I think I may never get around to updating everything, so I'll just ramble off some of the things that have been happening in the last couple of weeks.
We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by running some errands and doing Christmas shopping. Our aim was to finish all our shopping before I deliver. It may be an everyday thing for a lot of people, but having a whole day to hang out, just the two of us, is something Jon and I don't get to do that often. It turned out that our anniversary took on an 'old school' theme by accident. It started with lunch at Wishbone, a restaurant that's been around since I was a little girl. My Mum had a cooked food stall opposite, and between plucking tao gay and picking tau suan, my brother and I would hop over to buy ice-cream from Happy Kappy, their dessert arm.
Dinner was at Shashlik, a Russian restaurant at Far East Shopping Centre. It's a place with special meaning for us cos Jon once brought me there for a surprise dinner. It was one of those times that he really really managed to surprise me :) Things haven't changed at all in the intervening nine years. The place looks the same, and the food was just as good. The Borsch was heavenly and the Shashlik, of course, was great too. As for dessert, we just couldn't resist ordering the ever indulgent baked Alaska. How things have changed for us personally though. We're now married with one kid, and one more on the way!
Day 2 of our wedding anniversay (our wedding was spread over 2 days, so we have an excuse to celebrate more!), we had lunch at the chicken rice stall on the top floor of Far East Plaza - another old school joint. Somewhere we both went to as students.
For me it felt like we were dating all over again, and it was just sweet and romantic in an everyday, ordinary way :)
Now that we're both on leave too, we've been settling stuff in the day while Asher's at school. We haven't had so many afternoons out together since we were students! So we caught Narnia, and I'm hoping to catch the sneak of Gulliver's Travels tomorrow.
As for Asher, he's settled very well into his new school. Although initially he'd protest a bit when I left, now he walks off to join his friends and blows us kisses as we head off :) He always seems to happy when we pick him up, and I love how he runs to us to greet us with a big big hug :) Things really took a turn for the better when Jon started dropping off and picking up Asher together with me. I think that helped him adjust more quickly. I was worried that if I continued to drop/pick Asher alone, when Baby comes Asher would feel abandoned or neglected if I suddenly stopped sending him to school. So these last 2 weeks we've been doing it together, and it has come to the point where Asher's ok even if Jon picked him up by himself.
Jon's been more hands on these last two weeks at home, and that has helped me lots, and is great for Asher. From helping with laundry to bathing Asher when I need a rest. Asher's now even closer to Jon, and it's evidenced by requests from Asher for Daddy to read to him, even though storytime is usually done by Mummy. I'm really happy to see them bonding :)
Asher's also eating SO much better. I was reading up on picky eating sometime last month, and found that kids who are not pressured to eat end up getting all the nutrients they need anyway. I think that perhaps in my anxiety about his weight loss and his poor food in-take, I was unconsciously making meal times stressful for him. I decided to let go, to not press for him to "take another bite", to just offer him a wide variety of healthy options and let him pick when he wants to eat from that selection. I decided to let him be in charge of his intake, afterall they say breastfed kids know how to regulate their food intake well. And the results were quick and satisfying. Within a day or two he was eating more, and he started drinking milk again (yes, he had rejected even that! At it's worst, he could go an entire day with less than 200ml of milk and just 2 tablespoons of rice!). He now generally eats heartily, even though there are some meals where he just picks at the food. But that's ok. I've come to be very zen about it, especially cos I now adopt the mindset that it's just one of many meals in a week. He's still more of a vegetarian/fruitarian, not liking to eat meat that much, but I've found a pretty decent list of almost full-proof food that he'll take, some of these he ate even during his picky phase. Some things are, well, fast-food, but I've also come to think that if he will eat it, let him be. It's still food afterall. At home offer him the healthier stuff, outside, close one eye.
So here's the list: all fruits, veg (esp carrots and corn), my bolognaise sauce, fish fingers, chicken nuggets, egg tofu, rice (esp if he helped to cook it), roti prata, tortillas, eggs (in one form or another - but you must give it to him in the form he wants or he won't eat it), and the KFC breakfast platter (he esp likes the biscuits). Besides these, the cuisine that seems to work almost all the time is Indian food. So far, he has without fail (to my memory at least) eaten well whenever we have Indian food. Roti prata is one case in point. He will happily munch on egg prata, and sometimes even dips it into the curry. He loves briyani rice, he eats dahl curry, has munched up palak paneer (a mild spinach and cheese curry) with gusto, likes vegetable korma, eats dosai and apun jala (pancakes which look like spider webs), and enjoys papadum no end. I think he likes their stronger flavours, and I'm not surprised, given how much Indian and Malay food I ate when I was pregnant and breastfeeding.
So it was a very happy Selena tonight as we left Samy's curry. He ate very well, eating half a good sized piece of dry curried fish (he actually ate fish without me having to sneak it in!), dahl with briyani, papadum, and a cup of mixed fruit (this is something I didn't know they offered until today!). I have always liked going to Samy's curry, and we've brought him there before, but tonight I left thinking, "I love Samy's!". The staff are always so friendly to him, saying hi as they walk by. He likes having his own banana leaf to eat off, free flow of papadum and dahl, fab lime juice, and now there's even fruits to end the meal!! And for the parents - great teh tarik too :)
We weighed him tonight, and I was very surprised and happy to see that he's finally broken 12! He's 12.4 kg!! What a vast improvement from a month ago when he fell back into the 10 range!
So I'm very very happy to see Asher happy at home, at school, at meals. He's really been a jolly fellow these few weeks with Mummy and Daddy being available to him. I hope it keeps up when Baby comes, and when Jon goes back to work.
Speaking of Baby, we've decided on the name already, but we'll keep it under wraps until he arrives. Asher's been refering to Baby by his name for the last several months, and I suppose we can't change it now else he'd be so confused when Baby is introduced with a different name. Anyway, it's a name we like very much, and in fact was the first name we considered many many months ago when I was about 3-4 months pregnant. We deliberated several others in the last few months, but nothing quite sat as well with us. Anyway, I'll elaborate more on the name when Baby arrives.
Asher's been very sweet though. He talks about Baby as part of the family. A few days ago when playing with blocks he built a house for Baby. He has also in his new school played with a baby doll, and called it by Baby's name. He carried the doll, brought it for a stroll around the room in a stroller, fed him milk, and included him in storytime :) (I've some pics, will see if I can upload when I move to a new site.) He says that Baby loves him, and he loves Baby. I just hope that this good feeling keeps up!
I've been getting him prepared for the arrival of the little one. Asher chose to give a toy to Baby, and he's picked out which toy. He knows I'm going to be in hospital for two days, and he'll stay with Por Por. He knows it tiring to deliver and Mummy might be sleeping a lot after. And the most recent piece of info I've introduced is that Mummy doesn't know when Baby is coming. Only God/Jesus knows. I realised I had to tell him this last piece of info too in case Baby comes in the middle of the night and we're not around in the morning when he wakes up! Right now Asher's not the most reliable predictor of when Baby will come. Every time I ask him whether Baby is coming before or after Christmas the answer changes :)
And as for Christmas, I can't wait! :) Where will I be celebrating it? At home? At a friend's house? In hospital? Let's just see how it goes!
Nineteen Already
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