My baking experiment, after umpteenth years

I used to bake and cook a lot when I was younger. Mum was a homemaker until I was in Standard Three, when she had to work to supplement the family's income. So the responsibility of cooking for the family fell on me and my sisters. And I took Domestic Science as a subject for my SRP (the equivalent of PMR now) exam so I learnt cooking, baking, sewing, etc in school from Forms 1 – 3.

As a teenager, I enjoyed trying out new recipes when preparing dinner dishes, and loved to bake during the weekends too. Back then, there was no electric mixer, or rather, we couldn't afford an electric mixer so everything was done by hand. So you can imagine how tedious and how long it took, to manually cream butter and sugar for cakes, prepare dough or batter. But ever since I left home for university, I had not baked a single thing.

Since Yiu Yiu started school, I've been thinking of baking cupcakes, muffins, etc for her bento box. But we didn't have an electric oven until recently. And since there's a comb of over-ripe bananas at home, I decided to bake banana cake. So after my visit to the obstetrician yesterday, I went to shop for baking supplies, and started my project soon after reaching home.

Mashed banana, flour with bicarbonate soda and baking powder, egg, creamed butter and sugar

Ready for the oven

The finished product - looks OK right?

There was extra mixture after I had spooned them into the 12-cavity muffin tray, so I baked the rest in a loaf pan. The results – I ate two slices cut from the cake baked in the loaf pan, and they tasted like, well, banana cake, but were slightly moist. I didn't try any of the cupcakes, but hopefully those would be drier since they were baked with smaller amount of mixture.

Term +1

It's funny how everyone tells me that second birth will normally be early, and I had actually mentally prepared myself for an early birth. However, July 17 had come and gone, and yet, there are still no signs of baby. She's probably too comfy inside the womb and wants to stay on a little longer.

This morning I went to see my obstetrician as he wanted to make sure that there's still adequate amniotic fluid, and that baby is still thriving well. Everyone is still in good order and when he checked my cervix, he asked if I was sure I wasn’t having any contractions yet! Apparently my cervix has effaced. Embarrassingly, I don't quite know how normal labour contractions feel like, as Yiu Yiu was born after an induced labour, as I developed pre-eclampsia and proteinuria towards the last two weeks of pregnancy. I did feel some tightening this morning, but I brushed it off as baby moving vigorously in the limited space of my womb.

Anyway, he booked me for induction of labour next Wednesday – that's the day he performs all his planned deliveries, either via Caesarean or induction - if things are not moving along. However, he is confident he'll see me in the labour ward before Wednesday. I certainly hope so.

For the record, baby weighs 3.4kg from the scan (Yiu Yiu was only 2.5kg at birth), and mummy has put on only 11kg. However, I started at 6kg heavier compared to my first pregnancy. I'm hopeful that with breastfeeding, I'll be able to lose all these excess weight in the next couple of months.

Drawing and writing

Yiu Yiu used to doodle a lot, but her drawings were most incomprehensible. Since attending art classes a month ago, I noticed that her drawing has indeed improved quite a bit. Not bad, considering she has only attended maybe four classes. This is a picture of some flowers she drew several days ago. The biggest one is papa flower, followed by mummy flower, Yiu Yiu flower and baby flower.



And this is a sketch of me which she just drew. She said it's a picture of me when I was young, thin and pretty! So does it mean I'm now old, fat and ugly? Ha ha! Pardon the stickers around the picture – she simply grabbed the nearest book, which happened to be her sticker book, and sketched the picture.



She has recently also taken an interest in learning to write her name, an influence from the Barney CD which she watches during the daily journeys to kindy in the morning and back home in the evening. Notice the four boxes beneath her name? Again, one box each for papa, mummy, Yiu Yiu and baby.

Of marriage, babies and career

We were on our way to attend my classmate's wedding dinner when she had this Q&A by herself.
Why your friend wants to get married? He wants to have baby like you ah?

