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It's the season of jolly~!!! Exciting things are happening. Stay tune~!

Being appreciative

Dear has been flying a lot recently. I am really appreciative of what my mother-in-law has been doing for my baby and for the house. She took care of the baby when im tired, feed the baby, washes his clothes and ironing our clothes. As baby has started crawling around or walking around in the walker, she helped us to wipe those surfaces that baby is able to reach. She also comes over to my room to bring baby out during the 2nd midnight feed (around 4-6am) and then sleeps with him in the living room mattress. Then she will ask me to rest as much as possible before the alarm rings for me to get to work.

I was so so resistant to her coming over to stay at my house initially, because of privacy issues, and we have different sets of thinking on how to take care of the baby. Although the way she take care of baby is still not fully agreeable to me in some ways, we have learn to give and take as I understand that it is not easy to look after a baby.

Thank you Mother-in-law.

Work

Work hasn't been that smooth. It's not that my supervisor has any issues with me, just that I'm quite disappointed with myself for the quality of work I'm producing recently. 

Not sure why my recent assays had very high standard deviations between duplicates. Once or twice, I'll blame it on the pipettes.. But a few more occasions made me conscious of my work quality. My hands trembled when using multi channel pipettes. Signs of old age? Lack of sleep? Caffeine addiction? Or simply pipette problems? 

Now I'm so aware of myself and so cautious when adding the samples and yet today, I faced another disappointment. I did all that I could to minimise errors. What's wrong with me? I used to be proud of myself with little margin of error. 

Maybe that's the "retribution" of being proud. I must improve!

Am I an unreasonably possessive mum?

Yes, back then I agreed to let my MIL bring my baby back to Penang when I saw how anxious she was when baby was rushed to A&E the other time when baby was sick. I know that she will definitely take care of my baby won't cause harm to him. I know that she loves baby as much as I love him...But but but.. as a mother... i don't really bear to leave my baby for such a long time even for a day.. let alone for a week. Being a mother herself, Why couldn't she simply understand?

 

Dear said that I should put myself in her shoes, that it's always their wish to bring baby back... But back in my head.. what for? Show off to relatives? I don't even bother when my relatives bring their babies for my mum to see... probably at that moment they will just comment how cute the baby is, who the baby looks like, praise and comment that how good she is taking care of the baby, how fortunate she is to have a grandson.... so those are all "feel good" factors for themselves and nothing much more. And what I fear most, teach and share those olden times how-to-take-care-of-babies techniques.

 

That is what I feared most. With not much education, old people do what they hear. They will feel that they are right.. coz they can simply say "so and so also like that mah" or "I also did that to my son last time mah" or "It's not like I'm trying to harm my grandson" etc etc. Indeed... I know you won't harm the baby.. just that olden days methods don't work on new generation anymore. With more facts and papers, there are a lot of "don'ts" marked for those traditional thinking. They are not as updated as us.. so they wouldnt know about all the "don'ts"...

 

There's so much fear and yet nothing can be done. Don't keep asking me to place myself in other shoes.. can you take some time off and ask the others to place themselves in my shoes? Or maybe stop placing each other in each others' shoes. All thinkings are individual and we can never truely understand each other... am I making sense?

 

I'm so distracted and not focused after I know that my MIL will be bringing my baby back.. I cant simply say no.. can I?

 

Sign off,

Overtly worried mummy

 

Hitting the big 3

The day of my birthday started well... received presents from my colleagues followed by lunch treat from team mates, then dinner with my hubby and rounded off with cake cutting with my little one. But the first day after my birthday didnt went well. I suffered from indigestion and food came up from throat and through my bottom as well. Yucks. I shan't go into the details, but I can say I suffered a terrible night.

A few days before my birthday, hubby and I went for a staycation at W hotel in Sentosa. A very nice and new hotel. I will definitely go there again my when I have the extra money. LOL.

