How we survive without a car

Today's Straits Times had an article about how some families make do without a car. Some of these families have 2 young children and yet, are able to do without a car even if they can afford one.

We do not have a car too, although Hub used to drive his family car before he went to London for his studies; and I used to drive my mom's car when I first started working. Yes, many many many years ago.

And both of us decided that owning a car in Singapore simply does not make sense. Especially if our offices are in the CBD area where the monthly ERP and season parking charges can pay for a short getaway for 2 adults every month.

Now that we have Beanie, we still do not own a car and do not foresee a need to get one. At least not for the near future.

So, I'm here to share some tips on how we survive without a car.

Tip 1: Join a Car-share program. There are quite a few of them in the market and most them charge reasonable prices on an hourly basis. We use Car Club and as long as we plan our weekends in advance, we can just book the car for a day and whizz around. The advantages of car-shares: petrol is included in the hourly charges (ie: topping up of petrol is "free"), no maintenance, no road tax, no car insurance. Heck... you do not even need to wash or clean the car!

Tip 2:  Book a cab via the App or SMS. You can  easily book a cab via an App or SMS. No more being put on hold while calling for a cab. In fact, you can even track the location of your booked taxi via the App.
Some people reckon that during peak hours, there will be difficulty in getting a taxi. Yes, that's true and that's part and parcel of life. So, do a little planning to avoid peak hours.

Tip 3: Stay close to your parents, parents-in-law. When we were looking for an apartment, we ensured that the intended apartment, be it HDB or condo had to be near-by to our parents. We foresee that we would need a lot of family support when our kids come along. So although as a young couple, we dreamed about staying at Robertson Quay, Tiong Bahru or Tanjong Rhu, we eventually decided to be practical and chose a multi-generation HDB flat in Bishan instead. So now, my parents-in-law are just walking distance away and it is very convenient for them to come over to take care of Beanie when I need to be away.

Tip 4: MRT and public buses aren't so bad during off-peak hours. Ok, I work flexi-hours, so I can schedule to bring Beanie out during non-peak hours. And Beanie loves taking the MRT and buses, in fact, she is so much more cooperative and well-behaved whenever she takes public transport. She will usually make faces at fellow commuters (at times, they are the ones making faces at her!)and there are just so much for her to see and observe!

In all honesty, I think being a semi-work-from-home-mom gives us some leeway for not owning a car. But the main motivation is the amount of money that we can save. Especially now that we are on a single income.

So, it is possible to survive without a car, even with young children in tow. ;)

Jewel Cafe at 129 Rangoon Road

Beanie and I checked out Jewel Cafe at 129 Rangoon Road yesterday. There are so many of these artisan cafes nowadays that they are bringing such a vibrant cafe buzz to Singapore. I love it!

In fact, for the past few weeks, we have been to a few establishments, e.g.: The Coastal Settlements at Changi Village, Piccotin at Turf City, The Orange Thimble and Tiong Bahru Bakery at Tiong Bahru, Omakase Burger at Turf City, Da Paolo at Rochester ... etc.

And so far, my favorite: Jewel Cafe at Rangoon Road.

This cafe serves really GOOD coffee. I must say that I have not had such a good cup of cappuccino for a very long time. Food was very decent for a cafe too, and not too pricey.

So for good, solid coffee, Jewel Cafe will definitely satisfy the inner coffee connoisseur in you.

As for Beanie, she was busy acting cute in front of the camera. My friend, M was totally smitten by Beanie that she was kind enough to babysit Beanie while I was sipping my coffee. Ahhh... bliss for 5 mins.

Beanie is at a very "enjoyable" age now, I can usually just let her loose in a cafe and she will then go around socialize with fellow patrons and leave me alone to drink my coffee or eat my breakfast. However, not everyone is into kids, so if i detect a frown somewhere or at times, Beanie can simply be overbearing, then I will cull Beanie over and strap her to a baby chair.

Thankfully, most of the times, Beanie can get away by acting cute and I can get away by pretending that Beanie is not my child and I'll go hide in one corner to drink my coffee in peace. ;)

A piece of sad news

Just gotta know about a piece of sad news. Someone I know, had passed away.

