think I need help?) These days hubby assists me in going through junk! But he just helps carry the stuff, he doesn’t get high.

Enforcing Bedtimes

I’m IN another a little more-crazy-than-usual period right now. Thus the delay (in the already sparse) posts. Eeps! But still, I’ll continue to keep this blog going.

Why? Simply because I love to. It’s a great hobby for me. My outlet. Note the I, me, my. Yes!! That’s the whole point. A “I-Me-My” space.

Anyhow, I’m running out of time to write more… so I’ll cut to the chase. Here’s an article I came across recently on the old topic of children’s bedtimes. Enforcing them is good for their health (and ours!)! It’s not new and it’s not rocket science but, it is a useful read if you’ve not read one of these and, if you have it’s a good revisit. So go ahead and click on the link below.

Enforcing bedtimes improves kids’ health by Madison Park, CNN

P/S: I keep a very strict bedtime routine in for my kids. That’s what keeps me not-lunatic-yet.

Mother & Baby Magazine

Guess what? I’m in September’s issue of Mother & Baby.

No, they didn’t feature my blog. I’m now one of their freelance contributors to the “Mummies’ Diaries” column of the magazine.  And my first article, titled Roar & Order, is out in this month’s issue.

In it I shared some of our (Hubby-jr and I) past encounters with bullies at playgrounds. To be precise,

“Mum-of-two comes clean on how she has to resist the impulse to fight her man cub’s battles for him“

No More Eggs?

Hubby-jr’s obsession with Baby M jogged to memory a conversation we had a few months ago.

One fateful night during their (my kiddos) nightly prayer, I asked Hubby-jr to pray that God would bless someone close to us with a baby.

Never in a million years would I have thought such a request would take an unexpected turn.

“How about you mommy? Do you want to have another baby?” asked Hubby-jr earnestly.

Holy smokes, where did that come from?! After blinking for seconds, I just had to clarify,

“You want mommy to have another baby?”

Hubby-jr nodded somewhat too eagerly for my liking, and looked at me with such hopeful eyes too. I looked to hubby hoping he’d interject right then to save me but dear ol’ daddy-o was just sitting there with ‘I-can’t-wait-to-see-what-she-says’ look on his face! Plus I was half suspecting that he hoped my son would nudge me into a certain direction.

“Would you want a di-di (little brother) or mei-mei (little sister)?”

I asked just to check if he really understood the implication of me having another baby. Hoping that he’d realise he wouldn’t want another sibling in the family.

BUT I was wrong,

“Di-di!” he replied enthusiastically.

Sigh. I had to let him down gently. So I said,

“I’m sorry darling but mommy is not going to have anymore babies.”

I We I We decided that we’d stop at two, children, having children that is. Well it was more of, I decided and hubby went along with my decision but he’d be more than happy if I decided otherwise.

I thought that would end the discussion but no. Hubby-jr then asked,

“Mommy, is it because you have no more eggs inside of you?”

What?! My dear son stumped me for the second time that night. Eggs in me? How did he know? Was it from our previous conversations? I could only remember this episode. Anyway, I said,

“No, I still have eggs but I’m not going to have another baby. The egg will only become a seed or baby when…, when…”

“Mommy and I decided we’re not having anymore babies. So we are just not going to have another baby, ok? But we are very blessed to have you and mei-mei and we love you both very much. Now can you please say pray?” Hubby finally saved me. Phew! That was close. Way too close.

But just so you know, I’ve since revisited the baby making thingy with my son. I just read him the book “Amazing You!: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts”, again and realised that was where he learnt about eggs. Here’s an excerpt from the book.

When a man and a woman love each other (I added, “they get married”) and decide that they want to have a baby, a man’s sperm joins with a woman’s egg. From the egg and sperm, a baby will grow.

And that is that. And somehow that was (is?) enough to satisfy Hubby-jr’s curiousity (actually he was more curious about the other stuff in the book). AND (last but not least) he has NOT asked me for another baby since. PHEW!

I’m Back

Hello, hello… hello! I’m finally back. I returned to Singapore last Wednesday, in body anyway. My spirit however was fighting reality. It took me another 2 days to recover from jetlag and the general lack of sleep I had during our holiday. It’s a sign of the loss of youth many moons ago, I can only sleep well on my own bed. Sigh. After which I had to face… laundry and unpacking! Aaargh. It was not pleasant AT ALL. “Where did I use to put these stuff anyway?! AND where was I going to put all these new ones?!!”

