Bing!

Last night while supermarketing with Chubbs, some lady asked us, "How old is she?" We get this a lot... even when Chubbs' intentionally decked out head-to-toe in blue. Anyway, have you ever gotten suckered into buying food that sounds fun or like they'd taste good? E.g. rocket, frisee, bockwursts... Bing cherries are one such candidate in my book (doesn't hurt that it is also the name of my favourite Friends character). We spotted some Bings and decided to get a punnett for Chubbs to try. I would have prefered to give him organic cherries, but I haven't come across any of this variety.

Chubbs loves all stone fruits. He easily eats 3/4 of a nectarine or peach as dessert after meals, and can finish a whole plum on his own. I was almost certain that he would enjoy these. After today's lunch of salmon and vegetable stew, dessert was to be three of these deep red beauties. I pitted and passed them through the Munchkin baby food grinder.

He finished them greedily; slurping up all the crimson goodness. Yay! More power to Chubbs!

I'm going to let him try Rainier cherries too, but I tend to favour foods that are richly coloured. Chubbs doesn't get much red/purple foods in his diet, so these Bings are great!

Smells Fishy

Chubbs has been eating very well over the past couple of weeks. Devouring his stewed beef and chicken meals with gusto. This gave me a huge confidence boost and I finally felt brave enough to make salmon for Chubbs' dinner last night. I made a vegetable stew with apples, peas and butternut squash, and would add the salmon in to cook just before feeding him. I stayed on the cautious side and only gave him about one teaspoon of fish to half a cup of vegetables and carbs.

He didn't take one bite; sniffing the offender out instantly. He clamped his mouth shut all through. I had no choice but to make him another meal with his favourite nectarine, cereal and flax. He even ate that hesitantly, afraid that I'll try to sneak in a spoonful of fish while he's not looking. Sigh.

"I'm not gonna budge!"

This morning, he refused breakfast too. It was a yummy one to boot; avocado with banana, peach and muesli. For lunch, he had to be coaxed into eating his beef stew. At dinner, I forged on and tried giving him salmon again. To Fuzzy and my amazement, he finished his meal rather willingly, despite having missed his afternoon nap. And he even managed a handful of blueberries for dessert! Good job, buddy!

I was afraid that he's sworn off food again, after the first salmon experience. This has always been my dilemma because I'm trying to feed him stuff that's good for him; he needs the fish oils for brain development etc. But by doing so, I'm potentially sabotaging an otherwise perfect eating routine. So do I not give him fish, and have him eat lots of other nutritious food happily, or do I try to force the issue and possibly have him not eat at all?

But I can't give up, even if it means having food flung at my face every meal, everyday. This can get very vexing, though :/ I'll give him salmon again tomorrow night, and see if he'll eat it again. Fingers crossed...

Riders by Night

I asked Fuzzy out on a date last night; to Riders Cafe for a beer, a burger and buffalo wings. Of course Chubbs came along too :) We arrived just before Happy Hour ended at 8pm. We decided that we like Riders Cafe better at night because the cooler temperature makes it much more comfortable for diners. The warm lights and rustic atmosphere stamps this as a good chill-out/ romantic spot. However, we found the lighting a little too dim; I almost had to squint to read the menu. Chubbs sat in his seat the whole meal, and was content to watch a cat roam around the restaurant, play with the waiter and munch on the snacks I packed him.

On top of the above mentioned food, Fuzzy ordered a bowl of creamy clam chowder too. The buffalo wings come in three degrees of spiciness; mild, hot and spicy. When we were here previously with some friends, we tried the mild version. It was hardly spicy. So this time we stepped up and ordered the hot version. It turned out great; sweet and nicely spicy, with a ranch sauce on the side too.

Fuzzy liked the soup, which surprisingly came with whole clams in it. The burger turned out wonderfully; a fat patty loaded with sauteed mushrooms, melted cheese and strips of bacon. We appreciated the pickles, tomatoes, onions and lettuce on the side too. And the accompanying large portion of steakhouse fries always go down well with Fuzzy and I :) Unfortunately, I was too greedy and hungry to remember to get more shots of the food :(

It was getting late, and we didn't have enough room in our tummies to eat dessert there, so we packed our baby up and went home for a cuppa instead. Fuzzy just bought 2kg of Sumiyaki coffee from UCC. The beans are charcoal roasted for a deep, dark, rich flavour. It is bitter (esecially since Fuzzy and I take our coffee neat), but there is no lingering bitter aftertaste. It mellows out and all that's left is the intense aroma. I love it with anything sweet!

Yummy Broccoli?

