Rambling

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!

On The Way

So this has been a long time coming. 

I'm sure by now if you've been reading the previous few posts you'll know I'm expecting again :)  This pregnancy has been very different from the first.  For starters, I actually have pregnancy symptoms this time around!  The first time, except for the growing bump, I had no symptoms whatsoever.  No morning sickness, no nausea, no cravings, no aversions, no fatigue, etc. (altho Jon says I'm so greedy all the time it's hard to tell whether I'm having cravings or not ;) ). 

This time, I experienced some nausea, especially when I was ill.  I hated that wanna-puke feeling!  I also had some aversions.  I normally eat all kinds of veggies and have always loved spinach, but for some reason, I suddenly just couldn't stomach even the thought of eating the bayam variety.  It made me feel nauseous just thinking about eating it.  And the weirdest thing?  Water made me feel like puking.  Yes, water.  I could drink an entire glass of juice/soft-drink/any flavoured beverage.  But a few sips of water made me feel like throwing up.  At Shan's wedding I was supposed to deliver a speech and was feeling cold (and nervous), so drank some warm water...which ended up making me feel nauseous.  I was quite worried that I would actually puke on the podium!  Thank goodness that didn't happen.  It would surely have been a speech to remember.

Then there was the fatigue in the first trimester.  I just felt so tired everyday!  Needed to have a nap each day before picking Asher up from school. 

Thank goodness things have gotten better, and I can give Asher more of my time and energy. 

But I think that among the best things that resulted from this pregnancy was having Asher finally sleep through the night again.  He managed to do so from about 2-4 months old, but suddenly just stopped that good habit and woke up repeatedly every night.  At it's worst Asher was waking as many as 12 times a night - that's more than twice an hour.  And I had already gone back to work at that point.  I was frustrated and at a loss over what to do.  I half-guessed it was because Asher was at that time still breastfeeding, and was trying to wean him off his night feedings, which he nutritionally did not need.  It was nursing simply for comfort's sake.  Even then, when I had managed to get it down to one night feed, and eventuallly just the 530/6am feed, he still woke up that many times a night.  Maybe he was always still hoping for a comforting nurse?  Prayed and prayed, hoping for a miracle. 

Then I found out I was pregnant and had to stop breastfeeding.  And then he started to magically sleep through the night again!  Oh, the joy!  Tempered by the fact that in the first trimester you tend to wake up frequently to head to the loo, but still, I woke up much less often than 12 times a night!!! 

So Asher's breastfeeding journey went something like this:

• Nov 08 - May 09: Exclusive breastfeeding (BF)
• Mar 09: BF + very very occasional expressed breastmilk (EBM) from a cup just to get him used to it (he never took to the bottle)
• May 09: BF + introduced cereal (used EBM)
• Jun 09: BF + supplementing with formula milk (FM) when making cereal
• Jul 09: Back to work.  BF + EBM from sippy cup + FM for 1 milk feed a day at infantcare
• Sep 09: BF + EBM from straw cup + FM for 1.5 milk feed a day at infantcare (1 feed was mixed with EBM)
• Oct 09 - Jan 10: BF (gradually reduced feeds to only before sleep, at night, & first feed in morning) + EBM + FM
• Feb 10 - May 10: BF (before sleep, at night, & first feed in morning, gradually reducing the number of BF feeds starting with the pre-sleep one) + FM (stopped expressing completely)
• May 10: Stopped breastfeeding completely.  FM only.

So in total breastfed Asher for about 1.5 years.  I have this feeling that with the second kid, I may not breastfeed for quite a long cos it'll be tough to devote that amount of time to him without neglecting Asher.  I will probably end up expressing earlier too, something I find an absolute chore doing, but I think I may find to be necessary in order to have enough time for both children.

Now we're in the midst making arrangments for Baby, and trying to prepare Asher for the arrival of his sibling too.  So far he seems to be taking well to the idea in concept, but of course, things will be quite different when reality hits.  I'm just hoping to make it as easy as possible for him. 

In the meantime, I try to continue spending as much time as I can with Asher, to make sure he knows I love him so much, whether in word or in deed.  I hope he feels secure and loved.  I can only try my best. 

At the same time, I do wonder what it will be like to have a second child.  I think that to some extent it will require deliberate attention on our part.  I'm sure we'll love our child, but as a newborn, he won't be as responsive and engaging as a toddler.  Just thinking about Asher, the most fun times are now!  We'll have to make sure to give enough attention to our little baby while not neglecting Asher.  I'm hoping to involve him in caring for Baby, like with getting diapers, sponging Baby in the bath, maybe show Baby pictures in books...not sure what else.  Currently, in concept he is quite keen to hold Baby's hand in the car, and bring Baby to see the animals in the zoo.  I hope that his good feelings will continue after Baby comes. 

But I am a little worried cos Asher is still very attached to me, so I'm not sure how he'll take to sharing Mummy when Baby comes.  Again, I can only try my best.

Still Waiting...

Mummy and Daddy are getting impatient. When is Baby coming out???

Anytime Now!!