He committed suicide, leaving his beautiful wife and 3 young children.

Not that we are close friends, in fact, we had only met once when I went to France about 3 years ago. He and his pretty wife hosted us, we hanged out, we visited vineyards; we had dinners and lunches. They were great hosts and I had loads of fun.

The lovely couple brought their eldest son along on one of the outings, I remembered he was about 7 years old. Very cute and because the couple was half french and half Japanese, the little boy was so handsome!

Why would a man choose to end his life? Was he depressed? Was there absolutely no hope for him to hang on to? Was there no love or support from his family?

What could have happen within 3 years to drive a man to take his own life? He was at the prime of his life, only in his 30s. He was good-looking, he had a pretty wife, 3 beautiful kids, a thriving business. What had gone wrong?

Sigh.

This piece of news left me in a pensive mood for the whole day.

Death on its own, is not scary. It is the void and emptiness that the living has to endure, is scary.

I pray for peace and closure for his family. I sincerely hope for the best for the little ones.

A day at East Coast Park

And we brought Beanie to East Coast park for a short bicycle ride and some sand play on last Sunday. She actually cried for a full 5 minutes when I forced her to sit on the bicycle. She was pulling my shirt and screaming her head off when I placed her in the child back-seat of the bike.

It was as if I was bringing her to the slaughter house.

Anyway, I simply ignored her and started paddling and soon enough, she settled down and eventually enjoyed the joy ride. We paddled for about an hour and Beanie did enjoy herself as a back-seat passenger despite of her teary protests earlier on.

After that, we had some sand play with her playmate, Kylie. Both Beanie and Kylie are born on the very same day and on the very same year. Yeah... what are the chances right?

At Beanie's age, she still doesn't know how to interact-play with Kylie. So both of them just spent time digging furiously at the sand side-by-side and occasionally, snatched toys and shovels. That was their idea of "interactive play" --> by snatching each other's toys.

After that, we went to this really children-friendly restaurant, Brussels Sprouts at Playground@Big Splash. The restuarant has cute little outdoor slides and rocking horses for the children to play. It even invited a Balloon Sculptor to craft balloons for the little ones for free!

I was so impressed! And as you can see from the picture above, Beanie was totally smitten by the Balloon Sculptor too!

All in all, it was a really enjoyable family outing. ;)

And now, I have to think about what to do and where to go tomorrow, on Easter holiday!

Beanie meets Singa

Remember Singa? The Courtesy Lion? He was such an icon during my era. He was EVERYWHERE when I was a kid in primary school. I remembered that there was a little song about Singa, the lion where the lyrics went something like "it is so nicccccce to be courteous... .... lah lah lah" In fact, it was deem as "cool" to be nice and courteous so that we could all be like Singa!

And then for some reason, Singa disappeared.

Where did Singa go?

Apparently he has been residing at the building of Ministry of Communications and Information (you know, the one with many colorful windows opposite clarke quay.) In fact, Singa has been very busy because Beanie and I found out that Singa is now a proud father of 5 little singas! Very productive, if only every Singaporean follows Singa's footsteps and we will not have a problem with our ever-declining TFR and the hotly debated 6.9 million figure in our recent white paper.

I don't know about you, but I think it's time that Singa steps out of his super-early retirement and gets back to work. Singaporeans have been rather angsty lately due to the over-crowding in our MRTs and buses, that's assuming that the MRTs and buses are running punctually and without any glitches. All these jostling and pushing are not helping anyone. We can really do with some courtesy and niceness...

WE NEED YOU, SINGA! *wail*

Ok, enough of the drama.

Back to our little excursion with Beanie and the little Singas. So, we chanced upon Singa and his brood and as you can see, Beanie was really excited. She checked out all the little Singas and made friends with them. The little Singas seemed excited too because we were the ONLY people in "Singa, the Courtesy Lion" exhibit.