I feel I'm very late in giving him broccoli because I know mothers who have been giving their babies broccoli since 6/7 months. The abundance of vitamins and minerals make broccoli a superfood for babies, but I waited because it is a "gassy" cruciferous vegetable and some little tummies have had problems digesting it. Chubbs previously had some sensitivities to "gassy" foods and also considering how his weaning programme hasn't gone on the smoothest, I thought it prudent to hold off the introduction of this rather strong-tasting vegetable until later.

I gave him a floret of broccoli together with his stewed beef, sweet potato, pea and barley cereal dinner. What a meal! Sounds yummy, no? He took the first bite gingerly, but got the hang of it after a couple more mouthfuls. He finished everything with gusto! What a trooper!

For dessert, he had a handful of blueberries; the Vit C helps with iron absorption. He loves blueberries, and I love them too because they freeze so well. Just when I thought he couldn't possibly eat anymore, he downs a load of Gerber strawberry and apple flavoured cereal puffs (his current favourite tidbit) for snack, as Fuzzy and I had our dinner. He feeds himself these and is getting very good at his pincer grasp. It's been a good few days of eating for darling Chubbs! Hurrah!

"Four teeth are better than two!"

Chicken Tonight

Remember that old TV ad with the silly but catchy jingle? Fuzzy and I have been singing it all week; don't know why I'm unabashedly announcing this though :/ Anyhow, we bought some hormone-free chicken fillets for Chubbs from the butcher in the basement of Great World City today. His dinner was planned as chicken stew with carrots and apples.

I didn't expect Chubbs to like his meal because he tried some potato cooked in chicken broth a few weeks back, and violently spat everything out the instance he took the bite. You can understand my apprehension while giving him his first mouthful :/



Chubbs surprised Fuzzy and I! He liked the chicken and finished all the food in his bowl, with even room to eat a banana for dessert. That's my boy!



Laughing with his mouth full. Tsk tsk!

After dinner, Chubbs played and chatted with his dear Tai-Gong for quite a while. He loves Tai-Gong so!

Our Special Day

Weekends are usually crazy for us, so Fuzzy and I set aside at least one special day a month, for the three of us to just hang out. But this month's was extra special. Besides taking a day off, Fuzzy got me a few yummy treats, and threw in a surprise by coming home super early yesterday... thank you, Love. Early enough for us to enjoy a lavish afternoon tea with copious amounts of coffee. What exactly did we have?




Even Chubbs couldn't contain his excitement!

Fuzzy detoured on his way home, and splurged $40 on these yummies from our (current) favourite patissier, Centre P.S. We finished all FOUR cakes (sooo sinful) and the giant lemon eclair. We saved the coffee eclair and the last, and maybe best part, of the surprises for today. Fuzzy chose the Mont Blanc, a lemon mousse, a seven-layer chocolate cake, and a raspberry trifle. Our favourite, hands-down, was the Mont Blanc; sweet cream covered with chestnut puree on a spongy base. Delish!

Our special day started with the coffee eclair from yesterday as part of breakfast, and a trip to the PD. We were told by the nurses the last time we were there, that Chubbs was due for a vaccination this month. But upon arrival, we found that we have been mis-informed and he wasn't due for another jab till he turned one. Humph. Wasted trip. Nevertheless, we weighed Chubbs... he's 9.8kg! Now I know why my back is constantly aching :/

As Chubbs napped, Fuzzy and I made a simple pasta lunch; angel hair with Pecorino (an Italian sheep's milk cheese), truffle oil, topped with a half-boiled egg, paired with a 2006 Cab Sav.



I recently inherited my mum's breadmaker (that she hasn't used in almost 10 years), so that I can bake fresh, organic bread for Chubbs. Bread is also a staple for Fuzzy and I, and we couldn't wait to try it out. We bought some organic unbleached white flour, and I set a loaf to bake before we left for the day; it was finally ready after lunch. We were itching to get our chompers around a slice.

Fuzzy thought that the loaf would cool faster if he stared hard at it.


But I had a better idea. I volunteered to peel off (and eat) the crust to help the steam escape.


Fuzzy smacked my hand away too many times. This was what's left of the loaf after I was done picking at it. Not a pretty sight :/


I thought the bread turned out good because I like my bread crusty. Tasted more like sourdough to me, though. Fuzzy wasn't too fond of it; he prefers his bread soft and fluffy. Will have to tweak the recipe slightly to make my hubby happy. We didn't give this to Chubbs since we felt the salt content was too high. I'll bake a salt-free version for him soon.

While Chubbs was lunching, Fuzzy and I tucked into the last of his surprises for me. Macaroons! He bought five delectable flavours; lemon, black sesame, sea salt and caramel (we swooned when we bit into this one), dark chocolate and raspberry.



They were divine; consistently crispy shell, chewy interior, and to-die-for fillings. In our opinion (until proven otherwise), Centre P.S. makes the best macaroons in town. Beats Canele, Bakers' Inn, Choupinette, Da Paolo etc.

