Lo Hei!

We were invited over for a great chinese new year lunch yesterday at our Singaporean friend's new place, C. They just bought a great big new apartment in Chinatown. Bibou was all excited to be visiting Claire (who’s about 1 year older than she is) and her younger sister. All in all, we had 9 kids and Bibou had a blast! Most of the girls were all dressed up in their Chinese gear, it was just too cute! It was a potluck lunch and we had a scrumblious meal! C made her famous Beef Rendang (and once again, it was as delicious as we remembered it to be!) and a wonderful yu sheng - which, for those who don't know our tradition, is a rather elaborate raw-fish salad, made from strips of well, raw-fish (normally salmon) , and finely shredded vegetables such as white radish, carrots etc and lots of condiments like chopped peanuts, ginger, daun limau nipis (leaves from lime tree), Chinese parsley, toasted sesame seeds, five spice powder and a special dressing sauce mostly made from plum sauce. We eat this during the first 7 days of CNY – it’s really delicious, but it is the preparation and tradition that most important. Everyone gathers round the table with their chopsticks and we toss the salad as high as possible (without making a mess of course!) while wishing each other good luck, prosperity etc for the new year. All the kiddies joined in, even Bibou. MF made some well made makis (we were all saying we need to get some maki session from her), Rani had some stir-fry veggies but it was her gorgeous dessert that hooked me! It was a coconut jelly dessert, made from guala melaka (a kind of sugar made from palm sugar). It had been a long time since I had it, and I was in 7th heaven! I made some fried noodles and a black sauce chicken. Oh we ate and ate and ate.

Poor Angel – by the time we left yesterday, her cheeks were burning up and all red – she’s teething again, her 5th and 6th teeth (top gum) have started to appear. She seemed to be in a lot of pain (yes, I didn’t sleep much the past few nights again – but then, what else is new). The pain, however, hasn’t stopped her from eating. Oh yes, our little Angel loves to eat and gobbles everything in sight. As she has teeth, I’d also begun letting her eat straight from a banana. Boy did she have fun! On Saturday, she even chomped down on some bean sprouts. I think we can make her vegetables less pureed now!

I had a bit of a fright the other day when my cell phone rang and it was Bibou’s teacher. Did I go into panic mode (either Bibou made a bad mistake like beat someone up or something, or she’s hurt!). She was hurt – she had a very slight cut on her eye but because it’s in the eye area, they’d preferred to be more prudent. Fortunately, Daddy was on his way home already(that’s why they couldn’t get hold of him – in a tunnel or something) so off they went to the hospital where they also preferred to give her the tiniest stitch. Have to say that I’m glad that I wasn’t there as I’d be too upset to be of any good! Bibou’s all fine now, showing off her boo-boo.

Seeing the girls together made me so glad that we didn’t stop at one (well, OK, I’m sure that this statement will come back and bite me in the ass in a year or two when Angel is old enough to ‘fight’ with her sister). They just adore each other so much. Now Angel recognizes her big sister’s voice, and when she hears her voice indicating that Bibou is nearing her, she immediately looks around in search of Bibou and would let out a huge peal of giggle as soon as she sees her! Bibou is still a little too rough with her – she wants to hug her to bits!

Here are some videos of the both of them together. I think Bibou’s been celebrating a number of birthdays at school, as she’s taken to singing the birthday song frequently.

Gong Xi Gong Xi!

It was Chinese New Year last week, so we hosted our annual CNY MESSAGE event just this past Sunday. I actually had a lot of fun baking (though was very tired of course!) lots this year. I made some pineapple tarts (I’m guessing I had about 150 pieces of those), some suji biscuits (made with good ole ghee!) – those I’m guessing I had about 200 of, plus I had to give some (unbaked ones) to our cleaning person as we just had too much, made some cat’s tongues that didn’t turn out as nice, as I think it is because of the butter we have here in France. Someone mentioned that the butter / flour is of different consistency here than from home (wherever home is… )… I never quite understood that, thinking it was just some ‘bitchy’ remark about how things are always better ‘back home’… and also thought that well, sometimes my cookies just don’t turn out right because I’m not that great a baker. Well! I now realize that it isn’t me. I had PERFECT suji biscuits (last year, they failed miserably as I’d used ‘normal’ butter) as I had used real ghee! They didn’t spread nor burnt too quickly. They were a great delicious golden color! The cat tongue just spread too much (it tasted great though!).
Our MESSAGE friends started arriving at around 3.00 pm. We got the girls all dressed up in their gorgeous Chinese outfit that mahmah sent over (except Bibou didn’t want to wear the red cheongsum! She wanted to wear pants – which was a surprise as she normally prefers to wear dresses). Bibou had fun playing with all the kids who came. They all also had fun with Daddy, who played on the guitar and sang some songs. Daddy and Bibou did a GREAT duet, the Elephant Song which I regretfully didn’t take a video of! Arrggh! Next time.
Angel is recovering well from her bout of chicken pox. She didn’t scratch much and besides the few big ones on her head and the large one on her forehead, most of her spots were tiny and dried up. So hopefully

