New Kid On The Blog

It tasted pretty good - like bolognese. The smaller tray contained rice - soft but lumpy - there were actually grains of rice, not porridge. The bigger tray contained beef, carrots, cucumbers, corn, tomatoes and some other vegetables. Dominic absolutely loved it and finished the whole box. This is almost equivalent to the adult version of can food, but I read somewhere that pre-prepared on-the-shelf baby food is actually more nutritious than home-cooked food because it is normally fortified with additional vitamins and minerals. And look - it's even organic.

In fact, this growing-up food inspired me to put more effort and creativity into preparing Dominic's meals. I used to just steam or boil everything, put them into the blender, mix and give them to Dominic. Now I cook actual dishes such as Tasty Chicken Stew, Shepherd's Pie and Beancurd Cup and serve them with rice or porridge. I can see that he enjoys his food a lot more these days.

In the European Union, Summer Time begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In spring, clocks spring forward from 12:59 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.; in fall, clocks fall back from 1:59 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.

So as we were in slumberland, an hour was gained through the night. As usual, Dominic woke up at 6:30am (which was actually 5:30am because of the change). And me, who was usually quite blur, had no idea that the clock had fallen back 1 hour. I did my regular chores as usual and after that we went out.

On the train, a woman asked me what time it was. She was extremely shocked when I told her it was half past 12. "Past 12??!!", she exclaimed. And I still had no idea that I was one hour in advance of everybody.

We reached home at 5pm, turned on the radio and the DJ told us that it was 4pm. Well, we knew that the time was going to be changed that week but we didn't know when exactly. So it didn't really come as a big surprise. And so from then onwards, we had an extra hour and it was so weird. By 5pm, we were already hungry. By 8pm, we were already in bed!

I thought that it would be so nice if I can get an extra hour every evening ... so that I can spend more time with SM.

The next morning, Dominic woke up at 5:30am! It was funny that he didn't need a clock and he knew exactly when to wake up - i.e. 6:30am (his time). I took the whole day to adjust his time and the next day, he woke up at 6:30am as usual.

So, I was wondering if someone was working a night shift, does this mean he had to work that additional hour in October?

Finally, here's a summary of what I found out about Daylight Saving Time.

The main purpose of Daylight Saving Time (called "Summer Time" in many places in the world) is to make better use of daylight. We change our clocks during the summer months to move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening, i.e. there is more light in the evenings / can do more in the evenings.

However, Daylight Saving Time also saves energy. Energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting homes is directly related to the times when people go to bed at night and rise in the morning. A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, the amount of electricity consumed each day decreases, as a result of having more sunlight in the evening.

Camden Town is London's most popular open-air market area with stalls, shops, pubs and restaurants. Along Camden High Street are shops selling funky-looking and punk clothes and shoes, tatoo & body piercing saloons and pubs.

It was a Saturday morning. SM was still asleep. As usual, I left Dominic in the hall to play by himself while I prepared breakfast in the kitchen. The moment I heard Dominic cried, I knew something was wrong. It wasn't the mummy-I-want-you-don't-leave-me-alone cry. Instead it was rather like the I-am-in-terrible-pain kinda cry. I rushed into the hall and saw Dominic sitting in front of the TV, screaming. I quickly picked him up and checked him out. I guessed he must have knocked his head or legs or hands on the cabinet (as he sometimes did anyway, he's a rather clumsy boy). And then when I looked into his face, I saw to my horror blood dripping from his mouth. After some detective work, I later found out that he had slipped and knocked his upper front teeth on the TV cabinet - there was a toothmark on the cabinet.

Anyway, I cleaned him up with a wet handkerchief and he was laughing and eating toast a few minutes later. His tooth was fine and there was no wound or anything. It was just a gum bleed.

