Presenting Baby Lucas

He took his time to come into our embrace, but no words can describe the joy of cradling another newborn in my arms once more. O, praise ye Lord, for this amazing gift and blessing.

Our baby Lucas, born 30 September 2011, weighing 3.7kg and standing tall at 53cm.

A Small Lesson on Giving

Matthew with his chosen gift for didi

Increasingly, Matt is aware of birthday parties and giving or receiving presents.

Previously, everything would be done without his knowledge. Presents are purchased and wrapped without his knowledge. If he knew the content of what lies underneath the wrapper, I doubt he would part with them so easily.

Because of his increasing awareness, I decided to involve him in choosing the gift, wrapping it (providing me some cutting and taping services), and giving it to his friend. May not be the noblest gift of time or effort, but I feel it builds some character to learn to part with something he really likes and want to keep for himself, and to do that joyfully.

Gift for Samuel kor-kor

Bluff Me

I have heard from many.

"Second, third kid usually early."

"Wah, you are carrying so low. Guarantee early!"

Warrau. Bluff my feeling.

Patiently waiting.

Out-Sourcing

With the baby due anytime, and unsure if I can manage especially when hubs travel, I have taken the first step in out-sourcing things I do every day for Matt. The first, after thinking long and hard.



The school bus.

I fetch him from school daily, so I decided to let him take the bus home instead. My heart aches just thinking about my little boy who is not even 4 taking a school bus all by himself. My only consolation - he loves buses. He was really excited when I talked to him about it the yesterday, giving him assurance that I will be at home to greet him.

Today, he got off with a big, big grin as he ran towards me and gave me a hug.

But we will still fetch him to school as I cannot bring myself to wake him up any earlier to catch the school bus.

Initiation to Art

I have never been good at drawing or anything in the creative department, and we have been slackers in this respect (and many more).

Over the weekend, hubs had a mission to impart his drawing and colouring skills to his son. He started, very cleverly I thought, with Matt's favourite toys. Using his vehicle toys as references, hubs drew the outline, and had Matt colour the pictures. And he also threw in a session of writing alphabets by writing his name on the artwork.

After just 2 days (and comparing the art work he brings home from school), Matt colouring strokes were a lot more confident and consistent, and he eagerly bugs us for "art class".

Well done, papa!

Moody

Sometimes my blog entries are not reflective of how I am feeling. Maybe cos I blog about more pleasant things to cheer myself up, or sometimes it concerns family members who might access this blog.

But I need to let it out.

I have been feeling very down lately. I feel like I am in the dumps. Been crying a lot, too.

I guess it is convenient to blame the hormones, but I think a large part of it is also because there are real problems with many things in the household.

For one, problem with in-laws, but lets not go there. Suffice to say that at a time when I most needed their help, they have withdrawn it from me. Whether intentionally or otherwise, I have cut them out from my life for the time being, out of disappointment, out of anger, but definitely as a defensive mode to prevent myself from having to deal with them. Less contact, less headache, less nonsense. It does mean things are tougher for me, but at least I have control over things, and that alone keeps me a little more sane. I think they have no clue that I am feeling this way, because I am never rude to them and am largely non-confrontational.

Two, my mother's health. One bad news after another. But with my mom, it is slightly different. She is as strong as she can be, without making us kids worry too much about her. She puts others ahead of herself, even in moments when she should be dependent on others. Although her health is not tip-top at the moment, she remains as positive as she can be, and I call her a lot to just chat, bitch about things (sometimes, dad pitches in, too), sometimes confide, sometimes cry. She is always objective and gives me sound advice. I miss her badly, and wish I can be with her, but we make the best out of the situation. We just call and feel close to each other.

Three, hubs. I feel it has been really hard trying to reach out to him. To let him know how I feel. To let him know I don't feel very loved. Of course, whatever moments we have, we made it a point to spend it with Matt, leaving us with even lesser time. He needs his personal time, I try to understand he holds a stressful job, and needs his break. But it doesn't mean I am happy. But it cannot always be about me. We talk, and he said he has tried his best, and is trying his best, so I will leave it at that. Sometimes it is all about expectations. When you don't have one, there is nothing to fall short of, and you get less angsty.

