Long Overdue Post @ Xi Yan: HG's BDay


Thanks Lin and B for being such a great brother and sister! :)


apple and roast duck salad - interestingly yummy. Refreshing despite the dauntingly huge bed of lettuce.

grilled pork cheek - soft and tasty

shredded dried conpoy with choy sum - *shudder* way too much veggie

Salivating chicken with century egg, konnyaku noodles - my favorite of the evening

Fresh peppercorn prawns

beef brisket in Sichuan hot and spicy sauce - I was bursting by this course to fully appreciate it. But the beef was tender and the sauce was a full-bodied, super spicy sauce. The you tiao was a cute twist.


water chestnut sorbet with sugarcane crystals. I liked this palatte cleanser. Not your usual tart fruit sorbet, but a refresher nonetheless.

black bean paste fish with rice noodles - Seriously bursting by now.


Chef's lychee ice cream with osmanthus flower wine - BURST.

Grayden and His 8 Month Milestone


So fast he grows. You always hear the old folks count off in their dialect chants:
"6 months - sit, 7 months - teeth, 8 months - crawl, 9 months - stand"... What is rattled off in a matter of seconds is actually 4 to 5 precious months of watching him grow every day and achieving all these mini milestones in life.

It's sad that a human's most carefree and happy moments in life, are the times we will never remember. Those early months of his life, are ones he will only recollect and vicariously live from these pictures and videos.

Graydie...here's mummy's wish that you will occasionally live life as happy and worry-free as you do now.

As for me, the painful first few months are now but a blur memory. The times where I vehemently insist He will BE THE LAST! NO MORE!! seem almost like impossible to repeat now.


Perhaps this is God's way of preserving the procreation of man - by making memories of pain fleeting in a woman's mind, programming the human brain to place joyful and happy memories over the hard trying ones when it comes to our little babies; making us such adaptable creatures adjusting as those hard initial months fade away as time progresses and we see the little one blossoming and developing into such an independent little Rugrat.
So just for now - I'm content living in the moment:
His smile melts away every frustration or anger bubbling over from the last mischievous act.
His face is the funniest when it scrunches and crumples when the waterworks come.
And a mess on his face made by his lunch, seems like the most adorable thing...



Just for now. I'm grateful to be content living in this moment.

Grayden goes to Bathe!