After 2 wonderful weeks of break, just spending time at home doing  major “autumn” clean, planted new flower seedlings, some vegetables, rearranging our playarea, preparing my weekly daycare programmes…

I also brought the kids out to a few birthday parties, meet up with friends, and sometimes just the 3 of us having a quiet time at the park.  It was very peaceful just alone with my 2 kids

I also took some time out for myself while JD and Chloe spent a day with Andrea at daycare.  I used those days to go for massage, running errands, going to the bank, claiming some outstanding bills, and best of all, lunch by myself quietly, peacefully, at a quiet cafe corner. 

Those time away from the children were much needed and very healthy for my mind and soul.  JD was particularly thrilled to spend some time with Andrea and his old friends from daycare. 

Well, this morning, we all rise early, got ourselves ready, did some quiet meditation for a good 15 minutes and then we welcome back everyone to our family daycare for Term 2, 2008!  This term, I have changed a few things around to enable me to operate better by cutting back some work, but most importantly, I hope it allows me to have some reserved energy for myself at the end of the day.

My 2 kids were excited to see their friends arriving this morning, and the 2 of them were just fooling around when I tried to take a pic of them 2!

What happened when my 2 little ones decided to get up earlier than usual?  It was only 7am, we had changed, gotten ready for our morning walk…and then the rain poured!

So, we changed plan, JD said “Let’s bake a cake!”  Chloe being selective listening, “Yay, cake, cake, cake!”

So, we baked a butter cake at 7.30 in the morning.

An hour later, we had some early morning tea before dropping off a few slices to our babysitter and a neighbour.

The rain finally stopped, and we walked to the park for a good play!  And to burn off the calories from the butter cake, yes, 250 g of butter I used to make that cake!

It was 5pm in the late afternoon.  I had gone to put away some laundry in the kids room, and as I walked past the hallway to check on the kids, I heard someone busy pushing the stool around…

Then I saw a very happy camper…

And why so?

Because she found food!!!!  Yes, I heard her pushing the kiddy’s kitchen step stool around, tip toed and reached out for some dim sim I brought home for her that day.

She is happy if there is food involved….

And as I put another load of laundry into our bedroom, I came out again and saw this…

She had taken another char siu pao from the box and she has food in each hand…

But, I just love her “love for food”.  Because she loves sitting at a corner in the kitchen, slowly, carefully, deliciously eating, tasting, every single piece of food I offer to her….

But more often that not, she is pretty good at finding her food source!  Who needs mummy when she can do it all herself!

Also, another thing to note about her shirt, yes, she has gone into JD’s bedroon, ransacked his wardrobe and picked out a size 4 shirt she wanted to try, for that day.  It will be something different again tomorrow.

Why can’t she be contended wearing her own size 1 shirt, with pretty embrodiery…ah yes, the grass on the other side is always greener :) 

Sometimes when I need 30 minutes to cook a meal, have a shower, tidy up the house, blog or a quick chat on the internet with my family…

I give JD a box of building toys, Lego, stickle bricks, Zoob, Gear blocks…and he will come up with lots of cool stuff.  But the best thing about all these great building stuff is it usually gives me more than the 30 minutes I need, and I love the quietness once in a while when he sits on the floor building his yet another aeroplane, truck, space ship with Chloe eagerly on the side trying to do just the same…and me trying to finish up what I needed to do.  And still have a little time to capture them in action.

This evening, while I stood in the kitchen cutting up chicken, broccoli, chestnuts, mushrooms, tomatoes, washed and boiled the rice, then cooked the dinner, I turned around and saw this! He came up with a helicopter! 

For every Wednesday morning in the last 10 weeks, I had to pack both snack and lunch boxes for JD.  He spends the whole day in kindy every Wednesday and half days on 2 other days.  For the first 3-4 weeks, it was always a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch.  Then I got bored with it and started packing pasta salad, rice salad as lunch for him.

So last week like every other Wednesday morning, I asked him what he wanted for lunch, and this time he said to me “Mum, I want Chinese today, char siu, rice and some dunplings!”

It was easy, we had some leftover char siu from the night before, I cook some rice in the rice cooker, pan fried some “gow gee” I wrapped up the night before in preparation for next day’s lunch.

Tada, a “Chinese lunch box” he proudly said to his teacher as he walked into the classroom that day….

