Life as an allergy kids' mum

I've had another baby in February this year. My oldest daughter has multiple food allergies. I've decided to start blogging about my journey with making food for two allergy kids. I've found out that my little one is also allergic to milk after feeding him milk formula. We've given him Pepti Junior, but he doesn't want to drink it, so he's drinking soy formula now. He is quite happy with it, drinking it when I am not breastfeeding him. I am drinking milk and eating cheese, not avoiding eggs or peanuts when I have food, but most of the time I have soy products with my daughter. I think I may an intolerance/allergy to cow's milk, but I haven't done any blood tests to confirm it. I haven't really cut out the food long enough to see if I am allergic to cow's milk, but I haven't got eczema anymore after I stopped drinking milk everyday. I am fairly happy with that result. It's been hard taking care of two kids and moving. We are thinking about moving closer to my husband's parents. They live in the countryside, but it is scary for me because we will be very far away from the hospital. My kids may never be able to live far away from the hospital because they are allergic to certain foods, but you can die from it even if you do everything right. We just have to be calm and carry on as usual, careful, but not too worried. We don't want to give our kids a complex about it. It's hard to find a house and sell a house. I think that's true for anyone anywhere. Do you sell your house now? Is it going to be a good price? Can we buy another place for the amount of money we have? I don't know. It's okay though.

Angkor Wat inspired dinner - Cambodia

One of my favourite dish is Kuy teav - kuay teow in Chinese. According to wikipedia, Kuy teav is a noodle soup consisting of rice noodles with pork stock and toppings. I am going to make this dish for dinner tonight. I was inspired by Toy Story Toon Hawaii Vacation to have a holiday at home. Why do we have to go away to enjoy a vacation? We can totally kick back and relax at home any time! Barbie and Ken were unable to go to Hawaii, so the toys helped them to go to the zoo, go undersea diving, and put on a delicious romantic meal for two. I think this is a great idea for us since we can't afford to go overseas on a trip, but we are very capable of having a holiday at home. I looked up Angkor Wat on wikipedia, and also tried to find a book about the temple. Hamilton libraries have books about travelling to Cambodia, but I can't find a book that contain big photos of Angkor Wat. This is a bit disappointing since I hope to find a book with a big photo of Angkor Wat so I can show it to my better half. He is facinated with Angkor Wat, hopefully saving up to travel to see the real thing one day. Before we see the real thing, I can certainly bring him some Cambodian cuisine! Below is the description of Kuy teav that I've found on Wikipedia: Kuy teav is prepared with partially dry thin squarish rice noodles cooked by quickly immersing the noodles in boiling water. The noodles are then strained, placed into a bowl, and moistened with nutty, caramelised garlic oil. After dressing with a sticky brown liquid made of oyster sauce, soy sauce and a pinch of sugar, the bowl is then filled with a clear broth made from pork bones, dried squid, and sugar, and seasoned with a bit of fish sauce. Then the meat toppings are added, which may include an assembly of different types of meat, such as pork loaf, minced pork, pork belly, duck, seafood or offal. Availability is the main factor in what toppings are used in kuy teav; some versions can be quite humble and basic, using only some ground pork and perhaps some dried shrimp for protein, while others can be more time consuming and extravagant. Lastly, when the dish is presented at the table, the diner will then add a number of garnishes and aromatics to customise the dish in accordance with his or her preferences. n Cambodia, kuy teav is still primarily a breakfast dish, and will typically be sold out by vendors before midday. As the pork broth is intended to be subtle rather than spicy, a plethora of optional herbs and other aromatics is always presented, allowing the diner to adjust the textures and flavours of the dish to his or her liking. In fact, in Cambodia it is precisely the use of garnishes and condiments that defines the main flavour profile of the dish (garlic, limes and pepper are a common flavour trio in Cambodian cuisine), rather than the broth. The dish is always served with the requisite garnishes of a few lettuce leaves, bean sprouts, fresh herbs (such as spring onions (scallions), sawtooth coriander and holy basil), crushed black Kampot pepper, lime juice, and caramelised garlic oil. Many types of chilli (fresh, dried, pickled) and chilli sauce are also normally present at the table, to either add into the broth or to be used as a dipping sauce for the meat toppings, as well as soy sauce, fish sauce and sugar. Kuy teav is also sometimes eaten with deep fried bread sticks, similar to how the Cambodians would eat congee (rice porridge). There are other Cambodian dishes that require more skills and ingredients than I can cope with. I will leave those dishes out today. Maybe I will practice in the future and post here again. Ok. The only problem I have today is that we had pork yesterday so it's difficult for me to get pork bones to make the stock. I should be able to use other meats to make the stock, or I can get some pork bones from the supermarket. I happen to have fish sauce, chilli sauce (from Nandos, not so authentic, but should be fine since it is not so spicy), lettuce, and spring onions. I should be able to get some bean sprouts from the Asian shop across the road. I can get fresh coriander, lime, oyster sauce and garlic oil from the supermarket. I also have some rice noodle in my pantry. I also looked up Cambodian clothes. Very interesting. Seems doable to me. I don't think I have such colourful harem pants available, but hopefully I can rustle something up tonight. It's still very cold today. I am a bit over this winter. Looks like spring is just around the corner. One of my daffodil is threatening to bloom. I will try to make international cuisine more often. It is fun and makes me feel that I am on holiday there. Enjoy your day.

