Ushering In 2015

I had originally wanted to write a long post to give thanks for what I am grateful for in 2014. But I'm having a case of new year blues right now cos it is just another uneventful night in HG tonight when I really wanted to do something special/celebratory to welcome 2015. Since my Muse has been disturbed, it will be a shorter blog than what I had wanted it to be.

I am thankful for:
1. Kind soul who dashed across the MRT cabin to tell a pregnant me that there's an empty seat (which was sadly occupied before I got to it)

2. A boss for whom I have great respect for

3. A relatively smooth pregnancy and delivery

4. A healthy, fiesty baby girl (I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was when we found out the gender loh!!)

5. General good health and a safe haven at home

6. Continued blossoming of a scallywag of a son who grows up just a little bit each time I look at him

7. The support of extended family who heaps love on T and K

8. A husband who brings me down to earth (whether I like it anot) and gives support

9. Friends who dole out advice when needed, have tai-tai brunches together and leave surprises at your doorstep when u least expect it

10. The discovery of Carousell

Happie new year folks! May disasters go away and only happy things fill your life in 2015!

How Time Flies

I think the title speaks for itself. From a speckly tiny little thing, K has bloomed into a fatty bom bom with as a friend once called it, 'hamster cheeks with 小笼包 inside'.

Now she is a wriggly baby who can't keep still to save her life. Not even when she is atop the portable cot-top changer and at imminent danger of falling from the changer into her cot when she flips. This is a huge contrast to T, who at least had the courtesy of staying still when we are changing his diapers.

Speaking of T, a boisterous yakky pre-schooler has replaced the placid little baby who had given us so much joy when he was born. Stubborn at times, talkative always (even in his sleep!!) but overall an easy kid to take care of, even when he is blistering our ears off.

Thanking our lucky stars as well that we have had the fortune to be blessed with a boy and a girl where different joys manifest in different ways for both genders. ☺😀😁

Proud Mama

K has hit 2 major milestones!!!

And they seem to happen overnight too!!

One minute she was babbling incoherently and the next, she is uttering "Ba ba ba ba ba" over and over and over again. Golly I am so proud! :) And you can bet Papa Yeow was as pleased as punch that he was the first coherent object of her verbal affection :) :)

Second milestone: K is able to sit unsupported. Unless she saw the object of her affection. The hankie we use to clean her lips after a milk feed. Apparently K feels that her palate can use a little cleaning too cos she will grab the next available hankie and stuff it into her mouth without ceremony to munch on.

Some may say that she is trying to have a fibre-rich diet like so...

What's In A Name?

Back in the days when I was pregnant and not knowing the gender of the little one in my tummy, I played around with different names for both boys and girls (but secretly praying hard that the area of selection will boil down to only female names).

Happily enough, my wish (well, me and the Husband both!) did came true but nothing that came up rang a resounding bell. To call her Isolde will be akin to incest as Tristan's name originate from one of the knights from King Authur's Round Table and Isolde was the original Tristan's beloved.

Second favourite choice Raven/Ravern was shot down by That Man cos he didn't want his precious daughter to be named after a bird. (Ok what...Ravern is a black bird and baby's hair will definitely be black so what's the problem???)

Names with 3 syllables were also shot down cos he couldn't spend an extra nano-second to pronounce that 3rd syllable *roll eyeballs*. Otherwise, Sabrina would have been a strong contender for the job. On a separate note, the Husband's name for K is Ah Girl, so I dun see why names with 2 or 3 syllables is such a biggie for him *roll eyeballs harder*.

Anyway,  inspiration came out of the blue one day as it occurred to me that T's chinese name starts with 凯, and I can kill 2 birds with one stone - one, to have both siblings named similarly in Chinese (anything ending with Tristan's last syllable 灯, or anything similar, can't possibly sit too well with Baby in future) and two, narrow down the hunt for names.

And so the name (and Baby) Kylie was born...

Of Baby Foods & Mess

Ms K started on solids just last week at the ripe old age of 5.5 months. Here's what a typical half hour of feeding looks like at home:

 

 

 

The requisite highchair (and baby bolster to prevent K from roly-polying too much)

 

 

 

Every mother's best friend

 

 

 

All the better to wash foods down with 

 

 

 

Today's menu: pureed broccoli (Editor's note: it smelled absolutely vile...and looked like something which came out of a cat litter box. The customer didn't seem to mind though.)

 

 

More of the pureed cat litter...opps, I meant broccoli.

 

 

Diaper cloth cos the young missy WOULD insist on munching on her fingers as a side snack

 

 

Mission accomplished!

 

This is typical of a weekday feeding when T is away in school. On weekends, we will have an interested big brother hovering around for leftovers after K is done feeding and then going 'Yucks!' when he had a taste of her food. LOL...

Major Milestone Achieved Part II

The past month has been a month of firsts.

1st First
Kylie finally flipped. Not as in flipped her gourd. As in roti prata flipped. And crying when she discovered that her right hand was trying to meet the acquaintance of her left arm pit and couldn't flip back.

2nd First
The first time since Young Missy was born that the Husband and I was able to have a proper date night without having to worry abt rushing home for her last feed and to put Master T to bed. We went to a concert and supper at East Coast.

3rd First
I introduced K to the wonderful world of solid foods. With T, his then-nanny was the one with the inaugural feeding spoon. The first time I fed him cereal, it didn't go down very well and resulted in a close-to-tears mummy, a screaming baby and a food-covered high chair.

It doesn't sound like much but as a working mother, I don't have many chances to witness for myself milestones achieved by the little ones. So I was definitely happy that for all the Flipper and impoverished-by-food jokes, I had a second chance to do things right this time.

