RemyAndSam.com

Jeremy will be 3 years old next March. It’s hard to comment on how well his speech development is progressing. We don’t know any families who use three languages at home, just ours. When he was around 6 months old, we decided that we would only speak to him in our own first languages of Vietnamese (me) and French (husband). We speak English to each other and live in Australia. 

We’ve encouraged Jeremy’s social network to speak to him in the language they are comfortable with, for example, his maternal grandparents speak to him in Vietnames and his paternal grandparents speak to him in French. We’ve found that innitially, both sets of grandparents were unsure as to which language to speak to him in and would try and use all three or at least two. 

I’ve noticed that his Vietnamese has been progressing equally as well as his French even though his exposure to French is very much limited to that with his Papa. 

Jeremy mixes up his languages and has not been able to associate a language to a person yet. I often get calls from my parents who babysit him while I am work as to what he’s saying. Usually, the conversation starts with, “Jeremy keeps saying (French word). What does it mean?”. I will then say “He means (Vietnamese word) in French, can you teach him that word in Vietnamese otherwise he’ll keep saying it in French to you?” By this time, my parents will take it upon themselves to not only teach him something in Vietnamese but in their accented Vietnamese, teach him that word in French and English too. So he’ll come home sometimes to say something to his dad in French with a Vietnames twist! (Mental note: I must ask my parents not to teach him any languages other than Vietnamese.) 

Watching In The Night Garden has taught him all sorts of phrases like “Oopsy Daisy and Oh No”. It’s rather cute seeing him pick up these words. His exposure to English is very much from the television, hearing his parents talk to each other, socialising with his cousins and playmates.

We are excited about Jeremy being accepted into the only French kindergarten in the state. We hope that this will give him a more equal exposure to French and Vietnamese (we have no French relatives here, only Vietnamese). It will also hopefully expose him to other children who speak French or have French speaking parent/s.  Perhaps we’ll finally meet another set of parents who are also raising a tri-lingual boy.

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I made a fantastic meal with all the mushrooms that I have been growing lately. It tasted delicious and Jeremy even ate some. It takes 3-4 hours to cook in the oven but the meat just falls off the bone and is such a great winter dish!

Osso Bucco with Mushrooms

6 pieces of veal osso bucco (veal or beef is fine)

1 kg mushrooms (I like a combination of swiss brown and button mushrooms)

2 medium onions quartered

2 cloves of garlic crushed

1/4 cup of white flour

1 tablespoon of sweet paprika

1 table spoon of chilli powder (optional, but gives it a kick)

Olive Oil

1 litre of beef or chicken stock

1/2 cup of red or white wine (you can be adventureous and put in cheap beer)

1/4 cup of tomato paste

Sprig of oregano

Sprig of Rosemary

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

Turn on the oven to 180 degrees fan forced.

On a plate, combine the flour, sweet paprika, chilli powder and mix it evenly together. Coat the osso bucco with this combination. 

In an oven proof pot, drizzle olive oil and fry the the meat until golden brown. You might need to drizzle more oil as you fry in batches to prevent drying and sticking in the pot. If you put too much oil, it will float on the top of the pot once it’s cook and you’ll need to skim the oil out before eating it otherwise it will taste oily!

Once all the meat is cooked, place them all in the pot and put in the crushed garlic, onions, tomato paste, stock, wine, rosemary and oregano.

Bring to the boil on the stove and then put in the oven for 2 hours with the lid on. Make sure all the contents and liquid does not exceed more than 2/3 of the pot otherwise it will bubble over and you will have some cleaning to do in the oven.

After 2 hours, take the pot out of the oven and put in some salt/stock powder to add some flavour to the pot, add brown sugar and put in the mushrooms. Cook for a further 1.5 - 2 hours.

I like to serve it with potatoes (mashed or not) or for a healthier option, brown rice.

I actually forgot to take a photo of the final result as we were so hungry that we jumped on the pot and dug into it pretty quickly.   

Serves 6.

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When Jeremy turned 6 months and was confidently holding his head up, we bought a MacPac Baby Carrier for him. MacPac makes 3 different types of baby carriers, the Koala, Possum and Vamoose.  We chose the Koala for the price and based on what we expected to be doing with a baby-toddler. Paul and I love the outdoors but didn’t imagine that we’d be treking overnight in the bush with a one - two year old.

The MacPac Baby Carrier that we have has done wonders for our level of enjoyment of the outdoors. We simply put Jeremy in and off we go. Initially, we didn’t buy the Sleepyhead but found that with the walking movements, he was often lulled to sleep so we happily bought it shortly after he turned 9 months. We’ve received many compliments with the MacPac Baby Carrier and Jeremy is at eye level with adults so his enjoyment is increased.

We’ve found it versitile in use. Great for overseas trips, at airports and going sight seeing in the city. It folds flat and travels well as cabin baggage on flights. 

The 25 litre base pocket is more than enough for bushwalking and keeping all those extras. Actually, it’s more than enough for short day bushwalking trips. We also like to hang things like jumpers and water bottles on the external straps for easy access. It’s much easier than digging around inside the base pocket!

I am not a large woman, 163cm and on a good day weighing around 61kg. I used to carry Jeremy for up to 1 hour in the MacPac without rest when he went through a stage of not wanting to sit in his stroller, going shopping and walking in the park. This was when he was around 10-12 months. The hip support and shoulder straps are fairly comfortable. I found that after a while, the first place that took it’s toll were my shoulders. Now, I wouldn’t dream of attempting to carry him for more than 30 minutes in the MacPac at 15 kgs. 

Jeremy is 32 months now and we’ve just come back from a long weekend spent bushwalking. Once again, the MacPac Baby Carrier has been unreal and it by far has been the best buy we’ve made since Jeremy was born. I know that it’s a big call, but we haven’t bought any products for him that has been used as often as the MacPac Koala and as versitile and durable. The MacPac Baby Carrier goes where no stroller or pram can go!

We highly recommend a MacPac Baby Carrier, whether it be the Koala, Possum or Vamoose, especially for parents who love the great outdoors.

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Woolworths/Safeway have Huggies Jumbo boxes on special for $30 as part of their Grand Re-Opening at Chadstone Shopping Centre from Monday 3rd November - Sunday 9th November 2008. 

That’s a saving of $11.95!

Quite a saving for parents who are forever groaning about the increasing costs of nappies (ie. me!).

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