BUT that was WAS. NOW I am almost back to “normal”. Back to my daily life.

Part of me is sad, the other part relieved.

It was great being away, far away in a totally different environment (I highly recommend it). We were in Melbourne, Australia. Besides enjoying family time, catching up with loved ones (we stayed with my cousin), exploring new places, shopping and so on, for me it was also wonderful to be taken away from the daily little worries. I never realised how easy it is to get sucked into our little worlds and be so consumed by them. Being away helped put somethings into perspective and gave me a much needed breather. No must-do lists, and no obligations to fulfill for 16 whole days. It was simply marvellous.

On the flip side,

I missed my space and my bed. Imagine my family of four living with my cousin’s family of three. Even though her house was quite big, I felt my loss of personal space. There was some place I could retreat to at night but it wasn’t the same as home. I also found going out EVERYDAY rather tiring, especially with kids in tow.

SO,

While I definitely absolutely LOVED our holiday, I am glad to be back home. I am. Glad.

I’ll post some photos next time okay? Now it is time for me to sleeeeeep. In my bed. Sweet!

Master

Now that Hubby-jr talks a whole lot more we’ve had some pretty interesting conversations. Here’s one of them.

“Am I your master?” Hubby-jr asked.

“No! Jesus is my master.” I answered frowning. What gall?! As I wondered how my son came to harbour such notions of grandeur. Huff.

“Jesus is my master too,” said my son and I warmed up with a smile but was still a little puzzled.

He proceeded to ask, “am I Master Tan?” (His surname is Tan)

Aaahhhh… a big grin formed across my face as the light bulb switched on in my head. His current favourite DVD movie then (a few weeks ago) was Kungfu Panda. And in that show there is the character, Master Shifu who is Kungfu Panda’s master.

“Yes, you are Master Tan.” It is the culture here to address little boys, Master and little girls, Miss.

I continued to elaborate, “you are Master Tan just like daddy is Mister Tan but that doesn’t make you my master. That is a different meaning of master…”

But I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew he had stumbled upon the truth, that he and his little sister are my “masters”. The ones I serve and labour for. Everyday.

Spaghetti Sauce with Hidden Ingredients

Life has been a little crazy in my home of late (which accounts for the reticence). The latest being Little Missy down with some viral infection for one whole week… sigh. But that’s parenthood for you. Normal days are a luxury! Oh how I crave for mundane routine days.

Oookay, that’s enough ranting for now. Today I’m going to share with you a recipe. Believe it or not, a reader actually sent me an email telling me how she liked my recipes. Incredible! Who’d knew that one day I would be sharing recipes? Once upon a time I would never have quite imagined myself cooking this much in the first place! Ahhhh well… as I’ve said so before, I am mommyfied.

Anyhoo, her email spurred me on to share this recipe with you. It’s a yummy spaghetti sauce (bolognese style) that looks just like minced meat in tomato sauce but actually has loads of veggies in them. Ah hahaha (evil laugh)… mommy tricked ya my boy!

I used to cook spaghetti sauce my daddy’s style. Minced meat, chopped garlic, chopped onions, 1 can of campbell’s tomato soup, 1 can of tomato paste and some sugar if it is too sour. Yup, quick, easy and instant. This in itself is a yummy sauce. But dear ol Hubby-jr, my six year old, disliked it. Simply because he could see the bits of cooked chopped onions. Didn’t help that one time I added chopped capsicum into the sauce.

But I loved this recipe. For one it is so easy to make (and store in the freezer if there’s extra). Two, all of us (except my son) love it.

So one fine day, I thought to myself, what if I just blend the onions instead. He wouldn’t see it and so he wouldn’t know. AND since I’m going to blend onions why not blend carrots as well and add that in. That would up the nutrition factor and the carrots would totally be hidden in the tomato based sauce.

And that’s what I did. Amazingly, the sauce tasted better! It somehow gave it an added punch. I didn’t even have to add any sugar, the blended carrots’ and onions’ natural sweetness was sufficient. Best of all it was a hit with my kids. They loved it. My son ate his dinner in record time and these days he gets excited whenever he smells that I’m making spaghetti for dinner.

Wait, this is not the end. There’s more. Very recently I decided to up the veggie factor one more notch. I added celery too, blended of course. It still tasted yummy and it was still a hit with my kids. Woo Hoo.

So here’s the recipe for the yummy spaghetti sauce with hidden goodness.