We did some shopping after that to look for a new car seat for Chubbs, visited an organic supermaket and loaded up on a few boxes of breakfast cereal for the week, and came home to a simple dinner of bread, salad, soup and crispy roasted chicken. Another perfect day with my family.

A Farewell-For-Now Dinner

Fuzzy's elder brother, Ev, his wife and Chubbs' three cousins are headed off to work in the UK for a year next week, so we threw them a dinner at Lei Garden to say toodles.

I'm always apprehensive about bringing Chubbs out at night. I don't want to keep him up late because the more tired he is, the poorer the quality of sleep he gets and you never quite know what to expect with a baby. However, this is one of those dos that we can't miss. So I let him take a late afternoon nap in preparation for it, and packed a pumpkin + apple snack along.



Fuzzy's aunts ordered the food. Needless to say, there was waaay too much food! Started with roasted pork and deep-fried white bait. Then there was soup, Peking duck, geoduck fried with fermented black beans, celery and spring onion, braised claypot grouper, stewed deer ligaments, spinach with deep-fried Shimeji mushrooms, grilled beef, prawns fried with salted-egg yolk, shrimp-paste marinated deep-fried pork belly, beancurd stuffed with mushrooms, lobster noodles and two desserts; almond and pumpkin cream and some pastries. Pardon me... I might have missed a couple more dishes out.

I'm feeling full just thinking back on the sheer amount of food. Fuzzy thinks that all the dishes were above average and enjoyed them all! Myy favourite was probably the deep-fried pork belly. What could be better than deep-fried fat, I wonder?

Dinner started at 8.30pm. It was past 10pm even before the noodles arrived. Fuzzy and I were too full by then to eat anymore (We were made to clean the plates for most of the dishes. The downside of being labelled the big-eaters :/). Chubbs was getting eye bags, and blood-shot eyes and we decided to pass on the rest of the food; I surprised myself when I said "no" to dessert. Well, they say there's a first for everything. We packed our little baby up, and said our goodbyes. The waitresses were particularly thrilled when Chubbs smiled, waved and said "ba-ba" to them.

Chubbs was more fidgety and cranky than normal in the car ride back because he was so tired already. But he did enjoy looking at the colourful, flickering lights along Orchard Road, and did so with mouth agape. He hardly ever gets to be down town this late :/ Chubbs hit the sack at 12am, after a bath, a feed and some mandatory crawling time. Long day...

Muskmelon

"Is it snack time?"

To the Japanese, muskmelons can be highly-priced gifts, costing easily around S$100 per melon and up. If you've had the pleasure of tasting a true Japanese one before, I bet that intense fragrance, sweetness, juiciness, and velvety texture will never be forgotten.

My F-I-L bought one that was from Korea; I was eagerly waiting for it to ripen so Chubbs could have some. The flesh was a lovely shade of jade green and smelt wonderful. The texture was less yielding than I remembered it to be, and was not as sweet, nor frangrant as their Japanese counterparts. Nonetheless, it tasted countless times better than the bland honeydew melons that we normally get.

It was very juicy, so much so that I had to mix in some rice cereal before feeding Chubbs, making it more of a post-dinner snack than just a drink. He warmed to it after a few bites and chomped down a good-sized portion. This boy loves fruit! Way to go, buddy!

"Muskmelon... yum!"

10 Month-Old Chubbs...

1) Is super chatty. He babbles non-stop almost every waking minute; providing Fuzzy and I with unending amusement.

2) Loves to sing along to nursery rhymes with Mommy. Stops and applauds himself when the song ends.

3) Had his first taste of sugar plum. An apt name because it was saccharinely sweet. For his dessert after dinner, I cored it, peeled it, and passed it through the grinder. Chubbs slurped up every bit of pulpy, juicy goodness.

4) Is beginning to take some interest in food, and prefers his meals more chunky.

5) Can stand momentarily without support.

6) Has perfectly his "ba-ba" (bye bye) and wave on cue.

7) Calls me "Mama".

8) Has four teeth!!!

9) Shares Fuzzy or my pillow at night. I'll take one end, and baby will rest his head on the other.

10) Drinks water straight from a cup (because he's a big boy!).

Beefy Baby

Alas, my baby boy is no longer beefy. But hopefully with eating well, he will regain his original girth soon :/ Optimism, I say!

With the blood test that we did at the hospital for his bacterial infection, we also found that dear Chubbs is anaemic (as if we didn't have enough worries). PD says that this is quite common in babies who are on total breastfeeding, because formula milk is iron-fortified. Well, it could also possibly be because Chubbs is voluntarily vegan. Attempts to feed him egg yolk and fish have been thwarted so far, and the PD says "this will not do!". To boost the iron in his diet, she suggests liver porridge. Offal is a tad scary to me, but I will be brave and try cooking it someday soon. Meanwhile, I made Chubbs something I'm more confident in cooking; beef stew.

