I'm a full-time mummy

Was reading this article from Parents.com on how to get your toddler talking and this paragraph caught my attention:

"Up until now, having a conversation with your child has been a pretty one-sided affair. But look out! Here comes a speech tsunami. Between the ages of 2 and 3, kids start picking up words faster than you can say "chatterbox." Just check out the stats: at age 2, most children know 20 to 200 words; by age 3, that number soars to about 1,000."

Here comes a speech tsunami... What a fitting title for my post today!

Just the other day I was telling my brother in law that I read from an article somewhere that toddler around 19 months old should be speaking at least 50 words already and I'm not sure whether Ben's up to that count. On the same day later on, hubby and I counted and yeap,... it's more than 50 words hahahah (guilty! we are paranoid!)

Below are the list of things that Ben can say on daily basis (will update this whenever possible):

And he also understands what we said to him just that he's still learning to speak as of now. And those words he can't speak yet, he made up by giving us hand signals or even pointing to us until we get what he's trying to tell us! On top of the above spoken words, Ben is pretty good with showing us things such as:

* Ben pointing to alphabet items...

* Ben during his book reading time

* Ben dancing & humming to The Rattles song (part 1 & part 2)

* Ben's Hand Signals for us to replay the song!

* Ben showing how he prays and clap hands... (btw, Ben prays before his meals :D)

* Ben giving Elmo water to drink..

* Ben With His Awesome Money Sense......

* Ben will wash and dry his hands before and after his meals or whenever he sees us washing hands.

* Throwing whatever rubbish/scraps he found on the floor into the dustbin

* Ben holding his hands out with fingers wiggling downwards when asked how to do 'rain'. Just taught him once and he remembers!

* And the usual waving "Hi", goodbye, giving flying kisses, patting on the cheek, giving us his 'smelly' feet to smell, index finger to mouth with 'Shhh' for quiet, pointing to most of the facial parts when asked...
* Before Ben's meal times, I'll tell him to get ready his chair and he'll slowly pull/push his high chair over to the dining table where I usually feed him, sometimes he will also carry and place a piece of large paper on the floor we used to put on the floor for any food spills

* As for potty progress (we aren't into potty training officially yet), whenever we asked Ben whether he wants to use the potty, he will tell us 'no-no' or nod.

* Saying 'uh-oh' when something fell or when he saws on books things that fall down.

* Putting up his 2 hands on the side of his head to represent rabbit's long and droppy ears.

* Holding palms together (facing upwards) to represent reading bible.

* Immediately stop his tracks and walked slowly when asked to (I only do this when I caught him walking or sprinting too fast).

* Immediately looks for coinbox to put whatever coins he found around the house.

* On and off the water taps and put things back to its proper place when asked to.

* Can correctly identified and point up to 9 relatives in a family photo taken 6 years ago

Just a couple of months ago Ben was chatting up to a girl and now he's our speech tsunami! You should really check out my post about the conversations I had with Ben recently...

Such a nice phase to journey into now that we're beginning to really communicate and understand what Ben's been trying to tell us! And I suspect because of the easier communication between us, Ben's habits of banging his head (when he's frustrated or throwing tantrums) are getting lesser by the day! Hooray!

After quite a long search for a cheesy recipe, I finally decided to do this recipe which was adapted from Cooks.com, although it calls for the use of a popover pan, I substitute it with my new mini muffin pan which is so cute it felt like I'm playing cooking when I was a little girl heheheh.... Apologies as I didn't take the process pictures (busy rushing off the baking cos Ben is pretty fussy today). So anyway, this is my 1st attempt of making:

CHEDDAR CHEESE POPOVERS.

 PREPARATION TIME: Almost an hour, yields 12 mini cheese popovers & 5 in muffin cups

* About 10 minutes to prepare and mix batter
* 50 minutes for baking process

Ingredients / Tool Required:

* A bowl to mix ingredients in
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup water
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 cup all-purpose flour (I used wheat flour)
* 1/4 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese, well packed
* Baking tray & mini muffin pans (can make 12 mini muffins)

What to Do?

* In a bowl, beat eggs, water, salt and flour until smooth, using a wire whisk (I don't have a wire whisk, I just use a knife hehehe). Blend in the cheese.
* Grease popover pans generously.
* Cut ham slice into squares and place in on each muffin holes (I added ham slices into this recipe :D)
* Fill popover cups 2/3 full. (My mistake is my laziness to bake the extra batter in few batches.. instead I poured the rest into muffins cup)

BAKING PROCESS

* Pre-heat oven at 210℃ for about 5 minutes
* Bake at 210℃ for 15 minutes.
* Reduce heat to 180℃. Bake 35 minutes longer.
* Remove from cups. Pierce a hole into the side of each popover to allow steam to escape to keep popovers crispy.
* Hold in warm oven no longer than 10 minutes before serving.

THE RESULTS

REACTIONS FROM MY "GUINEA PIGS"

So there you go.... my 1st Cheddar Cheese Popovers attempt! Overall, I'm happy with the little ones, but not the ones baked with muffin cups!  Apart from MIL's weird request for me to add sugar for the next attempt, I will definitely bake in few batches when I do this another time. No more laziness and trying to save some time. To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!

