Tag Archives: 14mo

language explosion

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hoola!

hoola!

“ba-ba! door, go.”

that is the most complete sentence Ollie has said to me in the past few days. Oh, and he sings too. Woe is the mother who has to listen to “Elmo’s Song” umpteen times a day and can’t get it out of her head when she goes to sleep at night.

I can sorta see that Ollie is trying to talk. His jibberish has changed a little, there are newer sounds, and he can sometimes repeat a word that I say. I have heard him say “nana” when I pointed out and said to him “banana”. He has also said “open” and “apple”. His recent new words are “there” and “go”.

“No” still seems to be his favourite word. *roll eyes* What’s new right?

flavour explosion

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strawbies monster

strawbies monster

Ollie seems to be getting a little more adventurous with the kinds of food that he is eating. But he has got some damn atas taste-buds if I might say so. bah. (has to be big sweet strawberries , $3 peaches)

Recently, Donald and I decided to do a 360° change to our diets. Actually, to Donald’s diet cos he has a goal to lose weight. And me, being the very nice wife, agreed to support him in his journey. This basically meant we cut down on the food that we eat at night, switching it to a salad dinner. *sobs* I was a little apprehensive. The last time I decided that salads were the way to go was 4 years back. It lasted for 3 days and then I went for the nearest Hungry Jack’s and ordered a Whopper burger. Hah.

So off to the market I went, and loaded up on salad ingredients. Cucumber, pumpkin, cherry tomatoes, pea shoots, broccoli, carrots, capsicum..etc. Did some roasted veggies and chucked them all in the fridge. Loaded up with more fruits, chopped them up for the week, and chucked them all in the fridge.

I guess, the good thing about it was that I was also able to offer Ollie more fruits as snacks rather than his crackers. Toddler crackers/snacks are ridiculously expensive in Singapore. $6.20 for a pack of 6 wheat bars?? And it doesn’t last long too! Ollie inhales his snacks I swear. The other day, I gave Ollie a bar, turned around to scoop some rice and when I turned back, it was gone. WTH. I thought maybe he dropped it on the floor. Hah. Nope, it was alllll in his mouth. This monster is gonna eat us poor. Haha.

But yeah, it was nice to see Ollie enjoy his fruits. I used the opportunity for him to learn how to feed himself with a fork too. Day 2 and he is using it like a pro. The picking up of food with the fork is still a little tricky for him, but he has better aim now. I reckon starting with the fork was a better idea cos at least the food item stays on the fork whereas his oatmeal kinda slides off the spoon. Some fruits, like the bigger strawberries, he is happy to hold it in his hands and eat it. Gotta say I really love watching him eat on his own.

And us eating veggie for dinner meant that Ollie would snack on some of our veggies. I was surprised that he enjoyed raw capsicum. Donald had to nibble the skin off before giving it to Ollie. I guess he enjoyed the crunch and the sweetness. Hmm..so maybe all these healthy eating is going somewhere.

So lately, it has been yoghurt, more fruits, more veggies, some soup ingredients like lotus root, introduction to more cut up veggies rather than puree. Maybe we wouldn’t need to bring the slow cooker to Houston after all. Haha.

Category: Daily | Tags: , , ,

Ollie’s first trip: Houston, TX

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Yay for our first family long haul overseas trip! Butterflies in my tummy now, just planning and thinking about it. =P

actually good and bad butterflies.

good being I get to shop at the outlet stores in Houston & the hubby has promised two full days of shopping *beams*.

bad being…I have no idea what it will be like travelling with a 14 month old on a 23-hour flight to Houston. Obviously we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into, right? Ai. We have been doing some reading about travelling with a child. It helps that the flight out to Houston is a red-eye flight so Ollie should be sleeping most of the time and waking up about 4 hours before we hit our stopover in Moscow, and then falling back asleep again before we hit Houston.

We have a couple of back up plans to entertain him on the flight, namely videos, books, snacks and some toys. I think our carry-on luggage is going to be full of Ollie’s stuff. Well, ideally it should be. Honestly, I do not like the idea of having Ollie glued to the tv/tablet screen for most of the flight. I know it is somewhat okay for adults, but the screen is tiny, the background light is bad and Ollie may not like using the headphones haha. So it should be fun trying to figure that one out.

Thankfully, D has just returned from her trip to the USA and is giving me heaps of tips & advices on travelling. Of course different toddlers work differently, but tips are better than no tips!

Then came the issue of Ollie’s meals. So far, Ollie has been eating rice porridge for lunch & dinner. On a few occasions, Ollie has had what we have for dinner, either rice with some dishes, or noodles. It has worked fine for us, seeing how he has his staples. We haven’t tried Western food for Ollie yet. He has had some pasta & roasted veggies, which is pretty much it. And he doesn’t really think much of pasta. The Asian parent in me emerges and finds it hard to let Ollie have sandwiches, pizza, burgers, fries..etc for meals. That and I do not know how much he will be eating in terms of “rice porridge” and how that will affect him. Previously, it would have been easy cos he could just nurse if he was hungry. We are playing with the idea of bring a small slow cooker & some rice along to cook rice porridge for him just in case.

Dramatic much? Yes, much so. But we are happy to give it a shot, with the rice being a backup, even if it means losing 5kg of baggage allowance. *grumbles* I am sure there is plenty of variety of food for Ollie, and I will end up being the paranoid mother. Maybe I might end up coming up with a list of places to eat at whilst there. Haha.

Less than 3 weeks to go! Yikes!

Category: Travel | Tags: , , , ,