kid's talk

1)

Kathleen waving her pencil which has a star on top.  She calls it her 'magic wand'.

K : Look mommy I got a magic wand! I can make magic!
m : oh... can you make mommy taller
K : (immediate reply) Cannot
[conclusion : there are some things that even magic cannot fix]

2)

Kathleen always add 'es' to the end of singular word to indicate plural, despite many attempts on my part to teach her.  Eg, her card will be cardes, etc.  Then one day, in a eureka tone ...

K : mommy mommy I know, one man (men), many MENSES!
m : nonono!

[coincidentally, it was that time of my month...]

3)

On the MRT, Kathleen was digging her nose and trying to dispose of her nuggets onto the seat by rubbing her thumb and index finger together, all the while judging my reaction. 

m : no
K : ok, (bend down) I will just pick it up and put it back into my nose
[and the thing is, she really did it!]

20110806 mommy's thoughts - life without daddy

For the first time since Kathleen was born, daddy was sent overseas for 6+ weeks by his company.

Luckily for him, he is going to Australia, not Africa, so not much hardship on his side.

At home, mommy has to take over the chauffeur job of sending Kathleen to child care in the morning before rushing to work.  Clocked a total of 2800km of driving during those few weeks!  Mommy also cannot go back to office to work during weekends which means tougher time management!

For Kathleen, she has to wake up earlier since mommy work regular working hours.  The poor gal and mommy just catch up on those missing beauty sleep on weekends :P And Kathleen had to follow mommy on all her wild trips all over the island on weekends to visit friends, look for the perfect bicycle, went Sentosa etc all using public transport (cos mommy got so sick of driving, she prefers to take the public transport where she can talk to Kathleen and show her things and play with her).

Mommy also got a children ezlink card for Kathleen.

Kathleen misses daddy and catches up with him by skyping with him during the weekend, when she will show him the new things she get (eg, birthday goodie bags, McDonald's free toys etc).  And Kathleen also entertained herself in the car by recording her voice on mommy's handphone

Good thing she enjoyed is that she gets to share the king size bed at home with mommy (no more squeezing with daddy) but not good is that the lizard gets the upper hand at home! :P  The house is also alot neater without daddy leaving his things around, and the tv only gets turned on twice in those 6 weeks!

Then one Friday night in end July, all this ends as Kathleen and mommy went to Changi Airport (via bus!) to pick up daddy, and now the days of slightly more sleep, squeezing in the bed, playing on samsung galaxy tab, messy house, TV perpetually on all the time, being chauffeured by a more experienced driver are back again.

And the lizard seems to know that it no longer has the upper hand and did not appear again (so far).

Ice cream

With the hot weather, nothing beats ice cream and coke :P

Can't make coke at home, so made ice cream instead, without a ice cream maker.

The adventurous mommy did it one day in May when daddy is not at home.  This is using the long winded recipe which requires using of egg, and also freezing the mixture and then beating them, several times.

I followed a mix of the 2 recipes found here and here.  K wanted to join in, so I let her crack the egg and use her hands (washed thoroughly before that of course) to 'sieve' the egg white and egg yolk, beat the mixture, and even do the final act of breaking up the oreos and dropping them into the mixture.

I unintentionally curdle the mixture, is luckily is able to salvage it by beating it intensively to break up the mixture while adding the whipping cream (a solution found via googling, thank goodness!)

In the end, we manage to make enough for 2 boxes - one with and one without oreo pieces.  Of course throughout the 'making', Kathleen will keep asking me if she can eat it, and asked so many times throughout that weekend when I am in between the process of freezing and beating the mixture.

Kathleen with the 2 final product after freezing overnight

Enjoying the fruits/ice cream of her labour :)

close up - looks good and yummy right? :P

When the final product is ready, everyone eagerly tucked in.  Its yummy! :) Taste richer than supermarket variety.  Even fussy daddy likes it.  And then mommy brought one box to popo's place for all the yee yee to enjoy :)  Best eat fresh, by the way, because after one week, we can start tasting the ice cuticles while crunching the ice cream.

Then in July, mommy to let all the kids try out DIY ice cream using this recipe.  We had tins, ziplog bags for each kid.  Mix the mixture in the inner bag, and then put the ice cubes and salt in the outer bag.  The kids are supposed to shake so that the freezing outer ice mixture will freeze the ice inside, but in the end we gave up and put all the ziplock bags into the freezer at popo's place.  The outcome? Another yummy (but sinful) ice cream with just 4 simple ingredients ! :)

Kathleen with her ziplock of half eaten ice cream

Think this is so fun we will be doing it again soon :)