I joked that in ancient China, pregnant women literally get worshipped when they are pregnant. Eat well, no work, no stress, everything - as they wished it to be. What more if they are carrying a boy. In ancient times, where got scan? Mine confirmed boy some more, but I have no privileges. I want to be a princess!

Jokes aside, I think at some levels, I really want to be treated like a princess. Even if just for a day. But I guess circumstances just do not permit it.

As I approach 38 weeks of pregnancy, I can't help but feel apprehensive about everything. Wondering if I can cope, wondering if things with hubs will get better, even wondering if this is really what I want. Ever the optimist, hubs is positive everything will fall into place. Ever the worrier, I am not so sure.

And my blardy pelvic pain is not making things better. I think I would say it is up there somewhere on par with labour pain. Urgh.

I guess this is the last lap. I will waddle to the finishing line.

There's a Hospital Just Downstairs!

We were upstairs in his room, and I told Matt that when didi is ready, I will have to go to the hospital to give birth to didi, and I will not be around for a few days.


Matt has an idea of his own, though.

Here is where he wants me to give birth to didi - in his Tommy Takara hospital. He said there is a doctor there, too, who will scan didi. And it's just downstairs.

How Does He Know?!!

Matthew used to fall asleep himself but with me in the room, and would sleep through the night on his own after. However, ever since my hospitalization for hyperemesis in the first trimester, he would wake up in the middle of the night and call out for me, and I would have to waddle over to his room. Out of pregnancy fatigue, I have given up the battle of re-establishing the sleep regime with him, and just sleep with him all the way till the morning.

Some nights, I will steal away after he falls asleep and get hubs to sleep with him instead. But somehow, he would know it's not me, and will not fall asleep until I return to him. My mom says that it's him "acting up" with the arrival of a new sibling. Who knows.

But a little funny snippet.

Few nights ago, hubs barely fell asleep when the little boy stirred and did his usual stetch-hand-out-and-feel-if-someone(mama)-is-there. Hubs held his breath, and for a while, little Matt seemed convinced in his sleepiness that all was well.

Till he snuggled under the blankie and touched hubs legs.

Leg hair.

Sits up and examined the shape. And started bawling.

You'd never think they are observant about these little things, but guess they do. Time to make hubs shave his leg hair for some peaceful sleep. Heh! :-)

Excited about his DiDi

Matthew is excited about his didi. He would run often to kiss my tummy, and exclaims "didi, come out now! I want to play with you!"

We read him many books to prepare him for the arrival of his didi. There's a picture from Topsy and Tim: The New Baby where the big brother helps his mommy bathe the baby. He grinned from ear to ear when he saw it, and said, "Didi will shower in my boat (that's what he calls his bath tub), and I will help mama shower didi!"




Other things he says or does that makes me smile -

"I must be gentle if I sleep in the cot with didi. Otherwise, I will crush him."

"Mama kept all these toys for didi. These are toys for babies. I can play with big boys' toys."

In the early days, he thinks that my outie belly button IS didi!

When I am in the bed with him, I use a small pillow to shield my tummy from him in case he bumps into it in sleep. After a few times, he called it didi's pillow, and no one else can touch it other than me and him.

"Matthew came out of mama's tummy so didi can go inside!"

"Didi can only drink milk, but cannot drink juice. Only Matthew and my friends can drink juice from the fridge."

He chose a musical mobile as a gift for didi, and wanted to choose his own gift from didi. I told him I will bring didi to choose the gift, and he gives me a cheeky grin.

His very cute pronunciation of his didi's potential name made us kind of helped us choose that name over the rest.



At the moment, everything seems to point to him being ready to be a very caring big brother. The real test will come when baby is out and vies for my attention and time away from him. But I have faith that my sweet little Matthew will be the sweetest brother to his little didi.

Staying Home

So the decision has been made.

I am going to stay home full-time to look after my children.

And honestly, it scares the shit out of me!

I love Matt, I will love my akan datang baby boy, and I love being a mother.

