Zoo pics

What a lovely couple....and then poooot...!
Lookig regal this lion...Grrrr.....Russell roars..!
Some more trivia on Zebra's. Another of Russell's favourite animal in his soft toy collection , courtesy of uncle Laurence. He looks for his Zebra (actually it was a Gazelle from Laurence) every morning for a quick squeeze and then he's off!
 

More pics from the Zoo!

Some trivia about Rhino's horns. It's actually a mass of hair stuck together!
Aunty Judy with the two juniors. Russell with his bedroom eyes..
The three proud parents and their charges. Isn't amazing the zoo rents out MacLaren strollers? It's great and we bought one too!
Feeling horny? This one farted later when he turned his back on us! 

Russell's first visit to the Zoo!

Jaguar- One of Russell's favourite cats related to the Tiger. He loves growling like a Tiger whenever we flash him a Tiger or Lion
Here with my best buddy , Stephen , Judy and his two lovely daughters, Catherine and Christie.
Look at how happy the small fella is with his monkey from Uncle Stephen
Here Russell just loves his new toy , The Chimp.
Thanks for Uncle Stephen and Aunty Judy!
Here we are at Giraffe feeding time. He is totally fascinated by them, thumbsucking notwithstanding. 

The One book you must read

We have scoured the bookshops and online for guide on raising baby and asked friends. The one book that consistently comes up is this
What to Expect When You Are Expecting. They have now an online version too
Just click on the "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" graphic at the bottom of this page to check it out.
It is well worth the investment.

We bought the new version too on What to Expect In the First Year and going to buy the next one in the series.
This has been Lina's bible and now they have it online , it's is also more personalized.

Baby Diet - Going Organic

We just had Russell's routine check and he is at 90th percentile for his height and 70 percentile for his weight. So he is doing pretty ok.

Many folks have asked us what is our baby diet and what we feed him cos he seems to be quite robust , super energetic and seldom falls sick (until recent renovation works). We have consciously adopted an organic baby diet where we feed him only organic stuff to reduce amount of external chemicals introduced into his diet. He is also mostly vegetarian and now doesn't take to meat that much. So we give him mostly vege and sometimes fish which he has just recently taking to.

It is a headache to cater to a baby diet as you get so many advice and we decided to stick to what we practice ourselves. We eat mostly vege and seafood and so far it has served us quite well. He doesn't like baby food from the can much so we do everything fresh. Lina's a full time chef preparing his meal whilst we eat take out sometimes during this reno period.

We don't take very much processed sugar food (except for our teh tarik and kaya toast) , otherwise, we don't take biscuits , soft drinks or sweets. That's in keeping to keep the body from sugar highs and move into a sugar burning mode which usually makes a body more acidic and prone to quick swings in energy and breakdowns more easily.

So far , Russell has been quite good. No tantrums or mood swings. He is on permanent natural high from the minute he gets up till he sleeps. His naturally a happy kid and is cheerful all day except when he is hungry. Even when he is ill these 2 weeks, you couldn't tell 'cos he is running around like crazy even with the workers around the house and stuff all over and eats like there is no tomorrow.

Going organic has been a little more costly but we think it's worth it. My good friend Chris Guerriero , famed author (www.maximizeyourmetabolism) and sell out speaker for health , also practices the organic and healthy no processed sugar and dairy diet on his kid. So I guess I am in good company. Chris is a super energetic guy and that's just from his natural high energy and passion.

Renovation taking a toll - Solution ? Buy Air purifier

We just moved 3 weeks ago and renovation works are still ongoing due to delay during the Chinese New Year holidays.
The dust and chemicals are taking a toll on the baby and all of us. We've been rotating sore throat, cough and runny noses amongst us in the last 2 weeks.
Our good friend and neighbour Valerie who went through moving into a newly renovated house just 19 months ago advised us to get a air purifier. We borrowed her mega air purifier cum super vacuum from Rainbow and I think it helped.
We have just went out this weekend and evaluated several models. These were the key features we looked for.

1. Filter granularity - There is HEPA (which is most common ) and ULPA. ULPA are apparently finer at 0.03 microns.
2. UV light
3. Charcoal Filter
4. Photocatalytic filters
5. Negative Ioniser
6. Capacity to filter 500 Sq Feet.

We saw Air Purifier and Ionisers from Sharp which claim to kill flu virus, Osim iLife which looked like the Ipod and VGO (from Korea) which is a new entrant.
In the end we got the VGO as it had everything and was well priced at $400 for its features.

Been using it for the last two days at night and daytime when reno is still going on.

Anyone knows effects of prolonged use of Ioniser? You can post comments below.
Think I may research a little more on this.

Choosing a Car Seat for 1 Year Old

Some folks have asked us about car seats so I thought I posted our experience here.

In November 2005, we had been using the rear facing car seat for the past 11 months and Russell seems to be outgrowing it. His legs then could reach the back seat and he was getting easily bored looking through the back window and at the back seat. We could hardly keep him in his seat for more than 10 minutes before he started whining.

We had been searching for forward facing baby car seats for 1 month. I think we must have seen about 50 models and went through 10 different shops and department stores. We had also been through the Internet and Ebay to look at different seats and reviews.

Here's what we found.

The selection criteria we have set are

1. Must be easy to install by One person
2. Must be secure and not wobble
3. Base must be smooth so that it doesn't scratch the seat
4. Must be easy to recline with one hand especially by the driver
5. Must have side protection system to prevent injury from side impact
6. Must be deep and wide enough to accomodate a baby up to 25Kg
7. Must have neck cushion for resting his head
8. Must have good water resistant material that is easy to clean
9. Can be mounted on passenger side or middle seat
10. Must be cost effective not more than SGD400

We narrowed down the brands to Eddie Bauer, Cosco, Mothercare Britax and Maxi Cosi.

Here are the comparisons

www.alvintoh.com/reviews/carseats.htm

We chose Maxi Cosi in the end as it fulfill most the criteria. What won us over was the ease of operation. It's no joke when you have to install and adjust the child seat regularly by yourself especially if you use your car for business and home use. Lina has found it a tremendous pleasure to be able to recline the kid sitting in the back seat from her sitting at the driver seat. Russell has found it so comfortable he tends to fall asleep in it half the time! What bliss...for both of us.