Grubbs n Critters

October 1, 2012

Four Months

Squirt’s a big boy. He is a happy, razzing, gurgling, blowing raspberries chunky boy! At 4 months, he now fits comfortably in a 9 month old onesies – it makes me wonder if he really is THAT big or the cut of those onesies they sell here are just a tad smaller…

But then again, he is already fitting nicely in Spud’s hand-me downs where she wore them when she was over 9 months old. Hmmm. This one got his Papa’s genes.

He found his thumb recently, and we found that many a time, he took to his thumb to soothe himself when he wants to go to sleep. I guess I’ll start worrying if he is still sucking his thumb(s) when he is over 5 years old.

This is also the period when apparently his reflux will be at his worse. Granted, there has been days in the last couple of weeks where he had seemed quite bothered by it. He was spitting up by the loads, and then there was that piercing screams…I do hope it will get better.

Despite his reflux and thus his tendencies of being difficult, I found it endearing that he seems to enjoy staring into my eyes quite a lot. He has been doing this since he was about a month old, and almost always with a ready smile. It is something I would not have expected of him given that his sister, Spud, never really did want to hold her gaze on anyone for long since she was a little baby. Squirt’s stares though, tend to be deep, intense, purposeful but gentle. He seems to be at peace if he gets to hold anyone’s gaze – something which I am getting used to and liking very much. While he stares, he also then starts to “chat” quite a bit. He smiles loads – lots more than Spud ever did when she was a baby.

And oh, boy! Does this chunky baby laugh! He laughs heartily when I make silly sounds, or use my mouth to tickle his belly. He certainly is at the age now where he is getting more responsive – and that is always nice.

He also seems to like Spud very much. For, whenever Spud is in his line of vision, he will be following her with his eyes, and even turning his head to “follow” her – flailing his arms and feet in excitement.

Ahh! How time flies. I guess it will be a matter of time now before we start introducing solids to him.

Burning calories

Category: Entertainment

.Enough said.

Reminds me of all those pregnancy weight and stubborn fats I still have to shed!

Much ado about safety

Category: Rant and Thoughts

This is how the streets of Bangkok seem to always be able to blow my mind:

What am I getting at, you ask?

Well…this essentially is a very small soi of a rather busy street. Just like a typical Bangkok street, it is a soi where a few street vendors loom amidst walking pedestrians and moving traffic at about 50 km p/hour. It is also the soi in which I walk every day, at least 2x a day to send my daughter to school. The distance between me, the vendor on my left and the traffic on my right is probably just a couple of inches away.

The truth is, I hate walking along this soi in the day. There, halfway to Spud’s school, stood a vendor who thought that it probably is a good idea to set up stall right on the tiny footpath meant for pedestrians and in front of on-going traffic to sell his fried banana and tapioca balls. Not only that, I am sure that he probably also thought that it is a very good idea to place a wok, filled with extremely hot oil for deep frying. He hardly ever stopped frying, and unfortunately for pedestrians like me, there is no other way but to walk right in front of his mobile cart every single day. It is terrible to be walking there when some other moron decided that they were going to be parking their huge ass pick-up truck right next to the mobile cart with its butt jutting into the street, and especially when it rains!

I shudder every morning I walk there whilst I have Spud strapped to me. I shudder at the thought of any unfortunate accident that might happen to anyone trying to maneuver away from the moving traffic that tend to have no qualms cutting corners and act like they own the road. My heart palpitates each time I walk past his sizzling hot-oil filled wok. (Ok… I am also a paranoid freak when it comes to roads and moving traffic)

I’m sure that the fried banana man is a nice guy and all – he almost always never fail to flash me a smile and acknowledges Spud whenever we walk past him; but, really, his sheer disregard for public safety is appalling.

And, because this is Thailand, there really is nothing much you can do about it but just grit your teeth and rant.

Here’s a link I found sometime back on 12 Ways To Seriously Injure Yourself on a Bangkok Sidewalk. I think there certainly is room for plenty more examples!