 

Ok. Coming back to the point, hitting the big 3 makes me feel old... but yet, happy. I had came a long way to reach this stage of my life. Dating, getting married, couple time and now, family time. Though there were ups and downs, I'm truly happy and blessed to have my hubby with me, and our little one. My wishes from this year of my life onward, will always be 

• Baby staying happy and healthy always.
• Hubby and I staying blissful always.
• Our family members staying bonded, healthy and happy always.

I still have a lot of wishes... but those above are the main ones. Gone are those "materialistic" wishes, gone are those "ambitious career" wishes. 

Thank you my dear, I love you.

One week left

Dear went for biz trip the next day after we returned from Penang. I wanted to go to bro's house with baby but in the end I chose not to. I was lazy to pack again to stay at bro house right after a trip. Plus the haze situation, I don't want dad to sleep in the living room. Last but not least, I don't want to trouble my family. Heard that they are still recovering from flu. They need rest. My crying baby will only disturb them.

So I decided to stay at home. Thus I need to do everything myself for the next 7 days. I hope I can cope. I was better to handling baby compared to 2 months ago. The night is still young for today but so far so good. Just some minor things that I shall see how it goes. Dear and I agreed that once I feel that I can't cope anymore, I shall pack my bags, hop on to a cab n look for mum immediately.

Oh ya, I'm heading back to work after next week. Time flies. 

Finding myself

Wow. It's been a month since the last post. Having a baby really changed my life, our lives. Gone are the couple days and the sleep ins. We are having days of interrupted sleep and meal times. Signs of aging starts kicking in too. Body aches, post natal hair loss, dark eye circles, flabby skins, stretchmarks etc.. You name it, I may have it. Lol. Not to forget, all blog posts starts to revolve around baby too. 

I'm starting work on first of July. Before that, we'll be going Penang to pray to ancestors. Strictly speaking, baby is going to. Baby Sk's first trip. I'm not trying to be rude to the ancestors but bringing baby back is just sooner or later. Can wait one right? He will go back one day when he is slightly older - probably til he is able to walk, or at least sit. why the rush? I also don't like bringing baby around to "show" to relatives. It just doesn't make sense eh. Plus, traveling with an infant is extremely troublesome. Imagine carrying the baby in the car, in Malaysia, in a car with full load of adult, without car seat, with probably a driver who keeps on stepping hard on brakes, with sleep deprived parents, with a big diaper bag etc. What will make it worse is, on a highway with a crying baby or with the diaper full of shit. *shudders* The only thing I look forward (to console myself) is to go and buy cheap diapers n milk powder, probably a stroller too during the days in Penang. Provided we have the time.

Enough of my ranting, I need the sleep. Baby should be waking up soon for milk. Gonna catch a wink. Nights!

Change

I need to change my wardrobe. 8 weeks had gone and I'm still 5kg away from pre-pregnancy weight. Worse still, i can't fit into all my old jeans anymore. Some of the t shirts and polo tees had gotten a bit tight at the chest and arms. Not to forget, flabby loose skin after birth. :(

Though dear said that I looked fine right now and also I moved from being underweight to acceptable weight, I still couldn't help but miss the old me.

Maternity Leave

How time flies, I'm into my 6th week of maternity leave. I was initially intending to take 12 weeks of maternity leave and have the remaining 4 weeks as flexi leaves for rainy days (like baby vaccinations).. however, due to some circumstances, I have to take full 16 weeks of maternity leave and return to work on the 1st of July.

19 days post delivery

Having and handling a newborn is really a tough job. My baby has totally changed our lives. Dear and I have to learn to take care of a newborn from scratch. Blame it on the hormones, the last 2 weeks I'm going through an emotional roller coaster... some feelings still lingers around. Sleep deprivation. Frustrations. Disappointment. Guilt. A lot of negative thoughts.

Of course, this tough time will soon be gone. I am lucky to have a very supportive husband who wakes up with me every single night to feed the baby, burp the baby. He also had to run chores during daytime too. Looking at how hubby take care of the little one, talk to him, "scold' him, laugh at him etc... it's priceless. I know he loves the baby... maybe even more than I do.

