short notes on a sunday
Short notes: I guess this format will help me to write more often, rather than wait for something big before I pour out more long-winded verbiage.
~ the other day I baked lemon yogurt cupcakes with The Bun. We used that recipe that all French children supposedly learn, using a yogurt cup as a unit of measurement. The cakes turned out okay, not enough lemon for me but surprisingly moist and not as dense as I had expected it to be. I know that baking with children is supposed to be one of those activities that you do with kids to create warm fuzzy memories of childhood, but I apparently am not one of those mothers who can bake with children without twitching because each time we do it I have to actively resist the urge to just push the child into a corner and do. it. myself. Watching The Bun scoop and pour flour is more than enough to give me a headache. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the final product enough to try out the recipe again - maybe this week.
~ why are the worst TV shows always scheduled on weekends? Probably because everyone else has more of a life than me, I guess. Anyway because there was nothing decent on the English channels last night, J and I surfed around and ended up watching Back to the Future. In German. It didn't matter that it was in German because I could remember quite a lot of the dialogue - I must have watched it several times when I was a kid. They really are stretching the audience's suspension of disbelief by casting Michael J. Fox as a teenager, because if you look at him you can see his hair beginning to recede. Still, it was great to travel back in time (har har) and see this movie again. Such innocence, Hollywood in the 80s, compared to what you get today.
~ after ages and ages, it seems like we've finally found a straw cup that Bao will drink from. It's silly - the child is sixteen months old and won't drink properly from a sippy, straw or open cup. Before finding this cup, the only way I could really get her to drink some water was to feed it to her with a spoon. The Bun was using his first straw cup at the age of seven-and-a-half months. Bao doesn't have a problem using a straw or a sippy, her problem is that she just won't swallow the water, preferring to let it dribble out of her mouth. She seems to enjoy the mess, so I've spent afternoons letting her play with her cups in her high chair, hoping that she'd eventually get tired of it and just drink properly. I've tried water, milk and juice in a variety of cups from different brands, sometimes waiting for her to get really thirsty, but nothing has worked till now. For anyone who's interested, it's the Nuby No-Spill Mega Flip-It cup (what a mouthful!). It made its debut today and to my surprise Bao drank a fair bit of water from it and didn't dribble or play with it. In fact she loved chewing and sucking on the straw and wouldn't let it go. I have a sneaking suspicion she is using it as a replacement pacifier since she never gets her paci if she's awake. Trust her to do something like this! We'll see.
~ today it was grey and rainy but I just wanted to get us all out of the apartment for a couple of hours before we throttled each other's necks. Bao woke up late from her midday nap and I was trying out a recipe for slow-roasted pork (4.5 hours!) so I didn't want to be too far away from home. Where did we end up going? The mall near our home - supposedly the largest mall in the entire city and the second largest in Switzerland. Nothing would be open except a cafe, McDonald's, and the cinema, but it was fine with us because a warm, half-empty mall is actually perfect for someone like Bao to run around in. We had some ice-cream and an apple pie from McD's, then walked around with the kids and set them loose on some kiddie rides before going home. Quite a few families also had the same idea. When I think about a mall in Singapore on a Sunday afternoon, the contrast is almost too much to bear.
~ In a way I can see the idea behind a Sunday shutdown in Swiss culture. If it's warm, you go outside and enjoy nature. If it's cold, you head for the mountains and enjoy the snow. If it's rainy or you don't want to ski, you can go to a museum to enrich yourself, or you could just stay home and spend time with your family or read or enjoy the last bit of peace and quiet before the work week starts up again. What you're not able to do is to go out and get bogged down in mindless consumerism.You can't even do housework like vacuuming because 1) you're supposed to rest and 2) the noise you make will affect others' rest. Ever since we moved here Sundays have punctuated our weeks in a way it never did when we lived in Singapore - it is a day when we try out new recipes (like roasts that spend half a day in the oven), bake with the children (twitch), spend time exploring in parks and museums, and yes, watch lots of mindless telly.