It's been a while and I am back

I haven't been blogging for so long that this activity seems to be so foreign to me now. My baby girl is nine months old. I have changed so much as a woman that I don't think I know myself anymore. I am slowly regaining my formal identity, however, I don't think I will ever be the same. Being a mother is never easy, but I often find times to smile and laugh with my daughter even though the situation is so difficult. For example, one day, she put her hand in a tub of Fatty Cream that I was trying to put on her, I couldn't help but laugh at the situation before cleaning her hand up. Her hand was covered with white Fatty Cream, and maybe she was just curious about the substance that I put on her everyday. She has eczema, and is allergic to certain foods, but she's a very happy baby. We still hang out together during the day, breastfeeding, eating increasingly chunky food around noon time, and taking strolls together under the sun. The weather is improving everyday even though this week we had dreadful rain. I've bought some flowers to add colours to our neglected garden. I haven't really planted anything new in the vegetable garden this year because I know I won't have time to take care of them. I hope that the flowers in the pots will survive my neglect, and hopefully, I will remember to water them now and again. I'm coping better now, cooking more dinners every week. It's still very hard for me to stay awake in the afternoon before dinner time. She doesn't need to sleep so much during the day now. I will have to change my routine again. Christmas is near. I've been very stressed about it lately, and it's just not worth stressing about, really. I've done all I can for it now, so I will leave it and take a more relaxed approach. I have some issues with my husband's family, and I will have to deal with those issues in my own time. It's hard to be happy when I can't resolve the issues in my mind, and these things have nothing to do with them, it's what I perceive to be wrong. I just can't be the perfect daughter-in-law or sister-in-law. I don't know why I try to be, but that's just how I am, I guess. I have been trying to bake and make some dessert since my diet is too restricting at the moment. It's not easy to cook without butter, cream, egg, bananas, peanuts and most other Tree Nuts. I will soldier on, but sometimes, I just hope this will end. I just want the days when I could eat everything to come back, but it won't. I will keep going regardless, though. I have been working so hard and come so far. It's nice that the weather is improving. I feel so much better now. It's also good that my body is healing well, and almost everything is healed and back to normal now. Women do have expectations, and after your gave birth, those expectations are way too high and we expect many things to get back to normal almost immediately. It's not the case with me. I expect to feel different and look different, but not like this. Sometimes, I hate the way I feel because I know I am not supposed to feel so sad. I feel much happier now that most of my health problems are gone, or close to be resolved. Another good news is that my sister is feeling much better. It has been a difficult year for her as well. 2012 is a year full of up and downs. I look forward to 2013 and what it will bring to my family. I am sure no matter what happens, it will be better than what happened this year.

