Another great thing is that the recipes are so easy to follow – “cook for 3:00 minutes at 90 degrees at speed 4″. The instructions read like a science protocol, but have so far been far more forgiving in my hands than a Western Blot. My aim is to have a healthy meal on the table 30 minutes after I’ve first stepped into the kitchen. At the moment I make dinner most nights with the use of pre-cut veggies and pre-made sauces. With the Thermomix, I hope to improve on old favourites (like spaghetti bolognaise with home-made sauce) as well as utilise this machine to expand my repertoire (like risotto).

For my first meal, I was looking for something simple and easy that would also take full advantage of all the capabilities of the machine. I decided on “Bangers and Mash” from Full Little Tummies. While the onion/garlic/mushroom gravy is being blended and heated in the mixing bowl, the steam from the process cooks the potatoes in the rice basket, and the (vegetarian) sausages and vegetables in the steamer Varoma unit on top. It was great to hear little Thermie working diligently away in the kitchen while I was able to chat with Adrian and play with Hayden. The instructions were so precise and easy to follow – never has it been easier to add exactly 50 grams of butter and cook at exactly 100 degrees, and the meal came our tasting delicious. The potatoes were especially nice – for the first time I produced perfectly steamed tots bursting with flavour. I think next time I would thicken up the sauce with a little more corn flour, but I think this dish will enter our weekly rotation.

For dessert I made custard from scratch (milk, egg, flour, sugar, vanilla) in seven minutes. It was even easier than using custard powder. So far, Thermie is two for two.

Snow falling by our apartment in Leuven, February 2009

In February 2009 we migrated to Belgium, the heart of Europe. We spent the first six months in Leuven in a central semi-furnished apartment. Adrian was able to enjoy a short commute to work, but we found the weekends a little too quiet in this student town. I obtained permanent residency and started my new job as an epidemiologist in April. We bought our first apartment together in July, and became Brusselaars / Bruxellois. In August 2009, PepperMint expanded our family from two to four. Our son was born in Brussels in July 2011.

We still love living here. Brussels continues to feel exotic and romantic. We both enjoy our jobs, and we have met some really great people. Belgium offers a great base to explore countries from Azerbaijan to Iceland to Wales.

My biggest frustration continues to be with the language. I had assumed that after three years of living here I would be fluent in French. I have taken group lessons, I have taken one-on-one lessons, I have participated in language exchange meetings, I have listened to podcasts, I have watched movies, I have listened to radio, I have completed verb text books, I have talked to neighbours, shopkeepers, strangers. Every hour that I spend learning French feels like a horrid struggle. I do not enjoy learning another language. I assumed that once I got to a certain level, I would start having fun. I have not yet reached that level. I am constantly in awe of everyone else around me who is effortlessly multilingual, when I can’t even understand my neighbour in the elevator. This is the one thing that really makes me feel apart from everyone else I see on the street, I am not a true resident of this quarter. It also makes it almost impossible to call up anyone from the electricity company to the local government. I am dreading the process of enrolling Hayden in kindergarten in September.

Happily, two of the aspects of Belgium that I complained about last year - the lack of government and the smoking in pubs – have now been rectified. Plus they even opened the shops on Sundays during the January and July sales.

Hayden continues to show more and more interest in his surroundings, and actively engages anyone who holds him. This means that he is becoming worse at drinking milk. He will now only breastfeed when really sleepy, and even when bottle-feeding he wants to stop often and look around and chat. This isn’t too bad, as pumping is going well, and I really enjoy nursing him at night, especially during the week when we’ve been apart all day. Adrian continues his marvelous job of taking care of Hayden during the week. I can see how much Hayden adores his daddy – his face lights up with joy whenever Adrian walks into the room.

Hayden has had several coughs and colds, two 24 hour fevers, and a rather persistent case of ringworm, but luckily nothing too serious yet. Though his constant colds means that Adrian had been constantly sick for about six months, which has been an additional source of exhaustion for him.

At the creche they have started trying to feed Hayden some purées. He likes potatoes and pumpkin. One day he came home completely covered in orange stains, and there was a small note in his diary – “doesn’t like carrots”. We are trying baby-led weaning at home, but at the moment he likes to just mash the vegetables into the table rather than eating them. He is showing indications of being left-handed, but his motor skills are so poor it’s hard to know for sure. My favourite part of the day is when we all sit down to dinner together, and Hayden sits in his highchair with us and tells us all about his day in enthusiastic babbles and expansive hand-waving gestures.