But I do not know if I can cope.

You see, I have a big problem.

I am a very fang bu xia person, and I am capable of killing myself trying to do everything to perfection. Well, kids never let you have perfection, yet I am known to try till I become miserable, knowingly or unknowingly. That is my greatest pitfall.

And I do not t know if I will do a good job.

How do I know I am doing good? What will be my new Key Performance Indicators, KPIs as known in my job? That my kids know A,B,C and 1-100 by a certain age? Or if they get As, Bs or Cs in school? Or I guess I could possibly create some form of yardstick by pitching my kids against their peers?

Oh! God forbid that, considering how much emphasis I place on my children staying goofy!!

And not to mention this new job, if I may call it "a job", has no tangible benefits yeah? No annual leave, no MC days, no money.

What if my kids drive me mad? What if I am a horrible horrible mama as a result of staying full-time at home?

Well, it's not like it's day 1 that I am a mother. It's just that suddenly I am frightened, maybe so much so that I lost sight of why I am doing this in the first place. To manage my own family so hubs can go hunt in peace knowing that the home is in good hands. To have time with Matt, with di di, to look after them with my own bare hands. To enjoy time with them. To be there for them. To fully live the reason why we decided to have kids in the first place!

I don't know.

I guess best to do is not to over-think things.

I must have faith that I will be able to do it. Positive thinking. I must constantly remind myself that I must be a happy mother, above all else. And learn to laugh at myself a little, let go a lot more.

Apprehensive as I may be, I am very much looking forward to my new role. Wish me luck!

Nasty Cough

Matt developed a rather nasty cough where he was hacking almost every second, literally. It got so bad that his throat and stomach hurt each time he coughed. Temperature yo-yo-ed for days on end, and he could hardly sleep at night despite medication which made him drowsy. He would look at me with sad eyes and repeatedly say, "mama, please help me!"

But nothing I did could soothe him or made him feel any better, and it sucked! :( All I could do was spend time with him, give him cuddles, although it was also hard to do that with a bulging tummy.

He finally showed signs of recovery after 3 such days, and I am relieved beyond words.

I developed fever myself from all that lack of sleep and managing the ship on my own while hubs was traveling, but it is always easy to manage my own discomfort. Just seeing him happy and himself again already made me feel better. My fever has since subsided, just a looming sore throat that is slowly but surely going away.

33 Weeks Pregnant

At 33 weeks pregnant, I am very tired. All the time. Since about 30 weeks maybe? I do not recall being this tired with Matt. I think it only set in much much later towards the EDD with him.

I also have this pain near my groin area which I did not experience with Matt. The pain is particularly excruciating when I change sides in my sleep, or attempt to get up. I am assuming this is normal. A check around with pregger friends - it is apparently very common. Again, this is something new compared to my previous pregnancy.

I get tired even from doing nothing. It's crazy. I am ever so thankful for hubs who tries to relieve me every weekend. He wakes up early every Saturday morning to do the wet marketing. He also prepares meals for the family. Sometimes, he he would bring Matt for outings so I can rest. For example, last weekend, he woke up early to prepare breakfast for the family and brought us all out to the park for a picnic. Then I spent my morning watching people taichi while he brought Matt to the playground. Bliss!

I am also finally getting myself to start preparing for the arrival of the little one. Over the past 2 - 3 weekends, we took out Matt's baby stuff - tested the sterilizer, the breastmilk pump, built his baby cot, the works. I did a stock take on Matt's old clothes, and washed whatever's still wearable. Looking at especially the mittens and booties, can't believe Matt was that tiny before! Having another baby, a boy while at that, and the economies of scale that comes with it certainly quite pleaseth me :)

The excitement is slowly building up.

Who's the Big Bully?!

Matt came home with a bruise above his lip, and I asked him what happened, if any of his friends hit him.

His reply - yes!

I asked him who? And was it an accident?

He said, "The chair, mama!"

What Is Wrong With Me?

It's Friday night, and I am home alone waiting for Matthew to come home from my in-laws. I have been expecting him for the last 40 minutes but he is still not back.

