Overheard...

...while Liem was playing by himself...

"You CAN'T have a son without a WIFE!"
(pause)
"The wife does all the work!"

Why do eggs become solid when you cook them?

We were cooking scrambled eggs (Liem's favourite breakfast) and Liem asked "Why do eggs become solid when you heat them. Things like ice or butter melt when you heat them." Good question! I thought of "entangled protein chains" straight away but then remembered a talk given by Herve This (French molecular gastronomist) who said that our "feory is wong!" I looked it up and it's because when you heat eggs, you made sulfide-sulfide bonds between the protein chains. Sulfide-sulfide bonds are the same bonds that make hair curly. So, if you can break the sulfide-sulfide bonds (eg with sodium borohydride, don't try this at home) you can "uncook" an egg and make it liquid again which Herve did in the lecture that I attended. I looked this up the next day after Liem asked the question and tried to explain it to Liem, but he'd lost interest by then, "I don't care about eggs anymore"...

My baby is 7!

Hmm...it's been a while since I've posted. No photos in this one - Liem has been his uncooperative self... but I just wanted to say, "My baby is 7!!!" I can hardly believe it. It seems only a little while ago when he was the length of my forearm and now he's huge! He's had a sudden growth spurt - just after I bought him some new track pants for the cold weather, his ankles started showing! Hoi! He's been showing me his wrists peeking out from his winter pajamas so we'll have to get more new clothes. I've also noticed all of a sudden that when Liem stands on his bed to give me a goodnight cuddle, he has to bend over. He can reach the cupboard where the straws are kept. He can now reach the hand towel in the bathroom without using the stool! When did all this happen?

Liem had a birthday party last Saturday and had a great time. We had it at a play centre and thank goodness we did because it rained the whole day and was freezing cold too. Lots of Liem's friends turned up and ate lots of junk food...well, it's a birthday party after all... We had a white mud birthday cake which was really yummy. And some friends came home with us to have an extra play. Liem received heaps of cool presents - lots of Pokemon things which is his current obsession. Oh, and he doesn't need a booster seat in the car now so he's really a big boy now. He showed me that he could still reach the car roof even without the booster seat. And on Sunday, he moved up a class in swimming! What a lot of milestones to reach all at once... Happy Birthday, my baby...