Arghhh.... My baby say NO to me!

Today, am going to blog about the little word "NO". I have been hearing and experiencing a lot of NOs daily these days. Well, my little one has started to reject and say no to me for a long time already, but recently she has been refusing a lot of things to almost everyone she knows!

First of all, I am glad since the day she knows how to reject food, meaning using her tongue to push out the teats of the bottle and reject her milk. It is a sign of showing, I am growing up and I know what I want now. While this is good for her emotional development; it is also frustrating for me at the same time.

Well I have to come to the terms that she knows more than I thought and she is an individual who can say no if she does not like it. But she is still young and does not understand what is good or bad for her yet, so now it is my job to make her co-operate with me. I have come out with a few ways to make her willingly give in.

1. Distraction- I will ask her to sit down properly and watch her fav. show, while eating.
2. Bargaining- I will give her a cookie if she picks up her toys and place it properly in the bin.
3. Be creative- I will ask her to do role play with me while I do the chores at home. (eg. Like you are watering the plants like mommy.)
4. Changing the subject- When I ask her to go to sleep and she stills want to read her books, I will play Pee-ka-boo for a while and turn off the lights... and proceed to tune into sleep mode.)

I have found out that there is no use of shouting and scolding her at all, because she is just merely expressing her dislikes and it got worse by shouting at her. By using the above techniques, I get her to give in willingly without tears and shouting "NO".

Paper Cups

First of all I hate junk food. BUT ocassionally on Sundays, we would go for breakfast at McDonalds. Why maybe because my lil' one loves the place. Well besides the point, I am actually goin to blog about paper cups.

As you can see here I have been going to McD for a while and I really hate the idea of my hot coffee being poured into a paper cup.

So, I brought my own mug instead! The picture here shows that my cuppa coffee was poured into my glass mug so I do not also drink in the Wax coating inside of the paper cup that McD is offering. After drinking, I can refill again into this mug of mine or I can just wipe it and bring home to clean it later. :)

New Bamboo Car Seat

I have never seen this before, but my mum was telling me that I used to sit on one of these like almost 30 years ago. Here you can see what this car seat look like, and I know you can say that huh, this is not safe baby can easily climb out from there! Yeah yeah... but for my mum or you could say, old grandma prefer this. I positioned it on the back centre of the car; but my mum was telling me usually they positioned it at the front seat!??! OMG! I would just say one has to drive slowly and only for a short distance if they were to place a child in here.

Here you can see how my baby sit in it! She kind of love it as she stay still and does not move around. her legs are not hanging out but actually stepping on the seat. I guess older baby like her can fit into this car seat but definately not for a newborn!

Reading and Bonding

It is a surprise for my hubby and me that our lil'bean loves books a lot. Every now and then she will entertain herself by looking and pointing at the pictures in a book and try to read out loud. Well hopefully she will keep this habit forever! LOL...

Here she is showing her daddy which is her favourite animals and daddy is trying to ask her to pick out the correct animal when he named the animal!

I have already started to read a book to her every night before she sleeps since when she was 18 months old. Surprisingly, she loves it a lot and insists on me reading more and more books before she goes to sleep at night. Well I try to limit it to one, but guess she prefer more or else she will protests and refuse to sleep. I do not know it is a good behaviour or not; but nonetheless I let her choose her own book and read to her till she is satisfied then she will goes to sleep.

The whole idea of this reading time is that both baby and I get to sit down together and share a special moment. This kind of bonding makes her feel happy and loved. It does not matter if I repeat the same old book everyday though! She increases her vocab and language skills as well through the reading moments.

Once someone told me that it is not the content of the book that the baby understands at this young age, but the voice of a parent reading and the sense of security that a parent give does make a difference through this practice! So, I would strongly suggests to all parents if you can spare some time just read for at least a minute or two to your child, they will really appreciate it.

Party Balloons

My lil' bean loves balloons... maybe because during her first B'day I had all these colourful balloons hanging on the ceiling and since then, she loves them lots! Well, we bring her to a lil' boy one year old Birthday party and well they have a clown to entertain the kids! Lots of fun there, so being a clown he had these little tricks of making cute animal balloons, and well my lil' bean will not miss this out and ask for a green poodle there on the left......... then hmmm, after a few moments of her grabbing and all, it kinda come off a little, so we went and ask for another one.

Come on......... there are lotsa kids and the queue is really long, finally I manage to politely asking for another one for her, and this time it is a pink bear!

The clown was indeed a professional and he really manage to put a smile on all the children faces. A wonderful job indeed, and as for the clown himself, he told us he started this ballooning since he was 13! Since then he has been practicing till now and it is a wonder to even watch him blowing and making all these cute balloons!

My baby still clings on those balloons all the way till we got back home! It shows how much she loves it.....LOL

Chinese Beef Stew

I have cooked beef stew for so many times before but this time i want to try something different. I have the basic beef stew recipe in my mind but I want to give it a new twist. So Instead of the normal sirloin beef that I use, this time I tried using the Beef muscle part, whereby in Taiwanese style always love using the muscle part as it has a chewy feel and the jelly part is really delicious too.

Also the other thing that I add in this stew is the radish. Normally carrots will do but I want to try using radish and drop the tomatoes for a while. last but not least it is an amazing dish but the one thing is that it takes longer hours to cook as the muscle part really took some time to cook well. I did not add tomato sauce at all just chicken stock and a good red wine. We all really love this dish! It goes well with the pasta! Yum!

Spinach Ravioli

Yummy Ravioli.......... it was a long long time since I had Ravioli. The last I had it was in Paris, when I manage to buy some fresh ones in the market there and cook it for dinner. While here back in my hometown, it is impossible to get fresh ones, packed ones are possible if I am lucky! So indeed, I manage to saw some in the grocery store and without hesitation I just bought a packet of Spinach Ravioli!

Here I create my own version of pork sauce to go with the ravioli, and it's a blast! We all love it and well, I will definately cook this again!

I scream Ice cream!

Why I make ice cream when I can easily buy them? Oooo the answer is easy, because I have an Ice-Cream maker at home. Oh it was a lovely present my hubby bought for me for my birthday. He knows I love Ice-cream... and had been dreaming of making it... hmmm! So I have an excuse to make them at home. LOL.

Above here are some pictures on how to make Ice-cream. Well it is my first time making it, I have no clue at all what I am doing and am surprise on what I get it out in the end. (Just relying on a manual and a recipe book!) Well, some tips may be from the tv shows and that's all! So in the end here's how my Rum&Raisins Ice Cream look like!

Nice huh? I add some peaches to go with the ice-cream.......... really blow me away! Sorry my lil' bean is not allow to try this at all......... sweeeeeettt dessert!

Salty Poultry

My first attempt here to cook whole chicken in a wok. My recipe was indeed the Salty Chicken recipe.... (Yim Kok Kai) in cantonese. I wrap the whole chick in a paper bag and use the salt to steam it. Well the chick turn out well, and I manage to de-bone it as you can see it here.

The taste is not so salty as I reduce the salt and add more rice wine on it. Last time I boil the whole chick but this time I tried a different style, not bad huh... my culinary skills are improving... hahhah LOL!

Dine at home...

With my new lovely kitchen, there is no reason not to cook at home. These are some of the dishes I cooked for the night. Hubby loves it and baby loves the crispy garlic bread... oooo the sides only, she does not like garlic anyway...... LOL.