Donna Hay's Chrismas Pudding

Many were interested in getting the recipe of the pudding I made, I got it from Donna Hay Modern Classics Book 2.

Click on the pix to read the details.

In my case, I made them in individual sizes.

So the cloth size should be 30cm (12inch) squares x 8.

Each pudding should be holding ~250g mixture.

Cooking time : 1hr 30mins. Reheat time : 30mins boiling (that's what the recipe suggested but I steam for similar amount of time instead).

Enjoy.

Jelly Brains

Jelly Brains is the nickname we gave to our Filipino maid. Why do we call her that?

Her name is Jelly (real name which is printed on her passport). And she's absolutely forgetful.

Here are a few incidences : 1) Went to my sister's appartment, and when she were going home, after a few steps down the stairs, she exclaimed, "Alamak, I forgot to wear my slippers." (you mean you were bare feet and you didn't know until after taking a few steps?)

2) She changed Zaria's diaper during Zaria's evening bath, and left the soaked diaper on Zara's wooden toy house just next to the cot. When we were doing reading in the night, we were curious where the urine stench came from. We then discovered the the wet diaper. When we asked her, she said, "Oh, I forgot."

3) She reheated Zaria's porridge, and went on to bath Zaria, forgotten about the poridge on the stove. The pot was burnt! That night, Zaria had to eat instant cereal. Sigh.

4) She watered the plant without removing Zara's bicycle right below the plant. Drenching Zara's bicycle.

5) After I took the girls out for a walk, I called her out to bring Zaria up for her bath, while I entered the house with Zara first. She carried Zaria from her cot, went straight up to the room to bath Zaria, forgetting to lock the door.

Jelly brains or not?

Formaldehyde in Beer??

Daddy had this Xi Hu beer in Hangzhou the other day when we were in Shanghai.

On it, there was this text printed : "free from formaldehyde". Daddy and I were joking about this, and thought it was just a marketting gimmick that this brewery is using to promote itself as more 'superior' than others, although the test of the beer wasn't that superior.

I wonder if people actually use formaldehyde in beer brewing.

Well google has the answer,

"It had been known that some Chinese breweries have habitually added a small amount of formaldehyde to the mash, ostensibly as a clarifying agent. Large export and joint venture brewers have stopped using formaldehyde, but the recent study indicates that the practice remains widespread." taken from this article, and you can read the whole article from that site.

So, watch out beer drinker out there.

This blog

Since I'd already have another blog to chart the development of the girls, I will use this blog more as a personal blog.

For my thoughts, my feelings, for me.

In the next few days, the lay out will be changed, so what started out as a blog for my daugther, Zara, will now be a place for me for my thoughts.

Abandonned but revived!

This blog has been left abandoned for quiet a while. It's time to revive it. If you have been visiting their site at my own domain, you know the girls are doing great. Zara has just celebrated her 3rd birthday, and Zaria is alread 11th month old. Seriously, time flies. Look at how big they have grown!

Moving Out

1) Blogger has been giving me lots of problem esp with photos loading

2) We have new addition to the family and All About Zara just won't work any more.

So I'm moving out to wordpress (can't afford my own domain yet). Here is the new link about My Two Girls, and we have finally decided on Baby's name.

See you in there.

Updated Nov '07 :

I finally got my own domain, my birthday present for myself and have moved from wordpress to my own domain, you can visit the girls site here

The first post from that site was written in September. Enjoy..

Photos - Baby, Girls' moment

Who does she look like? She has Daddy's eye lids, but my big pupils. Daddy's nose, and sharper face

Looking pretty serious here.

Zara's pretty loving towards meimei the minute they met. She wants to 'sayang' meimei every time when meimei cries or frets by stroking and singing to meimei. She likes to hug meimei for no reason. Drinking milk together in the night.

Meimei's small hands compared to mine.

Update on Zara When we asked Zara what we should call meimei since we have already shortlisted to 2 names, and we wanted her to choose one, she just said "mei mei's name is mei mei." Zara has also started to ask the Why question. E.g. "Why the korkor (Chinese : big brother) nose like that one" when she saw a picture of a boy with big longish nose. Zara's is getting better in reasoning. Daddy asked her to walk when all she wanted was to be carried when they go for their park trip. She told daddy, "Daddy carry Zara. Daddy need(s) excercise." I told her to stay away from meimei since she is not fully recovered from chicken pox and she told me, "I'm feeling better already. I eat (ate) my chicken pox medicine already." And she started calling Daddy "Dad" and me "Mum". I have no idea where she learn that (TV maybe?).