Baby's engaged, and I've been getting Braxton Hicks contractions. So it shouldn't be long before Baby comes out now! Although, he really seems quite happy in there...doesn't want to face the world yet maybe :) Or he's waiting for us to sort out his room completely and make sure the house is clean and all.

Maybe it's 'nesting instinct', or maybe it's just the usual neat-freak Selena, but I've been pottering around the house neating up shelves, wiping surfaces, cleaning the house in general. I think it's just usual neatness. Cannot tahan when the house is messy/dirty lah! There's still more cleaning that needs to be done, but don't wanna tire myself out either.

Over these past few months we actually did up what used to be the study room into Baby's room. Previously there was nothing built into the room, just movable shelves for our books. We decided to build in a wardrobe for Baby, with shelves on the side. Built-in seems best for our house cos the walls aren't straight, and neither is the floor! When we were using free-standing shelves, we had to wall mount them cos otherwise they'd just topple over cos of the incline. For the shelf that was wide enough to stand stable on it's own, there was a HUGE gap between the back of the shelf and the wall!

So, since we really don't want cupboards falling onto Baby, who will be pulling at stuff, build-in was the way to go!

We also got curtains from IKEA! I love those curtains! Super colourful and cheerful! :) Although cos the IKEA restaurant uses that same cloth as blinds and tablecloths, Baby might be wondering why they stole his curtains :O)

And the cot! Yep, sheets all washed and cot all set up and ready to be used!

So, Baby, what you waiting for?!?














Maybe he's waiting for Mee Siam. Going to my parents place today cos my Mum is cooking her famous, and oh-so-yummy Mee Siam, which Baby hasn't tried yet. Maybe he knows what's coming, so he's waiting for a taste of it. Greedy boy!

But he's been quite naughty :) Giving Jon and I false hopes that he'll be coming out soon! The Braxton Hicks were quite close together a few times already - ard 10 mins apart at some points. But irregular, and painless (if only the real thing was painless too!). So.....BABY!! COME OUT!!

Anyway, looks like the rest has done Baby some good. Doc was worried that Baby was a little small, and gave me MC to rest at home. Baby's weight has since jumped to 3 kilos, and Doc is finally happy with his weight! So since Doc is ok with the weight now, I'm telling Baby to stop growing otherwise he'll have a hard time coming out! Or rather, I will have a hard time getting him out!!













By the next post, Baby might be here! Keep a look out!

Mummy's Baby Shopping Spree

Mummy went on a baby shopping spree the other day...and even got a Mothercare membership! :) So Baby Nair now has even more tiny clothes :) They really are so small! Was washing the clothes and when I hung up the little socks, I was telling Jon it's like hanging Christmas socks for mice!

Preggers Tummy (5) - Hiaoing Away!

Came home and decided that since it's been quite long since I took some tummy shots, it's time for more! And, oh man, did I get Jon to take more hee.

Took a photo of what I wore to work that day - a pregnant outfit I like very much cos it's not frumpy :) That isn't even a pregnancy dress! It's an old dress I bought in Sec 1 or 2 that just got shorter and shorter, and eventually ended up hanging around my calves - which I found looked strange on me. So some years back, I cut off the bottom and hemmed it up around my knees. Ta da! Little black dress!

Hopping around as usual :)






















Then changed into separates so I could take tummy shots! :) Baby's grown quite a lot I think. Plus, it looks like he's gone lower! THE DAY is coming soon!

Kicking Caught on Camera!

It was one of those days where Baby just felt extra active (it happens every now and then), so I decided to grab the camera and film it! :) I've been wanting to keep a record of it just for fun heh.

Since the movements may be hard to see on camera, I put the camera case on my belly to make the movements more obvious :) The jerks of the camera case are not me! It's Baby!

Pregnant Musings

Yeeep, I'm definitely visibly pregnant. I now have pregnant privileges like being allowed to sit out of the queue while keeping my place in line (kudos to the nice manager at Sakae Sushi), people giving up seats for me on the MRT and bus, etc. Had to wait quite long to get such privileges though - people say I look small for my stage of pregnancy.

Anyway, on a separate note, the whole world seems to go to Dr W K Tan! I have colleagues who went to her, colleagues who were themselves delivered by her, family friends that I found out go to her cos I bumped into them at the waiting area, random people I meet at other people's weddings...it's amazing! I really wonder how many Singaporeans have been delivered by her! For sure Baby's in good hands! :)

Preggers Tummy! (4)

Strreettcchhhhhhhhh












Oh anyway, I should highlight that Jon's been the sweet one taking all these photos :) I'm sure you knew that, but thought I should state it and give him credit heh :)

Preggers Tummy! (3)

I think I'm discernibly larger!












(please excuse the mess behind me! my house is still a disaster zone!)

Preggers Tummy! (2)

Still growing!

Preggers Tummy! (1)

Think most of you would know, I'm pregnant! :) Due November 8th. I've been taking photos of my tummy to see how it's expanding haha. A bit bo liao, but just for fun lah :)

4 May 08












25 May 08












22 Jun 08