I feel blissful when dear is with me. Even amidst those nights when we were really tired and frustrated and after settling the baby down to bed every 2-3hrs... he still find a way to my hand and we held hands to sleep.

I love you my dear. I love baby SK.. I love my family. Thank you so much.

3rd ROM anniversary.

Our 3rd ROM anniversary falls on 28th Feb, which was also my week 37's gynae visit.

 

We went to Shaw Isetan to have a little shopping after the early gynae visit. We were trying to use up the 20 bucks voucher I got from my company's Xmas dinner last year. There was nothing in our mind and thus we walked around til we saw some cute little clothes. Dear decided to buy 2 tops for little Yize, and 1 for our little one. :)

 

Next, I went to honeypot for a waxing session, to get ready for childbirth. LOL. First time ever. The pain was manageable, except for some sensitive area. Hee~.

 

We then went to Takashimaya to get a foldable umbrella, and it cost about 40 bucks. I wouldn't purchase expensive umbrella if not for the 30 bucks voucher I got from my brother. However, I believe that a good umbrella does last. I got one as a birthday gift seven years ago, and it is still working well. :)

 

We had our simple lunch at sushi tei, before heading back home to rest for a bit and head out again for dinner.

 

Initially, we planned to have our dinner at Resort World Sentosa - Osia - a restaurant that we both like for their starter (foie gras) and dessert (hot chocolate soup with black pepper vanilla ice-cream)... but it was fully booked! We thought a weekday wouldn't be so crowded and we took it for granted to call only on the day that we were going. :( Of course, we were disappointed that our plan was not going well.

 

So we went on to google for restaurants with good ambience, good food and reasonable prices. We found Spruce, a restaurant that is very near our place, located in an ex-fire station.

 

They had very good services I must admit. We ordered a soup as a starter for sharing and they split into 2 portions for us! I had the signature Spruce burger and dear had tenderloin steak. NICE! We then ended our dinner with an extremely chocolatey, delicious and yummy chocolate crunch cake. Yummy! We would definitely visit there once again~! Even upon footing the bill, the waiter was nice enough to tell us that we had a 10% discount on food items if we paid by Citibank credit card, even though we already placed another bank's card on the plate. Well done!

We will head to Osia on Sunday evening to make up our "lost" dinner. Haha.. Good food, please wait for us~~~

我的元宵节。

The last day of lunar new year, we went to baby fair at expo. My first time to expo to purchase "sale" items. In the past, I don't go to those expo sales as I know it will be full of people with queues everywhere. The thought of it shudders me. However, I went to this baby fair coz the latex mattress was 90 bucks cheaper than what we saw outside. It was a good deal not to be missed, and thus we went for it.

Of coz, queue to get to the car park was horrendous, as there was Natas fair too. Luckily upon entering the baby fair hall, there were not as many people as we expected. I guess it's because of being the last day and all goodies and offers were snatched up. We noticed that there were also other items that we bought previously were having discounts too! but dear said that since we got what we wanted, we don't need to stock up... there will be another similar fair every now n then. After that, we got what we came for and left. :)

It was tiring when I reached home. However, i still decided to wash some baby clothes n do some packing. I even had a second try on making tang yuan for my dear, since it was 元宵。:) it was definitely better than the first try, but of course I still have room for improvement.

My day ended with rounding up the Ang Baos I got from my mother, grandma, parents-in-law and grandma-in-law, boss and my dear hubby. :) my little one had an early Ang bao from my cousin too! Here's a pic to end the post!

Short update

My company held a mini CNY lunch in office last friday and the lunch was from 933 golden pillow. Food and drinks were of average tastes, and the best one is still their signature golden pillow curry chicken. :) Our company also gave each of us an ang bao as a token for the new year.

On Valentine's day, we went to Akashi restaurant at vivocity for our lunch before going to our gynae visit. After that, we went to Mum's house to pass her some mini cupcakes made by my mother-in-law, played with baby Yize, and then met my in-laws at Shangri-la for "belated" reunion dinner at The Line. It's a little wasteful for us to be there as we are all small eaters.. and, I can't take raw sashimi for now too. :( I also got a stalk of rose from the hotel too. Sweet.

