Today's porridge is fish porridge! Other than its nutritional value, I can find no other reason to cook fish porridge because the smell is really strong! I didn't know that there's no more ginger at home, so couldn't put in any to mask the smell. Thank God Joey wasn't turned off by the smell, and actually finished one whole bowl of it! *phew* Daddy Isaiah wasn't half as enthusiastic of course, since he hates fish, and complains the entire house including Joey's hands smell of fish. *sigh*

Please let me indulge in myself for a while. I am so proud of these photos because they look like they came right out of a cookbook! wahaha!

Ingredients
Half a cup of rice 1 piece of fish
Small portion of silk toufu
Carrots finely chopped

Cooking instructions
1. Boil the rice in warm water
2. Put in fish when water boils
3. Put in carrots after 15 minutes
4. Add in toufu towards the end
5. Boil on low fire

Verdict: Joey obviously enjoyed the porridge because this is the largest portion she had eaten even since we started her on semi solids. And finally she had her first taste of meat. Previously when I cooked chicken, I dare not let her eat the chicken even though they were very very soft. Fish is still alright, I guess. =)

Joey is learning to sit. I try to let her practise by letting her sit on the floor, but always getting ready to hold her should she fall sideways. Her spine is not fully developed yet, so can't really strain it too much, otherwise it might grow to be slanted or loopsided. The way she sits now is she would lean slightly forward & support herself using her hands.

I always thought that babies would learn to sit first, then start to crawl. But i just heard from another mother the other day that they learn to crawl first, then sit, then stand, then walk. Apparently, the most difficult one to learn for them is to go from a standing position to a sitting position. It requires the muscles of the knees & thighs to be very strong before they can do that. So how? It seems that Joey is learning to sit first before crawling. In any case, as long as they are developing & picking up skills, that's all it matters. The order is not important lah..

Like most kids, joey is very curious. She is always staring and looking at things around her. She is intrigued by cameras, handphones & remote controls. She loves colours & lights. She is interested in food & drinks. She wants to touch them & grab them all the time. Because I have been taking so many photos of her using my handphone, she kind of knows she needs to smile when I take her photo. So now, if I want to get a candid shot of her, i need to take the photo discreetly so that she doesn't notice. Haha!

Joey evidently has a very high metabolism rate. She sweats almost all the time - when she's drinking milk, when she's hopping, when she's in her stroller chair, even when she's just sitting down. Her thick hair contributes to the heat too, I guess. But still, I believe she burns fats real easier. This is good news, because it means she can stay slim easily! Look how much she's sweating just watching TV at home. Mind you, it's even raining outside!

I love the way she grabs her toes when she is sitting down. haha.. so super adorable!

Joey is quite hyperactive. Auntie just realised yesterday how much she likes to jump & hop. Yes, if you hold her up to a standing position, she will literally hop up & down, with feet at least lifted 5cm above ground. She is so strong that you need more than a popeye to hold on to her. Our arms are usually so tired after 5minutes of hopping, but she would still be gleefully hopping, hopping, hopping.

See Joey with Nigel jiu-jiu this afternoon when we went out for lunch together. Why does Joey look so blur? Because she is in the midst of hopping when I snapped the shot. hehe!

Joey's signature smile is when her eyes become one straight line till you can't see them anymore. But I am thankful that she is a very happy child & smiles & laughs alot. I think it must be because I was a very happy & cheerful pregnant mama!

Joey's playing with David shu-shu and ye-ye at home... She loves it when they clap their hands!

Joey's in the car resting and about to fall asleep with the cool aircon and gong-gong patting her lightly... Oh man, Joey looks so fat in this photo!! I promise it's the angle!!

Ingredients
1/2 cup of rice
1 chicken thigh
A small portion of silk tofu
A small portion of spinach

Cooking Instructions
1. Boil rice in warm water
2. When rice is half-cooked, add in skin-off chicken thigh
3. Chop spinach very finely & add in
4. Cut tofu into small pieces & add in when rice is almost cooked
5. Low fire till porridge thickens

"grrrbbb...... mmmhh....... finger-licking good..."

--- joey, chirpy 5-month-old

Joey's menu for today is a combination of milk, cereals, porridge & fruit sauces.

She started off the morning with milk as usual. After she woke up from her morning nap, I gave her porridge.

Porridge of the Day: A Day In the Garden

Half a cup of rice
1 piece of dried scallop
1 small portion of chopped carrots
4 mini potatos chopped into bite sizes
About 20 green peas

No chicken because I haven't had the chance to go to the market. I am planning to go get some chicken bones & breastmeat as well as fish to cook some good porridge for Joey. In the meantime, she would have to make do with veggie goodness.

Looks OK la hor, you think? =)

Can't believe how much porridge I can produce with just half a cup of rice. I managed to feed Joey and myself. The scallop & the potato made the porridge quite sweet. Still got a little left in the slow cooker for Joey's evening meal.

