J-Pot @ Parkway Parade Review

We went to Parkway Parade for dinner on our gal birthday. Check out my previous post.

The reason why we decided to dine at J-Pot was due to its promotion of $20 discount for minimun spending of $50. Seems like a good deal. 

The main draw of J-pot is each person will have their own individual hot pot and own selection of soup base. It is more hygenie as no need to share with others. Also it uses technology like the self ordering touch screen menu which makes the ordering faster. They also uses the induction cooktop for each seat so it is safer too. 

We ordered the specialty soup and the porridge soup. Both tasted delicious. I ordered the porridge soup as I could share with my gal. We ordered the usual stuff: pork, chicken, fish, mushroom, vege, fish noodles, tofu fish paste. The food tasted good. And the most special part of J-pot is its sauce as we can help ourselves with a wide range of sauces and ingredients by mixing it like buffet style. The sauce was very good! The service was fast and attentive too where staff readily checked our pots and topped up our soup. 

Our meal total cost $40 after the $20 discount. Well, I think it is still expensive considering we didn't order much food. If we don't have the $20 discount, it would have cost $60, which I felt is totally not worth it even though the food tasted delicious. However after the meal, we felt extremely thirsty. It could mean there were lots of MSG in the soup which was why the soup was so tasty. 

I dined at J-Pot Vivo previously but don't remembered feeling so thirsty after the meal. So this is my review verdict:

Ambience: 8/10

Technology usage: 9/10

Food: 5/10 (I gave it 5 due to the MSG. If no much MSG, it could be a 9)

Service: 9/10

Value for $: 5/10 (considering the very ordinary type of food we ordered, it still cost us $20 per person after discount) 

In summary, I don't think we will patronize J-Pot again in the near future. The main draw to J-pot is the soup, however the soup was disappointing not because it didn't tasted delicious, but because of the MSG added to the soup. The soup base alone cost about $5-8per person which is overpriced in my opinion. For this price, I would expect the soup to be really 真材实料. Therefore the meal was not value for money in my humble opinion. It was a pity. 

Our gal is 3!

Time flies, our precious baby is now 3 years old!

I still remember clearly the day she was born. It was the happiest moment of my life. Sometimes, I secretly wished that I could turn back time just to savour that moment. I regretted not filming down the delivery process. 

Anyway, She got a blasting birthday celebration. In fact she got 3 celebrations! The first celebration she had was at my relatives house who celebrated her birthday in advance. My cousin ordered and bought her a Peppa Pig birthday cake. Peppa Pig is one of her favourite character and the cake was lovely!  

The 2nd celebration was at home and we only invited close family members. We bought her a Barney cake with her photo on it. She choose the Barney cake herself as Barney was another one of her favourite character too.

We just put up some simple DIY decoration on the wall and whipped up some home cook meal for a small and intimate celebration. We actually recycled the wall decoration every year. What we did was just changing the number.

The 3rd celebration she had was on her actual birthday which falls on a weekday. I baked some chocolate chip cupcakes and piped some homemade buttercream (with no food colouring) on the cupcakes for the happy birthday wordings.

We brought the cupcakes to her playgroup to celebrate with her little friends. We also prepared some Mickey Mouse theme birthday goodie bags and DIY Mickey Mouse party hats for her little friends. It was such a cute scene to see her celebrating and singing birthday songs with her little friends.

DIY Mickey Mouse party hat & goodie bags

She got 3 different themes for her 3rd birthday: Peppa Pig, Barney and Mickey Mouse! Lolx. Actually we didn't really plan to have 3 themes. It just happen that my relatives bought her the Peppa Pig cake, then she choose the Barney cake and I thought Mickey Mouse was an appropriate theme for her celebration with her little friends. Next year, we got to crack our head to think for the theme again.

After her birthday celebration at her playgroup, we brought her to Kaboodle Kids indoor playground at Big Splash in East Coast Park as we got the complimentary voucher from a contest.

She was having tons of fun at the Kaboodle, busy building and playing with the blocks! As it was weekday, so initially she was the only kid playing in the indoor playground and she got the whole place to herself! Subsequently there were a few kids joining and she had fun playing together with them too.

Riding on the bike from Mummy & Daddy's creation! 

Busy playing in the house where she pretended selling cookies! 

