The bottle part of the going-to-bed-routine

I like getting the bottle and being read to in bed as well. Karl, my bathing doll, usually joins me.

The going-to-bed-routine (also known as the potty-routine)

You may think that the best part of the night routine is the bottle. Wrong! The main attraction is really the potty. I'm serious! I can literally sit for half an hour. And then only to go right back once the potty has been emptied.
I sit......and sit......and sit. Mom and dad know they are supposed to be supportive. But they can get really impatient and start complaining about aching behinds and about how Sandra Boynton is a completely overrated author. Grandma on the other hand is still impressed with my potty-going skills and accepts reading me all the stories as many times as I like. I admit that I do take advantage of that...

Hard in training for beach 2008

I'm off to the first beach of 2008 next week. I prepare by surfing at home.

Park play and park essentials (not!)

Now that Grandma is here and I've recovered from whatever it was that I was having last week, I'm totally back in swing at the park!But dad and I have a major disagreement about the necessity of the sunhat.
I say it's overrated. He says that implies that we have to go back home. I say I don't care. And then we go back home. I have a feeling that I can't win this one. But that doesn't mean that I won't try. (As you can see from the picutres, Grandma is siding with dad on this one, which I find completely counter-intuitive! I thought the role of grandparents was to pamper and pamper and pamper. And say yes to whatever the grandchildren say.)

But you know what?

Quite often, I like having my Sunday meals at home too.

Brunch cavalcade

You have heard me go on and on about the brunches here. Until recently, I (we actually) thought it doesn't get any better than Sunday brunch at Shangri-la Circles. That perception was fundamentally challenged by a visit to the Sofitel brunch a couple of weeks ago. So that's where we took Grandma and Bruno last Sunday. Free-flowing champagne (ok, "champagne") and unlimited choices from superb kitchens of all different kinds. And, of course, the ballon guy and the tatoo girl, to entertain people like me. Amazing!

Grandma and Bruno were quite impressed, and keen to go for brunch this weekend as well. And we were super lucky! Today was the grand opening of brunch at Shangri-la Red restaurant. Mind, this is a place where we've never even been before, that's how posh it is!
And we were not disappointed! Circles is fantastic, Sofitel even better. But Red, that's something else! Here, the food is absolutely exquisite, the service is impeccable, the carpets soft and red, you get special little chairs for your handbag, my high chair had a velvet pillow as back support... And it's Moët Chardon that is free-flowing (but of course, I didn't get to taste any).
(Yes, mom agrees, she has to work on her posture.) They didn't have neither a ballon guy or a tatoo girl, but on the other hand, they had an advanced corporate magician that performed at the table. And the soft jazz musicians liked me, so they sang songs dedicated to me.
(Again, mom agrees, she has to work on her posture. But she defends herself with that I'm weighing her down with my 12 kilos.)

This is how pleased Grandma and Bruno were:

Not to mention the restaurant manager! (He probably realized we'd be talking about this experience. And everybody knows that expats in Manila (especially those with kids) 1. have extensive networks, full of people who; 2. have nothing else to do in the weekends and who; 3. have the ability to cough up for brunch.)

This is not even funny!

The railroad has expanded with fancy Thomas the Tank Engine parts, like the station house with stalls for the trains, the stationmaster and the train wash.

To say that I'm not encouraged to play with it, is the understatement of the day.Dad on the other hand plays happily... Him and mom are embarrassingly pleased with themselves for their construction, although annoyed about the Thomas trains being somewhat bigger than the Brio ones, thereby not passing freely under the bridges.

To conciliate my hurt feelings, they have purchased a baby verions of Thomas the Tank Engine (not to be driven on the tracks), which can be taken apart with a plastic screwdriver. The downside is that dad seems to like that toy as well.

I may just have to make do with pots and pans from the kitchen and some good old-fashioned imagination!