We headed down the road to Huber's to get some organic, grass-fed beef for stewing. We bought some non-organic beef as well, for comparison in taste and cooking time. With the beef, I added some pumpkin and carrots for sweetness. Two hours later, Chubbs' lunch was ready.



As usual, Chubbs was not looking forward to his meal. This boy was happiest (food-wise) in the weeks when he was sick, because he was allowed to live on milk alone :/ Despite his war against food, Chubbs seems more keen on trying new and different things lately, and especially loves it when I feed him food off my plate with my fingers :/ So here goes...




He took the new flavours rather well, to Fuzzy and my surprise. He even ate the meat! Fuzzy's really pleased with this because baby is just like daddy (beef is Fuzzy's favourite meat)! But Chubbs found it most palatable when I mixed some brown rice cereal into the broth, and lightly mashed the beef and veggies in. He had a good few mouthfuls.

Although a good portion of his lunch ended up in my tummy, Fuzzy and I still concur that the introduction of beef has been more successful than that of some other foods e.g. spinach, fish, French beans, etc. I'll be giving him variations of this meal often, and maybe he'll grow to really like it soon. Hurrah for Chubbs!

Pasta

Fuzzy and I eat a lot of pasta. It was only a matter of time that fever-free Chubbs would get his first taste. His teeth are growing very well, and recently, I noticed that his chewing abilities have greatly improved (I fed him teething biscuits when he was ill).

Last night, as encouragement along his road to full recovery, I cooked some organic fusilli for him to snack on when Fuzzy and I were having our dinner. Over-cooking pasta was harder than I imagined; I barely achieved the perfect texture even after a few trials. Chubbs liked the taste of it, but had a bit of difficulty keeping the pasta in his mouth because of the slippery texture. Nonetheless, he looked very cute while eating, and enjoyed his snack immensely.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

It has been a harrowing few days; I'm exhausted. Here's a recap of what our little family dealt with recently. We spent a total of about 3 hours in the hospital on Tuesday. It was a long and painful ordeal for little Chubbs. After our consultation with the PD, she suspected that Chubbs was not having a viral, but a bacterial infection, because of the long-drawn high fever of around 39-40 degree C. So Chubbs had a bag taped to his wee wee to collect urine to test for a bacterial infection, then some blood was collected from him to test for bacteria in the blood. The unsympathetic nurse pricked his finger and squeezed enough blood out to fill two small vials. She completely ignored his moans, but Chubbs was brave and did not cry. He only kept looking at me and going "mama" with a lot of pain in his face. I was heart-broken. I cuddled him for a good few minutes once all the necessary blood was drawn.

The bandage provided lots of amusement.

We left the hospital and went home to wait for the results of the blood test. They called us back about 90-min later, and the results confirmed that he had a bacterial infection. The dip stick test done on his urine showed that his pee was very dirty and the PD diagnosed it immediately as Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). Can you imagine how much he has been hurting for more than a week already? The stinging pain, the burning sensation... my poor baby. He was then held down for an ultra-sound of his kidneys to make sure that they are forming well, and are not scarred from the one week of UTI. Then he was pinned down again for an anti-biotic injection. The PD insisted on jabbing him because oral anti-biotics would not have worked fast enough. She warned us beforehand that this is one of the most painful injections ever, because it's intra-muscular and there was about 1.5ml of fluids that have to go into his thigh. Chubbs screamed in pain, but did not cry. He stopped moaning the instant I picked him and hugged him tight. Once we were out of the doctor's room, he was laughing and playing with the nurses again. Everyone (medically-inclined) whom we told about the injection was shocked and said, "That's a very painful one, you know? Did he cry a lot?" Nope, he didn't. That's why he's my baby hero. Unfortunately, he has to endure the pain at least twice more.

On the way to second jab. He knew what was coming.

Same thing the second time around, he yelped in pain, but did not cry. And proceeded to chatter excitedly to the nurses outside afters. Yesterday, we brought him back for his final anti-biotic jab. This time, he had another bag taped to his wee wee to collect a sample to see if the bacterial infection has cleared up. The jab went on, sans tears. But the bruises that the needles leave behind, causes a lot of pain in Mommy's heart :( We waited for him to pee before the dip stick test could be done. The good news is... Chubbs is UTI-free! Yippee! Urm... no pun intended...

Snoozng on a pillow, on Mommy's tummy.

The medication does not end here though. From today, I'll be giving him 2.5ml of Augmentin twice a day, and five drops of pro-biotics once every morning, together with his multi-vites. Giving Chubbs medicine and supplements is a laborious process. He is a fountain of endless wriggles, twists, struggles and squirms. I will persevere, and Chubbs will recover fully soon!