The house was built by the Kaboodle staff! 

Experimenting the ball rolling down the mini slide

We stayed for a few hours at Kaboodle until closing time at 6pm. She refused to leave until I convinced her that we were going to the beach and she could play with the sand.

When we went to the beach, she was so excited that she jumped up and down the sand. We only let her played for a short while as it was time for dinner.

Yeah sand playing time! 

We went to Parkway Parade and dinned at J-pot hotpot as they were having an offer to have $20 off for spending minimum $50. So we thought it was quite a good deal and furthermore, K haven't try out J-pot before. I will be reviewing J-pot on a separate post.

J-pot steamboat

So that marks the end of our gal 3rd birthday celebration! 

Children book review - Our Planet by Jimi Lee

I borrowed this children book from the library recently and read it with my gal as our daily routine. I find that the book is quite meaningful sending the message what will happen if we don't cherish our planet and what we should do to save our planet.

There are only pictures and no words at all. But the pictures are simple emough for the children to understand. As there are no wordings to read, I told my gal the story based on my understanding of the pictures. She responded quite well to the book and asked me to read again after I finished reading. 

I like that the book is promoting education for our children not to make the same mistakes to hurt our environment. Our children is our last hope to save this planet and I believe it is possible through education since young. 

In the book, children who learn to grow plants or trees from the seeds will be able to create a more harmonious environment for mankind to live with the nature and using clean energy by not polluting the environment. 

I do agree with the author that we got to repair the damage we caused to the earth before it is too late. Our children holds the key to the future. 

Highly recommended 5/5 stars.  

Life as a SAHM review

Time flies. I been a SAHM (Stay at home mother) for close to 1.5 years. During this long break, besides being able to spend more time with my gal, it also allows me to pursue many of my other interests like gardening and DIY.

Gardening
We started by planting herbs at the corridor outside my house. The herbs we planted were mint, catnip, lemon balm, parsley, ginger, sweet basil. Surprisingly, the green beans which my gal planted and brought back from her playgroup grew very well and even blossom to grow flowers and bean pods too! I remembered when I was a young kid, I used to grow green beans too but after the green beans sprouted, it just die off. So I was so surprised to see my gal green bean plant thriving so well.  So far the herbs are growing well too. We installed the DIY self watering drip system so that our plants are being feed with water constantly.

I am planning to grow vegetables or perhaps sweet potatoes too. But our space outside our cooridoor is limited. So this needs to be plan carefully so that our neighbours won't complaint.

DIY
Did quite a fair bit of DIY home improvement during this time. Check out my DIY labels on my DIY creations! Did some more DIY too with my wardrobe and my gal's little work desk. So far I was quite happy with my DIY and reorganizing of our house by removing the clutter. The house looks more spacious and cleaner too.


With time spend to take care of my gal and all these interest and hobbies to occupy me, my daily schedule is fully packed. So what I do is to create daily to-do list on my handphone so I can keep to my schedule and remind me to complete my tasks.

Will I be going back to the workforce? Yes I think I will as I am also worried that I may lose my market value if I leave it for too long even though I am quite used to my current regime. I started looking out to jobs which interest me and allows me to have some work life balance to spend time with my child. Wish me luck! :)

Ting Ting development milestone @ 35 months (Potty trained journey)

At 35 months, she is now fully potty trained! Hurray! Today, she even requested not to wear her diaper to her playgroup. She is now very comfortable peeing and pooing in her potty and seems to enjoy it too! All the efforts paid off! No words could describe my relief.

I actually started potty trained her when she was 18 months. I thought the earlier I start training, the faster she adapt to it. To prepared her, I borrowed potty story books from the library and read to her every night. Then I even gotten a potty which would play music whenever she pressed the flush button so as to get her interest and stimulate her.

But I was wrong. She was showing so much resistant that she would cry and refused to sit on the potty. It was always a wrestle with her to get her to sit on the potty. I even bought 2 other types of potty as I thought the first potty with music might be distracting for her to use. I even paste her favourite Dora stickers on the potty just to get her interest (but actually it works too).