I was very excited too. It was like I bumped into a childhood friend and had so much to catch up! You know, chatting about our kids and how Singapore was like in the 1980s (so different from today!) and why is Singa a stay-at-home-dad now? Why isn't Singa making his rounds in primary schools like he used to?

Singa lamented that courtesy is not in vogue anymore. Schools are too concerned with PSLE and rankings to bother about courtesy and niceness. But I told him a piece of good news that primary schools are re-introducing "Good Citizens", so there is a fighting chance that Singa will have his job back!

Haha... it was really nice to catch up with Singa. I really do hope more people will check out his exhibit!

A picnic at Botanical Gardens

This post is a bit dated since we actually had the picnic before the Chinese New Year but I only have the time to blog about it now.

Before I have Beanie, I had fantasized about having a picnic at the Botanical Gardens where my beautiful kid(s) will run around freely and I would chill and relax with a glass of champagne while enjoying the live music from the performing orchestra.

Ahhhh... what bliss.

Well, my fantasy did come true! Hrm... minus the champagne part though.

Beanie, being the active little girl, was RUNNING ALL OVER THE FIELD. Although by nature, I am a really chill mom and I don't mind my kid running around freely, but Beanie was trampling other people's picnic mats and raiding other people's picnic baskets!

When Beanie was let loose for 15 minutes, she brought back 2 bananas, packets of biscuits, 1 ball and almost a dog! Luckily the leash of the dog wasn't long enough. So I had to follow Beanie around to ensure that she wasn't grabbing another kid's toy, snatching food or stealing someone's pet dog.

And little Beanie was rather fearless, she did not care whether I was following her or not; she simply ran after whatever item that caught her eye. Be it a dog, leaves, other kids or bubbles. After a while, I gave up and let her be. Every 5 minutes or so, I would just look around to ensure that the little bit of pink with white pokka dots was within my sight radar.

It was a beautiful day for a picnic. The weather was sunny yet breezy and the performance was fantastic. Can't wait for another picnic again!

Beanie, our little Helper

Beanie is now my little Helper... well, most of the time.

When she accidentally spills any water or milk, she will demand for a cleaning cloth and will clean up the mess. And most of the time, she actually does quite a good job in cleaning up.

She also enjoys dry-mopping the floor and she is rather meticulous, I must say. She also rearranges our shoes in the morning to ensure that our shoes are neatly arranged along the corridor.

At 18 months, I must say she is currently at HER CUTEST! Arggh, it is soooo cute to see her mopping around the house!

Beanie's 2nd Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year ! 

Beanie at 5 months old in the last CNY

When I looked at Beanie's photos taken during the last Chinese New Year, I got a shock. I couldn't believe that she was so small and tiny then!

Thankfully Beanie has more hair now. But her eyes seem to have shrunk. Not as big as when she was a baby.

Beanie has had lots of fun this CNY, she is so much more interactive now, able to run around and play with other children. Her favourite CNY snack is Mini Papadam. Every morning, she will point to the Snack Corner and shout "more! more! more!" That is her indication of wanting to eat the mini papadam.

I will usually humor her by giving her 2 pieces and as usual, she will shout "more! more! more!" and I will have to say "No more biscuits" and hide the container.

Then she will then usually proceed to throw a tantrum and have a melt down, which by now, I am totally immune and will just ignore her.

This little skit happens EVERY MORNING.

Im deciding how to end this vicious cycle by:

1. Finish the papadam with Beanie once and for all. We will stuff our faces silly with mini papadam and share a special mother-&-daughter bonding session. I will worry about the sore throats later.

2. Finish the papadam myself since it is MY favorite snack too! And pray that Beanie will soon forget about the papadam.

3. Eat as much of the papadam myself and leave a few pieces for Beanie. Let Beanie have the illusion that she has finished the papadam.

The rational mother in me indicates that Option 3 is the best but I am so keen to do Option 1 instead!

Potty Training Part 1

So I have officially started potty training on Beanie about 2 weeks ago, when she was about 17 months. Actually I have tried to start potty training even earlier, at about 1 year old. I wanted her to sit on the potty, just so that she would be comfortable with the idea of sitting on a potty.

