Bubbles and bolognaise

What I loved yesterday.

Sitting on the sofa in the early morning, blowing chocolate scented bubbles towards the rising sun.

Elliot: ‘Bye bye bubbles. They’re all leaving. It smells like chocolate in here! It smells like doggie in here!’

Elliot carrying his tiny golden retriever, Bella who is named after my mum’s dog, under his arm most of the day.

Elliot cooking and serving me a piping hot bowl of pretend spaghetti bolognaise. Apparently the secret ingredient is Bella. Only a slight obsession with doggies going on here.

Hysterical giggles before bedtime when I mispronounced a word in one of his favourite books, 101 Dalmatians.

Christmas holiday

Sam has had all the days between Christmas and New Year’s off work. So at first we contemplated travelling to one of the many amazing countries nearby. Eating a steaming hot bowl of Phở in Hanoi wouldn’t hurt, or grilled seafood and spicy food on a beach in Thailand sounded tempting…or maybe a few days on a resort in Indonesia or Malaysia.So many choices, so little time. In the end we decided that what we needed was a “relaxication” in good old Singapore as we’re still getting to know the city. And relax we did.

We have been swimming in the pools almost every day. Elliot’s favourite is still the comfy hot tub and he now knows how to float around in it without us holding him up. He’s also slowly learning to swim, doing the doggy paddle and kicking with his legs. It’s been great to see him grow more and more confident in the water as we took him to baby swimming back in London when he was just a few months old, and he absolutely hated it. So much that we had to stop the course. I’m so happy it hasn’t left him permanently traumatised. He just wanted to swim in a warmer climate.

When we haven’t been swimming, we’ve been hanging out in parks and playgrounds, sometimes alone, sometimes with Elliot’s new friend Charlie.

We’ve been doing a LOT of relaxation on the sofa, practising taking self-portraits.

Elliot was also sick with a fever and all he wanted to do was chill with his beloved windmill.

Unwrapping pressies on Christmas Eve: Melissa and Doug ABC blocks and kitchen set.

Playing with the ipad and drinking red wine (adults only).

After Elliot went to bed, Sam and I had a big steak from one of Singapore’s good butchers.

There’s also been a slight obsession with Baby TV going on.

More playing with Christmas pressies in the shape of Lego Duplo blocks.

And later, more Christmas pressies arrived from Denmark.

We even ventured into town, to Little India. Singapore can sometimes be a bit sterile and bland looking, it’s always so clean and orderly and organised. But they haven’t succeeded in taming the Indian part of town completely. Here everything is more chaotic, smelly and bustling. And people stare at you like there’s no tomorrow!

We walked past the beautiful Sri Veeramakaliamman Hindu temple and ended up at the incredibly crazy big department store, Mustafa Center. You could easily get between its maze-like aisles…and apparently that happens to people quite often.

We have also been hanging out locally, walking to the picturesque Bedok Reservoir. Elliot fell asleep on the way so we got to relax with a drink.

Then he woke up and was in a great mood.

We also decided it was time for Elliot’s chickenpox vaccination. I did a bit of research and found a brilliant GP not too far away from where we live. For the first time, Elliot didn’t cry at all, maybe because this time he wasn’t being man-handled by a brutal British nurse. Actually I’m not sure he even noticed the jab. Afterwards the friendly doctor quickly blew up a balloon and handed it to the brave young man.

The GP also happens to be a well-known food blogger (ieatishootipost.sg), so we left his clinic with a few restaurant recommendations and a smile on our faces.

We have also been busy eating our way through the city. Soups are a favourite at the moment, from Japanese ramen to the local Laksa and Ban Mian.

When we first moved here we bought an annual pass to the amazing Singapore Zoo and we went there for the fourth time during the Christmas holiday.

This time though, Elliot was so Zoo jaded that he really couldn’t be bothered to look at the animals. He was more busy jumping in puddles (it’s the rainy season here).

When we reached the elephants he completely ignored the large beasts and just wanted to touch the fountain.

And here he is, completely ignoring the giraffes.

Yesterday on New Year’s Eve we spent the day food shopping, making blinis and waiting for some good friends to show up.

Once they arrived the men started prepping the Beef Wellington.

Meanwhile us women looked after the red wine and champagne in the living room while waiting for dinner to be served.

And served it was. And very yummy.

At midnight it was time for even more champagne. Soon after this picture was taken I collapsed on the sofa. But hey, at least I didn’t fall asleep BEFORE midnight as I did last year in London.

HAPPY NEW YEAR. I WISH YOU ALL AN AMAZING 2013!!

Sheepish coffee and a bad Santa

Having a toddler in the house adds a little extra to your morning coffee…

What else is new. Elliot has said his first proper word (apart from “mummy” and “dadda”). The word is “knee”.  I tried to make him say it in Danish as well (knæ) but no luck, but who can blame him..and last week he tried to say “thunder”.

We also went to IKEA, Elliot was a bit tired so he started his nap while we were driving.

Only to wake up and find himself in toddler heaven = surrounded by soft toys. I’m sure he wanted me to buy all of them.

I want that one….

and that one and THAT one and…

We ended up buying a play carpet.

Then the weekend came and we all went Christmas shopping. There was a big sale going on at Expo (big exhibition hall close to where we live) and Elliot found a Cookie Monster teddy.

I found the perfect plastic tree, which of course had to be decorated with multi-coloured lights, inspired by this Chip and Dale Christmas video. I remember watching it each year at Christmas and wishing I could have a tree exactly like that one.

Elliot and I also went shopping at yet another mall (I swear when we leave here I will never want to set foot in one again) and E woke up from his nap being extremely grumpy, just look at that protruding lower lip:

A crisp at Swensen’s – which I found to be a horrible, horrible place (overpriced, crap food & service) but hey, they have crisps and highchairs – helped a tiny bit.

Pink balloons helped even more.

Thursday we went to a playgroup in the Danish Seamen’s *giggle* Church on Mount Faber. Elliot is still a bit shy as he was traumatised the first time we went, where we entered while they were singing a birthday song really loudly while stomping their feet on the ground. Poor Elliot, despite his Nordic genes he’s not used to the wild, wild ways of the Vikings 🙂

This is how he looked after the last session:

What else have we been up to. Oh yes, that’s right. We’ve been picking flowers by the handfuls.

We’ve been checking out butterflies.

And yesterday we said hi to Scary Santa after we visited dad for lunch at Changi City Point (yes, yet another shopping centre). Elliot was not impressed and there was no way in hell he wanted to sit on his lap (who can blame him).