Joey's playing with her uncle now. After that, shall give her 3 ounces of milk and let her nap. When she wakes up, I will feed her fruit sauce. It's gonna be banana sauce today! Hope she likes it better than the apple one.

Her night snack before she goes to sleep will be rice cereals with milk. That's all I planned for today. Hope she likes it. =)

Gave Joey some more apple sauce during snack time this evening. The first few spoonfuls made her squirm alittle again. haha.. But as she ate more & more, she started to really swallow them and even open her mouth for the spoon to go in when she sees the spoon approaching. Good progress!

I think it's like what my friend told me.. it's the first time she has tasted something that's sour, so should take some time to get used to it. I guess that must be it.

Heee.. I love this pic~! She's looking at daddy who's sitting on the floor..

Although Joey is still not able to sit very steadily on highchairs, at least she can lean on one side or to the front for support. It's so much easier now when we go out to eat in restaurants, cos we can always put her in a highchair and we can eat freely. Used to be that we have to carry her on our laps all the time. Because sitting is still quite a new & fresh thing for her, she enjoys sitting very much and most of the time, would not fuss.

Had a busy weekend. Didn't spend time resting at home but was in church to attend the last 2 sessions of the Marriage series. Joey spent her weekend in church with me too. :) Here's Joey all dressed up, waiting for Mummy to get ready. (She's wearing a mini skirt!)

My MIL left the house together with me. So, with her help, we could take the shuttle buss because she could carry Joey while I folded & carried the stroller. Her style on Sat was sexy cheerleader girl!

Nowadays, I'd choose to let Joey sit with me in the artiste room during service because the nursery is usually very crowded and there's not enough mattresses to go around. The artiste room is for staff's use, so it's quite quiet there, and I can get to watch the service and yet not feel too embarrassed when Joey decides to be naughty & keeps fidgeting.

There's this full length standing mirror in the artiste room which amuses Joey alot. of course, it's not the mirror that amuses her, but her own reflection, and the reflection of her mummy smiling at her. It probably didn't dawn upon her that the cute little baby in the mirror is her and how come mummy is carrying her & yet in the mirror at the same time.

No prizes for guessing who took this picture. :) If you really cannot tell, you can go bang your head against the wall.

Then I decided to bring Joey over to Nursery 1 to visit jayden cos we haven't seen him for quite some time. He's grown so much! =)

This is Joey during today's Sunday service.. in a white sweater today instead. We went to the nursery instead today cos I wanted to join Isaiah for the renewal of vows, so I had to ask Auntie Shirley to help me take care of her for a while..

Today, Reagan made a comment, 'Joey.. you attend services more than some people do..' haha..

Joey is very cute. Whenever you stretch out your hand to her, she will know she has to put her hand on yours. haha.. i guess it's all part of curiosity, and her need to grab something. It's good too. At least it's rewarding to know that she knows that she needs to reciprocate by stretching out her hand too. :)

It does appear to me that Joey does not really enjoy eating very much now. She kind of still prefers her milk to semi solids. Yesterday was an adventurous day. I fed Joey many different kinds of food. haha.. Was a little worried if her stomach could take it, but she did not have diarrhoea or anything like that, so i guess it's quite alright. Anyway, I only gave her a taste of each kind of food, so it's not exactly a full meal.

She'd frown whenever I try to stuff something into her mouth. The elmo cartoon on the spoon captures her attention, so she won't resist the spoon. But the moment the food gets into her spoon, she would frown & knit her mouth together, giving me a 'what's that?' look.

I gave her porridge with carrots & green peas, mashed potato and also the apple sauce. The porridge is the one with least resistance from her. When the apple sauce went into her mouth, she really frowned badly. Far from my imagination that she would probably fall madly in love with it and would try to grab it from my hands, she didn't look too excited about it at all. Maybe becos it's the first time she's tasted something sweet & alittle sour (actually I dun really know what's the taste.. haha). But I will persist on to give her the apple sauce, a little a day. Maybe she'd like the banana one better?

The moment I showed her her milk bottle, she was SO EXCITED. sigh... maybe she still prefers milk to anything else now?

Next week, I shall cook her fish porridge. At least it's gonna be sweeter than carrots porridge. :)

Did I mention I cooked porridge for the first time for Joey the other day?

It was not pre-planned. Just something I felt like doing on a spur of the moment. Many people told me that it's time to start Joey on porridge and since she seemed fine swallowing her cereals, I thought maybe it's not a bad idea to start giving her porridge. Adds some colours to her diet, isn't it?