At 1 year old, I thought she she was too young to understand the concept of pooping and peeing into a potty, so my training was ad-hoc and haphazard. I wasn't consistent and after while, for some reason, Beanie started to resist the potty. She refused to sit on the potty and would scream bloody murder whenever I took out the potty.

Ok, fine. Since I thought she was too young to understand, I let her be and we took a break from potty training.

Then I read a few parenting books and most (if not all, except for the book featured in the picture above) indicated that toddlers "have to be ready mentally and biologically" before they can start potty training. The books advise that toddlers at age 18-24 months will be mentally and biologically developed enough to grasp the concept of potty training and if you were to start younger, you are only wasting your time and causing undue stress to the babies or toddlers.

I totally DISAGREE with that.

I noticed that Beanie has understood the concept of peeing and pooping into the potty when she was at about 12-14 months, but because she is so used to pooping in her diapers while in a standing position, she rejects the potty by choice.

So, if a baby has started potty training early and has gotten used to the idea of peeing and pooping into the potty from a really young age, the baby should be diaper-free (during the day time) by 20 months or so.

Instead, now I have to break Beanie's habit of pooping in her diaper although she is clearly aware of the existence of the potty but chooses NOT to use it.

I personally find the book: Diaper-Free Before 3 by Dr Jill M.Lekovic to be very useful and I'm using her tips to potty train Beanie now.

As of now, Beanie is willing to sit in her potty willingly although I do need to use my Iphone to entice her. It is the only time where she gets to play with my phone, so she associates sitting on a potty to "happy time with the iPhone". She has also peed in the potty a few times but still refusing to poop in the potty.

Meanwhile, Beanie is also back to wearing cloth diapers and training pants at home, so that she gets to feel the wetness of her pants whenever she wets herself and hopefully, that will prompt her to signal her desire to pee before she actually wets herself.

And to my visitors for the coming Chinese New Year, I will strongly advise you NOT to sit on my carpet since Beanie has peed there a few times already! ;)

A stay-at-home-yet-still-self-employed-mom

Little Beanie was running all over the cafe. Thankfully the cafe was empty and she wasn't a nuisance to anyone.

I met up with some of of blog friends for tea recently at this really nice cafe, which was in this really swanky hotel.

"Wahhhhhh... so tai-tai!" Some of my friends claimed. They are envious that I can "play with my daughter the whole day", "drink tea at 3 pm in the afternoon with fellow Tai-Tai friends", and for those without children, they think that I am chilling at home with a glass of Lychee Martini while surfing the net all day.

Among all my friends, I am the only one who quit a full-time job to be a stay-at-home-yet-still-self-employed-Mom.

To my friends who are full-time working moms, they think that I am lucky because I get to spend quality time with my daughter and now that I have a helper, I do not have to do housework anymore, and thus I am now a "tai-tai".

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tai-Tai... I am certainty NOT!

First and foremost, I am self-employed. Yes, I work from home most of the time but I do work. I do go for trainings, meet up with clients, clear admin work, think of ways to get more clients and prospects and I work when Beanie is asleep.

I face with the pressure of not meeting my sales target, not bringing a meaningful second income to my household, not contributing to my CPF and according to my mother, I am wasting my degree and CFA away by being a stay-at-home-yet-still-self-employed-mom.

And because I am half a stay-at-home-mom, I also face the guilt of not doing enough of home-schooling for Beanie. I try to read to her as much as I can, I try to do art-and-craft work when I have the time, I take out my violin and play some simple songs to create my own "music lessons", I bring her out for a swim or a little romp at the playground whenever the weather permits.

But all these are ad-hoc and too free-style. Compared to some of the moms who blog about their organized learning activities with the flash cards and sensory toys, I seem to be doing Beanie a huge injustice.

And then there will be days when I would worry about the family's finances. What if my husband loses his job? How can we start to plan for our retirement with only 1 income? Can I afford to send Beanie to a good pre-school? (the answer is "no")

Sigh! The perils of being a stay-at-home-yet-still-self-employed-mom!