K's first feed of cereal went well and today marks the 4th day of solids for her. She now knows to open her mouth at the sight of an orange object hovering in front of her cos it translates into an interesting sensation in her mouth =)

Major Milestone Achieved!

http://dayre.me/furgiemama/ZwKyoIMZD8

May Fruits

要生了, 要生了!!!

No, not me. My friend. Just got word that one of my old friends will be leaving her (bloody) mark in the delivery theatre soon!!

With her pop, this group of friends will complete a second circle of contributing to the hospital's profit margin (we all have/are going to have 2 kids at the time of this publication). Wonder who is going to start the third wave of May-fruits (private joke)?

Soldier on Mrs T!! See u after the baby has wailed (loose adaption of the singing fat lady and that crap. Not in a very sane frame of mind right now...) and the cord has been cut!!

Fate?

I was selling off the sad (sniff!) souvenirs of my breastfeeding journey over the weekend and one of them was MotherLove Special Blend Milk Plus. This was apparently a hot seller as there seem to be many mummies out there trying to up their supply with all sorts of boosters. Anyway, I was meeting up with this buyer at her block in AMK and struck up a conversation with her.

Some background info: she's a first time mummy to a baby boy. She's desperately trying to up her supply cos her son is suffering from a rare disorder which renders him allergic to protein and cannot drink normal formula milk (be it animal or plant based). Formula milk makes him poop blood. Even drinking the almighty (sniff!) breastmilk causes bloody stools in his diaper. The mummy in question, N, is trying all methods available to give him the necessary nourishment but because of insufficient supply, she has resorted to giving him porridge water and barley. He was born 3.45kg and since then, dropped to the 25 percentile. That last bit of stats doesn't mean anything to me but to hv to resort to feeding your child porridge and barley water, her situation must be pretty bad.

I felt so sorry for N and a few days after the sale, I checked up on her to see if the Blend was of any help. Happily enough, it did and we are now Whatsapp friends. Though N and I may never chill out at Starbucks together nursing a mocha (my personal favourite! ), I think we did bond over our common status as mummies and I am really happy that I was able to help a stranger indirectly when the help was so much needed ☺☺☺

Botak

K got her hair shaved off today, as with the Chinese tradition of shaving a baby's hair off when he/she turns one month or at four months. Not sure what the logic is but since K's hair has started dropping recently, we booked her a hair appointment at the Ma & Pa Hairdresser Shop.

It started badly as she was already cranky from shuttling around with us for 中秋节 visits with relatives (close ties with extended families = mini version of CNY house calls). Cue noisy shaver, cold feel of razor on her scalp and occasional washing off of shaved hair. Result? Distressed baby screaming her head (and hair) off.

Having said that, I dunno who was more traumatised: K or her parents. Imagine a stressed out papa trying his best to get a clean shave (he shd know; he had years of experience doing it!) and a heart-pained mama listening to her offspring wailing her lungs out. Halfway through the ordeal, K did herself (and us!) a favor by finally falling asleep. Thank goodness!!

Puss In Boots

This orange kitty is a perennial favourite with the Husband, who used to chuckle out loud whenever he sees Puss go goo-goo eyed.

I had wanted to use this picture to reminisce about back in our dating days but since it's his (the Husband) birthday today, hope this classic brightens up his day when he sees this post.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR YEOW!

First And Second

The differences between having a firstborn and a secondborn:

Bun Baking
Firstborn: Rubs tummy every other 10 minutes. Worries if baby doesn't kick every other second. Talks and sing to baby every other hour.

Second-born: Tummy-rubbing? Mostly when baby kicks. Baby not kicking? See "Tummy Rubbing". Talking and singing? Where got time (or energy)??

Tools Of The Trade
Firstborn: Only the best will do. Tendency to buy too much stuff, just in case you need them for purposes unknown to mankind.

Second-born: Chin chai lah...Improvise. Make do. Bare basics. Hand me downs.

Care Giving
Firstborn: Oh no! Why is baby crying? He's been asleep for so long; is he still breathing??!

Second-born: Anything goes as long as she is not crying the house down.

Bibs

From blowing raspberries, the little lady has graduated to drooling solid streams of saliva as she learns to communicate with us (so says Baby Center or some other baby behaviour guru).

So much so that I have to put her on the bib to avoid another piece of clothing hitting the laundry basket the minute it gets soaked through with 'holy water'. I hardly have enough bamboo poles to cope with T and K's combined laundry as it is!

Comparing K with her big brother, T never had much use for the bib cos he very much preferred to keep his drool to himself even during Teething Season. With K, goodness! It's everywhere. On her fists, on her chin, on our clothes after carrying her...it's almost like monsoon season without the rain. And thicker, stickier H2O....

Dear Skinny Jeans

Dear skinny jeans, how do I love thee?

By wearing you to death of course!

Four months after delivering the baby that is K, I'm still enjoying the maternity jeans I got from ASOS. For one thing, the water/fats that have been lurking in the hidden recesses of my now nonexistent hips are just that: lurking. Still there. Hovering. Stuck (?!?!).

Coupled with the sad fact that I have upped one dress size post pregnancy, one can imagine how fragile my little ego has become when it comes to wearing clothes. In comes Super Jeans to save the day! No sucking in your guts, no tight waistband to pinch your flab, no worrying about whether you have zipped up your fly after a particular 'relieving' time at the potty (opps, I mean toilet. Was thinking too much about training K to pee and poo sans diaper)

Who needs Levis when you have extra thick elastic bands??

My Pumping Journey

Disclaimer: Pro-breastfeeding Nazis can start navigating away now. This entry is going to raise the hackles on your back.

