Grubbs n Critters

November 28, 2011

Flooding Update 0.0

Category: Thaism

While some parts are still affected by the flood (one of my colleagues is still not able to go back to her home in Rangsit), the inner Bangkok did not even see a trickle of flood water in its soi.

It is looking like the flooding situation within Bangkok has finally started to subside, along with the news updates on flooding that has occurred in some parts of Bangkok.

The good news is that the supply of bottled water and dried food and other essentials have mostly made it back to the shelves of the supermarkets. Still plenty of imported bottled water versus the locally produced ones, but at least there are stocks!

However, the few things I now noticed missing from the shelves of several supermarkets are dish washing liquid and cleaning agents like Windex, floor and toilet cleaners; which according to my observation, they have been off the shelves for more than 3 weeks already.

In a way, it makes sense as people are starting to clean up their homes. But for god sakes, please bloody stock up on those things soon – or I’ll have to start using disposables (not good for the environment!) just because I cannot do my dishes!

Talk about myopic – did anyone ever see that coming? I certainly did not think that even cleaning agents can get out of stock. How much volume of that shit do people use? They can’t be using dish washing liquid to wash the floor can they?

The other bad news is that the crazy traffic jam is back.

Thailand oh! Thailand. Our lives can’t get more exciting than this.

Wiggle Town

Category: Baby Essentials

One of the things that I find lacking in Bangkok is the availability of some sort of a dedicated play-center for babies and younger toddlers. By this I mean some sort of a center that also caters to working parents who are able to take their kids to such places only on the weekends, and made available to the, not only on weekdays, but for the whole day on Saturday and Sunday. Something that does not cost an arm and a leg.

So, when we stumbled upon Wiggle Town a while back, we were actually quite disappointed that it is located all the way in Pattaya –a 2 hour drive away. Hence, when we went to Pattaya not too long ago with Silver Bullet’s parents, we were only too happy to check it out.

The concept is pretty cool. It is not a nursery, but rather a house converted into a play area targeted at children from newborn to 5 years old. They have modern indoor and outdoor play areas, designed for active play whilst encouraging interaction with other children. As the website puts it, it is the only dedicated play center where children can lay safely while Mom, Dad or Carers can relax.

I especially like the fact that they are open 7 days a week, from 10 am to 5pm, with not so hefty charges.

All in all, the place did not disappoint us. We were there quite early and it was quiet, with only one other older kid around. It was a cosy setting.

Given that it was also an opportunity for the grandparents to spend some time with Spud, we left Spud in their care for a few hours while we went about town to do some errands.

Spud apparently went crazy. She was happy to be let loose and thoroughly enjoyed playing with the pool of balls as well as bouncing up and down the trampoline. We were there for only a few hours, but I highly recommend it if you have little tots when you are in Pattaya.

The one almost similar setting that I know of in Bangkok is currently operating only on weekdays, only very occasionally on a few hours on some weekends. I could only wish they have something similar here in Bangkok in terms of opening hours catering to working parents like us. (Or perhaps, I should just be brave enough to open up such a business here in Bangkok!)

The other place we know of, called the Funarium, caters mainly to bigger kids, with only a small area for infants and toddlers. It is also hideously expensive. (A review for another post!)

Apart from being a little unsure of the strange-looking swing, Spud could never have been happier!

Last "food fight"?

Category: Baby Food

We cracked something new recently with Spud following a gentle tip from our Nanny on how to have a relatively peaceful feeding Spud session. And that is by blasting children’s music consisting of “The Wheel on the Bus”, “London Bridge is Falling Down”, “Itsy Bitsy Spider, “If you are happy and you know it..”, as well as the very annoying “ The More We Get Together” Song.

Over and over and over again. Arrgggggh!

For breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Argggggggh!

And then I will have those songs in my head till about mid-day while I am in the office; and just as soon as I was about to forget it, I come home only to hear them all over again.

Argggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

It gets worse in the weekends as we have to play that darn CD during the 3 meal times if and when we are at home.

Apparently, the Nanny has been having some trouble feeding Spud from time to time, and had discovered this in her bags of tricks. Since then, feeding Spud, while still can be challenging at times, has been more of a breeze. We have only started employing the tactic about a week ago, and at the risk of jinxing her now-better eating habits, feeding her with the music on while we sing to her really did wonders to her (actually more of ours!) feeding experience.

While we thought we sort of figured it out last time when it comes to food with Spud, it did not last very long. She soon got bored of the spoon-and-empty-bowl phase, and very soon afterwards, tested our patience by dipping her entire hands into her food bowl whenever she can.

I have, for quite awhile (you should see the halo on my head!) stopped getting frustrated with her, and calmly and steadily just allowed her to play with her liquid food while I watched her. It was a disastrous and messy affair , and funnily enough, both Silver Bullet and I shrugged it off and ended up laughing our guts out. Here are some pictures while she was at it for a good 15 minutes and I could only cringe inside and shudder in utter eeekiness as she smeared all those liquidy stuff all over my hands and some bits of it splattered on my face, hair. (Good thing I was wearing an apron!)

It was a disaster to clean up afterwards. Liquid food was smeared just about every-frickin’-where!

I guess she just needed to get it out of her system as surprisingly enough though, and as far as I can remember, that was our last “food fight” since then. I don’t think it ever happened again after that. For some reason too, these days, Spud starts to show signs of her yukkiness to food stuff and gungon her hands.

We have since found the music trick to be working. Okay, well…at least for now.

Just to confirm, yes, I think I’m still sane.