And I cried buckets at Les Miserables

Can any girl watch Les Miserables without shedding a tear?

She must be one very tough lady.

When I watched Les Mis recently at the movies, I was pretty sure that all females left the theatre with wet tissues in their hands. As for me, I was a total disgrace, I basically started bawling my eyes out at the moment Fantine sang I Dreamed A Dream until to the end of the movie.

And the movie was my third time watching Les Mis.

Les Miserables was my very first musical in my life. I remembered I was in secondary 3 when I watched the Australian cast at Kallang Theater. It was a school trip and I caught it with my classmates on a matinee. All of us were so excited and even though our seats were so very far away from the stage, we were totally spellbound by the moving storyline, the wonderful score and the fantastic stage setup . Les Mis had set the bar high. To date, it has remained to be my all time favorite musical at all time.

I remembered that I did not fully understand the storyline and at times, I was confused with the various characters. Well... some of them did look the same when I was like 5 km away from the stage. And it didn't help that there wasn't any subtitles, so half the time, I didn't understand what the performers were singing about.

Nonetheless, I still cried buckets when everyone died in the end. Well... almost everyone except for lucky Corsette and Marius.

At 15 years old, I told myself that I MUST watch Les Miserables again and I would pay for the best seats that I could afford.

And I did.

I watched Les Mis again in 2001 when I visited Hub in London. And this time round, I paid a grand total of 50 pounds (which was a lot of money as I was still a poor student and the exchange rate was S$3 to a Pound) for a matinee show. But I had a really good seat, I was seated on the 5th row from the stage and I could see the expressions of the actors/actresses, I could feel the live music in my ears and felt as if I was acting in the musical!

And for the second time, I cried buckets while watching the show. The funniest thing was that I watched the musical alone and there was this another young lady (most likely a tourist) who also came alone. So the both of us were sharing tissues, snorting loudly and basically bawling our eyes out. It was as if we knew Fantine or Eponie personally or something. When the curtain finally closed and after all the encores, my "crying partner" turned to me and gave me a little hug. "What a musical!" she said. And all I could do was to nod my head.

And so, at the recent movie, my third time watching Les Mis, I was still very moved by the sad story and songs. The singings could be better but most of the casts were Hollywood actors and actresses, and for that, it was very good effort already.

Ahh... if I had the chance, I would definitely catch Les Miserables Live once again!

Wedding in the family

One of my younger brothers, KB got married recently. Geez... it sure felt weird to see my little brother getting married.

I could still remember how we used to fight over EVERYTHING. And I was the mean older sister who always bullied my 2 younger brothers then. KB is the second kid, and before my youngest brother came along, KB and I were the best of playmates. Despite the fact that I bullied him all the time, he would still tug along his smelly bolster and followed me wherever I went.

I went to the playground, he followed. I went to the coffee shop to buy breakfast, he followed. I went to the neighbour's house to play, he followed. He was the pesty little brother whom I couldn't get rid of!

He even wanted to follow me to kindergarten. I remembered how he would cry whenever I got on the school bus and he was too young to follow me to school.

And now, my little annoying brother will be entering a new chapter in his life. *cue: a little boy carrying his smelly bolster flashed before me*

Nonetheless, I sincerely wish for eternal bliss and happiness to the newly wedded couple and hopefully they will provide a playmate for Beanie soon. ;)

Beanie, being the only niece was supposed to serve tea to the new couple. But she was too young to hold the fragile teacup, so a packet of Peach Tea was served instead. Haha...

Congratulations to KB and PS once again!

What a X'mas dinner!



Little Beanie also joined us in the X'mas feasting!



Home-cured salmon with poached quail eggs and caviar 



Choco lava cake, absolutely YUMMZ!



Cheers to Chef Han for the very delicious X'mas dinner!



Wines for the night. These people sure can drink!

 For the past few years, Hub and I have been organizing charity Christmas dinners where we would provide the food and wine, and the guests would donate accordingly. We would then choose a charity organization to donate the pooled money that we had raised during the charity dinner.

This year, we will be donating to Lions Home for the Elders.