As with my firstborn, I was and still am on close (you will note the choice of words: 'close', not 'friendly') terms with the breast pump. Only difference is: while I was waking up at unholy hours of the night to pump during T's time, it was a significantly more chin chai affair with K.

There were very little pumping issues with T, very likely cos I latched him for about a week or so before my then confinement lady suggested that I pump out instead so that we are able to tell how much milk he was taking in. Perhaps due to the initial latching, milk supply was great and it kept up untill I had to stop pumping when I returned to work.

This time round, I had a lot of grief over supply levels and breastfeeding issues that cropped up (repeated blocked ducts and mastitis anyone?). At first, I couldn't come to terms with the crappy levels of milk I was producing when I had such great supply with T and was pretty upset about this. Was I doing something wrong? (Yes, I stopped latching K at a very early stage.) Does supply go down as you age? (Apparently not...) Can I do something to improve the situation? (Yes.)

Maybe it's a case of sour grapes. Maybe I am in denial. But I have made peace with the fact that I am never going to get the same supply I had in the past.

Unfortunately, I have also adopted a defeatist attitude. It is recommended that mums who are exclusively pumping milk do so every 2-3 hourly for at least 6 times on a daily basis. I personally disagree with this.

Case #1 - Unless you are lucky enough to have someone help out around the house, u will be permanently attached to the breast pump or kitchen sink. Add a screaming baby in the background while you are pumping or doing wash-up (yes, Murphy's Law will always happen) and you can imagine the levels of stress one will face.

Case #2 - The mum's body undergoes a traumatic experience during childbirth and IMHO, she is entitled to lots of rest while she is on ML. Even more so after she has finished confinement and is possibly taking care of the baby on her own on top of having to attend to daily household chores. Having to wake up in the wee hours of the morning or unearthly hours of the night is just punishing. Mothers are great but they need their sleep too.

I've got to say though, this second pregnancy/birth has unearthed many things I have never knew/encountered before - prenatal nose bleeds, blocked milk ducts, mastitis-induced chills, the works. While these are things to add on to my general knowledge, experiencing them are definitely not pleasant.

While I do want to feed K as much BM as possible, I will give what I can and forget what I cannot. In the words of a very wise friend when I was feeling low about this issue:

"Not giving breast milk doesn't make you a bad mother. There are many other ways to be a great one."

First Time & Second Time Mummy

When I first became a mummy and T's gender was revealed, there weren't many hand-me-downs from friends and relatives. Mainly cos my family/friend circles were small and T was one of the  few boys to have popped out (girlie chromosomes were dominant then).

Completely innocent of the prolific baby market then, I thought Kiddy Palace and departmental store (think OG, Metro) apparel were as good as it gets. One brand that stood out in my mind was Disney Babies cos I remembered gasping in disbelief when my aunties bought a jumpsuit set for T and I found out how much that itty bitty outfit cost. Buying stuff from Kiddy Palace became a thing of the past as I slowly picked up brand names (Carters, FOX and Cotton On Kids are personal favourites) along the way and turned up my nose at less-than-ideal clothes. Yeah, that sounded snobbish but I am blaming this squarely on being born a Taurean who are famous for their love for the finer things in life.

4 years down the road, K came along and the hand-me-downs came in greater piles as more of my peers popped. I also had fun shopping at Mothercare buying 粗穿 clothes when K started to outgrow her newborn stuff as this stage coincided with the Great Singapore Sale and the magic 4-letter word was plastered all over store-fronts. Think I went a little bit nuts with the buying though, cos there are still unopened packets of rompers lying in K's chest of drawers - Shhhhh! Dont tell my husband!!

The Front & Back Of It

For some reason, K has taken a pleasure in peeing on me during morning bath time lately, and it happens specifically when I am cleaning her face or when shampooing her hair. Stuff that happens while she is still on my lap.

When confinement ended and I had to take care of K myself,  I was bracing myself for the usual pee 'showers' that will inevitably happen. The first time it happened with K, it was when I was changing her diaper on the bed and the bottom part of her clothes suddenly became wet when it was dry a few seconds ago. Wondering what happened, I was trying to figure it out when I saw a drop of pee in (?) / on (?) her privates. It dawned on me then that K is a girl, and projectile pee *looking pointedly at her big brother T* wasn't going to happen with her.

Yeah, silly Mummy was expecting to be frontally sprayed by streams of pee by K, the same way she was sprayed by T four years ago...Honestly, I will take sneaky pee attacks over jetstreams any day.

See? See?? Girls are still better!

Still Harping On It...

Tonight is the concert by Power Station and Su Rui, 3 lengendary rockers. Wish I was there but considering that K is in da house, POOF goes that particular hope. Anyway, that's not the purpose why I'm writing this blog.

Fann Wong made Yahoo news today for a pregnancy shot that went public. Last week's 8 Days feature story was also a coverage of her pregnancy. It's with much glee that I notice her tummy is so small! She is due in Aug this year by the way, which makes her 8 months pregnant now. Of course, she is probably very happy that the tummy is so small, so she wouldn't have to contend with stretch marks (heaven forbid that any inch of that birdnest-infused porcelain skin be marred in any way!) or waddling like a penguin. The point I'm trying to make here 2 months + 2 days after delivery is: someone has a smaller pregnant tummy than me! Probably a cheap shot or an illogical reason for being so gleefully happie but to sum it up: 自爽!

See? So small!! That's probably me in my 7th month of pregnancy! 

The Pacifier

Nope, much as i like it to, this post does not have anything to do with Vin Diessel *drool*. Rather, it revolves around a boringly exciting tale of dinner and a pacifer.

