How to Boil an Egg

The title of this post probably sounds a tad bit patronising. Apologies in advance. (and feel free to click elsewhere on your browser)

However, Mrs Kong finds that perhaps too many, including the present, have forgotten how to boil an egg. Given that very little goes wrong in the process of boiling an egg, perhaps a more apt title to this post is "How to boil the Perfect Egg". All should be done before JW wakes up from his afternoon nap!

At the risk of sounding like Deli@ Smith, here is how it should be done...

How to -

1. Take the egg out of the fridge a while before cooking.

2. Bring the water to boil and turn the heat down to the lowest setting.

3. Lower the egg into the water. Keep the heat at a level below simmering or boiling point. A few rising bubbles is ok.

4. Guidelines on how long the egg should be boiled for: For a runny yolk, 5 mins; For a part runny yolk, 7 mins; For a hard boiled egg (but still moist), 10 - 12 mins. After 12 mins, the egg yolk will start getting dry.

Trouble shooting (when the egg is less than perfect) -

Egg shell cracks as it is submerged into the boiling water
Possible cause - egg is not at room temperature, or the water is too hot/ boiling too vigorously.

An unappetising greenish layer forms around the yokes (where the eggs have been hard boiled)
Possible cause - residual heat has continued cooking the egg after it has been removed from the water. Solution for this is to submerge the egg into cold water after it has been removed from the pot to stop the cooking process.

End Note

Once an egg has been hard boiled, it is also possible to tell of the freshness of the egg, from the position of the egg yolk within the egg white. If the egg yolk appears right smack in the middle of the egg white, we have a fresh one. If you see the egg yolk is visible from the outside of the egg (ie off centre) this is a clear indication that the egg has been sitting around in the fridge or the supermarket, prior to being cooked.

Head Shaking

We don't know where and how JW has learned this, but our boy now shakes his head to indicate "no"!

He does it mainly to refuse his dinner, and we are truly baffled.

Its a little cute but at the same time, quite alarming. Mrs Kong is raking her brains ... where did he learn this from? The "no" head shake genetically coded into our DNA?

How to Sew a Cloth Diaper

Now... if only Mrs Kong had a sewing machine!! :) (*hint hint Mr Kong!)

Other great links for homemade diapers:

free diaper patterns
how to replace the elastics on a worn out cloth diapers (Mrs Kong will be attempting this soon..)
cloth diapering for the frugal

Playtime at 16 months

With our 16th month fast approaching, Mr + Mrs Kong has been raking her brains on how to occupy our little JW. Fast moving to just one nap a day, we have more alert time to work with! Even Mrs Kong is getting bored of reading the same old books and playing with the same old toys.

So we have been told that we need not buy more toys at this age. Instead we have created a temporary play area in our living room for JW, with a cardboard tunnel (to decorated by Mrs Kong) and a little hill (aka bean bag). There is mount "sofa" which leads to fantastic views out the window overlooking the washing machine outside!

JW loves looking out the window and gladly climbs mount "sofa" to do so.

Good bye neat and tidy living room, hello play zone with tunnel and all!

Sizing diapers for a prewalker and worn out cloth diapers

I suppose this question is of less consequence if one were diapering on disposables but a little more important for cloth diapering, given the huge "sunk costs" involved in cloth diapering. Hence, the incentive to get it right.

So it seems, as we have discovered in the past couple of weeks, that pre-walkers slim down after they start to take their first steps. Mrs Kong did not realise this when she wrote the blog post on getting larger diapers, but is glad now that we did not jump the gun into buying more in the larger XL size. JW, which we anticipated would hit the XL soon, is now hovering at the L size since starting to walk. His is now trimmer, looks taller, though not any lighter. The conclusion is really to avoid sizing up a chubby pre-walker because there is a high possibility that they will slim down!

We have however worn out our Cloth Diaper Wholesale diapers, which have run loose on the elastics. It really is about time as these diapers have worked overtime since we got them in May this year. They don't even "rest" for 24 hours after they dry before their are pulled off the clothes line, and put onto JW's bum. The same goes for the fitted diapers in our stash, now that the CDWs are out of commission. Suffice to say the CDWs have paid for themselves many times over.

Meanwhile we are surviving on the minimal number of diapers, supplementing with the traditional white nappy when it rains, or we just plain run out of cloth diapers.

Our workhorse diapers:

4 Dream Eze fitteds;
2 Baby Beehind Bamboo fitteds;
2 My Precious Baby by April fitteds;
3 Bum Genius one size pocket diapers.
1 Starbunz AIO (which we really don't use at all);
2 wool covers.

As you can imagine, they are getting worn out real fast given we use an average of 5 diapers a day. More if we are on the traditional cloth nappies. Time to break out the new diapers!

The boy's new favourite word...

... is ''water bottle'', pronounced "wotterbotter".

Yup, its as cute as it sounds so its Mr & Mrs Kong's current favourite word also.

Standing on his own

picture from a month ago!!

Modern Cloth Diapers - a useful glossary

Mrs Kong found an excellent cloth diaper glossary! Takes the mystery out of modern cloth diapering. Perfect for the clueless like present.

Walking on his own

Mr Kong with JW at bedtime. After teeth brushing, before reading time.

We did it today!

On our own. Without help. A little wobbly at first, but we made it.. to mummy. Brought a big wide smile along too.

Someone is growing up too fast for Mr + Mrs Kong .... :D

Wool at night - Part 3

Our experiment ended at 3am, without a puddle of baby pee:

The BBH bamboo fitted cloth diaper was soaking wet at the tummy and groin area, but ok otherwise. It could have easily lasted another 2 hours if the right stay dry liner was correctly put in place (that in itself is another challenge given JW's recent aversion to having his diaper changed! It just takes so much longer and it so much harder. It would be quite a challenge getting the liner to stay in the right position). JW's bum was not sweaty which was a huge relief given that everything was wrapped under layers of the bamboo fitted diaper and the wool cover.

Mrs Kong did a quick diaper change at 4am, after realising that something was indeed bothering our guy. He feel asleep again soon after that.

Cloth diapering mission: stay dry liners and larger ones please to be able to cover the tummy area as well.

Wool at night - Part 2

It has taken a lot of research and convincing for Mrs Kong to use a wool cover over JW's cloth diaper at night. The reason being - its use is not completely intuitive - to someone who lives in the tropics anyway.

When the weather is hot, and all one does is sweat away one's body heat in the middle of the afternoon, it is hard to believe that wool can actually be cool! Of course, it can't be any worse than the plastic covers our mothers used to use on us over night. And is there any reason at all that it might worse than a disposable?

Tonight, after much thought and deliberation, Mrs Kong has decided to brave the wool issue again. Wrapped tight in a bamboo fitted diaper, with a liner and a BBH wool diaper over it, JW is sleeping his way through the night. Hope he sleeps through the night in the comfort of the cloth diaper. Hope we won't wake up in a puddle of baby pee!