Updates - Birth, Baby, Zara, CL, Me

Birth Our 2nd daugther was born on 28th Dec evening. I opted for elective induction and admitted in the morning to be induced. Dr inserted a pill into the cervix to start things off and later put me on drips. I only got a little contraction, I could still read, listen to music, talk to Daddy gaily. When the drip dosage was increased to 100%, my cervix was barely 2 cm opened, even though the contraction pain started to become unberable. I wanted to go without pain relief for as long as I can but after 1 1/2hr, I started using the (entonox) gas. Then the midwife suggested that I go with pain killer since I got very tense every time the contraction started which would affect the cervix dilation. After talking to Daddy, I opted for Pethidine, just like I did with Zara's birth. The minute Pethidine was injected, I started relaxing and the cervix started to dilate. We were disturbed by baby's heart beat though. Every time when a contraction started, her heart beat went down, after the contraction, the heart beat recovered. Dr was called and he told us that it may be due to 1) baby was compressed in the birth canal or 2) baby's umblical cord was around her neck. The latter could be life threatening. He told us we could either opt for emergency c-sect for safest bet, but looking from the way things are progressing, he told us to hang a little bit longer. We were worried, but trusted his judgement. Soon after that, I could feel the urge to push (that's why I didn't want to go for epidural since it will numb all such sensation). Midwife checked me and found that baby's head was already crowning. Every thing started to happen, within minutes, Dr was back in the labour room, gave me an episiotomy, and the delivery began. This round, no help needed, baby just got pushed out with one push. The minute I heard her cry, all pain was forgotten, although I still felt a bit high and dizzy from Pethidine, the rush of joy was overwhelming. The little girl was 2.91Kg (Zara was 3.39Kg), and her height was 51.5cm (Zara was 50.5cm).

The room we spent 12hrs in awaiting for the birth of our 2nd daugther

Baby I worried too much. When I was pregnant, I was constantly worried that I will not love baby as much as I do with Zara. I just found new capicity to love her. How can you not love your own flesh and blood? Baby is good, she's more patient than Zara and even when she's hungry, she'll cry a little and wait for me to feed her (Zara used to cry and turn black every time we were a bit too 'slow'). She sleeps a lot still, but when she's awake, she likes to look around, checking us out. She was admitted back to the hospital for jaundice for 2 nights and now she's back home coping well. We still call her baby or mei-mei (Chinese : Small sister) since we haven't decided on the name yet. :( Zara Zara is doing very well as a jie-jie (Chinese: Big sister). We gave her a set of nice markers as a present from baby and also bought her a baloon when she came visiting, telling her she's now jie-jie to baby and mummy's assistant. She's very proud of her new titles. The first few days, she cried when baby cried for milk. She didn't want the Confinement Lady (CL) to handle mei-mei when mei-mei cried but insisted that "Mummy, sayang (Malay : pat) mei-mei. Don't want aunty (CL) sayang." She constantly wants to hug and stroke her mei-mei but unfortunately, she contracted chicken pox (probably from visiting mei-mei in the peadiatric ward) after mei-mei was discharged and we told her not to be too close to mei-mei for the time being.

Confinement Lady What's wrong with these people? They think so highly of themselves that they don't wash dishes, do house work or help out with the older kids even when they are just siting around doing nothing. I'm barely able to stand her, and Daddy is very tempted to get rid of her. She's more like a cook instead of a CL. Since I'm 100% breastfeeding, and I like to be a bit hands on (like cleaning baby's poo or topping and tailing baby) she doesn't have much to do.

Baby sleeps with me in the night, and when I naps. I wake up to feed her while the CL sleeps away. She cooks for me 3 meals a day, washes baby's clothes, bathes baby and that's about all she does. She doesn't help with Zara at all, nor anything else in the house. She sleeps when I sleeps (and sometimes before), and when Zara watches her VCDs/DVDs, she watches with Zara(but not to care for Zara, even small little things like giving Zara snacks or taking a drink for Zara from the fridge, CL will shout for Tuyam to do it). The only good thing that came out of this is she knows what I should and should not eat and make sure whatever I take help with milk production. With Zara (without a CL), my milk came on day 5. With baby, my milk came on day 4 and supply is pretty good. Me I'm doing fine but a bit tired. 2 kids vs 1 is very different.

When baby is feeding and Zara needs attention, I have to be tactful, or still give Zara the attention by talking to her or doing things with her with my free hand. I still try to spend as much time as I can with Zara so that she doesn't feel I'm neglecting her.

When baby is alert, I try to talk to her and carry her around to show her the house or look at new things.

I only get to rest when both of them are sleeping. Luckily, I can breastfeed while lying down, so in the night when baby wakes up for her feed, I just latch her on and continue to sleep while she feeds.

I'm not sure what is wrong with blogger but have been trying to post more photos but not able to after the hospital shot.. *sigh* May not be able to update or read blogs as frequently for now until things are more settled.