There was a time I was even doubting myself if I had been a good mother as I couldn't trained her to be potty trained. I looked around the kids around her age were somehow already potty trained. So I got nervous that she might lose out to others in development. But then after some time, I realised that I cannot forced her to use her potty. The more I forced her, the more she showed resistant. So I decided to relax and took things naturally. But I continued my education to read potty story books to her, used incentives like star chart and letting her watched her favourite peppa pig videos to attract her to sit on her potty. So instead of pushing her, I am luring her to use the potty. And suddenly one fine day, she sat on her potty by herself to pee. Then everything falls into place. And tada, she is fully potty trained now, just before her 3rd birthday!

So here's my sharing of her potty trained journey of what really works for those parents who are having headache to train their kids. But my methods may not suits all as every child is unique :)

1) Do not force upon the child
Yes, this is the number one rule. The more you force, the more they will resist. Just relax and takes things easily. If today the child does not want to sit on the potty, it's ok. Try another day when the child is in a better mood.

2) Education
This is something which works. What I did was to borrow some potty story books from the library and read to her every night. The content of the potty story books are about how the children ditched their diaper and used the potty. This is to influence her not to resist using the potty. These were some of the books we read:

       

3) Incentives
I love incentives! In my previous job, one of my project was to devise incentive programs to boost staff performance and the results were amazing! So I know how powerful incentives can be if implemented appropriately. For me I used a star chart as recognition of her good deeds everyday and sitting on the potty is one of the "to do" items. Other "to do" items include sharing, saying please and thank you, feeding herself, keeping away toys and many others which I will take turns to rotate the "to do" list everyday. There will be maximum 5 "to do" items to be fulfilled every day. But sitting on the potty is a permanent "to do" item on the chart.

The rule of the game is she will earn a star whenever she try to sit on a potty irregardless she pee or poo. As long as she is willing to sit on the potty, she will be rewarded with a star that day. If she earn 2-3 stars, she can go playground or cycling or have her favourite cookie or yakult and many others. If she earn all 5 stars for that day, she can watch her favourite peppa pig videos. Now peppa pig videos is biggest incentive for her as she is a die hard fan.

The rewards selected must be something the child likes and can be given or done easily. Start with something which is easy for her to attain first. For instance she will get one of her reward when she earned 2 stars. Getting 2 stars is easy. And if she earn 3 stars on the same day, she get another reward. But the biggest reward was getting all 5 stars within the day. The stars must be given immediately upon she fulfilling the good deed. Rewards must be awarded immediately too once she earned the required stars. This is so that she can see the results quickly and will reinforce her behaviour to do more good deeds.

By getting this head start, she is more willing to sit on the potty. Finally one day, she took initiative to sit on the potty by herself and pee!

4) Wear little underwear/panties
I bought a Charlie Banana training pants for her at a cost of about $15-$20 if not remembered wrongly. But in the end, she doesn't like it as it was quite thick and not easy for her to pull down the pants. So I let her wear those little kids cotton underwear/panties which only cost about $5 for 3 pieces. It is cheap and good! Cotton is good enough as it is soft and cooling. But try to buy 100% cotton. Most importantly, easy for her to pull down. It will be better if can buy the child's favourite characters underwear so he/she can relate to it but that will be more expensive.

And so after I let her wear the cotton underwear, she would pee or poo in her underwear initially as she was not used to it. A lot of clean up was needed but it is ok as it is part and parcel of the process. Gradually, she learned that it was awkward to pee or poo in her underwear and dripped or dropped all over the floor. Then she started to take the initiative to use the potty. It is a natural process.

5) Give lots of praises and encouragement
This is one thing I realised, everyone love praises. I believe everyone regardless of age, will thrive and strive to do good if they are praised appropriately on their good deeds or behaviour. This is especially so for kids. I believe we need to constantly encourage them even though they may not do well the first time. This is so that they are willing to try again. Try not to scold your child or let them feel bad when they spilled their pees or poos on the floor. They are just kids and don't mean to dirty the place. Instead, let them know it is ok for accidents to happen and try again next time.

Give them lots of praises whenever they try to sit on the potty regardless the outcome. Focus on their action or behaviour when praising. For me, I praised my gal whenever she try to sit on the potty, even though she may not pee or poo in it. I would praise her for doing a good job by trying to sit on the potty. I think it works because at least she is more receptive to try sitting on the potty.

