Tag Archives: rant

In Defence of the Bumbo

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incorrect use of a Bumbo

More than 4 million Bumbo baby seats have been recalled after several reports of babies suffering skull fractures after wiggling out of the Bumbo.

As far as I know, the Bumbo baby seat is supposed to help seat babies who can’t sit up on their own and it does not claim to be a restraining seat of any sort. The Bumbo baby seat also comes with a warning label which states that the seat should not be placed on an elevated surface.

Our little lavender Bumbo has served us very well and both kids have used it happily. If the kid is in the Bumbo, then it is usually placed on the padded mat on the floor. And although we know we are not supposed to, sometimes we put the Bumbo on the sofa or on a low table but ALWAYS with an adult sitting directly beside or behind the kid.

Obviously, once the kid is able to sit up by himself or to wiggle out of the Bumbo baby seat, we switch to a baby high chair with a seat belt restraint. We don’t expect the Bumbo to be able to keep a mobile baby safe because it is not made for that purpose.

Anya eating carrots in a Bumbo

Anya playing peek-a-boo with Adam on the Bumbo

One of my friends shared an article on Facebook about the Bumbo being recalled but added that she thinks it’s fine to use it as long as the baby is not left alone and I completely agree with her. Someone commented on her post that it’s such a bother that babies have to be supervised all the time, which makes me wonder why some people become parents if they think that the basic act of parenting is too troublesome.

I’ve also heard that some people are planning to throw their Bumbo baby seat away. If the Bumbo baby seat is used the way it’s meant to be used, then everything will be fine and dandy. But if an adult can’t figure out how to use a simple moulded foam seat correctly and safely, then yes, she doesn’t deserve to own it and should just get rid of it.

It doesn’t matter how smart or how safe a product is if people cannot be bothered to use their common sense. Just remember: the Bumbo baby seat is supposed to seat a baby, not baby-sit.

A Very Depressing Brunch at Infusion

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Infusion at Dempsey

On Sunday, we went to Infusion at Dempsey for a brunch buffet. My mother-in-law had gotten some inSing SuperDeals vouchers which got us 40% off so we paid $14.90 per person instead of $24.80. The deal was so popular that the restaurant was fully booked when we wanted to make reservations for the Sunday before.

I think it’s pretty obvious that I like to take pictures of food. If I don’t take any photos at a new place, it’s either because the food looks so good that I want to dig in immediately or because the food is so blah that I can’t be bothered. At Infusion, it was the latter. The self-serve brunch buffet was like the free breakfast you get when you stay at a basic hotel: coffee, tea, milk, cornflakes, porridge, bread, sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, pancakes, french toast, cakes and fruit. They also had some tomato-based pasta and mussels. The quality of the food wasn’t great and definitely not worth the original price of $24.80. And even at the discounted price of $14.90, I can get much better food. It was just really depressing.

When we got home after brunch, I did some googling and realised that there were some ala carte items on the buffet menu that we could have ordered. My mother-in-law was not with us at brunch because she was overseas so we had no idea what the voucher for the brunch buffet included. But the service staff at the restaurant certainly didn’t come forward with the ala carte menu or attempt to take our orders for the free flow soft drinks or anything.

I don’t know what the usual menu at Infusion is like and whether the food for lunch and dinner is good but the brunch buffet is definitely not worth going for. And now, I’m even more suspicious of some of the deals offered by these group buying sites. :(

Children’s Season: Once Upon Another Time at NLB Building

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We had a bit of time before meeting Adrian for dinner on Wednesday so we popped over to the NLB building because I remembered that they had something on for Children’s Season as well. Honestly, the Once Upon Another Time event was the most boring thing ever because there was absolutely nothing going on there. Maybe it was because we got there at 5.15pm and the event (if you can even call it that) was supposed to end at 6pm.

Anyway, there were large story panels which had fairy tale mash-ups such as one about the Big Bad Wolf, Humpty Dumpty and the three bears. There was also a story which was an Asian version of Pinnochio + The Boy Who Cried Wolf where villagers were busy making rangoli patterns but the girl who was supposed to be watching out for rain kept lying that a storm was coming and her nose kept getting longer, etc. Related to that story were some plastic sheets with rangoli patterns that kids could colour in with crayons and that was the only activity for kids. I read somewhere that there were storytelling sessions but there wasn’t any info available as far as I could see.

