The road to independence

One of the key goals i have for both my children is for them to achieve independence. Being independent must first be preceded by other character traits such as confidence, determination, self-motivation and happiness. 

Recently i've been a lot more conscious about my parenting since that restaurant revelation. Here's the thing, no matter how usually laid back you are it's so easy to fall into the Type A personality when mothering is involved. Some parents (including me at one point) think that being completely meticulous and concerned about our children's well-being is a good thing, makes us feel like better parents you know? Put on his clothes and shoes, make sure he eats his meals, watch him while he plays, help him whenever we can. A good mom does everything we can for our kids right? 


Mountain Boy's school teacher revealed recently that by observing a child's "self-help skills" (wh- what? I've never even heard of self-help skills. It's simple things like putting on their own clothes and shoes, drink water and feed themselves... Essentially helping others by helping themselves) it is easy to deduce the kind of parents the child has. Those who have poor "self-help skills" are generally the ones who have been smothered by supposedly caring parents. 


So no more Type A mom. I now consciously ask myself if I have to do something for him. Can he do it himself? Can i facilitate his learning in some way? For the past 2 days, i feel like i've had some kind of a breakthrough. This is a typical conversation we have now...


Mountain Boy: Mommy, help me put train together... 
Me: You try first. 
Mountain Boy (whines): Mommy please, i cannot i cannot. help...
Me: You can. If I think you cannot do it i will help you, but this you can do. 
Mountain Boy will then try a few times and whine a bit more before finally succeeding with minimal help from me. 
Mountain Boy(beams): I did it. 


Confidence, check. Determination, check. Self-motivation, check. Happiness, check. 

The world is my oyster

He thinks he can have everything now that he's figured out the stool.

Jejus?

I finally took Mountain Boy to church last sunday. I've been wanting to do the church thing but I'm a procrastinator. The sunday school isn't very authentic, the service hall is stuffy, we never get ready on time, and the schedules always clashed... The excuses are plenty! But i know i can't delay the church going much longer because clearly he has started to show an interest in the concept of God, rightly so because we're all hardwired to believe in the existence of a higher being. 

It all started with Mountain Man instilling the habit of saying a prayer every night before bed (i commend him for this), he taught the son how to repeat "Dear Lord, thank you for today" every night before proceeding to recap what went on during the day. I don't think Mountain Boy knew he was praying to SOMEONE. I'm sure he thought it's some kind of a "song" we sing before bedtime. 

So anyway, back to the church trip. He was enthralled by the worship because there practically was a live band blasting away. He has quite a good sense of rhythm so he was dancing away it was adorable. The sermon though was a bit challenging. He asked a couple of times who "Jejus" was and I explained that "Jesus is Lord, you pray to him every night!". Expectedly he couldn't sit still so i had to hand him the iPhone, but he kept asking VERY LOUDLY why there was no sound. I said very quietly that we had to be silent or else we would disturb others. He then gave up and started running up and down the aisle before the ushers finally politely asked if i could stand outside to watch the sermon on the tele. 

The church visit didn't go as planned but it led to another event which is more meaningful. I downloaded this application on the iPhone which tells the story of creation. It is quite evident that he has started to process the fact that someone made all these wonderful things like dogs and kittens. 

I'm trying to keep up with the church going. Next week i will bring my distraction kit so he can last the entire sermon. 

Just the 2 of us

Hello!

Drunk on Hainanese Chicken Rice

Over the past year or so, i've kind of learnt how to make a pretty mean Hainanese Chicken Rice. I never shared the recipe because I tell myself that I'll first need to take a picture of the full meal in its glory before I post the recipe, it never happens. We always just dig right in when the rice is steaming hot.

Anyway, i'm not going to wait any longer. Here's the recipe. I promise you it's good.

Ingredients:
1 whole Chicken (三黄鸡 or Sakura Chicken in Singapore is more suitable for poaching)
Cloves of Garlic
Spring Onion
Ginger
4 cups of rice
Pandan leaves
Cucumber (sliced)
Salt
Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil
Some whisky or brandy

For Chili sauce:
Ginger
Garlic
Red Chili
Small chili paid
Sugar
Salt
Lime

Chili sauce:

1. Blanch 2 portions of red chili, 1 portion of garlic, 1 portion of ginger, and some small chili paid.
2. Blend everything together and add sugar, salt and lime to taste. 
3. If you think there is no kick, throw in a couple more RAW garlic in the blender. 
4. You can make the chili in advance and freeze them for future meals.

