Ice Cream Lover

My little family loves going to Ikea. If there’s one shop in Dubai where we would spend most of our time indoors to window shop and eat at, Ikea is surely on top of our list. Apart from their interesting furniture and home items, we also love their cafeteria and bistro!

Whenever we feel like having a bite in between meals, we hit their bistro located just right across their check-out counters. They serve snacks like chicken shawarma, donut and hotdog on a bun. But this bistro’s best-seller is their vanilla ice cream, which only costs AED 1. Really affordable soft ice cream on a waffle cone, and that is my son’s ultra fave! Just look at these pictures:

The first time we had him eat the soft ice cream all by himself was after his sutures were taken off from his trigger thumb release surgery. It was a treat for him for being such a brave boy. And now, every trip to Ikea merits him a cold, sweet treat. That’s Mom & Dad’s little way of thanking the little fella for being so patient with us ‘cos we take so long in checking out stuff at the store (and we know for a fact that it really bores him! haha!)

One Fan Day

One fine Saturday afternoon, my family and I went to see our friends who live in the Marina area. But instead of driving all the way there, we decided to leave the car at the Mall of the Emirates and take the Metro so we don’t have to worry about car parking. It was a good plan because our friend’s building is just right next to the JLT station.

Anyway, halfway through our drive, I read a retweet by my friend, K about Martha Stewart’s schedule that afternoon where she will sign magazines at Tavola in Mall of the Emirates. Now I knew the day before that Martha's in town, but I didn’t know about the signing. I tweeted her that morning and didn't read that tweet in my timeline. Well, as expected, I jumped at the opportunity and begged the dear husband to let me queue for an autograph. Thankfully, he obliged (as if he had any choice – haha!)

dream come true

The signing was slated from 2:00 – 3:00 pm, and I got there just in time. The line was from outside the store already, and you could tell that the people who came are real fans who took time to go and see her. Well, most are Moms who are 30 and above...hehe! I queued for about a little over an hour and I was so nervous that i might not make the cut since it was already a few minutes past 3:00pm. Good thing I made it, although unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take a picture with her because the organizers were in a rush by the time I got to the desk. Besides, since I wasn’t prepared, I didn’t have my camera with me so I just used my trusty Blackberry.  I didn’t have any of her magazines either so I just bought from the Filipina SAs who are going around selling the magazines. It was a toss between an Arabic Martha Stewart Everyday Food & MS Weddings Middle East, so of course, I grabbed the English magazine.

Martha Stewart signed this for me:

signing K's mag

my signed mag -- yihee!!

And I got one for my informant, too, who is a much bigger fan (hello, K!):

happiness! 

She’s very nice and super friendly to everyone. She also took time to answer questions thrown in by her fans. I didn’t ask her any question when it was my turn, but this is how our conversation went (as far as I recall):

Me: omg, I can’t believe you’re here! I just tweeted you about the weather this morning & welcomed you to Dubai, and now you’re here in front of me! *super giddy, excited voice*
MS: yeah, here I am! *cheerful voice with a sunny smile*
Me: pardon the heat of our summer.
MS: oh yeah, it is hot here! whew!
Me: thank you so much! enjoy your stay in Dubai!
MS: thank you! and thank you, too for coming!

So yeah, that was my short & sweet fan-to-idol encounter with a Hollywood celebrity & Emmy-nominated Best Host. I’m sure you can tell I'm still that thrilled about the whole thing :)

On His Own

Two weeks ago, we decided to let the little one take another step further towards independence.  After laboring for half a day, I was able to finally fix Dade’s room and allow him to sleep on his own big boy’s bed. It was difficult at first to accept the fact that my baby has now grown into a young boy, but I decided it’s time for him to learn to stay in his own room and sleep on his own bed.  I know that if i prolong his co-sleeping routine with us, it’ll get more difficult to convince him to sleep in his own room later on especially once he learns how to vocally express his protest against it.  So yeah, it’s either now or never.

We did psych ourselves to do this and prepared ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally for this big change.  For 22 months, Dade co-slept with us so it’s also not easy for us to just move him to his own room.  No more baby’s breath, no more kicks and smacks from our little monster in the middle of the night and sadly, no more instant sweet kisses in the morning to wake us up.  Haay!!
A few days prior, we bought a couple of beddings set for the wee one at Ikea.  We chose the colorful patterns with hues similar to the colors seen in Dade’s room so he would be enticed to hop on his bed. So far, that has worked because whenever he feels like checking out the pages of his books, he would sit on his bed on his own without any prodding from us. He also enjoys playing in his own room now so our living room looks a lot less like a daycare center and more of a proper area for us to lounge and relax.




Meanwhile, apart from fixing the bed, we also arranged Dade’s “command center” – a cabinet with a detachable changing table that he’s been using since he was born. Hubby finally took off the changing table, too, so now, all of Dade’s toiletries and other essentials are placed in the cabinet for ease of use.

Here is a pic of Dade’s sleeping area with his favorite plush toy pals.

And here he is in his jammies like an angel fast asleep.

Yeah, big boy indeed. Oh gosh, where did my baby go?