Sunday, August 30, 2009

Homecooking Adventures 4

Dear Readers,

It's been a while since I did not made any post about cooking... so, here we go, today, just a simple soup. It's not my ginger vinegar soup that took a bit of a wrong path at the end. Anyway, I'll talk about that later I think.

Today, I'll talk about a really special soup made for new mums... As you know, delivery is a tough job, and in the Chinese medicine, there are soup to take after delivery so as to be in shape again.

N.B, for normal delivery, this soup can be taken asap, for c-section, you need to wait a bit... at least 20 days otherwise, you might have big problems with some blood loss. So, if you don't understand what I am saying, if you get pregnant and deliver your kid, you will, just wait that your panties are clean before taking this soup :)
I still need to confirm it though for the natural birth case.

Anyway, Here is the recipe:

-Some pork meat, just a small piece, for flavor.
-half a chicken, we usually take one "organic", I mean a healthy one that never got any steroid shots and lived a happy life running around. The one we take is a bit special, I don't know its kind, but it has white feather, black skin with a bit darker meat. In Hong Kong, we buy them fresh... meaning, I asked for a chicken and the lady told me: "Ok, come back in ten minutes" and I saw her taking an innocent fluffy chicken out from a cage...
-some green edges abalones, cut in slices, it gives a "sea taste" to the whole thing.
-some erh... fish maw, it's the gas pouch of a fish that allows it to float. We purchase it dried and it cost a lot...
-some cordyceps, as I showed a bunch of post earlier. Here
-some little red thingy... don't know what is the exact name, it's again a Chinese thing, some kind of dried little beans...
-2 little bowl of water.
-half a bowl of rice alcohol.

The pork and the chicken need to be cooked a bit in boiling water prior to make the soup. Just a few minutes to reduce the fat.

Depending on the type of cordyceps and fish maws you buy, it can quickly be really expensive. The one we made is running around 700HKD (90USD or 60EUR) a pot just in ingredients. Yes, Chinese stuff are expensive... We try to have it as much as we can, in Chinese medicine, the first 100 days after delivery are quite important, it's the best time to fortify a woman's body.

So here you go:

A close-up on the soup:
Special Chinese Soup for New mums
NB: in this picture, the soup has been made with a plain organic white chicken... I was not sure about which to order the first time, but now, we know where to get some black chicken supplies :)

The soup with the electronic double boiler
Special Chinese Soup for New mums
The device at the back is an electronic double boiler :) all is done automatically, the soup needs to be cooked during 3 hours.

Please note that this soup is not only for new mums, but it can also be consumed by the new father... which usually lack of sleep in this period of life :)

Bon appétit :)

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Starting to see Daylight

Dear Reader,

Last week, Myrtille was one month old! yeepeee, actually, she started to get unmanageable during the night, so we ended up buying her a pacifier... :) A very very useful piece of accessories... to give you an idea of how effective it is... during that week end, we considered that we were at war with our little squid... and we were out of ammo while she was throwing everything she could, from small shriek bullets, to chemical homemade weapons... But after we got the pacifier... haha! we had our newly made nuclear bomb. :) Once we put it in her mouth, she started to get calm. hehehe. It does not work all the time, but when it does, it does a great job.

I also had another aggressive frenzy starting to bad behave with her... when you start to be mean, having her cry and practice her vocal cords in front of you is not the most effective thing to make you calm. So, as she was already crying and I could not figure out what she was doing, a little voice in my mind just told me: "if I don't know why you are crying, then, I'll make you cry, at least I will know why".

Got a major crack down. Yukyin was scared that I would harm her even more. Hopefully, Yukyin is there to fill my love account and teach me how to behave with her. So, after a few moment praying for Lord's help and calmly training, I figured out that I must bow to her needs... meaning that I need to give her what she wants instead of trying to make her live the way I want. So things have changed thanks to Yukyin. However... it does not solve our lack of sleep problems... she is still crying a lot... but we managed to make her sleep a bit more often.

This week end we also had the confirmation of one funny behavior she has. Each time I use our vacuum cleaner, she fall asleep like a rock (I can say that it's my new ultimate weapon... though I cannot use it by night.
Here is the picture 10 minutes I started to clean our home:
Rocked by my Vacuum Cleaner (1/2)
You can notice a bit of rash under her neck, we went to see the doctor, she has a cream for it, so no big worries.

That's all folks :)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Sleeping Tight

Dear Reader,

Hehehe, During the day, she can sleep without too much of an issue. Though she still relies too much on our arms to be able to sleep. She needs to learn how to sleep alone without crying for hours.

But, when she actually manage to sleep, she is quite funny and a great model for me to shoot. :)

Looking for an exit:
Looking for an exit
In order to give make her feel protected, we wrap her around quite tightly in her clothes... today, her tiny foot manage to make her way :)

Silent and Calm:
Sleeping behind her bars
Sleeping behind her bars... So rare...