While patting my tummy…
Mummy, when I grow up, I get married and have baby like you.
Phew!!! Lucky she gets the sequence correct. Let's hope she keeps to this sequence when she grows up.

While discussing sleeping arrangements…
Mummy, now I sleep with you and papa. When I grow up and get married, I'll sleep with my husband.

What she wants to be when she grow up…
Yiu Yiu: Mummy, when I grow up, I want to become a doctor.
Mummy: Wah, you want to become a doctor ah? Then you must study hard, you know.
Yiu Yiu: Why must study hard?
Mummy: Then only you can go to university and learn how to become a doctor.
And so these days, she'll tell me that she needs to study hard so she can become a doctor.

But sometimes…
Yiu Yiu: Mummy, why do I need to study hard?
Mummy: So that you can become a doctor when you grow up.
Yiu Yiu: No, when I grow up, I want to become a mummy like you.

And yet at other times…
Mummy, when I grow up, I want to become my colleagues' colleague.

Bento post #91 – #95

I keep complaining that Yiu Yiu never eats the food I prepare for her at school, preferring instead to have the biscuits given by the kindy, and yet, week after week, I still wake up early to prepare food for her, much to hubby's amusement. So here's what she brought to school this week:

Monday – pan-fried chicken drummets with slices of jackfruit. She finished the jackfruit at school and only nibbled on one of the drummets.

Tuesday – a simple soya sauce noodles with french beans and carrot cut-outs, and the last piece of jackfruit. She told me that she finished the noodles, had the french beans with her lunch at babysitter's but didn't eat the carrots.

Wednesday – two pieces each of potato wedges and chicken nuggets, and some rose apples. In the blue strawberry container is some tomato ketchup. She loves ketchup so I was hoping that the ketchup would be the incentive for her to finish the wedges and nuggets. She did finish the wedges at school, but left the nuggets, complaining that they were hard. I don't quite understand, coz this fresh batch of nuggets were made with minced chicken meat, so they shouldn't turn out hard. Perhaps I had overcooked them?

Thursday – being a little lazy to prepare much, I just stuffed some chicken floss into a pita pocket, and threw in some rose apples. As expected, she dug out the chicken floss, and left the pita bread, complaining that it had turned hard.

Friday – instead of giving her just hard boiled eggs, I thought I'd make an omelette with french beans, carrot and cheesy sausage. She woke up while I was cooking and when she saw the omelette, she immediately said she didn't want them :-( I packed them off for her anyway, with some bear-shaped guava slices, in the hope that she'd at least take a bite or two. But when I checked with the babysitter, again, my efforts were in vain.

Spending time with cousins

Another thing that Yiu Yiu has been talking about lately is how long it has been since she last went swimming at 大姨姨 (my elder sister) apartment. On Sunday, together with mum, elder sis, and younger sis and her family, we made a trip to Nilai Memorial Park to pay respects to dad.

And when we got back, the whole troop went over to elder sis's apartment for a dip in the pool. The children (Yiu Yiu, Yihao & Xiaoyu) enjoyed themselves tremendously splashing in the water, so much so that they refused to leave the pool even though they were visibly shaking with cold.

Yiu Yiu with 小姨姨, 大姨姨 and Xiaoyu

I love these happy shots of her

The hyperactive threesome skipped their nap that day so by the time we went out for dinner, Yihao and Xiaoyu had knocked off, but my energizer bunny was still going strong, and only finally fell asleep close to her regular bedtime.

Quick outing at TTDI park

I thought Bagan Lalang would be our last outing with Yiu Yiu before mei-mei joins the family but turned out, we went for another quick outing at Taman Tun Park last Saturday. It's been a looooong time since we went there and out of the blue, Yiu Yiu said she wants to go to the park to play sand and water. Hubby was having a guys' day out, and since I'd plan to have dinner outside with Yiu Yiu anyway, I obliged.

We arrived pretty late so she only got to play for about 40 minutes before we had to leave as it was getting dark. Anyway, she left the park a happy gal, even though the stream was pretty dry that evening.