Lennox & Me

Today's blog is about sleeping times. And how I'm still amazed at the fact that many of my Dutch friends have their kids in bed by 7pm!! Having moved to the Netherlands 8 years ago, you would think that i would already have adapted to the Dutch way of living/sleeping. Although we are surrounded by Dutchies, my husband is Dutch-Surinamese and not "Dutch-dutch". So while we enjoy certain Dutch treats like kibbeling, stroopwaffles, dutch pancakes and cheese, we are pretty much still asian/south american in many ways as well. The majority of dutch people have dinner early. And when i say early i mean EARLY like 530 or 6pm! This means that by 7 or 730pm, the kid/s are probably washed up and ready for bed. It's actually pretty awesome that parents can come home from work on time probably around 5 or 530pm to have dinner with the family. The Dutch enjoy family time and that's the main reason most shops are closed by 6pm every day, and in the weekends as well...

I love Ella's Kitchen products. From the smoothie packs to the little puffit snacks to the spelt cookies, it's so handy for Lennox to eat, especially on the go! I was actually introduced to it from a free 'pregnancy package' kit that we receive here in the Netherlands once I got pregnant. I tried it for myself and i loved their packaging and how clean the items were. Best part is that Nox loves it too! He's been using them since he was 6 months, especially when we were out of the house. I was happy to also find it in Singapore when i was there in February this year. Seems like it's a pretty well known brand. Since i'm breastfeeding and it's always not convenient to breastfeed Nox (let's say we are rushing and he's in his stroller), I give him a smoothie pack instead to keep him quiet... haha. I always make sure there's 2 of it in the diaper bag at all times! Anyway these smoothie packs cost anywhere from €0,99 to €1,99 each. So the past ...

The first language in Singapore is English. It's the medium of instruction in schools and even though we can sound funny with our Singlish (Singapore-English) accents, we speak English well enough as the next Brit or American. (You cannot believe the number of times I've rolled my eyes at someone who commented, "Oh you're from Singapore? But your English is sooo good !") *rolls eyes. again* I basically grew up bilingual, speaking English & my mother tongue Malay. It wasn't a 50-50 thing, it was more like 90-10. My Malay was (is??) terrible. I just spoke it at home with my mom and grandma and that was it. Anyone who knows me can vouch as to how bad my Malay was, i was barely passing my Malay language classes and i was just uninterested in it. Since moving to Holland in 2008 i picked up Dutch (pretty quickly too i think), and now speak it relatively fluently. My husband on the other hand is effectively bilingual, speaking Dutch and English (almost perfec...