After dinner we have a short play together until he is tuckered out and falls asleep. He still wakes up hungry several times a night, so now that he is six months we will try some “Good Night formula” with extra cereals to see if that will fill his hungry belly overnight. Still, there is something quietly magical about that middle-of-the-night feed. Nursing him in the dark, with his little hand curled around my thumb, seeing him look so peaceful and cute, especially when his head lolls back once he has finished eating, well, I can’t help but feel anything but so lucky to be his mummy.

He can now roll over and will do so if left for a few minutes on his back. He can’t yet figure out how to get from belly-to-back, though. He still prefers standing, and entertains himself bouncing in his rainforest bounceroo – his favourite toy is the very noisy gecko spinner filled with tiny balls.

And because I am a hypocrite, here is some video snippets from his first half-year on Planet Earth.

On 30 May 2011, Adrian’s brother Russell had an accident and passed away on the first day of his holiday in North America. Such a shock, a such great loss, such a gap left in the world by this energetic and generous man. We last saw Russell in 2009 when he joined us for a trip through the UK.

On 30 July 2011, baby Hayden was born. The first four months were tough, but now he has matured into a delightful little guy. He is full of smiles and always talking, so snugly and cute. I have watched Adrian become a great daddy, and I am at my happiest when the whole family is together.

Adrian and I also celebrated publications, promotions, grants, bonuses, and awards, travelled to Cyprus and Malta for our babymoon, and showed baby Hayden the countries of Norway, the Netherlands, England, Australia, Singapore and Indonesia.

The events of last year remind me to treasure every moment that I have with my family. After so many years of effort and struggle – finishing a PhD, completing a post-doc, moving to a new country, purchasing an apartment, acquiring a MPH, attaining a permanent position, and achieving a successful pregnancy, I think it is time to slow down. 2012 will be a year of resting on my laurels.

There is a “front door rule” that means that the position of the front door determines whether a house is classified as being in Belgium or the Netherlands. The nationality of the home is also indicated by a flag next to the house number. We visited the house in which the border goes straight through the middle of the door, and thus has two addresses (and two doorbells):

Loveren 2
2387 Baarle-Hertog
Belgium

and

Loveren 19
5111 Baarle-Nassau
The Netherlands

There was even a divisive border across my lunch, separating the savoury cheese and potato pancake from the sweet cherry crepe. I ate each in isolation and they were delicious.

Plus, JT hand-delivered to us a delicious Black & White cookie, all the way from New York City. Hayden is still too little, so I ate it for him.

He is very sociable, and will most often burst into an enormous grin when he sees someone smiling at him. He was a big hit at Santosa Island and during immigration lines, with many Indonesians and Singaporeans asking to hold him and take his photo. One girl on the Tiger Tower simply held out her hands and tried to take him without even asking.

He is also very verbal, talking constantly in loud vowels, especially if other people are also talking. He loves being sung to, and being read to. My mother sent over some of my favourite books, and we are currently reading The House at Pooh Corner together.

His eyes are really turning from grey to brown. I think he will have the same colour eyes and Adrian and myself. I think I have some recessive blue eye alleles in me that I might have passed on, but it looks the brown eye alleles will dominate in him.

He is not yet rolling over or sitting up unassisted. He seems like a very uncoordinated baby for his age. He is still not that interested in eating food when we give him something to munch on. He gets a small cold every couple of weeks, but so far his health has been excellent, especially considering all the people to which he is exposed.

He is still waking up at least once during the night, but considering all the time zones he’s been through, I’m a little forgiving. For the past two nights he’s slept seven hours in a row, which has been wonderful. He still happily switches between formula, expressed milk, and breastfeeding. He loves his dummy.

Adrian continues to be his primary carer. Washing him, preparing his bottles, taking him to creche, picking him up from creche, soothing him, changing him, singing to him, rocking him in his bassinette with his foot as he works on his laptop. They have such a strong bond, and I love the way Hayden watches Adrian as he moves around the room. It is so fun co-parenting with Adrian and I really enjoying the fact that he knows Hayden as well as I do (or better).

Hayden has really blossomed from a screaming machine into a delightful baby boy. He is a pleasure to be with, and every day I look forward to the time in the evening when the whole family is reunited.