Brought to you by: Mama Baker wannabe aka

Lately, I've been getting more emails from my blog readers and Facebook fans (you know who you are :D) about blogging stuff, such as how to start a blog, how to do product reviews, how to do book reviews, where to start to do reviews and so on.

You may choose to ignore what I'm writing down here if you don't agree with what I said, after all, I am not an experienced blogger and there are many many more things that I' m still discovering and learning throughout my blogging journey. This post is just to share my 2 cents worth of opinions and experiences I have in blogging.

It took me quite some time to learn the tricks and tips to all this. Please note, I do not intend to spoonfeed you guys by giving step by step and direct answers. I believe in working hard to get what you want instead of just being spoonfed. At least by searching and scouring the world wide web looking for the solutions and fixes, I believe we learned much much more and truly appreciate the hardwork we put into building up our blog.

FYI, I will break each of my 2 cents worth of advice and experiences into separate post since I can be quite talkative and rambles on and on at times. So here goes:

The Birth of a Blog...

Purpose driven blog?

Firstly, why do you want to start one? Think of your purpose and then think of your audience.

*Image taken from Google search

For me, I started this blog when I quit and became a SAHM in June 2009. I blogged to keep sane, a channel to note down my life as a SAHM, journey with my baby boy and family. In the beginning, I don't think I would want anyone else to read my blog other than my own family members, so that they get updated with what's going on in our lives.

How about you? Are you planning to blog as if it's just an online diary for yourself? Or you want to share your experience and memories with family members, friends, strangers out in the big world? Think about this first!

Foundation! Foundation! Foundation!

*Image taken from Google search

Choose your foundation wisely! The 2 most popular choices for your blogging platform (free one that is) are Blogger and Wordpress. You can read the comparisons between Blogger and Wordpress and decide for yourself.

Of course, when I started blogging, I immediately go for Blogger. That seems to be the easiest and fastest not to mention user friendly blog platform around. And the tons of blog design templates to choose from!

Hello! My name is...

*Image taken from Google search

Names, names, names... once you've decided on which blogging platform, you have to think of your blog name - because if you think of the name 1st, sometimes they might not be available anymore... bummer, right?

Now blog name is really really really important! Unless it's just going to be yourself reading the blog then fine... but if you plan to let other people read it, please consider the following when you are thinking up a name:

* Is it easy to pronounce? (Think simplicity!)
* Can it be spelled out easily? (Please also consider not naming it too long!)
* Is it catchy or easy to remember? (You would want your blog name to leave a lasting impression from the first visit itself!)
* Is it unique or does it stand out from the normal? (Be different!)
* Does it allow for 'future expansion'? (Imagine naming your blog something like fulltimemummyofone and few years down the road with more than 1 kid, and you're still stuck with this name...)

(Tips: I believe in synchronising your blog name with your user name. For example, my user name is "I'm a full-time mummy"-goes in line with my blog name, it's easier for people to associate you with your blog that way and yes, longer impression!)

Plain Jane or Simple Simon?

*Image taken from Google search

After you have your name chosen and registered on the blogging platform of your choice, don't just leave your blog template looking plain and ordinary! Just to make life easier for you newbies, I go to http://www.deluxetemplates.net/ to find my blog template. Wordpress users can go to sites like http://www.freewpblogthemes.com/ or many more.

You just browse through the many selections available (make sure it's free!) and choose the one you like best, download it and upload it via your blog platform's dashboard. Google around how to upload these templates into your blog. And make sure you leave the credit untouched as it is good to acknowledge the hardword put by the original blog designer in putting up those templates for you to use!

Once your template is up, go and beautify it even more! Even if your blog is only meant for yourself to see, I do believe a nice looking blog with additional accessories makes so much difference and brings happy feeling to ourself (simply put, you would at least wear a nice shirt and comb your hair when you go out right?).

So, apart from the varieties of widgets which can be added through Blogger/Wordpress or whatever platform you chose, I also searched around blogs and see what widgets they have. Those that I like, I find out more and I tweaked (by tweaking means, I customise it to fit my blog, keep testing and changing until I am satisfied with the look) it to be compatible with my blog template. I also get a lot of widgets from http://www.widgetbox.com/overview/. Make sure you try it out or at least read the reviews posted as some of the widgets are not working.

Not being IT literate or have zero knowledge in web design/coding is not an excuse. I Googled for tutorials to find out how to do all this, if I can do that, so can you!

When I grow up, I'm going to be...

*Image taken from Google search

You will also need to consider what will your blogging future be? Will you be having your own domain (as in your own blog/website link instead of for example http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/ or http://imafulltimemummy.wordpress.com/ (OK, I just made this up...)? Will you remain on the same platform after you have your own domain? Do Google up why some people are moving out of Blogger into Wordpress and so on. Feel free to read my post on why I left Blogger if you're curious.

Next question is, are you just going to remain blogging? Or do you plan to venture into doing products reviews? All this play an important part in determining your blog's future!

I think I pretty much covers all there is on the topic of the birthing of a blog. I've always treat my blog as if it is my child (ok, lower ranking than Ben of course!), and I think you should too!

Nurture it, build it, have fun and make happy memories with it as how you would do with your child. It does bring joy to your heart! Feel free to leave me a comment if you would like to find out more on a certain topic.

Until then, happy blogging!