• Minced meat (beef or chicken or pork or a mixture. 300g or however much you like)
• 1 packet of McCormick Italian-Style Spaghetti Sauce Mix (can be found at Cold Storage)
• 1 can (6oz) of tomato paste
• 1 can Campbell tomato soup
• 2 medium onions
• 2-3 medium carrots (I like the ones from Australia)
• 2 or 3 stalks or celery
• 5 cloves garlic (sliced or chopped)
• Olive oil (3 tablespoon)

Blend the three vegetables together (add some water, about ¼ cup) as finely as possible. Heat olive oil in pan and add garlic and fry till brown. Then add minced meat and fry till brown. Add blended veggies, tomato soup and tomato paste and stir. When mixture boils, add McCormick spaghetti mix and stir. And that’s it. Cook some pasta or spaghetti and dinner’s ready! If you find the sauce is too thick for your liking just add water.

If  you prefer not to use any instant mixes you may want to check out this Martha Stewart Bolognese Sauce Recipe I chanced upon but have yet to try. If you do, let me know how it is.

All I want to say is

I truly, truly set out to blog more faithfully this month after an abysmal one post in November. And I was starting to do well too, wasn’t I?

But, then…

I decided to reorganise my kids rooms (I finally gave Little Missy a bed and stowed her “playpen bed” away). With that I had to do some major spring cleaning (both rooms and my store room). Now it’s about 90% done (for now at least).

So…

My apologies to those of you who drop by faithfully (for the lack of posts lately). 

But…

At the sametime I also want to say a great big THANK YOU for staying interested in what I have to write. It is a wonderful encouragement to me, I appreciate your audience.

Having said that,

I’ll probably be silent for the rest of this week too. Sorry, it is Christmas and after that we’ll be away on a retreat.

BUT

before I go, here’s a video. It is an adorable take on Nativity and the Little Drummer Boy.

Blessed Christmas everyone!

What have I been doing?

Oh dear, I just realised that I have not posted anything for the last 3 weeks. Pardon moi. My parents were down for two and half weeks (they left 2 days ago, sniff) and I was busy doing stuff I couldn’t do on my own. Stuff like…

• Watching a Hong Kong cantonese drama (not recommended, highly addictive).
• Reading. I discovered Nevada Barr books and I love them. An investigative series of a park ranger named Anna Pigeon.
• Some house cleaning, i.e. throwing lots of accumulated junk.
• Spending a day or two downtown and having lunch date with hubby.
• Spending time with my parents. AND
• Napping or just plain vegetating.

It was BLISSFUL. Did I mention I LOVE my parents and I LOVE it when they visit? *innocent smile and blink-blink*

Well I’m back blogging but probably just once a week cause I’d still like to do some of the stuff above, albeit to a lesser degree. Nonetheless I hope you’ll continue to drop by.

It Was Not Just A Dance

“Backward, Forward, Shuffle, Shuffle… get ready for Chinese Dance… next is Malay Dance… now the Indian Dance…”

My son showed me a dance routine he learnt in school the week leading to Singapore’s National Day (9 August). I was so amused and thrilled that he not only learnt it but he could actually perform it.

They were going to perform this mass dance on 8 Aug 08 as part of his kindergarten’s National Day Celebration.

So the day before, I checked with his class teacher if I could witness the celebration (there was no open invitation to parents). After getting her green light, I snuck to school that eventful morning after I sent him off to his school bus, Little Missy in tow.

I wanted to surprise him. (He has asked me on several occasions to pick him up from school.)

Upon arriving at his kindy I stationed ourselves right in front of a small group of parents at the place where they’d perform the mass dance. He beamed when he saw us. I was half afraid he would cry and want to stand with me (as he would have done so last year). But he didn’t. He just smiled and kept glancing our way every now and then.

I was so proud. My boy is maturing so well.

Then the dance began. And even though I could only see his head (thankfully he’s tall) bobbling in a mini sea of red and white (all the children were dressed in the national colours), I felt a lump in my throat. I had to hold back my tears.

I swear if you could see through me that moment, you’d see an explosion of sorts. I was exploding with pride. Drama huh? Well it is partly because he was just SO different last year. Last year he would’ve just stood still and not participate. So for me to see him taking part fully in something like this was just…

Never in a million years would I have expected myself to feel that way over a mass dance performed by a group of pre-schoolers (of course I only had eyes for my five year old).

But I did. I am mommy-fied.