One day! I'll be out!
One day, I'll be out
Hehehe :)

That's all for today folks :)

Friday, August 14, 2009

Myrtille's 4th week

As I said earlier, this week was a bit of a nightmare. But Yukyin managed to make some great shots of our little squid. You'll even have the chance to see her in a short homemade full motion video :)

Playing Super Mario in her bed:
Playing Super Mario
SFX: Doiing Doiiing

Hunting for food...
Milk time already?
Mum spotted!

Technique of the Tiger Claw!
Tiger Claw!
RRRrrrrr: Myrtille's attacking mum's camera.

And the short video :)


:) Enjoy!

Hmm, Should I rename this blog into Myrtille's page?... Need to find some time shooting something else.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Being Patient

Dear reader,

How have you been lately? Fine I hope, been a long time I did not write anything. I have been very tired these last days although I think my exhaustion is not comparable to Yukyin's.

Myrtille is growing but she has a few issues appearing now. First, she has a diaper rash. We tried different solutions but none seems to give any results, right now, the only thing we can do is pray that it gets better and change her more oftenly, at least, changing her at the single sound of poop has made things a bit better. She also started to have some acne on the face along with some white spots. Everybody says that it is normal, so we are monitoring it and will seek medical advice at her coming MCH's visit.

Actually, we are getting more and more tired day after day. The lack of sleep I think, that's the worst thing. We still need to wake up at least twice a night, we are longing for a complete night of rest but we know that it won't come anytime soon. Hopefully, by next month or the month after next month, she'll at least let us sleep more than 5 hours in a row.

The problem is that with such a lack of sleep we are getting short tempered and we get easily depress. I started to have a peak of rage last week when I got in a uncontrolled thirst of hitting her and making her feeling pain. I am far from being proud of it, but for those who know me, they should understand how I am exhausted.

But I managed to overcome it, God is with us and I know that he is there to helps us get some sanity in our mind. It gave me an outlook of God's relation with humans. We only know how to cry but God is the one who is taking care of us. Myrtille is the same, she only cries for things and we provide her. God knows what is best for us and I hope I am giving the best to her too.

We always think that God is not listening to us but in fact He is surely preparing us to receive his infinite blessings. That's what in my mind when Myrtille is crying for food, she want it so much that our neighbor at the 1st floor should be able to hear her, but in our side, we need to get ready and get her ready, she need to get changed, Yukyin needs to prepare herself to get confortable so as to breastfeed her correctly, and once she got what she wants, she stays calm until something get her mind busy again. Patience. It's what it takes us to grow correctly. She wasn't born with and thus, we need to teach her to be patient.

Actually, so do us, we need to be patient with her.

I really thank you for your prayers and already owe you a lot, I hope we'll manage to be parents that she can be proud of, for the time being, I take this opportunity to tell my wife how much I love her and once again how much I am proud of her. She suffered and still suffers for our sake, giving her best everyday. Giving her her care, her love, her attention. I owe her a lot, she is doing more than twice the efforts I am doing everyday and my panda eye mask testifies how much I am giving out everyday.

I may sound a bit down, but I know that that's the long and hard path in raising a kid.

Please keep us in our prayers, we still need tons of them.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Pictures of our Growing little Squid

Dear Reader,

First, on the sad side of our family's news. We lost one of our bunnies. We place him at a refuge until Myrtille would be at least one month old. A very nice place where he got unlimited supply of food and care. He was probably getting old or something like that... On Friday, the manager called me at 3pm to tell me that he was not feeling well. At 4pm, she said he was getting a bit better and asked me to visit him. At 6pm, as I was on my way, she called me and asked me urgently to take him to the vet's ER but when I finally arrived there, the lady laid him in my arms and he cried out his last breath. He died in my arms less than 30 seconds I entered the refuge... That's the end of this week's sad note.

Now, back to our little dried shrimp. At the dawn of her third week. Myrtille is doing fine and... we are getting old.. Ahem... We are accumulating a huge amount of lack of sleep... Hope it will get better quickly.

Actually, I forgot to present her Chinese name, her name is : 曉萄, pronounced "Hiu To", it means "knowing" and "vine", as written in the Bible, God is the vine, and we pray that our little kiddo will walk in His path and take pleasure to know about Him. Also, vine and myrtille are both purple colored fruits which reminds us that we are to bear the Holy Spirit's fruits.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23


Full of meaning, isn't it?

So this week little pictures compilation:

Myrtille 13h old
She was still 13 hours old. A little extra here.

Myrtille 3rd Week
Myrtille napping in the morning... After a messy night having us both rounding.. I was awake from 12 to 2:30 AM to make her sleep and Yukyin was awake from 4 to 6 for the same reason... Baahhh... need to have her reversing day and night back to the right hours.

Two Family pictures:

Family Picture
Taken at the hospital on her third day :)

Family Picture 3rd Week
Taken on her third week :)

And two other candid shots:

Myrtille in Raymond's arms (1/2)

Myrtille in Raymond's arms (2/2)
She was in our fellowship's Raymond's arms feeling nice and confortable.

That's it for Myrtille's news. Hope you like it.

Thanks again for all your prayers, I hope you don't mind me asking you to continue to pray for us :) Please pray for our health as we are getting tired by the endless repetitive meals of our little squid.