I think that as the National Library, there’s so much they can do to excite and engage kids so the lack of effort was appalling especially in comparison with what the other organisations are doing for Children’s Season. So disappointing! I would write it off as a complete waste of time except that Anya was quite happy colouring rangoli and listening to me read the different stories to her.

a house made from pandan chiffon cake

story about an evil man who lives in the pandan cake house

something about Big Bad Wolf and Humpty Dumpty

Anya says that she’s Humpty Dumpty

colouring the rangoli

flowers with poetry and some facts about fairytales

Whiplash

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We were involved in a car accident last Thursday. We were happily travelling down the AYE when the driver of the car in front of us suddenly jammed his brakes. Adrian braked as well and we screeched to a stop without hitting the car in front of us. But before we could breathe a sigh of relief, the car behind us hit us and we all jerked forward. :( My first emotion was that of extreme anger that people would drive in such an irresponsible way and put my daughter’s life in danger. I just thank God that she was securely buckled into her car seat. We all got out of the car and I saw that there were a total of 4 cars involved in the accident. I held Anya and stood on the divider and glared at everyone while Adrian took photos and wrote down numbers. She seemed ok and didn’t cry.

On Friday and Saturday, my neck was hurting and I couldn’t tilt my head back without pain. And on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, I had the worst back pain ever and I couldn’t take a deep breath without cringing from the pain. Adrian also had neck pain but Anya still seemed fine.

Today, we went to see a specialist and he examined us. He had to bribe Anya with lollipops to examine her and when he asked her if she had any pain anywhere, she showed him the mosquito bite on her hand. -_- She was wriggling around so much in an attempt to get off his lap that he was very sure from her range of movement that she was fine. Again, thank God. I really don’t mind suffering as long as Anya’s not in any sort of pain or discomfort.

Although Adrian and I are in pain, I’m glad that we are safe and that Anya is ok. And I’m glad I always insist that she stays in the car seat. :)

Brace yourself!!

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22 Oct – Went to see the orthodontist, Dr Lo, for the first time. He took x-rays and I realised I have only one wisdom tooth! I was sure I had more but I must have remembered wrongly. Either that or the tooth fairy spirited them away in my sleep. We went through the various options but I was pretty set on the 3M Clarity self-ligating braces. He said that I would have to extract 4 teeth: 2 from the top and 2 from the bottom.

9 Nov – Dr Lo put in the separators for me with some difficulty. I don’t really floss my molars so they are very tight. Another dentist did the extraction. The LA injections were quite painful. She cleaned and polished my teeth for me before the extraction. The extraction took a while and she had to pull really hard and really long because the premolars being removed had long roots and my jaw bone is very dense. Ouch. Really hated how my lips and chin were numb for hours after that! It’s such a weird feeling. I kept my teeth. They look quite gross. My mum made some porridge for me. Swallowed it as best as I could.

10 Nov – Was on MC. Couldn’t eat. The separators gave me a terrible headache. Dragged myself to my mum’s place and she made some porridge for me. I mashed salted egg into the porridge. That was my dinner too. Very miserable! Had a fever. Popped some panadols. Adrian ordered Mac’s for supper and I broke one of the separators while attempting to eat fries. Sigh.

11 Nov – Back at work. Couldn’t find anything to eat. Had a banana milkshake, an avocado milkshake and tau suan. Became feverish again. Managed to eat some porridge and noodles for dinner. Starting to wonder if I made the wrong decision. Starting to wonder if I’m crazy and a masochist.

12 Nov – Managed some pandan chiffon cake for breakfast. My broken separator came out. Sigh. Comforted self by shopping for dental stuff during lunch. Found the Oral B Ortho Brush and Super Floss at Guardian Pharmacy. Super Floss sounds like some BreadTalk bun. Had porridge for lunch again. Had another appointment with Dr Lo and he put in my braces for me. It was really uncomfortable to have my mouth held open for such an incredibly long time. But it is done. I have braces at the ripe ol’ age of 30.

