Daddy loves..

Bryan, You have to know that though daddy don’t say it as often as he should, daddy loves you very much!

Today, he devoted the whole morning & afternoon to making you happy.

It was your quality one-on-one time with daddy.

Daddy wants to eat sushi, but you want to eat McD.

When daddy wanted to look at the Superbike exhibition (which have gorgeous sexy models too), you wanted to go to Toy’r'us (Mommy says, “haha”)

When daddy wanted to look at the Transformers exhibition, you wanted to go to Borders.

When daddy wanna shop for some clothing, you wanted to go to the Jusco Playland (who is just next to the men’s clothing dept).

Both of you spent nearly 4 hours in the mall, doing everything that YOU wanted.

So, don’t you think that daddy spoils loves you?

And daddy loves mommy too, because daddy did all that with you so that mommy can go to a photography workshop and have a good time.

P/S: You can look forward to bullying having fun with daddy again in 2 weeks time, coz mommy signed up for another workshop…kekekekekeke..

Eat bb eat…

Dylan is a much easier baby to take care compared to Bryan at this age.

He is less clingy.
He is able to play more by himself.
He is more creative and is able to turn anything into a toy for him (saving mommy lots of money from buying new toys).
He is better at balancing which means less nasty fall (*touch wood*). So far he is able to save himself (*touch wood again*) from any nasty fall by cleverly positioning his body during a fall.
He is able to tolerate a wide variety of food. He has taken seafood, nuts and spicy food without any allergy.
He lets hubb put him to sleep (nap/ night time) which means more time for me when I needed them. Bryan would not let hubb put him to sleep last time. He’ll cry and cry and cry and CRY until I come to him.

But
Because he is more adventurous, having meals outside is a real headache for us. When he has had enough to eat, he will stand up and climb down. And he will walk ALL OVER the place, without any fear of the strangers. Luckily we seldom eat out…
And the biggest problem, he is such a picky eater.
He doesn’t like his porridge, though they taste absolutely yummy to me and his brother.

I cooked macaroni cheese for the boys’ lunch last Sat. Bryan polished his plate clean without any assistance from us and even ate some of Dylan’s portion but Dylan just won’t take a bite.

Bryan even told him, “Didi, eat your macaroni. You see I am also eating.”

Later we asked Bryan to feed him and he started to take a little. I was mentally counting…1 macaroni, 2 macaroni, 3 macaroni…

But in less than 5 macaronis..he doesn’t want it anymore. I cooked spaghetti aglio olio for hubb and me, and I had used a lot of fresh chilli. He wanted my spaghetti.

So I gave him a strand and he finished them speedily. And he wanted MORE. So hubb said..just give it to him.

Thus, I started giving him more spaghetti, strand by strand..and he finished each one happily. In between his bites, I tried to squeeze in bits of macaroni and vegetables. He let me maybe because the spaghetti is spicy and the macaroni cheese helped to ease the spiciness. I managed to get him to finish about 70% of the macaroni I offered him before he decided he has had enough and climbs up from his high chair.

Later that day, we had a family dinner. Normally I would prepare food for him, but after the lunch episode, I just didn’t bother.

So for dinner, he had some satay, tofu, chun piah (spring roll) which had lots of vegetables, and stir fried noodles.

If you see the way he had the dinner, you would not think that he has any eating problem. But I can’t feed him all those salt & MSG laden food all the time! So most of the time, he doesn’t want to eat much at home. Because his food has no salt no msg.

And he is almost not drinking any milk when I am away at work. So I think he is quite underweight for his age now.

In desperation, I have decided to give him Appeton with Lysine. I bought the tablet ones as I think he will hate the syrup because it will be similar to taking medicines.

I have started to give him 1 tablet/ day since Saturday. Hopefully he will take more food and gain some weight…

Milk protester

When i was breastfeeding Bryan last time, each month that passed was a milestone to me. I remembered proudly marking my calendar when i reached the 6th month milestone of exclusive bf..then at 12 month. I intro formula to Bryan when he was 14 months.

After my experience with Bryan, bfg was no longer a challenge to me. I had my tough times but I no longer see it as a chore or a milestone. It is just something that I have to do for my baby, no biggie.

So now, i have successfully bf Dylan for 1 year. No formula except for the 2 days when he had to stay at the hospital for jaundice, and my milk supply was not established yet.

Am I ready to stop? You bet…NO. In fact, I intend to continue pumping at work and continue to give him EBM when i am at work until he starts day care. In fact, at this moment, I have not even decided when to intro him to formula.

But now…this lil naughty boy is forcing me to reduce my milk pumping session. This lil boy is refusing to take milk from the bottle, or from the cup, or from spoon…ARRRRGHHHHHH

I have never been diligent about storing up my milk. I threw away quite a lot of milk when Bryan is past 1 year old as he rejected frozen milk then. So i did not want to repeat the same experience.

But as this notti boy is refusing to drink milk,…my storage is building up.

This is just partial of my frozen milk. There’s more at my mom’s house. Luckily i have not been obsessed with storing of BM this time (i was during Bryan’s time). Otherwise, i would have even more milk stored up.

Now I am wondering what to do with all these milk. Bryan is drinking chilled EBM everyday…but he does not like the frozen ones.