I can't believe it's almost April! I can still remember Christmas like it was yesterday, and now the daffodils are in bloom.
~ the other day I baked lemon yogurt cupcakes with The Bun. We used that recipe that all French children supposedly learn, using a yogurt cup as a unit of measurement. The cakes turned out okay, not enough lemon for me but surprisingly moist and not as dense as I had expected it to be. I know that baking with children is supposed to be one of those activities that you do with kids to create warm fuzzy memories of childhood, but I apparently am not one of those mothers who can bake with children without twitching because each time we do it I have to actively resist the urge to just push the child into a corner and do. it. myself. Watching The Bun scoop and pour flour is more than enough to give me a headache. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the final product enough to try out the recipe again - maybe this week.
~ why are the worst TV shows always scheduled on weekends? Probably because everyone else has more of a life than me, I guess. Anyway because there was nothing decent on the English channels last night, J and I surfed around and ended up watching Back to the Future. In German. It didn't matter that it was in German because I could remember quite a lot of the dialogue - I must have watched it several times when I was a kid. They really are stretching the audience's suspension of disbelief by casting Michael J. Fox as a teenager, because if you look at him you can see his hair beginning to recede. Still, it was great to travel back in time (har har) and see this movie again. Such innocence, Hollywood in the 80s, compared to what you get today.
~ after ages and ages, it seems like we've finally found a straw cup that Bao will drink from. It's silly - the child is sixteen months old and won't drink properly from a sippy, straw or open cup. Before finding this cup, the only way I could really get her to drink some water was to feed it to her with a spoon. The Bun was using his first straw cup at the age of seven-and-a-half months. Bao doesn't have a problem using a straw or a sippy, her problem is that she just won't swallow the water, preferring to let it dribble out of her mouth. She seems to enjoy the mess, so I've spent afternoons letting her play with her cups in her high chair, hoping that she'd eventually get tired of it and just drink properly. I've tried water, milk and juice in a variety of cups from different brands, sometimes waiting for her to get really thirsty, but nothing has worked till now. For anyone who's interested, it's the Nuby No-Spill Mega Flip-It cup (what a mouthful!). It made its debut today and to my surprise Bao drank a fair bit of water from it and didn't dribble or play with it. In fact she loved chewing and sucking on the straw and wouldn't let it go. I have a sneaking suspicion she is using it as a replacement pacifier since she never gets her paci if she's awake. Trust her to do something like this! We'll see.
~ today it was grey and rainy but I just wanted to get us all out of the apartment for a couple of hours before we throttled each other's necks. Bao woke up late from her midday nap and I was trying out a recipe for slow-roasted pork (4.5 hours!) so I didn't want to be too far away from home. Where did we end up going? The mall near our home - supposedly the largest mall in the entire city and the second largest in Switzerland. Nothing would be open except a cafe, McDonald's, and the cinema, but it was fine with us because a warm, half-empty mall is actually perfect for someone like Bao to run around in. We had some ice-cream and an apple pie from McD's, then walked around with the kids and set them loose on some kiddie rides before going home. Quite a few families also had the same idea. When I think about a mall in Singapore on a Sunday afternoon, the contrast is almost too much to bear.
~ In a way I can see the idea behind a Sunday shutdown in Swiss culture. If it's warm, you go outside and enjoy nature. If it's cold, you head for the mountains and enjoy the snow. If it's rainy or you don't want to ski, you can go to a museum to enrich yourself, or you could just stay home and spend time with your family or read or enjoy the last bit of peace and quiet before the work week starts up again. What you're not able to do is to go out and get bogged down in mindless consumerism.You can't even do housework like vacuuming because 1) you're supposed to rest and 2) the noise you make will affect others' rest. Ever since we moved here Sundays have punctuated our weeks in a way it never did when we lived in Singapore - it is a day when we try out new recipes (like roasts that spend half a day in the oven), bake with the children (twitch), spend time exploring in parks and museums, and yes, watch lots of mindless telly.
I can't believe it's almost April! I can still remember Christmas like it was yesterday, and now the daffodils are in bloom.