So we were out for dinner at Greenwich V yesterday night cos I was so sick of eating tingkat and of rotting at home. In the usual confusion of last minute preparations for going out, I forgot to bring an absolute essential when going out with K - her pacifier. Unlike her gor gor, she is a pacifier 'addict' and will cry if she doesn't have one in her mouth when she is trying to fall asleep or soothe herself.

We got to our destination relatively quietly but once seated at our chosen makan place (which serves pretty darn good food at the prices charged by the way), the addiction kicked in and K started making disturbed sounds in search of the pacifer that we did not have. The disturbed heavy breathing changed to soft wails and everything went downhill from there. Papa tried rocking her in his arms while Mummy rushed down to the *thank goodness there was one* supermarket to get a replacement pacifer to detonate K.

When I got back with the magic item, K was sleeping in Papa's arms (which made me go -__-|||) but woke up once she was placed back in the pram. As if nothing ever happened, she went right back to sleep again with the pacifier comfortably in her mouth.

Lesson learnt: Rock on Papa Yeow!! Wahaha...

The Replacement Mute Button

K's First Shoes!

Bought K her first pair of shoes from Mothercare yesterday (I'm a sucker for anything with the magic word SALE on it!).

It is your typical ballerina flats - pink, sweet with the cutest ribbon in front. Ordinary girlie stuff but for someone who has been buying boring boy stuff for 4 years, this mummy is gleefully rubbing her hands in anticipation of all the pink, fluffy stuff she can buy now. In the words of a friend,  I'm happily 'playing doll'!

Anyway, I tried it on for K this morning but it was unfortunately too big for her at the moment (I bought for size 6 months). The length is still ok if she has leggings or socks on but as you can see in the picture, there's a downside to having French Beans appendages sometimes and K's little feet is too slender to fit the wide-toed shoes for now.

Note to self: Need to buy a new shoe rack for the kids cos Mummy is occupying 2/3 of the existing shoe cupboard. She did try asking Papa Yeow to make room for the future influx of shoes but...."No way! Why don't you throw away some of your shoes instead??"

Sure Mr Yeow, I can do that. But my part of the shoe cupboard is self-regenerating.  Once an empty space is detected, it gets locked in auto-pilot and a new pair will appear to fill up the 'undesirable' empty space within a few weeks. HA!

A Rose By Any Other Name...

"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. "

I was having a chit chat with a girlfriend who is expecting her second child in mid-October this year and the topic of baby names came up. One of the names that made her list was Joy but unfortunately she was told by her dad that in Hakka, this name sounded like a certain part of the male anatomy which made her pregnant in the first place. Being Hakka, this is likely to cause many raised eyebrows from her relatives of she really decided to name the baby Joy.

Baby names. One of the fun parts of having a baby. Or at least I had fun trying to come up with names when the gender is revealed (it's a girl! *happy dance*) The names that made my list were:

1. Raven (shot down by the Husband *spoil sport*),
2. Amber and
3. Mystique (the latest instalment of X-Men of which I was a huge fan of was playing in cinemas at around the same time)

After a month of deliberation, we settled on Kylie even though I am not a big fan of her more famous name-sake Kylie Minogue. In the Husband's words: "Please lah...by the time she grows up, u think anyone will know Kylie Minogue meh??"

Time went by and 'Kylie' was officially on Baby Girl's birth certificate. Being too 'free' at home, I started playing Word Association with my mental self and realised that her name actually sound like Kali, the Indian goddess of Destruction & Change. Not a very pleasant association if the stories I heard have any truth in them. Even worse, Kylie's initials are pretty close to a certain type of lubricant too...

Ha!

Pre-delivery days, I was having lunch with an old friend and one of the topics that came up was how T was such an easy baby to care for and I was hoping that K will follow in his footsteps and be an easy baby to jaga as well.

The friend's reaction? "Ha! 世界上哪里会有这么好的事, 所有的便宜都给了你占去?" Not exactly word for word but the gist is there; that I wont be so lucky to have 2 easy babies to take care of.

Despite her tendency to make me jump out of my skin with her yells and addiction to the pacifier, K really is a sweet baby to have, especially when she is in a mellow mood and makes all these cooing sounds. Mummy goes 'awwww' when this happens. *meltz*

Well Ms Extra-Terrestrial, luckily for my sanity and unfortunately for your prediction, you were wrong! 傻人有傻福, 谢天谢地。。。

Sleepless Nights and Sleepless Days

So the Husband had to work late last night and I had to take up night feeding duties alone. As T was bunking in our room with the A/C on, I decided to save on the electricity bill a little (last month's bill post - confinement nearly gave the Husband a coronary. . .) and brought K into the room with us.

Remember how K has this unnerving tendency to yell her head off even before she is fully awake? Well, the tendency has not gone away and last night was no exception. Only thing is, her yells were loud enough to wake the dead or in this case, her big brother. T usually sleeps very soundly at night and nothing short of a thunder storm (which he is super afraid of) can wake him up. That was why I took the gamble of putting K who is not sleeping through the night yet in the same room as T. Unfortunately, K has a power set of lungs and managed to wake T when she started yelling.

Luckily enough, T is not a grouchy riser and the first thing he did when he woke up to the first notes of K's yells was instinctively to search for the pacifier and stuff it into the perpetrator's mouth. This happened not once, not twice but three bloody times and Mummy is in a grumpy mood today cos she is worried abt her firstborn's lack of sleep. These are unfounded worries though, cos T seem none the worse for all the disturbed sleep last night.

