Last Thursday, we thronged Takashimaya for their cardmembers’ sale. Making a beeline for the baby’s department, we joined the crowd in the teeny corner. Seriously, if you didn’t know where it was, it was easy to miss. Very unlike the size of the baby fair they typically have in the atrium. The small space was made even worse by the crowd. And the type of crowd. Shoppers who flocked there fell into 3 categories:- mothers to be with their very swollen bellies, mothers with bulky strollers or sarong-slinged child or active toddler or some combination of the above and clueless mothers with experienced friend / mother / relative in tow. Navigating the tight space took some time…

And yielded some erhmm, unexpected things.

Like the Safety 1st Jack Potty. According to the reviews, perfect for toilet training your toddler. Or training your child in preparation of the IR’s opening. To us, it seriously begets the question of what the designers were thinking. We’d settle for a more ‘normal’ potty, thank you very much.

Fell in love with Kaloo and their amazing soft soft toys. I want! But I can’t afford nor justify spending so much on the soft toy. French designed but not made in France. At least according to the salesman.

Love this Teddy sleep wedge. Designed to help prevent wee ones from rolling over (and on their face) in their sleep, it is a cute and functional piece. We used a simple (read, clinical white wedge design) one on Jayden and went one down with Kathlene by strategically placing bolsters beside her. She has no need for them right now but this makes a really whimsical gift. For newborns that is.

We unexpectedly took the Baby Bjorn Synergy for a dry run and Kathlene loved it. However we are still unwilling to cough up $299 for it. We did explore the Beco since we did consider buying Bjorn but scraped that idea because Kathlene loves front facing… which the Beco is not designed for.

What we eventually left the mall with was… 2 tubes of Pigeon toothpaste for Jayden and a couple of Tommee Tippee bottles for Kathlene. Yes, we are boring consumers like that.

(Kathlene has rejected all previous bottles thus far. We’re trying our luck with these!)

Heaven’s Loft has just opened over at Orchard Central and we met up with a couple of friends for dinner and some icecream. A very cool concept in an interesting building, we had fun exploring the place both before and after dinner. The building itself resembles some arty-farty modern museum with the odd structures it incorporates into the walls lining the interior. Just on the 8th floor (where Heaven’s Loft is located), we spotted the undercarriage of the car, old videocassette tape decks, pressurised air tanks and yet more. Fun really!

Even Jayden could not help fiddling with the knobs. They have all been spraypainted to create uniformity but you can make out odds and ends. The building warrants another visit! Heaven’s Loft itself warrants a visit with friends to chill out in the outdoor balcony area. Overlooking Orchard Road, it is quite a nice place to hang out sans kids. And there are plans for jazz sessions too.

What we did manage to do … with Jayden in tow was explore the merchandise and dine.

It is an ice-cream place too!

erhmm, no, we didn’t get the B&J ball for him. we learnt a long time ago to harden our hearts to those wistful eyes.

peering over the menu to see what he could get his hands on

No pictures of the food because we were either busy fending him off (or rather, preventing him from smashing the plates to smithereens) or feeding him. He takes after his dad. Give him nacho chips and he’d be a happy man boy. But, take our word for it. There was a lot of thought and care given into the presentation of each and every item. Even the sundaes

So erhmm, till the next time we get to chill out there…

If you have met up with us recently (ok, anytime from when Jayden turned 6 months old), you’d have heard us lament that he is on a liquid diet. Anything liquid, he is likely to down. The slightest solid, and he’d spit it out like vermin. It seemed abnormal to us until we thumbed through New Toddler Taming by Dr Christopher Green. Heh.

He wrote :-

Many toddlers see food as a bit of a joke (bingo!) : Toddlers find food an interesting plaything and refuse to take it very seriously. This is a pain to the parent committed to delivering them a perfectly balanced diet. / … Go off their food : This is common around their first birthday and a proper eating pattern may not return for anything up to a year. Some will only tolerate a narrow, unimaginative diet. Some eat main meals; others were born to be snackers.

I laughed big time when I read it. Ah, that does sound like Jayden. So perhaps he is ‘normal’ afterall.