And then there was this question. What would an elderly like SM's mum say to the incident? Most probably I would be blamed for not keeping an eye on Dominic. I don't know ... after thinking about it for a little while, the final decision was still to let Dominic play on his own while I run chores around the house instead of keeping him by my side all the time. I would still like him to be independent, to roam freely and explore this world on his own. The room will have furnitures. That's just the way it is. Needless to say, truly hazardous areas such as the power sockets are blocked by obstacles purposely created to keep Dominic from accessing them. The door is kept close to keep him from going near the stairs. Other than that, there will still be tables and chairs and cabinets - like any other ordinary hall would - and Dominic would just have to learn to keep himself out of harm. He would have to remember to lower himself to keep from knocking his head while crawling under the table. And he would have to learn to be careful while cruising around the room.

I guess Dominic had learnt his lesson since he hadn't gone near the TV for the past 2 days. And he had learnt many other lessons too. He'd never knocked his head under the table like SM's mum said he would. He was always careful and held on to furnitures tightly. He took slow steps while playing with his push-along toy and quickly bent his knees everytime the toy moved too fast. He grabbed me tightly when he thought that he was going to fall. Sometimes accidents do happen and as long as they are nothing too serious I am fine by them.

It happened when we were in Paris - starved and looking for food. We spotted Subway and I said 'Let's go grab a sandwich'. It was really what I had in mind - go in, grab the sandwich and start stuffing (I was really hungry, you see). There on the menu was a choice of sandwiches - tuna, bacon, ham, meatballs, etc. First of all, the guy at the counter could speak very good English - he's from Miami, you see. When it was our turn,

I said: One tuna sandwich and one bacon sandwich, please.

He said: What type of bread would you like?

And there were 4-5 types of bread.

SM said: The Itallian bread, please.

Guy said: Would you like it toasted?

We said: Yes, please.

Guy said: You want cheese with that?

We said: Yes.

Guy said: Do you want tomatoes?

We said: Yes.

Guy said: Cucumbers?

I said: Just put everything in.

And there were pickles, lettuce, onions, olives and green chile.

Guy said: Would you like some sauce?

We said: Yes, yes.

Guy said: So which sauce do you want?

And there were at least 8 bottles of sauce there!!

So what I wanted to say was ... you see when we goto Mc Donald's, most of the time we just order 'Value Meal 1' or 'Value Meal 2', and that's it. The meal will automatically come with your choice of burger, fries and coke. Do you even realise that nowadays you'll be given a coke automatically unless you specify otherwise? Well, when we went to the Mc Donald's in Paris, we (1) Choose the burger, (2) Choose a side dish (fries, wedges or salad) (2) Choose a drink (coke, 7-up, fanta, coffee, tea). See the difference?

And when we goto a Chinese restaurant, it's true that we order each individual dish, but we are not asked questions like - 'Do you want salt in that?' or 'Would you like Thai rice or Malaysian rice?'. And when we order fried kuey teow, it is fried kuey teow. Standard. Prawn mee is prawn mee. Chicken rice is chicken rice. It will come with the cucumbers, soy sauce, beansprouts, etc. No questions. Even when I buy a sandwich from Coffee Bean or Starbucks, I don't remember being given a choice of what ingredients I would like to have in my sandwich.

So ... I think I still prefer the fast and simple. Just give me that sandwich and put in everything that I paid for! :p

The same principle applies to Dominic. He will eat whatever mummy offers. Yes, he can have his preferences but there's no reason to be choosy. I feel that fussy eaters are mummy's fault. And fussy mummies who offer their child only what they like themselves - tsk tsk tsk tsk.

Paris - The city of love. That's what they call it. The most romantic city in the world. I wonder why they said so because the 3-day 2-night trip to Paris was enjoyable and fun but romantic is definitely not how I would describe it.

We woke up at 5am to catch the Eurostar at the London Waterloo station. SM had booked the tickets in advance and we collected out tickets that morning from the electronic kiosk. We had our passports stamped by the French immigration, had breakfast and boarded the train around 8am. The journey took approximately 2 and a half hours and we slept most of the time.