The only ingredient I could find in the fridge was dried scallops, so I used that to cook half a cup of porridge. I thought the porridge would be sweet with the scallops, but turned out that the scallops had no taste at all, and I felt that Joey's porridge was quite tasteless. I didn't dare to add any seasoning at all since she's still so young. So I also had no heart to let her eat too much, just about 8 teaspoonfuls and I finished the rest of the porridge myself. After adding in some soya sauce, that is. Wahaha.

So, tonight, Isaiah and I went to get her a small-size slow cooker, solely for Joey's use. Since I need to work and bring her to work with me, I'd have to put in all the rice and ingredients the night before and let it cook so that I can bring the porridge with me the next day to work. Look at the mini slow cooker. Really cute..

Then I also bought 2 bottles of fruit sauces for Joey to try tomorrow. One apple & one banana - highly recommended by Kristie & David. Funny how come adults come tell me how nice they are and how much they enjoyed eating it. Hello? It's baby food ok?! I'll see what's the expression on Joey's face tomorrow when she eats it. Hee..

Joey is back in church office nursery today, after about 2 weeks' break! I was really worried that she would forget what Auntie Shirley & Auntie Lee Eng looks like. Thank God when we reached in the morning, she seemed to remember Auntie Lee Eng! :)

Auntie commented that Joey has grown so much since 2 weeks ago. haha.. I can't really tell lah, since I see her everyday. But I'm happy to hear that. Later in the afternoon, another nursery worker from church came to the office and commented that Joey is really growing very well. Hehe.. double happiness! This should be the best comment any mother wants to hear.

It's a stripey day for Joey today.. I dressed her in her new stripes tee, and even purposely put on striped socks for her! Haha.. I wanted to let her wear her colourful stripped headband too, but decided not to torture her early in the morning. But it'd be such a great combi!

I am happy to announce that after 5 months & 1 week, I've finally shed off every pound from my pregnancy and got back to my original pre-preggie weight. wahaha...

I was very happy that day when I managed to squeeze into my red Von Dutch jeans. I may sound overly excited here, but hear me out. Even before getting pregnant, that jeans was pretty tight fitting for me. But I love it not only because it's Von Dutch and the cutting was fantastic, but also because it's a vintage piece worn by SUN once for a photo shoot! Simply because she wore it once, the price was slashed half! So, you see, I was pretty sad when I just bought the jeans for about a month and found that I was pregnant and that jeans had to stay in the cold palace for more than a year. Anyway, yey now!

Immediately after giving birth, I lost all but 7 kg (I gained a total of 20kg during my pregnancy). It's funny how come Joey only weighed 3.4kg when I lost 13kg. Maybe it's the water or the air, whatever. Since then, I have been losing weight but came to a stagnant standstill when I had another 2 kg to go. I was beginning to wonder if the 2 kg was Joey's souvenir for me and it's going to stay. But thank God, it did decided to go.

Not that I am back to my pre-preggie figure though, cos some things are here to stay. For one, my butt has become bigger. Can't do anything about this, I was told because giving birth does make our pelvic bone bigger. What happens to a mother who has given birth to 5, 7 or 11? Their butts look alright to me anyhow. But mine grew bigger, that's for sure. And it's the bone, not the fats, so unless I go polish my bones, otherwise.. yap, it's here to stay forever.

Another happy fact I was told was that women grow taller after giving birth. It's got to do with the pulling and pushing action of giving birth. I had a C-section, so I am not sure if it applies to me. Having been a 157cm girl most of my life, I'd love to be 160cm now after giving birth. Let me confirm or burst that myth once I have a chance to measure my height.

So, giving birth makes one taller, smarter and more confident. Plus a cute baby to show off to people. What a good deal! =P

Joey loves to watch TV. And I mean, LOVES with a capital L.

Her attention span for doing the same thing is about 5 minutes. But when she is watching TV, she can be captured for more than 20 minutes. Of course, children psychologists would advise against kids watching TV, but I feel that TV is also a way of stimulating kids because of the colours, sounds and movements. Of course, everything should be done in moderation.

Look at her happily watching TV in her rocker. I love the way she criss crosses her legs when she is relaxed! hehe..

Received a 'depressing' email from my HR personnel, Sandra. In the email, she said that according to the Labour Law, my 3rd month maternity leave entitlement is a total of 22 days, and so far, I've already utilised ........ 21 DAYS! so sad right?? No more fridays off from now onwards. NO MORE?!

Well, maybe it's not as depressing as it sounds. The 21 days already included the fridays I've applied for this Friday and next. So, after I apply for 1 last friday on 6 Oct, my 3rd month maternity leave is officially over.

I ought to be thankful already. How many people are still enjoying their free maternity leave 5 months after giving birth?

Nigel jiu-jiu was snapping away when we were at Selegie Tau Huay stall on Sunday night. Some of the photos are really quite blur, especially those taken by me. haha!

"Err? How come this thing looks so much like my neng neng?"

