Wednesday, February 4, 2015

The Big Boy Potty Training Story

Remember this baby? He is now a boy. A rebellious boy. Very much unlike his elder sibling in many ways. He is one strong-willed child who only takes his way or his highway.



Do not be fooled with the adorable and innocent smile.




Potty training is one such example. He has got his ability to hold his bladder for pee and poo until I put a diaper on him. He will wait and wait till I give in.




However, way before he was potty trained, he started wearing undies on the outside, only for the paparazzi!

He was even featured on a diaper review on my for Merries diaper.

And so it stuck. After much efforts, potty training never worked out. I had tried my own method I found when potty training Sanju, but you know as they say, every kid is an individual, every kid is different.

Jeev never likes to see or even sit on the potty. Oh yes, during several occasions I was able to coax him into sitting on the potty with the Ipad on his hand. But it only lasted as long as the Ipad battery. And the potty? Well nothing, no pee no poo.

There was once in the past that I had taken the cold turkey method. Waited for his bladder to be full and  let him pee it out. I waited, and he waited, and we waited more. Finally I gave in after a few hours. Unfortunately, by then he had developed mild UTI, and was crying every time he passed pee. How hard it was, brought him to his paed and took 2 days to recover. After that I was mentally scarred and did no dare to take on any forceful step.

Then fast forward to 6 months and I was slowly taking soft steps to make him follow big brother and release it out. Nothing, never. He always needed diapers to be on to let it go. 

One fine day when I was away at work and my mom was with the kids, she asked him to sit on the bathroom floor to pee. Apparently he was resilient at first (why am I not surprised?). But somehow he did let go. The next day I was home, and my mom tried it again, and this time the kid ran to me for solace. 

My mom went back on New Year's day. By the 2nd January it just strike me to have him sit on the bathroom floor and do it again. To my uttermost surprise, he did! That was the biggest sign that he is indeed ready, like finally!

I knew I had to continue this effort from then on. That night, I managed to convince him to go diaperless. He emptied his bladder before bed, and went to sleep in his jammies with smaller bum (oh how nice it was to feel his real bum). Throughout the night I kept asking if he needed to pee. He must have been so irritated in his sleep thinking 'she is such a nag' but I had to remind him so that he does not go on making the bed wet. It was success at first try! Of course he did have wet spots on his pants on some nights, but that is okay considering he gets up and tells me to change the pants. Small matter!

But the real challenge was yet to come, the big business, no.2, that is the POO. As he was still confused with his control mechanisms, he was having trouble doing his poo. For the first 3 days, he controlled and did not poo at all. We had to insert enema for him to clear it out by the 4th day. It was not easy. We almost gave up and wanted to put on his diapers but I told myself, we cannot turn back! I kept assuring him that it is okay to let go, our body worked that way.

From then onwards, for at least 2 weeks, doing poo was my torture hour. He would tell me he wants to poo, go to the toilet, and cry running back. Repeat this 5x until real poo comes out. Sometimes he would get all moody and scold, cry, even hit me. I told myself to be patient and just endure, for I knew he would realise this is the norm.

It has been 1 month now and I can proudly say that, everything is normal, Jeev has gotten used to his routine. And no diapers ever since! In fact, from the beginning of his training, he said all his diapers has been given to Baby Daksh!


A happy kid is a happy mommy. No more cloth diaper shopping (sniff sniff!) but yeay to no more spending on disposable diapers (those things are expensive!). Happy endings are not just for fairy tales, every potty training has one too!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

On A Baking Roll!

Oh yes, indeed I am. Getting the bread maker is one of the best things I have ever done since I stopped baking! Kneading the dough is a jiffy with the machine, no matter how tricky the dough is. I keep checking and checking but gosh, it is indeed perfect!

Yesterday I made Turkish Minced Meat Pita, and how! I am always into time-efficent meal planning. Apart from my one-pot dishes I have come to discover the 8th wonder of the world, one-tray meal! 

I have got the recipe from one of my favourite baking blogs Table for Two, get the Turkish Minced Meat Pita recipe at the link. It is really simple once you have the machine working the dough for you.

Just look at the dough, despite my shoddy separating job, the dough has good consistency!



Assemble the minced meat with the ingredients. I did not have parsley so I went with fusion version with leeks, cumin & coriander powder, apart from onion & garlic and salt/pepper, of course. Also I did not want to infuse too much liquid into it so I skipped the tomatoes and put in some tomato sauce instead.



And for a balance, for the next pita I used some leftover spinach & panner, and beancurd sambal, mixed with chopped garlic and onion.



And then just shape the pita accordingly, put in your filling, and you are pretty much done. Drop the egg on the minced meat, and some mozzarella cheese on the spinach mix. And let the oven work for you!


And here is our dinner!



Next stop - comfort food -- Aloo Parathas!! Without the kneading mess!