I was supposed to have a date night out with hubs and some friends. I have been looking forward to it. I put on make-up, all ready for a nice dinner after a hectic week. Hubs have been working late a lot. We only manage to talk on the way to work.

But date night didn't happen. In-laws wanted me back early. So I asked hubs to go ahead, he needed a break, too. I came home to eat a lonely dinner of tuna sandwich and a sweet potato.

I am emotional. Doesn't help that hubs already has 3 trips lined up for next 2 weeks. Which means he will be away. Which means I will go at everything solo.

I don't know how to handle this well. I am tired. I am just feeling very emotional. I want to take it out on someone, something. I feel a lot of angst in me, wishing for more support from the people around me. Is it right to expect though? I think I may have too much on my plate - heavily pregnant, mom not tip-top and me feeling lousy I am so far away from her, hubs extremely busy at work, my boss working me hard ahead of my maternity. But everyone has different things on their plates, too.

Sometimes, I am so tired I even feel like "hiding" from Matt. Like when I get to leave work early and reach home ahead of the usual time, I don't want him home just yet. I want to lie down to stone for a while. But I remind myself he is my son, my responsibility. And really, he brings cheer to me. So I get him home.

But tonight I wanted a break. I didn't quite get it. And it sucks.

Am I normal to feel the way I do?

Paris / London Summer 2011

This trip was so last minute that when I confirmed our flight tickets, I could check-in online right away. Less than 48 hours before departure time, we were still searching for hotels in Paris and London, planning our itinerary and stressing over everything including packing for a summer that was apparently not quite summer according to the weather reports (I was close to 7 months pregnant, and we HAD TO travel light because London and Paris are such walking cities).

A trip meant more for Matt above all other factors, we psyched ourselves up for Disneyland Europe and Legoland Windsor. Happy places. While he still enjoyed the usual tame boat, train rides and the works, Matt showed a clear preference for the more exciting rides this trip especially the wilder roller-coasters. Hubs told me of his incessant "Again! Again! Lets do it again!" pleas the moment he gets off these rides. Hubs had to take all these rides with him since I am not allowed on most of them. I managed to get many good photos of them on the rides because I was busy most of the time planting myself on strategic spots to capture the best angles of the rides.


Disneyland Paris and Legoland Windsor



In Paris, days were spent sight-seeing the Eiffel Tower, the Lourve, and we took the BATOBUS, a river boat shuttle service which covered most of the major tourist sites.

In London, we stayed near Hyde Park and spent a lot of time just bumming at the park, watching squirrels gnaw at their nuts, swans pecking vainly at their furs, largely enjoying the great weather sitting around doing nothing. Tucked at one corner of Hyde Park was the Princess Diana Memorial Playground, which is one of the best playgrounds I have ever been to. Matt bugged us every day while we were in London to bring him there.


The very excellent Princess Diana Memorial Playground


We paid many rounds of 1.50pounds on this rescue vehicle carousel outside the playground

Food-wise, in Paris generally, if we went to restaurants serving real French food, Matt would not have much choice at the restaurants. As such, we dined at cafes mostly (a sore point with hubs since we were in land of foie gras!) and were spaghetti bolognaised and steak frites -out in Paris cos those were the easiest to feed Matt given his lack of adventure with food. In London though, we had great great Chinese food most of the time. This trip, Matt fell in love with the sweet & sour varieties, which he calls "fish / pork with ketchup". No prizes for guessing what dishes I will try and perfect at home :)

We had planned on visiting museums but I felt too tired from walking so much that we abandoned the plan. I also had grand plans of shopping for stuff from stores such as Mothercare where the mark-ups in Singapore are crazily exorbitant, but did not manage to even go anywhere near the shops. The same happened in Paris - very minimal shopping considering my love affairs with bags.

Weather was lovely, sunny but cool, with temperatures hovering around 14-20C. Since it was summer, we had really long days, and at 10pm, it was still as bright as it in Singapore as say, 4pm.