When it was our time to ride the elephants, Hayden had fallen fast asleep. I think he liked the gentle bumping along the jungle paths while snuggled up against Adrian’s chest. I was told that my elephant was extra tall because his mother was Sumatran while his father was from Thailand. The two elephant handlers were really kind to us, taking a lot of extra time to line up the two animals, and then even hopping off to take some great shots. I was really impressed with their consideration and patience.

We also met a yellow python – Hayden’s second snake experience – though we didn’t let it get too close to him, as those strong muscles aren’t just for show. Hayden also slept through this encounter.

In the afternoon, Milly from the elephant park visited the hotel. I watched her give short rides to all the kids, and took photos for many families as they made a short circuit around the grass. Once the queue had vanished, the handler let me meet Milly and feed her tiny Indonesian bananas. She was very patient, stretching out her mottled pink and grey trunk and waiting for me to place the fruit in her finger-like projection. She never grabbed the banana from my hand, though she did snortle and sniff at me thoroughly after each one to see if any more were waiting for her. After stroking her hairy trunk I said good-bye and thanked her for being such a gentle and delightful creature.

Today we spent the whole day at Club Med Bintan Indonesia. We started the day with a nature walk through the thick jungle that surrounds the resort. We spotted a wild silver-leaf monkey, a centipede, and some carnivorous pitcher plants.

At lunch we let Hayden play with a few more foods. He can now pick them up and wave them around, and sometimes he will almost accidentally shove them into his mouth, but he really doesn’t seem that interested in eating and seems quite happy with his liquid diet.

We have been eating so much fresh fruit here – pineapple, watermelon, dragon fruit, snake skin fruit, guava, coconut – for every meal it’s freshly sliced and waiting for us in abundance. Hayden gummed on some coconut but didn’t seem particularly impressed.

It was a little drizzly, which meant that some activities were cancelled, a great excuse to curl up with Hayden and read our books while sipping on some cocktails. Hayden modelled the seahorse t-shirt that I painted for him the day before. Even though I chose an extra-small shirt, it is too big and he looks a little like an American footballer. Poor little bear is even too small for the Petite Club.

In some ways this place is very baby-friendly. They have plenty of high-chairs and changing stations with Johnson & Johnson products, and the buffet has a whole fridge full of pureed baby foods. We have a baby bath, a bottle warmer and steriliser in our room with more complementary baby skin care products on offer. However at 14 years old the resort is showing its age, as there are stairs everywhere and it is impossible to wheel the pram anywhere without assistance. We saw one little girl in a wheelchair, and she must be having a very difficult time getting around.

Overall we have enjoyed our time here. During monsoon season the beach and the weather are not spectacular, but it is warm and relaxing and a great excuse to spend some quality time together. Tomorrow we catch the ferry back to Singapore and the next day we fly back home.

Yesterday we took a boat trip through the mangroves. Sadly, this area appears very over-fished and over-hunted, as we did not spot so much as a snake or a kingfisher during our hour-long exploration. Still, it was very relaxing to drift underneath the green canopy and feel the warm air swirling though the swamps.

Hayden enjoyed his morning tea of warm drink as we sailed along, while the rest of us had to wait until we returned to shore. We are all feeling very relaxed, and I am really enjoying this quiet time with my two little guys. It is wonderful to be able to spend whole days together as a family, with very little on the agenda except exploring this tiny piece of Indonesia.

I also introduced Hayden to Mira the Mexican milk snake.

Singapore zoo has a very successful breeding program, with around 300 births and hatchings of 44 species in the last year, including Hamadryas Baboons, cotton-top tamarins, pygmy hippopotamus, Douc langurs, proboscis monkeys, meerkats, manatees, komodo dragons, spotted mousedeer, oriental small-clawed otters, Chinese stripe-necked turtles and Linne’s two-toed sloths. There were zoo-borns everywhere, it was so delightful to see so many different species flourishing in lush and spacious enclosures.

I bought Hayden a small jar of “my first Vegemite” to try on his first birthday. Though Adrian says that the reduced salt will detract from the true Australian experience.

There are some downsides to shopping in Australia, though. This is the extent of the foreign beer selection:

And if one takes a close look at a bottle of Stella:

It’s made by Fosters.