Our hotel was within walking distance from the train station - Gare Du Nord. It was a 2-star hotel and it was sadly below our expectations. We stayed in a 3-star hotel in Edinburgh and it was very nice. So we certainly did not expect that missing one star would make a lot of difference. There wasn't a lift and we had to walk up 3 floors carrying Dominic who's now 9kg. The room was old and dingy - and certainly did not bring up any romantic notions at all. Dominic had to bathe under the shower for the first time because there wasn't a bath tub. There was no kettle in the room so I had to get down to the kitchen every morning to get hot water to prepare Dominic's milk. There was no hair dryer, no fridge, no minibar, no coffee, no tea ... but there was a small TV hanging on the ceiling. Anyway it was cheap (around 70 euro per night) and it was right in the city centre.

For the next 2 days, we walked so much that my legs permanently ached. We took the subway to Eiffel Tower. Tickets to up cost 4.20 euro to go all the way up and 2.30 euro to go halfway. However we didn't go up because the queue ... oh my God! My cousin Celine even wrote in her blog that she spent 3 hours in the queue.

Eiffel Tower. Dominic smiles everytime we take a pic. He knows!!!


The ticket queue:



Eiffel Tower At Night:

Then walked towards Champs Elysees, and then walked some more to God knows where until we found a Metro to take us back to the hotel. Dinner was at McDonald's and the people do not speak English so we just used sign languages.

Champs-Elysees:


Gotta queue to shop at Louis Vuitton. Crazy!

The next day, we went to The Louvre. I had expected the place to be huge but this was beyond my imagination. My God, we walked and walked and walked around the museum for 4 hours! And we didn't even stop to inspect every painting or sculpture. Mona Lisa hangs in there but it was so heavily guarded that we couldn't even go within 5 metres of the painting. That also because it was surrounded by a crowd of people.

Is this the Holy Grail described in Da Vinci Code? I've not seen the movie. Have you?





No photography in this gallery, but Mona Lisa is right at the end. Can you see it?

After The Louvre, we went on a boat ride and disembarked at Notre Dame. The Notre Dame Cathedral was a beautiful structure - and full of visitors. There was a book where you can write down your life's intentions that you would entrust to God - and SM commented that maybe God can understand only French. Hahaha!

Boat Ride:


Notre Dame Cathedral:


Notre Dame Cathedral:



Notre Dame Cathedral:


Gargoyles ...

We took the boat again and went to another church situated on top of a hill. I think it's called Saint Pierre de Montmartre. So you see ... we had walked and walked so much and now we had to walk up the hill to get to the church. And what with Dominic's buggy - we had to carry that up the stairs as well! And the church ... if you've seen one you've seen them all. :p But you must go up there to view Paris from the top. :-)

Today I found out from a friend's blog about this website that can run face recognition and match your photo to your closest celebrity look-alike. And woo-hoo! Guess what? I was so happy that I am 90% like Sammy Cheng!! I mean ... at least for this photo, I looked like her. :-)

SM's closest match is Jet Li! Muah-haa-haa-haa!!

As for Dominic, the website kept matching him to female celebrities. I tried with many photos and finally I got a male match, i.e. Fujiki Naohito - I have no idea who he is.

To find your own celebrity look-alike, goto http://www.myheritage.com.

And so Dominic had Cheesy Pork Chops WITHOUT Spicy Apples (and without any salt and seasoning). He also had spinach without any of the salad ingredients.

According to SM's mum, we shouldn't give Dominic any meat (pork, chicken, beef, etc) but instead we should cook the meat in porridge and just give Dominic the porridge without the meat. The thing is ... Dominic already had almost everything - fish, chicken, beef, pork - and I don't see anything wrong with that. Even commercial baby food has meat in them. And all the books and magazines that I've read mentioned that meat, particularly red meat is a rich source of iron and can be given to baby from 6 months. Anyway, it was too late when she told us that. And I wouldn't have listened anyway. :p