Lung Power

K has developed a rather disconcerting habit lately of screaming at the top of her lungs before her eyes are even fully opened as she wakes up from naps.

As u can imagine, this makes people around her (i.e. moi) jump, especially if one minute she is sleeping soundly in her day bed and the next minute she is yelling her head off. More so if I am somewhere else in the house doing chores.

The other member of the family, Furgie is unfazed by it though. Probably because she has also given K a run for her money by making the latter jump with her barks when folks pass by our door.

Who needs a defibrillator when u hv K?

How Do I Love Thee?

To all papas out there, Happy Father's Day!! It's your special day today where your kiddies give thanks for all the hard work that u have put into the family. Kinda like Thanks-giving, except without the turkey and burning of ovens worldwide.

 

This blog entry is dedicated to the silent hero in my house - Mr YSY. Counting this year, we have been married for 7 years and parents for 4 years. How time does fly...

 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. For being the stoic pillar of support when I am down and needs assurance that things will be ok
2. For being a calm anchor on days where my Aries side shows and I am being ditzy/unrealistic/impractical
3. For quietly tolling for a better life for the family in the rat race that is Singapore
4. For quietly getting things done without asking for anything in return
5. For being a father figure to T and giving him that kick up the a** when discipline is needed
6. For nights of staying up to feed K though u hv to get up early for work the next day (World Cup matches notwithstanding)

 

And So The World Cup Starts

FIFA World Cup started this morning.

Call it a coincidence but both my kiddos are born in the same year that the every-4-years Cup is held. This translates into more sleeping time for Mummy as Papa Yeow will juggle a milk bottle in one hand and Baby in the other while his eyes are glued to the TV screen at hours that no woman, man or child should be awake.

Zzzzzz...

Awfully Chocolate

Back in the days when we were dating, my dear husband once bought an Awfully Chocolate cake to celebrate my twentish birthday (oh how distant that number is now...).

At that time, Awfully Choc was a pretty exclusive shop operating somewhere in Katong and not as easily accessible as it it now. Anyway, I fell in love at first bite cos it was pure chocolate heaven. Mmmmmm...

To clarify: this blog is not a plug for the brand - it's for reminiscing certain memories that stood out from when YSY and I were dating. I'm recalling this cos I have a really really strong craving for quality chocolate something during my confinement and as it happens, a dacadent Awfully Choc cupcake landed in my fridge by way of the Husband. Naturally, the cupcake didn't stay very long there.

Not quite sure where I'm going with this blog but I suppose the chocolatey memory is but one of the happy recollections from when we were not bogged down by everyday worries about children, house matters etc. Having moved on to a different stage in life, it is nice sometimes to pull out old memories just to relive those moments. Or maybe it is just the boredom from confinement. Hee...

Baby Carrots & French Beans

When T was born, I had nurtured dreams of sending him for piano lessons.  Kinda like a younger version of Yanni if u will, minus the maggi mee mope of hair and moustache.. (completely irrelevant note: I do wonder how many bottles of shampoo he goes through each month just to wash those hair follicles...)

Anyway, I digress. From a practical perspective, he will have an extra life skill to fall back on if his day job as a doctor/lawyer/accountant doesn't work out. Personal cultivation-wise, it seemed like a good way to quieten his wilder side down and add a dose of culture. Anyway, it didn't work out in the end because of his baby carrot fingers - short, fat and stumpy. Now, I pen down this description of his fingers with a great deal of affection cos I loved looking at them when T was a baby and to feel those 'baby carrots' curling ard my fingers. It didn't work out cos the stereotype for pianist fingers are long and slender, a complete opposite of the appendages that my firstborn had been endowed with. And so the pianist dreams were shelved...

5 years later and along came K, who was completely different from her big brother: petite (at the time of publication), feisty and *happy dance* blessed with long slender fingers and toes. For lack of a comparable veggie (of which I have a rather limited knowledge of), I liken them to french beans. It's early days yet and I do cherish hopes of sending K for piano lessons for reasons very much different from those for T. But if she is going to sprout a hairstyle like Yanni's, she's footing her own shampoo bill...

Baby Carrots

French Beans

The Maestro with the hor chew and shampoo-ad hair

Waiting....

"A woman's body is a temple."

A quote that I came across long long ago when reading novels was a given, not a luxury. And this quote is still floating about online today when I did some research on materials for this blog entry.

If all women's bodies were structural buildings, mine will probably be a luxury condo. For the simple reason that it's been 37 weeks of 'fun filled' pregnancy symptoms but Baby Girl shows no sign of wanting to leave the comfort of my womb and making an appearance on Mother Earth. No engagement/lightening, no nothing.

After countless nights of fake peeing, gallons of half-digested food down the toilet bowl, edema-ridden extremities (read: feet) and waddling around like a penguin-elephant hybrid, I am more than ready to say hi to Kylie in the flesh. She's not cooperating much though. Bummer...

Work In Progress

12-day old kang kong

 

Core Strength

35 weeks and counting down.

I am taking today's entry as a chance to whine. Specifically, to whine about how I feel like a big, fat elephant.

Sometime back around 32-34 weeks, the tummy that I had so many grievances about took on a life of its own and pong into one which looked relatively more like a pregnant tummy. Now I should be happy that I finally look pregnant instead of bloated right? Wrong! What I did not realise or know is that the pong-ing of the tummy is accompanied by a loss of core body strength and an ability to lumber heavily. Cases in point below:

1. Everyday Walking

Where I used to take 5 minutes to walk from destination A to destination B, it now takes 10-15 min to get to the same destination. I can't walk any faster; it's almost as if I am a moving car with the handbrake on. Heaven forbid I should try to walk any faster than 5cm/per hour cos that will just result in 2 hours of panting while I try to give my lungs a run for their money.