Sien nia…I had to deal with Bryan rejecting milk last time. Now Dylan! Why both my kids also don’t like to drink milk one!!!! Sien nia!

Food

It used to be so easy to feed Bryan when he was small but now he is such a picky eater.

Give him what he wants, and he can wallop almost as much as I can eat in a regular meal.

Last Sunday, hubb took Bryan for a haircut. He loves haircut because it will be followed with a meal at McD afterwards. So he is always looking forward to haircuts.

Anyway, as usual hubb ordered the fillet’O fish value meal and exchanged the drink to a milo. Hubb just a burger for himself thinking that he will share the drink & fries with Bryan. But no…

Bryan first walloped the entire pack of fries (almost)….
Then the fish burger…
And finishes off with the cup of iced milo…

If he already can eat a McD value meal almost all by himself before he reaches 3! How many burgers do we need to feed him when he is 6?

Happy Meal

I have not heard of any complaints from Bryan’s teachers at school when it comes to meals. But at home, getting him to finish his meals on the dining table is a big challenge.

So I tried to vary the food that we offer to him and at the same time try to make his food more interesting. This is what i did for him yesterday.

It was carrot & tomato rice with omelet.

As he was eating the rice, i was mentally counting “ok, 1 rabbit down, 3 more to go. 2 rabbits down, 2 more to go…” And you can imagine my relief when he finally downed all the rabbits + omelets.

Did having the designs make feeding him easier. Yes & no.

Having fanciful designs on his dinner plate does help to get him seated at the dining table. But if he doesn’t like the food offered, he would not eat them just because they looked nice.

I know because i offered him star molded hard boiled egg 2 weekends ago, and he took one bite and spit it out almost immediately.

Looks like i have a lot of work to do if I want to make each meal a happy one.

Claypot Chicken

After my success with the ABC pasta chicken stew, next up – Claypot chicken rice. WhoIsBaby posted a easy to follow chicken rice recipe and I decided to try that.

I followed her steps with the following variation.

1. I added sesame oil and more dark soy sauce to my chicken marinade
2. I added sesame oil, a few cloves of crushed garlic and a few slices of ginger into the rice while cooking.
3. To serve, I added not only cilantro (coriander) but also chopped spring onions and salted fish flakes. Bryan did not have any of the salted fish though.

Hubb loves this dish and needless to say, Bryan too! Any lesson learned? Of course.

Hubb’s first complaint – The claypot is darn hard to wash. The rice is really hard at the bottom of the claypot and he had a hard time scrubbing it clean even after soaking it for a long time. So his advice is – it’s ok to be less authentic. Just use the rice cooker next time. .

Second complaint – cook more next time. He doesn’t mind having it for both lunch and dinner. Afterall, Bryan did

Chicken vege stew with ABC pasta

Bryan gets wholesome home cooked meals whenever he is at my mother’s place during the workday. But during the weekend, he eats whatever we eat, and in most case may not be the healthiest choices for a toddler.

So lately, after a long break, I decided to make sure that he gets at least 1 homecooked meal a day during the weekends. Usually I will try to cook more for lunch and he can have the leftover for dinner. And if hubb and I decided to eat out, he can and will always steal some of our food, or I can always order something light for him to nibble on while we have our food.

Bryan is getting very choosy over his food now. He no longer enjoy simple bland healthy baby food. He enjoys variety not just in flavor but in sight as well. So what did I prepare for him lately?

#1: Chicken vege stew with ABC pasta
Chicken stew has always been a favorite dish of mine. It is a complete meal on its own and is so simple to prepare.

Ingredients
Deboned, de-skinned chopped chicken thigh meat, marinated with light & dark soy sauce, pepper and a little flour
Chopped garlic
Carrots
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Onions
Flour to thicken the soup

Steps
1. Stir garlic in oil till fragrant
2. Add in chicken and stir fry for a short while
3. Add in the vegetables and add just enough water to cover all the ingredients
4. Cook in small fire till all ingredients are cooked.
5. When almost done, mix a bit of flour in water and add it to the simmering soup to thicken it up.

For Bryan, I separately boiled some ABC pasta and serve it with the chicken stew. To make the dish more interesting, I cut the carrots into flower shapes. Yeah, I need to practice on my food carvings.

Result….Bryan says my dish is YUMMY!!! And he proved it by asking not for 1 but 2 refills! That’s definitely the sign of a yummy meal to him.

It is so good, he can’t have it fast enough so he need 2 spoons for it! LOL

Sakae Sushi for Bryan

We went to Sakae Sushi last Sunday and Bryan had his first Japanese food meal. He has been to Japanese restaurants with us but we were just feeding him morsels of food, hardly what I would call a meal. Besides, in his previous visit, I always feed him his proper meal before we go to the restaurant.

We ordered these for Bryan

He finished the plate of grilled fish sushi, except for the inner fillings which is something really hard. It felt like crunchy bones to me, so I did not give it to him. He did not like the sweet tofu, so we just gave him the sushi rice. And I gave him another rice ball from my salmon sashimi.

And he polished off the rice with a cup of tori chawan mushi.

We know he has had enough because nowadays, whenever he has had enough, he will say, “Pau Pau” (carry me). He will ask to be removed from his baby chair, so that he can start wondering around the restaurant.