A little boy and his buried treasure

My 3yo is very much a homebody. He loves staying at home with all his engines and trucks. He is contented to stay home after school and during the weekend, but ask him if he wants to go to the beach and he'd say yes immediately.


And even when he's at the beach, he wants his engines with him. Forget about building fancy sandcastles with this boy. Kai's sole purpose is to bury his engines and pretend that they have all fallen into a sand quarry so we always have to remember just how many engines we have brought along with us. If not, some other lucky little boy might just find another engine to add to his toy collection.

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My 7mo

When I am out and about without Kit, I love to retrieve this picture from my phone and I'd SMILE. He makes me feel all coochi-coo all over.

He's our sunny boy. He wakes up in the morning smiling and laughing. He giggles when you play peek-a-boo with him. He swings his chubby arms and legs up and down when he's happy. And he'd stretch out his arms towards me when he sees me.

He can pass an object from one hand to the other. He can't swallow anything we feed him now, but he still opens his mouth for the spoon anyway. He loves to 'chase' after Smokie, our cat. With our help, he'll amble shakily after Smokie and plonk himself down next to her if she flops down and turn her belly for him to rub.

I must have done something right in my previous life.

The soon-to-be 7mo who refuses to take his nap

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Simple pleasures

It's amazing how just by adding anchovies to a simple dish like spaghetti aglio e olio can 'upgrade' the taste and bring restaurant dining into a simple weekday lunch at home. (Just toss some anchovies when frying your garlic and chili.) It didn't seem like Tuesday after that. :-)

Baked-banana moments

(Thanks to the Chows,) I discovered another interesting blog featuring lovely photos and yummy home-made baked goods--Happy Home Baking. While reading through her blog history, I stumbled upon a baked banana with chocolates recipe that reminded me of my days as a girl guide.

For a particular cook-out, we slit some bananas, stuffed chocolates in them, wrapped them in foil, and threw them into the embers. It was a quick, simple dessert that was shared around the fire. Never mind we still had mass tins to wash and area clean-up to do, the caramelized sweetness of the banana mixed with the gooey, melted chocolate really hits the spot. And as I slowly came out of my reverie, I thought what a neat project it is to do with Kai on a weekday night. It's quick. It's fuss-free.

Kai loved stuffing the chocolate chips into the banana (and snitching a few chips in the process). The result was nice, but somehow... the baked banana and chocolates tasted nicer in my memory than what's actually sitting on my plate. Maybe it was the camaraderie that spiced things up and the friendship that a group of teenage CHIJ girls shared back then that made a deep impression, not the baked bananas?

I'm grateful for my baked-banana moment. Never mind if I was actually consuming empty calories.

Urban Bites

Tabbouleh--a salad comprising parsley, crushed wheat, onion, tomato, and fresh mint in lemon juice and olive olive

Since it's Friday (and mid-afternoon at that), I think it's most appropriate to blog about food. It helps you plan for Friday date-nights and weekend meals. These images have been sitting in my camera for weeks, and looking at them sets my salivary glands into action again.

Mixed grill--smokey, tender kebabs. YUM.

With a name like Urban Bites, you wouldn't have guessed that it is a Lebanese restaurant. It is located in Telok Ayer street (diagonally opposite the Thian Hock Keng Chinese Temple), right smack in one of Singapore's busiest business districts. We went there on a Saturday afternoon which meant we didn't have to fight with the usual office crowd and get frustrated trying to look for parking.

I'm not too hot about the Tabbouleh (S$7.50), as chewing a mouthful of parsley was just too much for my palate. But if you stuff it in the Lebanese bread (3pcs for S$2.50), it can be quite refreshing.

We both loved the mixed grill (S$22.50), which feeds two people very nicely. It is a plate of lamb, chicken, and beef kebab served with saffron rice and salad. The kebabs were smokey, tender, juicy. *thumbs up*

Some people thought the service wasn't great, but I don't have any complaints. Perhaps because I went on a weekend and so they weren't as busy? Or (as a newcomer to the restaurant scene) they have finally ironed out some teething issues? I don't know, but I'll definitely go back again if I have a meat craving.

Where:

Urban Bites

123 Telok Ayer Street

(It seems they open daily; 11am-2.30pm; 6pm-9.45pm)

Walking on petals

This is bad. I thought with me quitting the corporate rat race for now and staying home with the boys (while doing copy writing on the side) would give me more time to blog. But plans for each day fill up very quickly and by the time I have time to myself, the last thing I want to do is to switch on my MacBook again to write.

This has resulted in a backlog of photos in my Canon S90, and a tsk-tsking husband who yesterday pointed out that my last blog entry was on March 30.

How is it to keep my corporate high heels in cold storage for a while in exchange for flip flops/birkenstock shoes? Opting for streetwear over office garb? And wearing Kit-drool on my shoulders instead of Chanel Mademoiselle on my neck?

Strange. Some days it can get mundane and I long for adult company. Terence is sweet and meets me for lunch dates when he can. Some days it get frantic when I have to juggle copy deadlines with the boys' schedule.

On some days, it's nice to see things I wouldn't get to see since I was pretty much stuck in the office/traffic/meetings every day in the past. Two weeks ago, Kai's secret path was carpeted with fallen flowers from trees whose branches were also pregnant with light pink and lavender blooms. I didn't have my camera with my but the iPhone pretty much captured the pink and purple hue of the petals.

It feels lovely holding my 3yo's little hands and walking on petals for a change.