2. Flipper

By nature, I am a restless sleeper - flip left, flip right, repeat motions about 30 times each night before the un-pregnant me drifts off to sleep each night. Now, I can't flip more than 2 times to save my life every night cos it just takes that more straining of core body strength just to flip onto my back and then again to the other side. Again, heaven forbid I should try to flip the second time to the other side at one go. With my new bed partner, I take comfort in the fact that I at least have a bolster at my disposal whichever way I turn. Before u ask: Yes, it does take that much effort to flip without adding in the complication of giving my bolster the Scissor-Leg treatment.

3. Walks in the Park

In the earlier stages of pregnancy, I used to enjoy walking home with T from the nanny's house. Along the way, we made it a game to Spot the Creature as there will be mice, snails and cats coming out to play after dark. Unfortunately, swollen feet and breathlessness has made it difficult for me to waddle home with a overly talkative boy. Right now, we have resorted to taking the bus which T is enjoying very much as well as he gets to press the bell for alighting and I can teach him some basic road recognition as well.

4. All Rise

An action which most people take for granted has became somewhat of a task for the past few weeks - getting up from my seat. Where I used to be able to just jump up, it has became a 5 minute task: 1 minute to grab the nearest handle and cling on to it for dear life, 2 minutes to slowly lift my butt out of the chair and another 2 to get onto my feet. Kinda like a slow-motion movie really, just with a lot more groaning and bones creaking.

End of whine cos it's time to get out of my Reserved Seat and waddle the 500 metres home. Ciao!

KKK

T went on a class excursion some weeks back and came back excitedly touting a Grow-Your-Own-Kang-Kong kit.

For a resolute non-veggie lover, my first thought was: " What am I supposed to do with the *insert grimace* kang kong after they sprout up? Assuming that my decidedly non green fingers or overly curious dog doesn't kill them first?"

Anyway, T has been hustling me to let him hv a go at the kit so we had some kang kong-ish 'fun' this morning at the void deck of our block. A safer choice of venue really, considering that we are dealing with peat moss, toddler hands and a woman who hates cleaning up.

Exciting gloop of nothingness for the next 20-25 days

New Bed Partner

http://dayre.me/furgiemama/v3MkoS0ksl

Fertility Tool?

Unrelated note: again happily sitting in a Reserved Seat now with no one to ka chiau me while typing this entry.

I had an interesting encounter with a colleague at work today.

We were having a chat about mummy stuff (she being a mother of one while me being a mother of 1.75) where she suddenly requested for a sanitary napkin  from me. Yep, sanitary napkin. My eyebrows shot up through the roof as my mind unbiddingly conjured up images of a blood soaked Whisper pad being passed from my hand to hers. Where the hell was I supposed to find such a thing when my last period was 8 months ago anyway??

Anyway, the eyebrow came down after she clarified on her request: apparently there's some wierd superstition floating out there about if you get a sanitary pad from a lady who is fertile/pregnant (I can't quite comment on this cos again, this conjures up strange images of an Indian fertility goddess with boobs hanging down to her navel and tonnes of little babies hanging around her fertile feet. Dun ask me why...) and use it (hopefully in the way that a pad is meant to be used), it will boost the user's chances of getting kids too. Beats me if a guy is the one planning to use it though.

In normal circumstances, I will be running miles away if such a request had came from someone I don't know every well. But some background info about this colleague: she had conceived her son through IVF and was pretty 'envious' when she heard that I was expecting a girl.

Not seeing any harm in passing her a clean, unused sanitary pad (I keep a pack in office just in case), she got what she wanted and I remain a little bemused when I think about this curious incident.

Fish Out Of Water

Unrelated note: I am happily sitting in a Reserved Seat with no old men (or any other ppl, for that matter) to bug me while typing this entry. La la la la la...

Lately, I have been feeling very much out of my league at work and it has been causing me many moments of vexation. Not healthy given my current stage of pregnancy but I can't help it!! Since joining my current organisation, I have been thrown into many work situations for which I have no clue how to go about starting.

Case in point: my department called for the creation of a spanking new database for work which I am the primary officer in charge. Apparently this involved the review of functional specifications for the new database and guess who got to do it? I am of accounting pedigree; WTH will I know about looking at computer work flows, business rules and such?? This calls for logic and systematic thinking, both of which no one will EVER associate me with. (stop sniggering YSY, I can see u..) It did not help that something has cropped up with the UAT (user acceptance testing) recently and I got chewed up by my big big boss over it. I don't mean to shirk responsibility but it really doesnt feel good when u get blamed for something u know squat about.

It is not helping too that my fellow departmental colleagues are really, really strange, anti-social people I completely cannot relate to even though there's just 4 of us. The only person who bears some semblance to a normal human being has resigned and will be leaving soon. Sigh....

Greatest joke of the day: a tech idiot is actually in the IT divison of the organisation (nope, this definitely was not in the job ad when I wrote in - I checked). Gulp. Pant. Flounder.

Well Done T!

I'm so proud of my boy!!!

The HG family was at IKEA today to get some stuff in preparation for BG's arrival and deciding that T will probably be happier at the kids' play area within IKEA, we left him to his own devices there while the adults shopped in peace. Just for reference, each munchkin gets only 1 hour play time before he gets booted out of the play area; wished it could be longer though. I mean, unless you already know what you wanna get, how can 1 hour be enough in IKEA??