The last few weeks of pregnancy

I had Braxon Hicks contractions for the last two nights in a row now. It was pretty bad last night, most of the contractions were painful and lasted longer than the previous night. However, we are pretty prepared for labour and baby now so there's not much to worry about.
We were pretty busy this weekend. I went to Thai International Dinner and we sent away one of our friend to Wellington. It's hard to see our friend go, and this girl is so bubbly. We will have to take a road trip to see her and also see Wellington some time. My sister is also having a busy weekend, going to the Thai dinner with me and a BBQ get together on Saturday, a ball in Auckland on Saturday night, which she didn't attend because she was too tired from the sport/BBQ event on the same day. One of the guys from BBQ was taking photos of her and complimented her short pants! It was good to be complimented by a guy and I am sure she had a nice time there.
I tidied the living room and packed the family papers into the filing cabinet. When I say papers, I meant mostly bank statements lying around in the living room. I also put the business papers on the desk in the shop room. I haven't made the final payment for business visa this month so I won't pack everything away yet. There's also GST for last month to do, and I think I will do it this week when I have time. I better get it done sooner rather than later, because we don't know when the baby will come. I don't think I will be able to do it after the baby is here since I will be super busy.
We've also changed the living around a bit. There will be a play area/rumpus behind the sofa. I moved the sofa closer to the TV so we don't have to squint at the screen. See, instant bigger TV! Genius. I also plan to play my cello or sew behind the sofa, and the Foosball table can be used again now there's some space. I am very happy about this development.
I also told husband that he can claim back his half of the wardrobe in our bedroom, which he did promptly last night. He couldn't find his clothes this morning because all of them have changed address! So funny. I asked him to put my winter coats and winter tops into the other closet in the shop. That closet is now full of clothes and I also put the picnic bag on the top shelf in there.
There's still DVD games and computer parts in the closet in the baby's room. They will have to go somewhere somehow. I planned to put the DVD on the bookshelves in the living room, and I don't know where to store the computer parts. Maybe put them in the garage? Or dump them? I will have to ask him.
The weather is still pretty great in the morning, apparently it will rain the rest of the week! Cripes. We have already done so many loads of washing during the weekend, I don't think I will continue this morning. However, I might put on another load this week some time and may have to use the garage to hang the clothes up if the weather is going to turn to custard.
I plan to take a walk in the mall again today. I also hope that my daily contraction routine will go better tonight. Now I know it's not real labour, I feel much better. But somehow, I wish that I don't have to go through any more of these because they really aren't rewarding like real labour!

Half marathon

3rd October marks the first time that I ran the SBS half marathon with my dear other half. It was hard going at the end of the second half, and I was walking slowly at that stage. We did well, with a time like 3 hr 48 minutes and 12 seconds and almost no training at all, my hubby said that I am definitely a runner. My intention is to prove to myself that I can do it, and it is an achievement in itself.
My legs hurt at the moment, but that's not all the surprising. Every bit of movement is a struggle, and I wonder why I put myself through the hard yards sometimes. Looking back at my life, I've never done anything physically impossible or amazing. I was never any good at PE, but I like walking around the streets and roads around my house. It is relaxing and a good way to be healthier. It is certainly a cost effective way to exercise, and you can do it at any age with any fitness level. I'd like to think that from now on, I can train to be fitter. I'd also like to continue my exercise regime for the long term because I always seems to slack off after a while.
The weather is going to be nice for the next few days. Vegetables are going into the ground for the summer/autumn harvest now. I am looking forward to a good season and this is also the first time that I can put vegetables into my own back yard garden! Isn't that something to cheer about?