I'm a full-time mummy

It's been a while since I last cooked curry pork ribs and since preggy with baby #4, I've lately been on this spicy cravings phase. So, today's dinner dish that I would like to share with you all is: Spicy Curry Pork Ribs with Potatoes.

Ingredients required:

- Pork ribs (marinade with a bit baking soda + sugar + soy sauce for 2-3 hrs)

Gravy:

- Curry powder (about 5 tbsp)

- Spicy chili sauce (2tbsp)

- Curry leaves

- 1 red onions (sliced)

- Water (1.5-2 cups)

- Salt for taste

- 2tbsp oil for frying pork ribs

Steps:

- Pan fried the pork ribs till they are golden brown

- Add in onions and the above ingredients for the gravy and braised for about half hour (or more, depends on the meat).

- Add salt/soy sauce if you need it to be saltier.

- Braise longer if you want thicker gravy and/or more tender/fall off the bone type of meat.

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I came across this article which I must definitely share with you all. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here.

"A baby is seen poking its tongue out in an amazing ultrasound scan. But while the image may appear to capture a cheeky pose, Ocea Varney was unable to close her mouth after being born with a congenital defect which meant her tongue was enlarged.

Medics diagnosed the potentially fatal condition after she was born and Ocea, now 18-months, has undergone surgery to shrink its size. But the condition was only picked up after the baby's mum Melanie Varney insisted to doctors that was something wrong with her daughter.

 Melanie 28, said: "You could even see Ocea's tongue sticking out on the ultrasound. I remember the technician saying 'look how cute she is, she's sticking her tongue out at you'. "When she was born it was the first thing I noticed - I thought it was cute at first, but it caused some serious complications."

Melanie, from Vancouver, Canada said doctors, nurses and even strangers told her it looked cute, but she was bigger than her twin sister and her oversized tongue caused complications with feeding. After her birth, along with twin sister Indigo, nurses kept her in the NICU for a week to monitor her low glucose levels.

 Melanie added: "The moment I gave birth to Ocea I thought she looked different to my other kids. Obviously she had her tongue sticking out, but she was bigger than her sister. When we were out at the store we would get comments about her tongue poking out - most of them said she was cute but others thought she was being rude.

"A couple of times people said it looked like she was thirsty and panting, as if she was some sort of dog. But she was miserable with it - I would try and breast feed her but she just couldn't latch on. It kept me up all night either trying or worrying."

 Melanie claimed after three months of doctors telling her and husband Gabby Mason, 30, it was just a phase, the family resorted to their own research. From Googling her symptoms they came across another girl with a similar story who had been diagnosed with Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome- a congenital overgrowth disorder.

Despite it being a common condition - affecting one in 14,000 babies worldwide - very few doctors knew about it. Thanks to some further research, Melanie found a specialist in Brisbane, Australia where she was living at the time and made the trip to see him. She said: "As soon as the doctor saw her, he told us it was BWS - it was heart-breaking to hear she had the condition. But after three months, at least we finally had a diagnosis and could start doing something about it. She instantly had blood tests to check whether she had any tumours, which she didn't."

The most common characteristics of BWS are:

• a large body size,
  
• enlarged organs,
  
• enlarged tongue,
  
• midline abdominal wall defects and
  
• neonatal hypoglycaemia.

Melanie and Gabby moved their twins and their two-year-old son Joey back to Canada so they could be closer to family. At just seven months old, Ocea had tongue corrective surgery in Missouri and continues to visit the hospital every six weeks to be screened for tumours.

Children with BWS are at an increased risk for developing various types of tumours, particularly liver and kidney tumours, and as many as 20 per cent of babies born with the disorder will develop cancer. Shortly after Ocea's diagnosis, Melanie created the website How Big BWS with the help of her friend Tricia Surles - whose two-year-old daughter Lane also has the condition - to inform and educate families and medical professionals.

They have already arranged a How Big Is Yours? day which encourages people to post selfies of themselves sticking their tongues out. Melanie added: Our goal is to raise awareness about this syndrome. Up to a quarter of sufferers develop cancer so it's important that an early diagnosis is made. We want doctors to recognise BWS and ensure families know there is a support network out there for them. If that means getting people to pull a silly face then that's worth it.""

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I have been cutting down on doing product reviews since 2014 and what more with baby #4 on the way this end of year, all the more I need to be particularly picky and selective with the products that I'm reviewing. Not that I'm trying to be hard sell, no, definitely not! But with 3 kiddos + 1 on the way, being a housewife at home with kiddos all the time and helping out with hubby's business, I just feel it is not fair to make companies and PR reps wait for my reviews while I slowly review and look for time to spare to draft out my feedback you know? But of course, like I said, I have to be selective, so products that we can definitely fit into our family dynamics (especially books on parenting or homeschooling stuff, family products, something along those genre) will be accepted!