Monday, February 2, 2015

Lost & Found

Last month my phone had temporarily shut down. After a few minutes of resuscitation, it finally turned back on. I was so relieved and eagerly wiped the sweat off my forehead. A few days later I realise that my ringtone had changed. At first I thought it could just be that restarting the phone had reset my ringtone, but later I found out that my SD card is no where to be seen (detected).
I tried and tried. SD card was non existent. I tried on another phone, I got the message that the SD card was corrupted. It took a while to kick in that 'gosh I had so many photos in that!'

After some research I got the glimmer of hope that the SD card can be reformatted and data salvaged. As I Google-ed I found EaseUS Free Data Recovery solution. After doing the scan I could see all the files being detected, got me so excited until I found out that the 'Free' part was only the scanning. To restore or recover, we needed to pay.

Just before I could swear out loud my colleague gave me the crack for the software. So much for swearing, these days almost everything (yes, almost, not all) has a crack that you swear less over the software issues, swear more over customer service woes.

So data was all recovered, SD card reformatted. The rest, I should say, is a happy ending. I would never wish anyone to suffer the same situation as me, but if you do, please find the software, and the crack. But oh, before that, perhaps you may want to consider doing regular backups. And me? Not yet, not really LOL!

While going through the gems I restored from my previously corrupt SD card, I found so many cutesy-shutesy  pictures of my previously toddlers, now pre-schoolers! 

One very very cute & funny is a picture my brother in law took during his Instagram rage days. It was taken when Jeev was barely 2yo and was still very very clingy with  me. A little disappearance of me to grab some food, and his face changes. This is captured with multi burst within milliseconds.


Errr.. my mommy?!



Yea yea my mommy, is moving away!




Come back, turn back mommy!



Someone, get my mommy to turn back! Come back!



Uwahhh!!!! My mommy!!!



When he is not crying, he is adorable like this.




And look... the boys on Diwali eve wearing their matching jammies @ 1.5 years old and almost 3 years old!





Pre-schoolers simply have different charm!

They are stylish, so what if it's just bedtime?



And very filmi, die-hard PK fans!



Midnight Baking: Stuffed Focaccia Recipe

Oh how I missed baking! Thanks to the new bread maker I just got I can finally rekindle with my love of baking. I had been thinking over so much on getting a bread maker, but due to the nature of being such a busy-body, I knew I would not have the time to give justice to it. After much thought and consideration, I finally decided to cash in my birthday present. 

Life is so stressful and busy that it is even impossible to have a hobby to de-stress. Yeah yeah you might shout 'excuses' but get this, my bread maker arrived on last Wednesday, but only tonight I got to finally test the machine out. To achieve that I have stayed up past midnight to make stuffed focaccia. (Reminds me of the days I used to stay up will wee hours of the morning to do revision) As soon as the aroma filled the house, I suddenly got pulled back to the heaven of baking, oh, how I missed it!


As I got the time to research on bread maker recipes, I researched around for the perfect recipe to inaugurate my little machine. However I did not want to do the plain loaf of bread. Personally I feel we have pretty good selection in the market as far as plain breads are concerned. 

For me, if I were to bake, I would want to make some bread/bun that is good enough to eat it on its own for breakfast or tea time. Something with nice aroma. Something with filling. With some meat. And some cheese, and oh, herbs and spices!


I have made these focaccia stuffed with bacon before, but this is a different recipe I stumbled across Youtube while watching videos on bread maker recipes. Unlike the previous recipe, this one uses all purpose flour, and yields softer texture.

You Need
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3.5 tbsp sugar
1.5 tsp instant or fast acting dried yeast
3 tbsp butter1 cup warm water
2 tbsp powdered milk  
for topping:
1 tsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 tsp of dried rosemary
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
5 strips of bacon, cut small, lightly fried
paprika
some mozarella cheese
salt &pepper

Method 

1) Add the ingredients into the bread maker as per order as specified by your bread maker. Let it knead at dough settings.
2) Once done, let it rise for 30 minutes.
3) Take the dough out and divide into 2 portions.
4) Take the first portion and spread it evenly on a tray greased with olive oil.
5) Sprinkle/spread the dried herbs, onion, garlic, bacon, paprika, cheese &; salt/pepper.

6) Take the second dough (in greased hands) and pull/spread it over the first layer. Pinch the sides to look the filling in. Brush a little more olive oil over the dough.

7) Let it rise for 30 minutes before baking at 200C for 15 minutes.
 



The additional steps, if I may add, is take the focaccia out, let it cool (but not too much) and cut them into squares and start savouring them as long as they are warm. Pure bliss! What is about bread with olive oil that just lifts up the mood? Or is it the intoxication of the bubbling yeast that I brewed earlier? Or maybe just the aroma of the bacon?

We will perhaps never find the answer, but one thing stands true, nothing, ever, beats the uplifting of freshly baked bread. And thanks to my bread maker, I sure expect to see more of it coming. Till then, happy baking, and please, jemput makan!


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