6) Don't expect overnight results
It takes time really. Don't expect immediate results that your child will use the potty within 1 day or within a week. Be prepared to take weeks, months or even years! The key is don't get discouraged if your child don't seems to be potty trained as fast as others. Every kid is unique. Just be confident that they will eventually get trained some day as long as you lay the foundation.

For me, I initially thought I could train up my gal within a week, but I was so wrong. In the end, it took me close to 1.5 years. Yes it is very slow as compared to other kids. But well, slowly but surely, she is potty trained now :)

7) Just a simple potty will do the job
It is a waste of money to buy those expensive, fanciful and musical potty in my humble opinion. I tried that, but doesn't work. She ends up playing with the potty more than sitting on it. So I just bought her a simple, down to earth and plain colour potty. It is easy to use, functional and no frills! What I did was to paste one of her favourite characters Dora stickers on her plain colour potty just to personalised it as hers.

8) Peer influence
I think this is a very powerful tool. By exposing the child to their peers who are already potty trained will motivates them to use the potty as they want to follow what their peers are doing. For my gal's case, some of her classmates in her new playgroup were already potty trained. Everyday the teacher will bring those kids who are potty trained to the toilet to pee or poo. So when she saw her friends were potty trained, she wants to follow too. I think this is one of the reasons which influenced her to be more receptive to use potty too.

So for parents who wants to start potty train your child, my advice is to expose your child to other kids who are potty trained at the beginning so they can learn faster. Childcare centres, kindergartens and playgroups are some of the places for the child to get exposure. Having siblings will be the best as I noticed usually kids with siblings learn potty faster.


Hope my above potty training tips can help those parents who are having a heachache to potty train their children. :)

Preserving old photos

We have thousands of old photos dating from the 1950s and had been putting off digitizing them for years.

I did some limited work many years back but it was tedious work, having to scan and crop the pictures manually.

A few factors prompted me to give it a shot again:

- After moving to Linux and realizing it is possible to do it without shelling out $ the traditional Microsoft way or purchasing some professional software just for a one time personal project.

- Google Photos now offering free unlimited photo storage and album sharing so I can share albums to family members to view even on their mobile devices.

- With a growing family tree on Geni.com, it's high time to provide some historical photos

Although this post is 6 years old, it saved the day and provides the means to split the scanned pictures automatically.

http://madebynathan.com/2010/05/13/scanning-lots-of-photos-at-once/

My setup: Fedora 23, Gimp 6.8.16, Epson L355.

I find it is easier to install the iscan package and do all the scanning with 4 to 5 pictures at a time with it, export to jpg files, then run a one time photo split job from Gimp on all the combined jpg files.

And finally ran an auto restore job on the photos to reduce the sepia tint of the aged photos with just a single command with the aaphoto standalone utility:

http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Productivity-Sauce/Improve-Photos-Automagically-with-aaphoto

It may not be 100% accurate (especially the cropping), but it's good enough. It is also tedious repetitive work, but at least it is a one time minimized effort for our precious memories.

Ting Ting Development @ 34 months

At 34 months, my gal finally is potty trained!!! It was the most difficult feat and she was quite slow in learning to use potty.

I tried all sorts of "stuns" including rewarding her with a star whenever she sit on the potty, read all the potty story books to inspire her to use potty and even allowing her to watch peppa pig videos while sitting on her potty just to encourage her to use potty. 

She can now go to her potty automatically when she needs to pee. But she still not comfortable of pooing in her potty. I think it takes more time but I believe in time to come, she will be able to do so naturally. 

We bought her a new bicycle few months ago and she's been learning it on and off but with no good results. She would just sat on the bicycle but dare not step on the pedals. We thought we might have bought it too early and perhaps may takes another one year for her to learn. 

Then suddenly one fine day when she was practising cycling outside our house corridoor, she simply just cycle naturally from one end of the corridoor to the other end.     

I was so surprised and kept praising her as she did such a remarkable job! 

So we upgraded her to cycle at the playground and long corridoor at our block downstairs and she was cycling so well and fast! After a few days of practising, she can now make u-turns by manuevouring the bicycle all by herself! 

I am very proud of her. For a child below 3 years old, she can now cycle independently. I think in no time, we should be able to upgrade her to cycle in the park with us :)