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.