Chicken:

1. Rub the chicken skin with a lot of salt, don't worry about using too much because we are just exfoliating the skin. Wash chicken down and you'll get nice smooth skin.
2. Stuff the chicken with peeled garlic, chopped spring onions and slices of ginger.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, water level just enough to submerge the whole chicken. 
4. Put the chicken breast down into the boiling pot of water, turn to medium-low heat. Leave the pot open and boil for 3-4mins. Then cover, and turn off the fire. Wait for 20 minutes. 
5. Repeat step 4, but flip the chicken first. In the meantime, prepare an ice water bath. 
6. Once step 5 is done, test if the chicken is cooked. Stick it with a chopstick, if it pokes through easily chicken is cooked. 
7. Take out chicken and plunge into ice bath. 
8. DO NOT THROW THE chicken stock. Add some salt to taste.
9. Prepare a bed of cucumber slices.
10. Slice the chicken and place on cucumber slices. (youtube if you do not know how to debone the chicken)
11. Prepare a mixture of 1 part soy sauce, 1 part sesame oil, and a dash of brandy or whisky. 

Rice:

1. Prepare about 1/4 cup ginger juice. Chop up a clove of garlic.
2. In a wok, add a bit of cooking oil and some butter. Stirfry garlic, ginger juice and pandan leave. 
3. Add rice (wash it first!).
4. Fry until fragrant, if too dry add a few spatulas of chicken stock. 
5. Put rice into rice cooker, fill the rice cooker with more chicken stock. Use more of the chicken fat floating on top of the soup so the rice will be tastier. You should use a little less water than when cooking normal rice because you've already fried the rice before and added some water then.

Before serving:

1. Add a spatula of hot chicken stock into the chili sauce and mix. It's supposed to be a bit watery.
2. Also add a few spatulas of hot chicken stock into the soy sauce mixture on step 11. And pour over chicken. 
3. Serve with chicken rice. 

Optional ginger sauce:

1. Ground ginger
2. Ground garlic
3. Ground spring onions
4. Sesame oil
5. Pour hot soup before serving. 

Anyway here's a funny pic of us 3 after a delish chicken rice meal. I went a little crazy on the whiskey and Mountain Boy was a little tipsy after so we all end up giggling and doing silly things. 

Close to the heart

I ordered this necklace a while ago. The two little discs has each of my kids' name carved on it. Love wearing this.

眼睛成

Every 2 years I come to this spectacles wholesale building to replenish my "stock". After I became a mom to an extremely active/destructive boy my specs don't last me more than a few months. So luckily I only pay equiv to S$30 a pair. Check out the fantastic four I got! Looks quite similar but I couldn't resist getting all 4.

眼睛成is north of panjiayuan on east 3rd ring.

Maple syrup carrot cupcakes

Another score from carrottopmom. The recipe is easy as it boasts, and the carrot cake is moist which is the way i like my carrot cake. I would however revert to her cream cheese frosting from the red velvet cupcake recipe. That one seems to have a tang, this one is a little too sweet for me.

Cupcake Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil (or 1/2 cup half applesauce, 1/2 cup oil)
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 3 cups grated carrots

1. In a small bowl, combine the first six ingredients. In a large bowl, beat eggs, oil and syrup. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in carrots. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.
2. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Frosting Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon maple extract or flavoring
• 2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 (16 ounce) box confectioners’ sugar

1. Beat cream cheese, and softened butter until light and fluffy. Add syrup and extracts.
2. Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until smooth.
3. Spread frosting on completely cooled cupcakes.

Lily Inspired: Friend or Foe?

Feels like it's time for another Lily Inspired entry.

I read a while back on 2 separate occasions articles related to females and their friends. The first was called "Breaking up with your girlfriend" and the other was "Toxic Friendships". I have my 2 cents worth on the topic of gals and their pals.

In life you will meet a lot of people. Some of these people will grow into a stronger attachment and you call them friends. Friends are extremely important. Like a tree, friendship needs time to cultivate. You need to give it water, sunlight, oxygen and ample space to survive (for girls the last point is literal). The friends you make early on in life will grow the deepest roots. These are friends that i consider "childhood friends". And these are the friends you will most likely keep for a long time, if the foundation was set right.

As you get older, the social circle changes. You go into different tertiary education, different workspace, different stages of your life, meet all kinds of other friends... Only the ones who withstand the test of time will keep in touch and be friends for life. It also helps if these friends evolve with you and remain socially relevant. e.g., when u become a mother they become a mother too. I'm not saying you have to be friends with people who are absolutely the same as you are but having common topics to discuss always helps.