The book is a hillarious read and does make for some astute reflections. It is one of those tongue-in-cheek, at your level sorta book that does not talk down to you whilst providing you new insights / suggestions in taming the toddler.

It is not Supernanny but it is a great read!

And oh, the picture above? That’s Jayden eating his bao. His style of course. Minus the outer skin, minus the filling. Essentially, he is eating… bread.

So we are soon going to go back into the territory of milk, hopefully breastmilk, being the only sustenance (I’m talking about baby2!)… I’m highly amused by this product.

Quirky, yes. Useful? I don’t know. This supposedly measures the amount of alcohol in breastmilk so that it is safe for junior to drink. Especially useful for those who need their glass of wine?

Available from Amazon, seen via Tot Snob.

We wandered into Life Baby on Wednesday. Veraday and I. We were quite taken with a few of their products. Namely the flashcards. I guess they appealed to us with the minimalistic design and everything. Same like these clean cut designs by A Little Hut.

They are sold as pdfs so that you can print as many as you like, on whatever you like. Just that, erhmm, sometimes, I wonder if they appeal more to the adults than the kids. Hmm.

Still, it looks like a lovely buy no? On to the wishlist it goes! To buy or not to buy is the question (of the day).

First seen and pictures from, A Little Hut.

One thing about Jayden is that he is a ‘karang guni’ who would much prefer empty bottles to real toys. So we kind of banished the idea (not to mention desire) to splurge on presents for him a long long time ago. We did however draw up a wishlist (for fun!) vs a wantlist (we’re getting!).

Quite easy to tell which is which in the collage above.

The boy has discovered the power of the pen (the whole jazz about it being mightier than the sword) and has been unleashing his hidden (lack of) talent on any scrap of paper he finds. Thankfully, he has not started on the raw table nor the walls. So we figured it is about time to get a set of crayons and maybe a Magna Doodle board. Next shopping trip, we’d get some

So hopefully, he’d leave our pens alone.

And oh, the cute teddy bear dog over there in the bottom right corner is a timer. It is supposed to teach children time, responsibility *yawn* and all that jazz by effectively being a timer used when said child is naughty and sent to the ‘naughty zone’. Deceptively ‘cute’ I say. I can’t decide whether the huge oven-like timer is scary or interesting.

** Clockwise from top left corner :: Little Heart Flat Cards : Love Bird Mobile : Family Tree : Time’s Up Puppy Dog : Magna Doodle : Crayola Crayons ::

Jenny always makes the loveliest bears! And her latest offering of Cupid stole my heart away. She handmakes the most awesome collector’s bears that are just so adorable that I wish I could get them. But I can’t. Not right now. Jayden would destroy them in a jiffy. Unknowingly.

He likes soft toys. Not that he doesn’t. In fact he can actually say ‘bear’. But because he is so young, he doesn’t quite know how to care for them. Just last night, I found him feeding my 08 Valentine’s present (a stuffed dog) his milk. Heartwarming, yes (in a way!) but oh so wrong. Poor doggie got an unexpected and unwelcomed milk bath.

Jayden interacts with soft toys quite a bit. That much he must have inherited from me. He’d cuddle them, give them hugs and talk to them. He’d ask for them and even go take them from the cupboard. And he does it all with the sweetest expression on his face. Ahhh… hopefully these are signs that he’d make a good older brother?

The Official Tooth Fairy Kit contains one letterpress Certificate of Record for filing with your local Tooth Fairy and one reusable silkscreened cloth deposit bag for your first and all subsequent transactions. The official certificate keeps record of name, age, tooth lost, method of extraction and compensation information.

Jayden hasn’t reached this milestone yet but this was too cute to pass up. Yes, I know that most baby / children related products (and / or services) are out to milk the sappy parents of as much money as possible but this was really quaint. I don’t think I’d be willing to part with the dough required but I’d blatantly take gifts (joking!).

ANYHOW, on to the product. The kit is available at The Office Of The Tooth Fairy (tell me you aren’t amused!) for USD 16 each. When the time comes (and I remember!), I’d probably do something else for the fun of it. Printed on the trusty laserjet, my el cheapo way.