Every morning, mum and I would take a walk to the beach, strolling along the boulevard and watching the fierce waves crash against the shore. With oil tankers dotted across the horizon, the surf lifesavers would scout the tides every morning to determine the safest place to swim – “always swim between the flags” was one of the anthems of my childhood.

We were also able to spend some time with my Nana, Hayden’s great-grandmother. Hayden loved to watch her clap her hands, and I was able to hear her stories of raising five children while working as a journalist. With a single wriggling baby in my hands, I have no idea how she managed to balance it all, especially back in the day of cloth nappies and no dishwashers. It was so fantastic to be able to spend a week relaxing with mum Nana and Hayden playing together, and to show them our adorable baby boy.

Once we had stabilised, the flight attendants brought out a 70cm-long basinette for him and bolted it to the wall. It was just perfect. He slept very happily in it, for nearly six hours in a row on both flights. If awake, he was content to just gurgle and play with his hands, which meant that we had room to eat and stretch out too. KLM made us take him out whenever the seatbelt light was on, but Malaysia Airlines had a zip-up top on their basinettes that meant that we could keep him in there throughout the flight.

Until he is two, Hayden costs 10% plus taxes to travel with us. If he continues to fly as well as he does now, I look forward to taking him on many more international adventures.

Then I went back to work and he went off to creche. For the first time in his life he saw more of Adrian than he did of me. Adrian was the one dressing him, feeding him, changing him, and playing with him on the long commute to and from work. Often Hayden and Adrian would have dinner together in Leuven before heading home. This was a great relief, as I had so much on my plate already as I was trying to figure out how to balance my new busy life.

I’m not sure if it’s just maturation, or the beneficial influence of the Flemish creche, or a combination of the two, but Hayden is now a much happier and calmer baby. A lot of the time he is quite happy to entertain himself by playing with his hands – watching in fascination as they furl and unfurl, or trying to interlace the two together.

He is now a joy to be with (most of the time). Adrian and I both feel a lot more attached to him, with his big toothless smiles that greet us everytime we pick him up. Measuring 67 cm and 7.5 kg, he is growing quickly and now wearing 6-12 month old clothing.

He is holding his head up and will turn onto his side by holding his legs in the pike position and then flopping over. He is also babbling constantly and wants to join in with all our conversations.

Roast turkey breast
Netted turkey breast
3 tablespoons minced garlic
tbs olive oil
1 tbs chopped fresh thyme
1/4 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tbs chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp chopped fresh sage or 1/4 tsp dry sage
Salt

Preheat oven to 180 C
Chop garlic and herbs, mix with olive oil
Cover turkey with herb mix, squeeze some inside
Lift string netting and shift position on roast to make removal easier after cooking
Place carrots and celery on tray as a stand
Add ½ cup white wine to bottom of pan
Cover
Cook for 2 hours
Stand for 10 minutes still covered in foil
Slice

Orange-Cranberry sauce
Whisk together 2 cups cranberry juice, 2 teaspoons cornstarch and 1/4 cup brown sugar in a medium saucepan; bring to a simmer over med. low heat; cook for five minutes, whisking occasionally, until mixture is reduced by one third. Stir in 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries, 1 cup orange marmalade, 1/4 teaspoon grated fresh ginger, pinch of allspice.

Reduce heat to low and continue cooking for another 8-10 minutes or until cranberries are slightly rehydrated. Stir in one cup of fresh orange sections, pith removed (don’t use mandarin oranges) and remove from heat. Chill before serving.

Stuffing
1 loaf of day old French bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes (about 10-12 cups)
2 cups each, chopped onion and celery
6 Tbsp butter
1 green apple, peeled, cored, chopped
3/4 cup of raisins
2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon sage
Salt and freshly ground pepper (to taste)

Heat a large sauté pan on medium heat. Melt 3 Tbsp butter in the pan, add the bread cubes, and stir to coat the bread pieces with the melted butter. Then let them toast; only turn them when they have become a little browned on a side.

In a large pot, sauté chopped onions and celery on medium high heat with the remaining 3 Tbsp butter until cooked through, about 5-10 minutes. Add the bread. Add chopped green apple, raisins, parsley. Add one cup of the stock. Add sage, salt & pepper.

Cover. Turn heat to low. Cook for an hour or until the apples are cooked through. Check every ten minutes or so and add water or stock as needed while cooking to keep the stuffing moist and keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.