Daddy Day Care is Open for Business

Open For Business

100 Posts, Who Would Have Thought I Could Say So Much

Well we have reached 100 postings on our Blog; I guess I’m moving from laconic to loudmouth, then again maybe not! Friday was a sad day for Marika; it was the last day of her maternity leave and that evil thing called work was biting at her mind. For me on the other hand is a different story, Friday was my last day in the office for a while. I was ready to quit work to look after Isabella when my boss remembered there was a way I could work from home for up to six months, so we appealed and received approval from HR for the flexi-place work agreement and thus I’m not in the office but I still have to work, fortunately we were able to reduce my required hours and make them flexible, but alas my pay too was reduced but not so flexible. I think working from home is feasible, I’ve done a little before; my major concern is having the time. I’m thinking my little time waster will chew up the hours with her smile, chatting (some times known as screaming), reading books, going for walks and generally being a baby. Time will tell! I guess we’ll give you updates on how we are all progressing in the near future

Magical Moment, Precious Advancement, Dexterity to Admire

Last night when I was getting ready to feed Isabella we shared one of those magical moments, those precious advancement in her growth, such a special instant in her follow her father's habits, maybe it’s her way to tell us she is ready for solids. She was in my arms, looking up at me, smiling and making weird noises, I looked at her little hands, clenched in a fist, slowly her left hand index finger stretched out straight and she moved her hand towards her grinning face and then the true magic started, her outstretched finger gracefully probed the inner sanctum of her left nostril, yes she was hunting for snot, also known as snackies for those who don’t wish to waste edible products from the nose. I was so proud of her, my emotions swelled and a single tear rolled from my left eye, OK really I accidentally poked myself in the eye while also hunting for snot, I guess Bella has better dexterity than I. I’m sorry I didn’t have the video camera handy so I could share this special moment with you all in living and moving colour.

Happy National Day Singapore - 41 Today

May the rain stay away, the parade be enjoyed and the fireworks light up the sky. It’s impressive when you realise that every year people from the far reaches of the country all travel to the National Stadium for the National Day Parade celebrations, there wouldn’t be many other countries that could have that as a clam to fame. Oh how the patriotism just warms the cockles, well the sub-cockles of the heart. NB The far reaches of the country aren’t that far reaching, the country’s two furthest point are 42.8km apart (at low tide).

Funny Food Friday OK it's Tuesday

I’ve stumbled across an odd variety of food since we have been living here; I thought I might list a few for your viewing pleasure. I guess the first food surprise I was faced with was actually a drink, a Star fruit juice drink; in point of fact Star fruit’s real name is Carambola from surprise surprise the Carambola tree, I’d tried this fruit and found that it didn’t have much taste and was rather crunchy, I’ve been told Passion fruit can be rather crunchy if you scoop out and toss the seeds then eat the rest, I haven’t tried this personally. Anyhow back to the story at hand, it was a very hot day and we had only been in Singapore a few days, so this nice cold Star fruit juice drink sounded just right, how wrong could we have been, this drink was disgusting, I couldn’t finish it, I really tried but it just had to be tossed. Now to describe the taste, imagine taking a fruit with no discernable taste then adding way too much sugar, mixing it up then adding roughly the same amount of salt, then mix again and serve. I’ve heard of sugar soap, but sugar salt, forget it! Maybe I should have kept it for cleaning the walls. As you might have guessed I haven’t purchased either the fruit or the drink since but that of course is my personal choice, (and the choice of all sane people with taste buds). Something I spotted the other day but didn’t try was Wasabi covered Soya beans; I’ve tried Wasabi Ice Cream, that was different! There are a few foods, I’m using the term ‘food’ lightly here, that I’ve seen but am not keen to partake, for example fish with head including eyes like in fish head soup, pork floss buns (yes that is bread), fluoro coloured bread ice cream sandwich. Fruit has been the most interesting, but taste has not been to my liking, Dragonfruit’s appearance is very interesting but doesn’t have much flavour, I found out that Dragonfruit is not the official name, fancy that, well its true name is Pitaya, also known as Pitahaya & Strawberry Pear and it grows on a cactus (of genus Hylocereus), again fancy that! What else is there, oh yes yellow watermelon and other odd looking things I don’t know the names of and of course last but not least is the Durian, yes I think I’ve mentioned this fruit before, imagine walking into a supermarket and being greeted by a smell that could be mistaken for a pallet of overly rotten potatoes beside one of overly rotten meat, voila you have Durian.

Baby Thermometer Rant

Again many days have disappeared between blog entries, Little Miss, work and of course sleep, seem to consume most of our free time. Bella is still sick with what we have been calling the Sydney Flu; she is congested and is learning to love the smell of Vicks and other similar products. I think Marika checks on her and freshens up her Vicks every hour during the night, needless to say, but said anyway, she is getting a little run down, it won’t be long before she is stuck in bed with her flu. I look at pictures from her first month and realise how much she has changed and grown. She’s kinda goofy looking now as her head starts to take on normal(ish) shape, causing her ears to stick out, even more so than her dad’s. But she’s still gorgeous to us, hey I like goofy look at her mother! I guess it’ll take a while for me to live down that comment! We finally found a baby bath that thought was suitable, strangely enough it also fitted well with in stinginess at reasonable price of about ten dollars. When I say reasonable I talking in respect to buying babies stuff, if that same baby bath was referred to as a plastic bucket the price would have dropped to about two dollars. You know the story; you walk in the chemist and say I would like to buy a thermometer, sure here’s one for $4.95, then you make the mistake of saying baby thermometer and all of a sudden that thermometer is whipped from your sweaty little hands and with divine force another baby friendly thermometer is thrusted into your hands, this time with the new and improved baby ‘not so friendly’ price of $94.95, doesn’t matter that both thermometer looked the same except the packaging and price. I know thrusted is not a real word, it just sounded better than thrust, lets call it a Jason word. I figure if lecturers can make up words, then so can I, another Jason word I like to use is disbalanced, it just sounds better to me than unbalanced. There you go sitting on your bookshelf you can have your Oxford, Webbers and now the new and always improved Jason’s Dictionary. Considering I spelt dictionary incorrectly at first, maybe I shouldn’t start my own! Spell checker can be handy once in a while.