Sidenote: Neng neng (pron: n-eng n-eng) - joey's milk

"Mmm... the tau huay drink looks really delicious..... my saliva is coming out liao.. when can I try it???!"

"In the meantime, I would have to make do with my drumstick...."

Sidenote: drumstick- joey's thumb

"Aiyoh.. what's with Nigel jiu-jiu?? It's no longer fashionable to show the victory sign lo..."

"hmm... who's the pretty ah-yee carrying me? oh.. Jiu-jiu's baobao! akeke.."

Is Joey looking for Mummy?? "Mummy chatting with Gong Gong lah..."

Finally back into mummy's arms... =)

Today Joey & I went shopping all by ourselves when Daddy Isaiah is at work. :)

We didn't go far, only went to Causeway Point. I had alot of necessities that I needed to buy, so I thought I better buy them on my rest day today. By the way, Joey wore her new clothes today!

Check out this cool bottoms that Joey was wearing. It's a two-piece stuck-together mini skirt & pants (lycra!)

I bought all the things I needed and also things that I do not need. I bought 2 new eyeshadow palettes, mascara & eyelash curler (believe it or not, I don't have one and I haven't been using one for years!). Almost bought some nail polish too. Wahaha.. I am so happy!

When Joey fell asleep in her stroller, I decided it was time for me to eat something since i hadn't eaten the whole day! So I bought a takeaway from Long John Silver's and sat next to the fountain and ate happily. I hadn't eaten Long John in such a long time...

When Joey woke up shortly after, she was entertained by the water fountain as well.. :)

Am I successful in pretending I was not the one who took the photo?? Haha..

I have decided. No matter how busy I am, I will take one day to really relax and do something i like. It could be bringing Joey out for gai-gai, or going pak-tor with isaiah, or go for a stroll all by myself. It's really therapeutic and destressing.

I've been really busy for the past few weeks with work and with the Marriage series going on in church, I've been attending service every Sat & Sun. Mondays are usually burnt too because I'd be trying to tally some figures or put together a report, which usually took up my whole Monday. In between, I got to juggle with taking care of Joey & playing with her. Working non-stop during the whole week without a break can make even the most motivated person unmotivated. Even though I may like what I do, I still need to get a breather now & then, so that I can be at my best when it's time to do serious work.

Frankly speaking, tearing myself away from my laptop especially when I know if I don't do my work bit by bit, I'd be super busy at night before I sleep, is really diffcult. But it's essential for my emotional & mental well-being.

Great decision, Mummy Klessis. =)

My baby just woke up... wee hours this morning.....

This was what Joey looked like yesterday for service. Image for yesterday: DEMURE. A total babe! hehe.. The hairband was supposed to be wore as a headband, as in across your forehead, u know what i mean. But i don't like it lah.. so, made her wear it like a hairband. The result: Less obiang.. haha..

This is one of the new tops we bought for Joey. I simply love it! There are so many colours available, very comfortable and best of all, if you buy 2 or more, it's only $9 per piece! Grab it, all you mummies!!

In the end, I bought one purple and one brown one for Joey. hee.. I am thinking of getting one for myself too if it's available in adult sizes! =0)

Joey is at the stage where she is learning how to hold the bottle on her own. But poor thing, the one she uses for drinking milk is way too big for her to hold. No choice, she's drinking 6 ounces now, so she needs to use the big bottle. And because of that, she can't be bothered to hold the bottle by herself cos she will surely fail. So, she can only practise her skills when she's drinking water. I keep letting her practise today and although her grip is still not that tight, she can at least hold it by herself and pull it out & put it into her mouth again.. Hee... so cute!!

Joey's teeth are really coming out soon. You can see from the photo below that the 2 front teeth are already rooted inside the gums and will break forth soon!

All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth.....

Demonstrating her karate kick at the giraffe who has small eyes like her. Hee hee..

On Monday, we fed Joey her first rice cereal meal. It was not easy and she's grappling with how to open her mouth, scoop the cereal into her mouth and then swallow it. But it was really a fulfilling feeling seeing Joey taking her first 'bite'! Can't believe that my daughter is growing so fast! =) She took 5 mouthfuls in all.

Although her back's not that strong yet, she can still sit in the highchair for a while. Leaving her in it with a small toy infront can allow us at least 10 minutes to grab a bite!

I wonder what caught her attention??!

The whole day today, Joey was laughing & playing... Boy, I need more energy to keep up with her!!! =)

I found a baby brand online which sells really pretty clothes especially for girls - Zutano! But what a pity, they're based in the United States & do not do online sales to outside of USA. If you happen to know where this brand is being sold in Singapore, please tell me! Of course if you are going on a holiday to USA, please buy Joey some of these clothes!!! =P

Look, they got all the nice designs I like - ladybugs, flowers, polka dots, animals - in all kinds of beautiful & bright colours!