We would have loved to cover more places than what we managed to, but I also did not want to over-tax myself. As hubs said, we will definitely return. At the end of the day, we live for this face -

Langkawi 2011

Not quite in the mood to blog recently. A bit of an unhappy period of time, so I will blog on our recent trips to lift my moods.

We took 2 trips in a span of 2 months despite me being 5 - 6 months pregnant, mainly in recognition of the fact that we are likely to be grounded for a while once the baby is out. Another factor driving the decisions was the desire to spend as much time as we can with Matt before the little one arrives.

In May, we went to Langkawi. We were deciding between Bali and Langkawi, but settled for the latter as the flight was shorter since I was halfway through pregnancy and was getting big.

We were both super busy before the trip to do too much planning. The idea was to just get away from it all. I wasn't too convinced that it would do me any good. I thought, I would rather spend the time sleeping at home through that 4 days. Hubs also had his reservations because he was extremely busy at work. The only happy trooper was Matthew.

But somehow, resorts have this ability to make you just let go. For 4 days, we didn't watch the time, woke up late, hardly checked the phone, did nothing when we didn't feel like doing anything, ate trash. It was bliss.



We went canoeing, which, unfortunately, Matt didn't quite enjoy. We swam in the morning and in the evening every day in the villa pool. Because we spent so much time in the pool (and bath tub), Matt really improved in his water abilities and he can finally blow bubbles underwater, and moving along the pool wall for rather long distances by clinging on to the edge of the pool with his fingers. We also did some sight-seeing - took a very scary cable car ride at Oriental Village, walked an equally scary curve hanging bridge, visited the Underwater World Langkawi, and walked through a pasar malam, a first for my little boy.









It was a good getaway.

Happiness is looking at happiness looking back at me. Such a cheeky monkey face never fails to bring a smile to my moodiest day.

Matt Meets Mr Baldy

I was back in Malaysia last week, and hubs and Matt flew in only after ma's surgery.

Hubs had his first I-need-to-dig-a-hole-and-hide-right-now moment, courtesy of Matt.

They were seated behind a bald man, and our dear son, who is in a very descriptive phase of verbal development, LOUDLY and PROUDLY exclaimed -

"That man has no hair!! He has no hair!"

Silence.

No reaction from the man. Minutes later, the man puts on his cap.

Hubs was just glad he brought along books, blueberries, sweets and 2 little toys to distract Matt who also happened to be in a "repetitive" phase of development - he can say something a zillion times just for the fun of it. Thank goodness it was a short flight!

Ma Ill

Since my horrible first tri, I have had more balls up in the air than I am able to juggle. Matt hospitalized, maid problems, in-laws not well. Major and unpleasant, but, short-lived, thankfully.

But they just keep coming. The latest being ma is ill. She has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Big :(

I was in Paris when I received the news. My brother sms-ed me. My heart just sank. I felt so awful I was not able to be with her to give her the support she so needed. I composed myself, then called her and tried to be brave about it, but I just broke down and the 2 of us were
crying over the phone.

There and then, I wanted to cut short my trip. But I had just landed after a 13-hour flight, and was tired as hell. After thinking it through and praying about it, I decided it was best to play my role as a wife and mother - have the break that both hubs (and I) so needed, and enjoy one last holiday with Matt before the new addition comes along - then return home and deal with the issue at hand. There was really nothing I could do to change that fact, so I just called ma and spoke to her regularly.

"Doctor said best to remove the breast. Second opinion also the same."

So to cut a long story short, that is what she will be doing soon. We are hoping the cancer is at early stages, which doctor feels is likely the case. I am keeping my fingers crossed and praying really hard.

I asked her how she feels about losing one of her boobs. "Aiyah, not that your dad is interested in them anymore. Lao liao. Anyway, he said still got one." I am not sure if she is putting up a brave front, but to still be able to have a sense of humour, I do really admire her.

I am sad that she has to go through the physical pain of going through 2 surgeries in such a short span of time, at her age (she's almost 70!), and the emotional trauma that accompanies the whole thing. I only wish I can be there for her more, but I am so far away, and I am nearing the time when air travel is prohibited for the stage of pregnancy I am in.