When I received an email asking whether I would be interested to review this recently launched natural hair care brand for children with a unique Adventure Carousel theme, I was like 'Adventure Carousel?' This is interesting... and since it is natural hair care products, why not? 

About the products:

"With so many other children’s hair care brands in the market, parents can sometimes find it difficult to choose a particular brand.  While there are a few children’s hair care brands that are natural or organic, their packaging designs are not necessarily attractive to children.

pout wanted to do something different that would make its new brand stand out, as well as appeal to the kids.  So it came up with the adventure carousel theme for its packaging, where the pout Care bottles are designed to form a colourful carousel.  Each product features a character on a carousel, with a short poem on the character’s adventures.  pout’s Blueberry Potion Natural Shampoo for example, features a knight on a quest to slay a dragon, while the Green Apple Whoosh Hydrating Conditioner features a witch trying to fly.

With its colourful adventure carousel theme, quirky characters and fun poems, pout believes its pout Care range will appeal to children’s imaginations and help build loyalty towards its new brand.  Made in Australia, pout Care is formulated with natural ingredients and organic plant extracts, with fruit-based scents.  The products do not include sulphates or parabens, which can be harmful to children. "

I received the following products for our review:

Strawberry Magic Natural Shampoo

I first tried this on our 4.5-year-old girl because this is the first one she loudly exclaimed belongs to her. Well, apparently anything pink or with princess stuff is hers hahaha. Now, she has the tanglest hair of all our 3 kiddos and I liked that just a little dab of the shampoo can do the job!

I was expecting some pink colored shampoo but it looks more orangy peachy instead. It bubbles up fast but washes off easily. Her hair is already feeling slippery smooth after I washed it off her hair. I don't quite like the scent but that's partly because I'm not a fan of strawberry stuff hahaha but our girl loves it. As it turns out, I was informed by the company that the Strawberry Magic Natural Shampoo includes a vanilla caramel scent, so it doesn't smell like the typical strawberry scent. I see.....

Blueberry Potion Natural Shampoo

With the brave knight on the bottle, I let our 7-year-old boy tried this shampoo out. I love the smell of this! It has some sort of turquoise emerald sea color instead of blue. Just like the strawberry one, a little dab of this does the job! My boy's hair smells good! Heck, I sometimes sneakily use this shampoo on my own hair as well. Love love love the smell hehehehe...

Green Apple Whoosh Hydrating Conditioner

At first I thought this is another shampoo and thought of getting our 2.5-year-old girl to try it out since her favorite color is green. But then I re-read the label again and realized, oh, it's a conditioner! It has a cute little witch character on the bottle. It is formulated with natural emollients and rich protein that penetrate deeply into the hair shaft to effectively condition and hydrate your child's hair. I dabbed on some after shampooing our kiddos hair. It has this green light emerald color and smells like apple. Mmmmm... let the conditioner stays for a while on your child's hair before rinsing off. Hair is smoother and looks healthier!

Peaches & Cream Natural Detangler

Oh this is good! I like this! The pout Care Peaches and Cream Natural Detangler contains beneficial Argan oil high in antioxidants, which promotes healthy hair growth and helps treat split ends. I just sprayed some on the palm of my hand and gently rubbed them onto my 4.5 year old girl's hair. It has an almost translucent peachy color. I didn't shampoo her prior to that, just apply straight to her messy tangly hair hahaha... and look at the before and after pictures shown below. Messy tangly hair turned to straight silky smooth hair which I just use my fingers to brush down (too lazy to look for her comb hahahaha) This is a very good and easy to use and bring along product that you can just easily spray some for immediate detangling! Awesome!

Huckleberry Sorbet Natural Hair Wax

The last item in my review list is the Huckleberry Sorbet Natural Hair Wax. It has a matte purplish pinkish color and feels sticky. Even a tiny little dab holds hair for a few hours. I know because I tried some on my hair heheheh... it lasted for about 4 hours on my hair, not to mention smelling good as well. I just don't quite like the sticky feeling of it on my hand which took a bit of a hard washing to wash off the stickiness on my hand.

In summary, the cool thing about the Pout Natural Hair Care range is these products contains no sulphates or parabens, safe for your kiddos to use! Do consider these Adventure Carousel theme products which will incite your kiddos curiousity and playfulness!

pout Care is currently available in specialty stores in Singapore, such as 1010 Mother & Child, Mom Essentials, Ocean Paradise and Liferacer. 

The range is also available in family salons Scissors Paper Stone, Little Red Dot and Back to Basic. 

Alternatively, parents can shop at pout’s online store pout.com.sg . 

For more information about pout Care, please visit: http://poutcare.com/

Do note that I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the products in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.