Mum mum mum mum

Hurray! Oscar has at last said 'Mum'! It came out of the blue this morning and he's been mumbling 'mum mum mum mum' with minimum (well, ok, quite a lot of) prompting ever since.

He can also say 'ba ba ba' and 'wah wah wah' and has been babbling a fair bit. At one point in the video, I'm sure he copies me saying 'Good Boy!' to him.

Towards the end, there's also a snippet of Oscar re-enacting his famous snarl. He'd stopped doing it for a while, but now he's teething again so the snarls are back on his repertoire of expressions. Altogether now: Pfffffffffffff!

squash

Caption: what do you mean there's something on my face?

Oscar had butternut squash yesterday and as can be seen, most of it did not end up in his mouth.

Actually, this pic was taken after the maid had already taken a baby-wipe to his face. I had to yell at her to stop cos I wanted to take the photo. Who cares if Oscar's eyelashes get stuck together from orange squishy goo? Must get the shot!!

Through the washing machine glass

Oscar's latest obsession is the washing machine. He will crawl with lightning speed and yelps of excitement from one end of the flat, through the kitchen and into the not-so-very-clean utility room in order to play with - yes, you guessed it - the washing machine door.

If he can't get to the washing machine, he'll stare mournfully at his object of desire, face pressed to the utility room glass door.

Anyhow, my mum has told me to keep the washing machine door shut. I guess she thinks he might lock himself inside?

Hair

I love Oscar's hair - it's soft and long and dark chocolate brown. But it also gets super-sweaty in the Bangkok heat, so much so that I nicknamed him 'Sandwich Spread Boy' due to the sour-vinegary odour from his head. He'd start to smell minutes after having his hair washed, poor little mite.

I was tempted to shave his hair off, which is what my grandma did to me when I was a baby (not due to smelly hair, I hasten to add, but because it wasn't 'thick' enough. It's very common in Chinese families to do this.) See exhibit A below:
We took Oscar to the hairdressers where a battle commenced between juggling a restless baby on my knee, Matt trying to distract his attention, and the hairdresser snipping tufts off the back of his hair. Hair-raising!

But it didn't make much difference.

Then I changed Oscar's shampoo. We'd been using Dentinox because of Oscar's cradle cap (now gone thankfully). As soon as I tried a new shampoo however, Oscar smelt a lot better, even when soaked with perspiration. Hooray!

The maid took the time to gently brush Oscar's hair nice and neat, just like Bart Simpson when he's going somewhere formal. Managed to snap this before he messed it up:

Da da da

As can be seen, Oscar can now say 'da da da' and 'da dee da dee' and loves to copy others saying it too. Just yesterday, he's also started saying 'ba ba ba'. So when will 'ma ma ma' come?

Anyhow, this video clip also shows one of Oscar's chief pleasures - playing with doors. Swinging them back and forth, fiddling with the door stops, pushing and pulling the sliding doors, banging at closed ones... he loves them!



p.s. no Oscars were hurt in the duration of this filming.

Uncle Foz & Aunty Pet

Yesterday, Oscar had a brilliant time seeing his Uncle Foz and Aunty Pet. He thanks them very much for his new books & dungarees.

But best of all was having loads of cuddles and attention from them.

We went to Greyhound in Emporium for dinner. Three Elvis Burgers for us while Matt had the healthy seabass option. Oscar had a chip or two.

Whilst at Greyhound, Uncle Foz decided to do something about Oscar's big head. Hee hee.

Oscar's first Chinese meal

Usually, Oscar eats pureed-this or mashed-that or chopped-up-whatever. But the other day, I thought I'd make use of my favourite pack of instant noodles with some diced chicken and broccoli.

Oscar's attitude to food is ambivalent at best but (as seen here on video) when it came to long squiggly things that can be grabbed and sucked up easily, well he was a natural.

I taught him how to slurp the noodles up in true noisy Japanese style of course. Yum yum.

Daddy's birthday

It was Matt's birthday on Saturday. He realised that he wasn't turning 34 like he thought, but actually 33, and this pleased him immensely.

To celebrate, we stuffed ourselves with cake at our favourite 'chocolate bakery' Cherubim, and then stuffed ourselves again at a seafood restaurant.

Seafood Supermarket (motto 'If it swims, we have it') is a HUGE warehouse of a restaurant with neon lights, plastic sharks hanging from the ceiling, and a large array of fishes / crabs / lobsters / prawns etc. etc. for sale. You trolley up to the supermarket area, take your pick of the (sometimes live) seafood and then 'checkout'.

At your table, you tell the waiter how you want things cooked. Sneakily, you then have to pay a separate bill for this, but anyhow, it's all good fun. It's not the best seafood in town and it isn't even consistently good, but on this occasion, everything was delicious.

On our menu:

• A big fat juicy crab fried in yellow curry sauce.
• A chunky thick-lipped garoupa steamed with ginger and spring onion.
• Pea shoots (dou miao) in garlic.
• Leftover puree butternut squash, carrot and sweet potato with chopped up spaghetti (for Oscar).

What did Oscar make of it all? Well he liked all the friendly waiting stuff, but his favourite bit was trying to grab the greedy goldfish in the pond.

Introduction

This is Oscar.

A blog about what a half-Yorkshire, half-Chinese-Essex, nine and a half month old boy gets up to in Bangkok.