Fowl Weekend

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We had a pretty rotten weekend what with the terrible weather, horrendous traffic and a series of unfortunate events. But I’m still thankful that I got to spend quality time with Anya. She had to miss Little Gym but we made up for it by having a nice brunch with Auntie Debs at Hatched. Later in the afternoon, we had to wait 45 minutes for stupid 173 but we were rewarded with yummy macaroni cooked by Auntie Debs. Ok, guess I got to spend quality time with my sister too. And quality time involves food. Heh. The thing is, even if my weekend doesn’t go according to plan (and I do plan my weekends quite obsessively scrupulously to get the most out of them), I’m happy anyway because the company’s always great! :)

Birthday Party Logistics!

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This is mostly for my own reference but some of you may find the info useful too.

Party Location

I decided to use Scrumptious Cafe at Turf City for Anya’s birthday party because it’s relatively near my place. The last time I went to Scrumptious, the food was pretty good as well. I like the play area that they have. It’s big enough so kids can have enough space but small enough so it’s easy to keep an eye on your kid. It’s also more suitable for younger kids unlike some of the other places like Fidgets. Anya definitely had fun playing with the toys and bouncing around on the trampoline.

It was quite difficult trying to secure the place for the party though. They don’t have a website nor an email address listed anywhere. When I called and asked for info on their party packages, the lady who took down my name and email address never got back to me. I had to call again and explain want I wanted all over again to get the info sent to me. After looking at the packages, I decided to just reserve a table instead of getting a specific package because the packages didn’t really suit my needs and I wanted my guests to be able to order whatever they wanted from the menu. Scrumptious was fine with that and even said they would do the birthday deco for me. They also went out of the way to clear a space in their fridge for Anya’s ginormous cake which I thought was very nice of them.

Initially, they wanted to send me the menu and get my guests to pre-order so that they wouldn’t have to wait too long for the food on that day. Then they said the size was manageable and we didn’t need to pre-order. But 2 nights before the party, they sent me the menu and said they had another group reservation for that Saturday and thought it would be better if we pre-ordered. There was something wrong with the menu document they sent me and I replied and said I had problems reading it but they didn’t send me another one. Obviously, I couldn’t get my friends’ orders in advance with such short notice.

On the day itself, we turned up on time but the tables were not arranged and there were no decorations yet. And the deco turned out to be a rather sad string of plastic party flags and a cardboard sign for the entrance. I know it’s good of them to do the deco even though we didn’t get a package but if I’d known that it was going to be so sparse, I would have brought my own deco to add to it. But the most disappointing part was that many, many items on the menu were not available or were sold out and whatever we did manage to order didn’t taste great. We also had to remind them of certain orders that didn’t get delivered to the table. When the bill came, some of the stuff we’d ordered but didn’t get because they were sold out were not taken off the bill so that was a pain as well.


I just feel that they should have been more prepared since they were dealing with the Saturday crowd and two group reservations. After all, there’s a Giant in Turf City, so if they were running low on ingredients, they could have restocked. I’ll probably go back to Scrumptious again just to hang out and let Anya play but won’t entrust another important party to them which is sad because I liked the place. :(

Still, I think the kids had fun and that’s the most important to me. I can’t wait to see the pictures that Joan took!! She’s so nice to come down and take photos for Anya’s party even though she’s so busy. Thanks, babe! I really appreciate it.

Birthday Cake

I got the cake from Smiling Orchid because I wanted something traditional, i.e. a big number ‘1’ without any 3D things on it. The cake was HUGEEEE and we barely made a dent in it!! I ordered vanilla sponge with chocolate chip filling and I thought it was quite nice and the cake was very pretty too!


Party Bag

I didn’t realise how challenging it would be trying to put together a party goody bag for a bunch of under-2s! If you look at all the party favours in the shops, they are for 3 years and above because of small parts! So this was what I come up with in the end:


That little ol’ shop in Holland V that is beside StanChart (or is it HSBC) has a lot of affordable party stuff. I got the bags ($2 for 12) and blowouts ($4 for 12) there. They have nice balloons too and I got one for Anya on her birthday. It’s still floating around my house!! The clappers were quite popular with the kids and those are from Centrepoint. The stuffed toy is just $1.50 and the bath squeeze toy is $9.95 for 4 (the other three being whale, hippo and crocodile). The kids really love the ladybird because it zips around and flips over. Those are $1.90 each from Great World City. The organic raisins are from Rail Mall and cost $7.20 for 18 mini boxes. And of course, the Baby Bites are $2.40 for a box of 24 from any supermarket.