To cut the long story short, you'll make all kinds of friends with different levels of depths and relevance. Getting to my point now....

Of all these people that you meet, a few will disappoint you. And you will disappoint a few... Some will make you cry, you will make some cry. These unhappy incidents will get you down, there will be feelings of regret, second guessing, maybe a little anger... But that's okay, it happens. Just don't dwell on to it for too long, just move on with life.


I'm not asking you to be cavalier about friendship. Put your heart and soul in it. But recognize when the friendship is no longer productive, or even worse it's destructive. Put an end to it. Don't be afraid to break up. It's easy to fall into the "pleasing everybody" trap, but "pleasing everybody" is a sign of character weakness, it means that you lack the self-confidence so you need to "please everybody" in order for them to like you. Instead, be nice to your friends because you are sincere. Be reliable because you are accountable to yourself. Be giving because you are generous. Believe that you are a decent human being because i'm going to groom you to be one, i'll make sure of it. You know, the friends who do the "please everybody" act actually end up being the worse friends because once they get you to like them their personality perks disappear. That's when you'll need to banish them.

I once read somewhere that at any one point, you only need 6 friends in your immediate circle to function. So u see, it's not that hard.

Unfortunate incident

The frosting was a bit soft so I put it in the fridge n it became too hard to pipe so I pressed the piping bag too hard n kaploosh! I have a lot of botched cupcake to finish.

Parents gone wild

Me: should I get the Tomy Carpark or the Thomas Take n Play... (i then proceed to make a case for each one and go back and forth a few times)

Mountain Man: Get all. We are in china we can afford these toys!

A few days later....
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A very happy Mountain Boy.

Kiddos Laughter

The biggest joy of motherhood is seeing your children happy, together. You'll never get sick of hearing their laughters out loud. I've been playing this video on repeat so that i can have it imprinted on my mind as a happy place.

Survival guide to life without Father and Son

Mountain Man and Boy went to Singapore for 4 days to settle some "business" on the new apartment we bought. Hooray it's officially ours!

I thought MM was so brave to offer to bring MB on his own, he has never spent alone alone time with MB so intensely before. And I have never left MB for so long before, the longest was when i was in the hospital giving birth to Lilybuff and even then i saw him during the day.

He was a bit sick on the night before he took off. He decided to torture me by not eating his dinner prior to the long midnight flight, i was so worried that he may have caught a nasty bug from me. I even contemplated not letting him go, but i did. I cried a teeny weeny bit.

Thank goodness he went because after he left i felt so sick i was/am bedridden for 3 days now. And the Singapore air is clear so it's probably good for his recovery. He had so much fun, and he ate so much, i really feel so relieved. I on the other hand am sick like a dog, i haven't gone out or met anyone or did grooming of any sort, and i still freakin wake up at 745am every morning, that's if i even sleep at all! 

Anyway, my survival guide to living without them both is simple, the iPhone! We've been doing "Face-Time" whenever we can, i think MB finds it fun. And MM's brother sends me videos of MB and Cousin Tim eating and playing and eating some more so that's been keeping me going! THANKS! 

And also, thanks MM for the respite. You are doing a marvelous job at this. Maybe you can take him to Spain next! 

Lilybuff is 4 Months!

This baby over here is becoming quite the little lady isn't she! Look how beautiful the bow looks on her. That smile... those cheeks... that crinkled nose...

She has such a bubbly personality. She really really really laughs a lot. I have so many videos of her laughing but i just don't get tired of listening to her laughter. Sometimes she laughs so hard until she runs out of breath and snorts it's so funny.

This month she's into pulling her head up from the rocker, she likes grasping at her mobiles and hearing them ring. And she absolutely loves books, so much so that she has inspired a theme for her birthday party this November (you really do inspire me sweetheart). When she reads you can see her eyes focused on details on the pages, she wants to help flip but she can't. She loves pressing all the buttons (aided of course) because of the sound they make.

Physically she is not flipping yet but believe it or not i'm glad she isn't. You know wht happened with the first one, 14 stitches before the age of 3. NO NO NO. Not the girl, no way. She's really into kicking and swinging her arms wildly. She laughs when i do physical exercises with her. She weighs 7.2kg, height unknown but she is outgrowing some smaller 6-9M bodysuits!

Her schedule is not really fixed yet, but the eating is at least every 4 hr and about 180ml each feed. I do feed her directly at night and sometimes let her snuggle next to me.  Frankly i'm not keen on doing the CIO until i find her sleeping pattern an inconvenience to me. I never had the direct latching thing with Mountain Boy so I do like the usefulness of my breasts. haha.