And I must say that this year, we had the best X'mas dinner ever!

First, we had the best fortune to have Chef Han, a promising up and coming chef, who is looking to open a restaurant next year, to prepare and cook for us. For the very first time, I wasn't slaving away in the kitchen and could actually sit down and enjoy the food and wine. ;)

Secondly, the food prepared by Chef Han was like a hundred times better than mine. It was RESTAURANT standard with restaurant presentation. We had 5 courses and everything was exquisite yet home-made by Chef Han. Even the cured salmon! It was the best "private kitchen" dinning experience ever.

Beanie had a lot of fun too, mingling with everyone and raising her water bottle to "cheers" with the guests. Very very cute!

All in all, it was a wonderful X'mas dinner. We can't wait to throw another one next year. However, by then Chef Han will most probably have opened his own restaurant, so I doubt he can be our guest chef anymore...

Nonetheless, it was a wonderful evening to have my hubba, Beanie and good friends with me on Christmas's eve. What a X'mas dinner, a perfect close to 2012!

"Peek-a-boo, mama!"

A cheeky photo of Beanie, just wana share with all of you. ;)

Merry X'mas and a Happy Happy New Year ahead!

Beanie's update

A little update on Beanie:

She is hitting 16 months soon, Geez! My baby is officially a toddler at 1 year 4 months. She has started to exert her independence and at times, insisted of doing things her way.

Example:
We were supposed to head out for an outing, and so I got her to wear a pretty little dress. Beanie got very upset that she had to wear a dress and started a melt down. She pulled and tugged at her dress while screaming her head off. End of the day, I had to change out the dress and she wore a pair of tights and a T-shirt instead. Ok... Beanie is NOT into dresses.

Beanie has also started to say a few words. Below is her list of words:
1) MaMa
2) PaPa
3) Car (she will say "CAR...." whenever she sees a car. She will climb on the sofa everyday to look out of the window to spot for cars)
4) Bus (Same action as above, just that instead of "car....", she will say "Bahhhhh")
5) Turtle (We have a puzzle where she has to match various sea creatures to their respective cut-out shapes and somehow, she has taken a fancy to Turtle)
6) Bear (All animals are "bear" to her. When she sees a dog, she will go "BEAR!!!". When she sees a cat, she will go "BEAR" too)
7) Milk (sounds more like "ilk" actually)
8) Bird (She will point out pigeons and go "Bird....")
9)马 (the only chinese word so far, thanks to a picture book)

Beanie has also began to connect pictures with actual items. Just earlier this evening, she was trying to tell me that she wanted to eat grapes. She kept pointing towards the fridge but both my maid and myself had no idea what Beanie was trying to say. Exasperated, she fetched one of her picture books, flipped to a page and pointed to a bunch of grapes.

"Ohhh, so you want to eat grapes?"

Beanie nodded and ran to the fridge. And so I gave her a little bunch of grapes to munch. She took the bowl of grapes to her picture book, pointed at the picture of grapes again and begun to eat her grapes quietly.

All these while, I was very amused by her. My little Beanie is growing up so fast!

Missing Cookie... ...

Cookie has been missing for the past 4 weeks. I've looked around the whole block for her, asked a few neighbors whether they have seen Cookie, but nope. No signs of her and none of the neighbors knew her whereabouts either.

Sigh. I really hope that she is well and alive.

The day when we adopted Cookie as our cat, I kind of knew that this day would happen. Although we took her in "officially", she was still free to roam out of our apartment whenever she felt like it. Many a times, she would spend her afternoons chasing after birds at the void deck or I would catch her eating grass at one of the grass patches at our car park.

As much as I always call her "Cookie, the Stupid Cat". I really miss her a lot and wish that she will somehow find her way home.

A short getaway to Phuket

A little garland to welcome Beanie to the resort

Family Photo!

Mommy, can I order this?

So after various rounds of debates with the Hub, both of us finally decided to lug Beanie along to our short getaway to Phuket. Luckily for us, our neighbors came along with us and the extra 2 pairs of hands came in very handy to carry Beanie around.