Anyway, we collected him when the one hour was up and on the way back, he told us that he did a poo in the play area toilet.  Firstly, he is one of those folks who poo only in designated, familiar toilets and so, it came as a very big surprise to me that he actually deigned to poo in a completely unfamiliar toilet. That was not the best part: he managed to poo and wipe his bum all on his own! (cleanliness of bum non withstanding) I was so proud of him at that moment and upon reflection, perhaps I have been molly-coddling him too much. He is by nature an independent soul and I have been so blinded by the fact that he is (and always will be) my little boy that I have failed to see how capable he is of doing things on his own.

Downside? He did not get to wash his hands after the poo and wipe cos the sink was apparently too high for him to reach. Eeeuuwww...

The Time Draws Near...

Firstly, I can't believe all you readers out there have not pointed out at all the error in my blog name. I am expecting a Foal, not a Calf!! Don't quite know what I was thinking when I changed the name but anyway, the title is correct now. Not quite happy with the name though -CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions, anyone?

Back to the main topic: I am typing this entry cos I am on a loooong bus journey back to Hougang from Bukit Merah. No cabs in sight and I have absolutely no clue how to get to the nearest MRT station of which I do not even know the name of. The place I am at could be in outer Mongolia for all I know.

Digressing again...I am approximately 2 months away from saying hi to Baby Girl (not that she can see or hear me very well then) and a strange thought/feeling has been plaguing me for a few weeks. I am holding on dearly to what's left of the private time alone I have with T and cannot seem to get enough of kissing his chubby cheeks and inhaling the scent of him. His innocent eyes melt my heart into gooey puddles and I will really miss the times I have with him alone.

Yes, I probably sound very silly since it will be an addition of happiness when Baby Girl (BG for short cos it gets tiresome if u have to type it many times. Ah ah ah ah stayin' alive, stayin' alive!!) decides to make her presence known instead of a subtraction of love from T. But honestly, T will always have the special status of being my firstborn and he has given YSY and I so much happiness over these 4 years that I can't really wrap my head around the fact that someone is coming soon to join the crowd.

These are the kind of silly thoughts that come up when hormones are running amok and the fear of not knowing what the future holds...

To share another paranoia: I do hope the good doc's scanning machine is working fine cos if BG turns out to be a BB, he will be having quite an *ahem* unusual wardrobe cos it will basically be all pink and girlie...oh the hours of fun I had digging through all the hand me downs!!

No More Ms Nice Preggie

I DID IT! I asked someone to give up a Reserved Seat in the MRT for me today!

"Big fat hairy deal..." some might say.

Let's start from the beginning: my organisation had a work retreat today, which basically entails a day of presentations and team bonding activities. I also had a dinner gathering with some ex-colleagues after the retreat.

Very much tired out from the retreat activities, I had to take the train during peak hour in order to get to the dinner venue. As you may expect, peak hour commute definitely ain't a bed of roses and somehow, something snapped in my cranium and I marched right up (marched being a relative description, considering that I was squashed almost right up the side partition) to the young lady sitting in the RS.

I am glad I did so cos the train was acting cranky and stopping for prolonged periods at each and every station before my destination (it was 7 stops from my boarding station to the destination).

Final Lap

Amidst all the mad-hattering of family life,  motherhood, pregnancy hood (nope, I don't consider motherhood and pregnancy to be the same, unless some trick of science allows you to kiss a cuddly 'foetus' goodnight) and work demands (for the record, folks who tell you that Civil Service is easy work ought to be strung up, quartered and shot through their fingers and toes), I find myself entering the last trimester of pregnancy.

I wish I could say that it has been a blissfully happy one but unfortunately, it is not. Heartburn, non-existent tummies and worries about logistics after Gillian/Amber/??? is born continues to plague me to this day, though things have improved on the tummy front (yeah, yeah, it is an obsession. Other folks get strange food cravings; I measure the diameter of my tummy circumference. What about it?? ;p)

Seriously though, there are certain things that I will like to remember when I look back at this pregnancy 5 years down the road and before Mummy Brain sets in, I better get the memories down in this post.

1. No Mummy Tummy

Yes, I am starting to sound like a broken record but I will still say it. Due to curvy hip bones, *cue roll of eyes* I have a non-existent pregnant tummy which has caused much distress during the infant stages (pardon the pun) of my pregnancy. Hushed/embarrassed questions from colleagues asking me if I am pregnant (during month 5-6 of my pregnancy), sneak looks from folks sitting down in the train and wondering "Is she? Is she not?", and the clincher? Smiling old men who ask me to give up my Reserved Seat early in the morning. Yup, I am nursing a grudge for that one and happily sitting in yet another Reserved Seat typing this entry out. Bleagh!

2. Breaking the XX / YY Tradition

Among my closer group of friends, they all have multiple offsprings who are of the same gender i.e. both siblings are either boy-boy or girl-girl pairings. The one other lady who managed to break this strange tradition cheated by increasing the number of offspring that she had, thereby increasing her odds of having a different-gender offspring, sneaky chick that she is (love you Ms T!!). Just recently,  I received happy news of another Stallion/Mare in the making. Well, maybe not so much making, more like nurturing.  Anyway, we shall soon see if the XX / YY tradition can be broken yet again in a couple of months.

3. Biological Workings

Throughout the whole pregnancy, I was a bundle of paranoia and hormones (talk about a lethal combination...). The result of this was a short tempered shrew who blew up over small things and then breaking down after that. Dark shadows of unfounded fears plague me and caused many sleepless nights, which in turn fuel the short tempers. Chicken and egg, anyone? Anyway, the surges of hormones seem to have abated and I feel more like a sane person now.