Anyway, Happy 4th Month Lilybuff.

This is a first

Air Quality Index from US Embassy in Beijing is 52 (moderate). Index from China MEP is 104.

Matcha cupcakes w matcha cream cheese frosting (Recipe updated)

I'm on the roll! My poor ayi has been scraping batter off my kitchen appliances.
Update w recipe shortly!
I rate these cupcakes 7/10.

Cupcakes
~28 regular cupcakes / 350 degree oven

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
2. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds between each.
4. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Add to mixer bowl. Add the milk and vanilla. Mix to combine.
5. Scoop into cupcake papers about half to two-thirds full (depending on whether you want flat or domed cupcakes).
6. Bake for 22-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting

12 ounces or 1-1/2 packages of Philly cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 tablespoon matcha green tea powder
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Bring cheese and butter to room temperature by letting it sit out for 1 or 2 hours
2. Sift powdered sugar into a bowl or onto parchment
3. Beat butter and cheese at medium speed until creamy
4. Add half of the sugar, the green tea powder, and the vanilla. Beat until combined.
5. Gradually add remaining sugar (more if you have to) until you get to the consistency and sweetness you like.

Assemble
1. Fill cupcakes using the cone method or any other method.
2. Frost and decorate as desired.

Dcfc

The concert was awesome!! The band had so much energy they were so interactive. They really looked like they were enjoying themselves. N they played over 20 songs in a course of 2.5 hrs! What stamina.

Sad thing was they didn't play transatlanticism, n I wasn't too familiar w 80% of the songs on the set list.

I also wore the wrong shoes to a standing concert so my feet were killing me after the first half. Today mountain man n I are down w flu.

Live from Tango

Waiting for dcfc still....

Dcfc

If you're a fan you know what that stands for...

To quote the late Whitney....

I will always love you, even after one of the most trying days as a mother... The whole day I've been going loco screaming and scolding and going soft and then getting angry all over again. Now I'm really looking forward to mountain man and boy's trip to Singapore sans me next week! God speed husband, god speed.

Blow Your Own Shrimp

Mountain Man and I enjoy watching TV series together. It's sort of like mini-dates, no need to dress up or worry about getting home on time. I realize we have a similar sense of humor, which is probably why I find him funny, not obnoxious.

I digress from the main topic. Anyway, some background knowledge is needed before i launch into the point i'm trying to make, which will happen soon if i don't get distracted.

So, we were watching Modern Family Season 3, strongly recommend this series its laugh out loud funny. There's this episode where Cameron (one of the gay dads) over coddle his adopted daughter Lily and she turned into the mega brat.

Now back to reality.

I was having lunch with Mountain Boy today. He decided that his tempura was too hot (which i swear wasn't it was warm at best) and he flung a good section of the prawn across the table and it landed on the floor, after which he launched into a crying fit that frankly made me look like i was pinching him under the table. Patrons of the restaurant actually turned to stare. I then offered him noodles and he pushed it away screaming "No No!" and crying. I rationalized his behavior by telling myself that he woke up too early so he was tired, and that he was a little ill.

He finally calmed down and decided to approach the tempura again. This time i had chopped it up into 1cm pieces so i won't risk it being "hot". He complained it was still hot and insisted that i blow it for him, and i obliged. That was when the epiphany came like a brick fell on my head, the scene of Cameron coddling Lily flashed across my mind. I AM A CODDLER!!

A wise mother of 4 told me recently that once your children can survive in the world without you, your job is done. I hold that advice dear to my heart and I want my children to be independent. 


So i tell him. "BLOW YOUR OWN SHRIMP!" (don't get dirty minded now).

Fondant cupcakes

You know all that fuss about fondant? Totally warranted. It's fun and addictive and the kids love it. YouTube fondant tutorials to get more ideas!

Radiohead Birthday Cake

Mama n lilybuff

Looking all motherly

Thanks Jas for the lovely photo of Lilybuff and I.

Happy 39th Birthday Mountain Man

We celebrate his 39th year tomorrow. Went to his office to surprise him with poker cupcakes. He wasn't particularly surprised. It's hard to keep a secret when u live in the same house, there's nowhere to hide the million cupcakes!

Anyway....my dear man,

Happy birthday. I've not been good with celebrating birthdays all these years and I haven't gotten you a gift for 2 yrs. But hey i did give you two gorgeous kids so i hope it stands for something.

I wish you a good year of being 39. It's been the best 6 years of my life too.

Love,
Stel