We stayed at JW Marriott Home Vacation Club 4-days-3-nights FOR FREE?! But there was a catch, we had to sit through a 90 mins sales pitch for the hotel's "vacation club points purchase scheme". For Hub and I, both of us went for this free stay with our eyes open but ears closed. So, after 2 hours, we still walked out of the presentation without buying or signing anything.

Yay! *do a victory dance*

But seriously, for a free stay. It was totally worth it. The hotel room was more like a service apartment with a fully a equipped kitchen, 2 bedrooms and decent size dinning & living area. Hotel service was prompt and every staff was polite and helpful.

All in all, this short getaway was very enjoyable. So much so that, we are planning for another short trip to Penang at the end of December!

Haha! And yes, Beanie will go with us too!

Beanie, the little coffee connoisseur

"Mmmmm... the coffee tastes good!"

"Wah! The Pecan Lime Tart looks yummy too!"

Chye Seng Huat Hardware: A very cool and chill-out place.

Check out the retro laps and window grills!

Beanie is acting cute in front of the camera again

We checked out 2 very cool coffee joints recently: Chye Seng Huat Hardware (a review by chubby hubby) and Loysel's Toy Cafe (review by Lady Iron Chef). Both blogs wrote excellent reviews on the cafes, thus I will not repeat.

What I will add is that both cafes are opened by the same guys who are behind Papa Palheta, so the coffee is good. Both cafes are situated at really "ulu" places but they are always packed??!! Both cafes have really cool vibes and are surprisingly very baby-friendly.

And yup, we did bring Beanie along to conduct our baby-friendy-or-not tests and both cafes passed with flying colors! Both cafes have open spaces for little tykes to run around, so parents can actually sit back, relax and smell a decent cup of coffee.

Ahh..... .... bliss.

So if you are looking for a chill-out place for a lazy sunday brunch or a catch-up with friends, both cafes are recommended if you are adventurous enough for something off the beaten track. 

Breast Feeding at 15 months

Yup, Beanie is still on breast milk at 15 months. Although my milk supply is really low these days, Beanie will still scream "Nei Nei!!! Nei Nei!!! Nei Nei!!!" in the mornings and nights, demanding to be  latched. 

If I were to ignore her, she would get really upset and cry really pitifully. So, I would usually cave in and latch her anyway. 

I've tried to wean her by introducing fresh milk and she has also started drinking fresh milk, but she prefers to drink milk from a cup and not from a bottle. Therefore, she does not see fresh milk as a replacement to breast milk.

I am prepared to breastfeed her till about 18 months to 2 years old but hopefully not any older! Meanwhile, I better start the routine of getting Beanie to drink milk from a cup in the mornings and nights to kick start the weaning process.

When the demand stops, the supply will stop too. And I can finally have my boobs to myself again.

Missing in action for the wrong reasons

I've not been updating my blog recently and the reason is really dumb: I got sucked into watching dramas online.

I know... very "auntie" right? I am rather ashamed about my behavior as well.

About 2 weeks ago, I was chasing after a korean drama: "Queen In Hyun's Man", which is also currently showing on Channel U on Sundays 10 - 11.30 pm. This drama only consisted of 16 episodes, so I managed to finish it in about 3 days. Easy Peasy...

Then I told myself that I could not watch another drama and should focus my time on value-adding activities instead, be it work, exercise or play with Beanie.

Unfortunately, I got to know of another Chinese drama, which was supposedly really popular in China. The drama: "Legend of Zhen Huan", a grand total of 76 episodes?!??!!!

Geez. Drama addiction is the WORST.

I became this crazy woman who simply had to watch the drama.

I stopped playing with Beanie, I only worked when I absolutely had to, I slept at 3 am, my husband stopped talking to me because I became this drama-addict who had dark rings under my eyes, messy hair and zombie-like appearance.

All in all, it was the worst addiction ever.

Thankfully it was 76 episodes and not 276 episodes. Or else, my husband would have probably divorced me by the end of the 276th episodes.

No. More. Dramas. For. Me. Ever.