This year will be the last year when we can spend V-day as a couple. (Next year onwards, little baby is gonna take up our time~! LOL) . Nevertheless, though it's a simple lunch, I'm glad that we squeezed out the time for it. I love you my dear!

Third day of CNY

On the eve of CNY, we had our reunion lunch and celebration of dad's lunar birthday at sis's house.

On the 1st day of CNY, we watched movies on starhub channels before meeting my mum for dinner.

On the 2nd day of CNY, we went to my brother's house as there were relatives gathering there.

On the 3rd day of CNY, it will be a rest and relax day for me... and mum just called and say that she will come down to visit us.

I will start working on the 4th day of CNY, which is tomorrow...

On leave to go for my 35th week gynae appointment on the 5th day of CNY, which is also Valentine's Day, and also my parents-in-law will be coming down for 2 days. On the night of V-day, we will be having our dinner at The Line, Shangri-La.

On the 6th day of CNY, back to work again... and our company will be holding a mini CNY lunch in office.

On the 7th day of CNY, I may be going to visit my brother again because I didn't have the chance to meet the 3 little cheeky little ones and give them red packets.. That day is also my brother's bday as well as 人日, probably can 捞鱼生 with them. Shall see how.

On the 8th day of CNY, I have to start washing the baby's clothes and prep up my room for baby and my guest room for my mother-in-law. She will be staying temporary "long term" to take care of my little baby, until he goes to childcare, which is probably 18 months. I still have not get the last bit of baby stuff.. need to slot in some time to get the cot mattress. Cannot wait for baby fair or discounts liao.. Need to get things done so that I can have a peace of mind. Time is running out and I am not sure when to expect the baby's arrival. Getting nervous as the count down begins....

Activities I miss doing

Whenever I have the time at home, I will want to do something. Not house work. Lol. Its boring and not fun. who likes to do that? haha. ok, it's cross stitching or fixing up jigsaw puzzles. The latter is a more expensive hobby.. Thus so far, I only got one for myself and I did it together with hubby. Now, it's proudly hanging in our living room.

For cross stitching, I bought a lot online just before I got pregnant. Those large pieces one to hang in rooms too.. But ever since I'm pregnant, I stopped stitching. Superstitious you may say, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. I'm looking forward to having some time to do cross stitching once again after the little one is out. I hope that I have the time, but many say I won't even have enough time to sleep. Probably that's true for the first few months.. I hope. :) maybe I will just turn to playing quick games on my iPhone, which I am doing recently. Whether i'm at home or in the office. Lol. Ssshhhh...

Lazy me

Hm... this main blog of mine is getting a little dull as more time was dedicated to my baby blog... so in order to make this a little bit more interesting, I shall try my best to include pictures whenever I can. :)

Anyway, I am just counting down to my due date in March.. time seems to move faster when I entered the last trimester. My tummy, although some still say it's not big, is really getting heavier.. I got breathless when I walk for a while, or even try to sing a song when there's a nice song playing on the radio. I want to keep my house clean for the new year, as well as for my little one, but then I just couldnt find enough strength to do it! I guess it is an excuse and I'm simply lazy. I'm sorry baby~~

Work wise, everything is fine... holiday mood is still lingering and everyday I woke up feeling tired. I got disturbed sleep more frequently as the weight on my tummy increases... sore back is kicking in too. Luckily, I got a good supervisor and a kind manager, and not to forget the fatherly CEO Dr M's concern. I was told not to work too hard and rest whenever I dont feel well. I did... but I cant do it too often coz that will mean my lab partner has to do more. Pai seh leh~~

Oh, 10 Jan 2013 marked our company's first established date.. (Official operation date was in July)... so for a little celebration, all staff were given sekihan - a kind of sticky rice with red beans - that is usually eaten during celebrations like weddings and birthdays. I brought home to eat it with dear... but it tasted bland. LOL. So after a few bites, we discarded it. Opps~~

This is how it looked like:

 

Exterior

 

Interior