School holiday starts tomorrow, I have also taken 2 weeks off from work, my diary is already packed with birthday parties, playdates, holiday program, kindy kids day out….

Why is it that my life seems to get even busier after my first born started attending school…hmph

Looking at my diary again, I have only left with 3 days when there’s isn’t anything planned, and I think I am quite happy to keep it just that way.  Weekend is going to be kept free, because I desperately want to spend some time alone with my husband.   Just to chill. 

Because it is my 2 weeks break too…

Chloe loves her food.  In the last few weeks, I discovered her love for Curry Laksa.  I have probably cooked that dish twice in the last 2 months and she loved it since then.  I wasn’t sure if she was going to like it, so I did have something else prepared for her.

But came dinner time, I dished out 2 little bowls of curry laksa for JD and her.  She sat down, had a taste, nodded her head which she does to show her approval at times, then continued on to eat the bee hoon, chicken, bean sprouts, bean curd with the laksa soup.  She loved it! 

When she is done with the noodles and all the vegies in it, she would pick up the bowl with her 2 little hands and drink up the soup.

It’s great because that means she doesn’t mind a bit of spice in her food.  And since then, I had been making Thai Red Curry as well.  The Curry Laksa and the Thai Red Curry is my little proof that she doesn’t mind a bit of chilli in her food. 

Last night, I even added some cut red chillies when I was makng fried rice for dinner.  And that little bit of cut red chilli really added some extra taste in the rice.  Give it a try! 

And if you want to see more of Miss C’s love for food, she also loves her apples.  Yes, besides the many oranges, nectarines, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, bananas she eats in a day, apple is another of her staple diet.  The best thing is she no longer wants me to slice up the apples, and we would have a melt down if I even attempt to put the apples on the chopping board!

So, give her an apple, a container, get her to sit down, and she can quietly spend 15-20 minutes, munching away an apple.  She would bite the skin off, put them in the container, and slowly enjoying the apple.  Funny kids she is at times, but hey that’s one less thing for me to do.  Woohoo!

It was the free play hour for the children when they could pick a toy from the shelf, read a book, dress ups, cooking a meal in the play kitchen…where most kids would be quite happy to play by themsleves or pair up.

I was getting the lunch ready when I overheard this…

JD:  Ummm, Rach, I like to place an order for lunch please?

Rach:  Yes, you may, what would you like?

JD:  I would like some cheong fun with chicken, fried rice and a soup

Rach:  Okay, coming up

JD:  Oh oh, and I would also like some shao rou (roast pork), char siu (honey glazed roast pork), and chow mien (noodles).  No, make it udon noodles with chicken.

Rach:  Okay, that will cost you 10 dollars (as she pretended to punch the order into the cash register and spoke into the microphone at the same time)

JD:  Oh, and don’t forget some chai tow kway and fish ball!

That was it, I rolled on the floor and laughed real hard when he mentioned char tow kuey**!  It’s so funny.  My son is born Australian, speak with some Aussie accent and sounded more Aussie since he began kindy, he is 4 year old and has a dad whom sounds more Aussie than an average one at times….but my JD is sooooo Cina deep down, hahahaha!  He loves his rice, noodles, fish ball, curry….Oh should I say he is so Malaysian, eventhough he had ony been to the country once when he was just 18 months old. 

Or perhaps, I have been cooking a lot more Asian meals than the standard pasta, steak, chops, mashed potato….

Whatever it is, it was a good thing to know that our effort in ”learning through play” Mandarin is not all that futile afterall, though it was all very related to food.

But to be honest, I have always been a firm believer in letting children trying various types of cuisines from young, be it the standard pasta, lamb chops and salad, but also other dishes like the Thai Red Curry, Vietnamese rice paper roll, Chinese gow gee, Malaysian curry laksa, Moroccan lamb casserole, Ialian spinach n ricotta ravioli, Japanese sushi roll, Korean shrimp pancakes ….and it’s a great experience for children of all ages.

Now, I just need to blog about Chloe’s love affair with Curry Laksa!  That deserves another post. 

** Chai tow kway - A Singaporean/Malaysian type of radish cake stir fried with some eggs n chilli.  In my children’s case, due to their egg allergies, we do our chai tow kway with just some chilli paste, dried radish and spring onions.