Crocs & escalators do not mix

Last night I learnt that no matter how careful or watchful a parent can be or no matter how many times you have told your young child to stand still in the middle of the elevator step, it just takes a split second of distracted attention for an accident to happen.

My 5-year old was up to his naughty stunt of dragging his foot along the sides of the escalator as we were riding down. Before we could stop him, the soft soles from his croclings had already caused friction and the crocs was dragged off his foot. This had left his foot exposed and unprotected. He was fortunate to escape with just a skin cut on his big toe. But this was no consolation for the shock that he experienced in the brief moment when the accident happened.

This morning, I googled crocs+escalator and came up with 36000 results, crocs+injury+kids = 202000 results and crocs+accident = 483000 results! There have been many cases before and many reports and complaints have been made to the company. Most of the incidents happened to kids belows 3 years involving elevators in malls and airports. There were kids who had their toes caught between the steps or the sides of the elevators. Some had their toes partially amputated while others had their toe nails ripped off.

There is even a family in the USA who has filed a $7m lawsuit against Crocs earlier this year for their 3-year-old daughter being "severely and permanently injured" when one of her pink, holed shoes was sucked into an airport escalator in New York City. Although it was reported that only her skin was peeled off, the parents have described the incident has horrifying.

After having our own experience last night, it was indeed horrifying. It was scary to think that any of those accidents could have happened to my little boy. I just hope this accident had taught him (and his big brother who witnessed the whole incident) to be more mindful when riding on the escalator.

Parents, if you must let your kids wear crocs, keep them for outdoor use and please avoid escalators.

A reminder of the incident

Mothers' time-out

After a long week of school runs, homework and many other activities, these 4 busy mothers were able to sit down together to talk girls stuff.


The kids were left at home with the hubby or sitter.

Faded t-shirts were swapped for something more feminine, make-up and jewelry.

Food was a matter of personal favourites and not what the kid wants to eat.

Talk of school and homework turned to talk of 'long black', 'flat white' and 'single shot'.

These are the basic elements when busy mums decide that they need to have their girlie time.

'Siew yoke' and bacon

After a whole week of busy drafting in the office and rushing around, I decided that I would have to do some things new and different come Saturday morning.

The first was air drying the piece of belly pork before roasting.

Fortunately, it was a beautiful sunny morning and the pork meat has a good airing.



And this was how the 'siew yoke' turned out after 20 mins of roasting and another 10 mins or so of top grilling. The skin crackled but I've still yet to perfect the seasoning.

At the same time, B1 was help me coat streaky bacon with brown sugar to make caramelised bacon. This was prep work for Nigel's very unique 'Bacon & Egg' cake recipe which called for bits of caramelised bacon in it.
I was thrifty about the brown sugar although the recipe called for generosity. These were put into the oven to grill for 25 mins.



The finished bacon smelt and tasted a lot like the chinese 'long yoke'.

First post - A full life

After much procastination, I'm finally writing my first post in a blog which has been created more than 6 months ago. What's my excuse? Too busy.

After more than 6 months, I'm still 'too busy' now. But today, I've asked myself, what am I 'too busy' doing? Work, kids, schedules to keep ....

We now live in a situation where we always seem to be bogged down by something or other. Today it's about finishing an assignment, tomorrow is about getting to a meeting in time. Somehow, 1 thing or another will crop up that takes our attention away from the more important things in life. Somehow, that thing that suddenly crops up seems to be more urgent than it is important. Hence the 'important thing' usually have to make way for that 'urgent thing'. The important things are usually not urgent.

On most days, we tend to get so caught up on all those supposedly urgent things that we forget to ask ourselves what are we meant to live for? What are the things that really make us happy at the end of the day? What have we done to make our dear ones happier? What have we done to help give others a better life? Are we leading a balanced and full life?

While making a good living and providing for our family is important, we must not forget the non-material things that matter just as much. We work harder so that we can give our families better things and more opportunities but is that all that they want? Instead of giving your kids the latest toy in the market, perhaps you can give them a little more time to spend with you to get to know you better. Instead of treating your elderly parents to the best restaurants in town, perhaps you should hear them out with more patience.

I've decided that I want to lead a fuller life. I want to watch my kids grow and be there when they learn new things. I want to have more heart talks with my better half and know him better. I want to spend more time with my parents in their golden age. I want to add life to my hours and not hours to my life.

This blog will record the adventures and misadventures of my journey as working mum.