she won’t be too scarred. Unfortunately, she’s still not sleeping. W
ell she did while she had chicken pox, and that’s probably ‘coz she was all ‘drugged’ – we’d given her some prescribed an
tihistamine for her itching and that probably helped with her sleeping at night. Last night, we stopped giving her and she was up! From 4.00 am until about 6
.00 am! Arrgh. She’s sitting up very well and can stand (with help). We’re trying to get her to crawl and stay on her tummy, but she still doesn’t like it much. She is able to reach for things and will determinedly stretch and grope for items in front of her that she wants until she gets it. I think she’s also getting into stage where she recognizes the people around her… oh boy, no one strangers carrying her soon I think. On Sunday, though she didn’t complain, she looked a little weary when someone else was carrying her and for the first time ever, she reached out for me! And slide towards me so that she can be in my arms again. She’s also becoming very very vocal! I’ll try and upload videos of her soon. In the meantime, enjoy the photos update. I do like the picture of the two girls in bed together. Bibou loves to have Angel in her bed with her. I think she treats her like a little living doll! She's sweet with her really. And though Angel pulls her hair all the time, and she would complain that Angel is pulling her hair, she'd shrug it off when I say, oh, dear, I'm sure she's sorry. She doesn't mean it. She loves going up to her and 'chat' with her (but all in French, sigh).

Angel’s gotten POXED!

Poor little sweetheart has the chicken pox. Yes, to add to the whole host of maladies that little angel has, let’s add chicken pox! She got it probably through Josephine (who didn’t get it as she already had it about 2 years ago!), as apparently a lot of the kids in her class got it! I noticed a little water blister above her right ear on Saturday night, and soon, it spread rather quickly all over her body the very next day. The poor girly, she has it in all the most uncomfortable places you can think of; her eye lids, a couple next to her eyes, on her lips, her ears, her bum and a biiiiig massive one right in her belly button. We suspect that she might even have some in her mouth and throat. Fortunately, she doesn’t have too many on her face! Just a couple on her forehead and her eye area. Luckily, at this age, she doesn’t quite realize what’s happening. She’s still the happy go lucky baby that she is…. As I write this, she’s sitting in her transact beside me, cooing away and making bubbly noises! She did get a little frustrated as she knew that she was itching a little, but didn’t know why and didn’t know what to do. She was trying to rub her head (where most of the spots are) a little. A little ‘Primalan’ helped that. Now she doesn’t know I think in the world! In the pictures, it looks very red, that’s ‘coz we’ve been putting this red iodine thingy on her (I think! – it’s just all red), It’s supposed to dry up her spots quicker (and it works very well! - except that we get red allll over).

She’s definitely a very strong minded little one. Very determined. When she doesn’t want something or does like something, she will let you know! Currently, her biggest dislike is…. Having her nose wiped (or ‘sucked’) – probably ‘coz her nose and area is getting quite sore from the wiping. Well, when you try to wipe her nose now or come anywhere near it, she will smack and push your hand away really hard. She’ll grab it, push it, pinch it… anyway so that you won’t go near it! She’s quite vocal too! Our osteopath, whom I go to regularly, and brought Angel too last week, said that she had a very strong ‘character’ – to which Daddy rolled his eyes and went “oh no, here we go again!”.

She's really enjoying her play activity area "exersaucer" which a lovely friend lent to us. She just loves it. She gets all excited when she's in it, bouncing up and down in glee. She would turn round and round in it, grabbing at all the different toys around it. What fun! She's sitting up very well now, loves to grab. She grabs everything in sight, especially necklaces! Oh we think she's ready to walk. She just loves to be on her feet... she doesn't like to be on her tummy still, so I'm guessing she's gonna skip crawling, or maybe do just a little bit of crawling!

Last weekend, we had a rather busy weekend. We had Emma and Kealan over for gouter. Bibou has been asking for them for a while now, and finally we were able to catch up with them. We first met them at the parc Heller, where the kidlets played around. Once it got too dark, we came back to open presents and have tea. Bibou had a lot of fun with them, especially playing on her teaset trolley.

Then on Sunday, we went to visit ..tata Latifa! Yes, tata called the other day to have a chat and invited us over for gouter. So after the kiddies’ nap, we went off to see her. On the way, Bibou wanted to buy some flowers for her, so we got a bouquet of flowers. Bibou was all excited, climbing the stairs up to the apartment. She even remembered which floor it was on. However, for some reason, she got all shy when we arrived…. But she quickly warmed up and was playing with Samir in his room very soon. It was a really lovely weekend.

We're currently looking for a new nanny. Giselle submitted her resignation and is apparently taking a 'break' from kids (I wonder how long that will last). Daddy is taking a break and looking after Angel while conducting the interviews etc for the new nanny. Not easy!

Here's a video of Bibou entertaining Angel (though she doesn't quite need the extra entertainment already!)