The one constant in this pregnancy however, was an unbelievable constant craving for all things sweet. Chocolates, cakes, soft drinks...you name it, I want it. While I have a sweet tooth all along, this constant need for sugars is scary. So much so that I am actually concerned that Baby Girl may turn out bigger than she should have been if I were on a sugar-little diet.

Funny Tummy & Skinny Jeans

My biggest bugbear throughout the course of this pregnancy would be the circumference of my tummy. Yeah, for folks who have been following the blog posts since I officially went public with the pregnancy, they probably may have noticed that not one post goes by without some form of mention of my itty bitty tummy. Though my memory isn't so good anymore, I seem to remember a bigger tummy from when I was carrying the Rascal. Though it wasn't very big at that time, it was round enough to make me look obviously pregnant and not 'is she or is she not'.

Despite this very huge bugbear, it is not without a good dose of amusement to see fellow co-workers do a double-take when I told them that I am 5.5 months along my pregnancy. In the words of a colleague: 'I can't believe I have been working with you for the past few months and not realise that you are pregnant!' Quite unlike my previous workplace where news and gossip will spread like wild-fire 3 seconds after it has left the mouth of a perpetrator, folks in my current organisation kept pretty much to themselves. Even within my department, personal information is pretty well contained unless asked for.

Though my tummy is not sufficiently huge enough to look outright pregnant, my waistline has still expanded somewhat that I can't fit comfortably into my usual wardrobe now. At the recommendation of a friend, I bought some maternity wear online and one of these included a pair of skinny jeans. Now, I had previously shunned skinny jeans like the plague when they first became all the rage across the fashion world. Kate Moss I am not, and shunting myself into those skin-tight denims will be akin to an elephant trying to fit into leotards. Anyway, ASOS (the online store I was ordering from) carried only skinny jeans and I needed casual clothes, so skinny jeans it was.

When my order arrived and I tried the jeans on, ooooh! I was immediately struck by how elongated and 'shapely' my legs appeared. Skin-tight does indeed work its magic...in a time where I feel perpetually bloated and shapeless in loose fitting clothes, you will not believe how amazing I felt when I saw my jeans-clad reflection in the mirror :) The jeans are now a favourite piece in my current wardrobe (not that I have much to choose from) and who knows? I can continue to wear them post-pregnancy..

2013

Heralded in January

Gone in February

Was to be a Virgo

Replaced by a Taurus

Penning this down

As the only remembrance

Of a fleeting moment in time



A Good Ol' Whine

I am well into my 22nd week of pregnancy this week without realising how quickly time flies. With this pregnancy, three things stand out in very stark contrast to when I was carrying the Rascal.

Symptoms
I had a whale of a time during my last pregnancy, with morning sickness being limited to saliva spitting and the odd piece of undigested food. Had all the usual swollen feet, mild heartburn and sudden leg cramps but all these happened during the last few months. This time round? OMG....I graduated directly into full blown throwing up, abrupt flaring of temper and absolutely disgusting loud belching that came out of nowhere. In fact, if you like half digested red cherries coming out of your throat and burping fish oil capsules,  pregnancy is the way to go.

Common symptoms aside, I also get strange happenings that I did not even know was part and parcel of lugging a (non existent) tummy around. Cue Exhibit A: Did anyone know that pregnant women are more prone to nosebleeds? I sure as hell didn't. But it happened one evening and scared the heck out of me and YSY to see blood soaked tissues after I blew my nose. It apparently had something to do with increased blood supply and overworked blood capillaries.

Exhibit B: Spotting. The birds and the bees happened and the spotting came one day during my second trimester. For folks who are not aware, spotting/bleeding are never a good sign during the second and third trimester as this may indicate all sorts of pregnancy complications or even miscarriage. Again scared the heck out of me and the Husband, more so the Husband cos his precious daughter may be in danger. Humph! Anyway, the spotting stopped and our pounding hearts stilled.

With the first pregnancy, I breezed through it with shiny hair, glowing skin and a general feeling of sunshine. Alas! This was not replicated for the current one. Even in my second tri, the general feeling was one of crappiness though I am having an easier time now without any morning sickness. However, the heartburn is still bad enough that mass hoards of undigested food are migrating my poor gullet. Let's not even go into the distressed complexion and fizzy hair...

Le Showing
The Tummy - how do I describe thee? Non existent, that's how. Whenever I see pregnant ladies with ginormous tummies on the streets, the one thought I have everytime is: how is it humanly possible for a tummy to stick out so much? Will it burst with the next inch that it grows? Sadly or happily (depending on how u want to look at it), I will never know.  At 22 weeks, my tummy is woefully small, more like a love handle rather than the protective container of a living thing. According to the good doctor/nurse/lab technician at TMC, the size of a pregnant tummy is determined by the curvature of the mother's hip bone - the curvier the bone, the more contained the tummy. At least I know I have curvy hip bones now...

Attention Seekers
When I broke the news to T, he apparently was not too affected about the arrival of a baby sister (yup, it's a girl!!). So it came as a surprise to me when during a conversation with his Chinese teacher, I was told that his attention span has greatly shortened in school when he previously loved learning in class. Also, he became fidgety and kept telling everyone that his mummy has a baby. This out-of-the-blue behaviour coincides with the time I was trying to prep him for his new sibling. At home, he starts crying over the slightest thing and gets very emotional.

Being cared for at the nanny's where babies are a dime a dozen, I am actually very surprised that T is reacting so strangely to my pregnancy. Anyway, it is still an uphill trek to deal with his behaviour right now: too strict and it will merely reinforces the idea that a new sister is associated with negativity but relax the discipline and we risk undoing all the good of past enforcement. What's a mother to do in times like this?