Jacob Ballas Children's Garden

 On Saturday morning, we finally set foot on Jacob Ballas Children's Garden. I have talked about visiting this much-talked about attraction for months but since I fell pregnant for the second time, we seem to have become a sleepy lot, preferring to sleep in on weekend mornings.

We have invited The Helper to join us as she has seen pictures of us picnicking in The Botanical Garden and had told me that she wanted to visit the place when she gets her off day (The contract stated that she is not allowed on off days till after six months). However, I disclaimed beforehand that this is another different part of the botanical garden and may not be what she is hoping for.

The Husband and I were quite impressed with the garden. It is indeed a wonderful place for young children. The size of the garden is manageable for both parents (who have to lug strollers, bags and whatnots) as well as children. Yet, it is packed with educational values that stimulates the children's senses. We'd think that the features such as the suspension bridge and waterfall can be interesting and even exciting through the eyes of a 5-year-old, making the learning fun.

For Anya, however, it is apparent everything is new, strange and some, even possibly a tad scary to her. She was reluctant to explore most parts of the garden, preferring to sit in her stroller, hold onto one of our hands (sometimes even both of us) or wrap her arms tightly around one of The Husband's leg.

Sweetie, that's the eggplant that you and Daddy refused to eat at dinnertime.

"Hmm.. what is Daddy trying to point out to me?"

"Can you see it?"

The following are some of the experiences that she had there and what I imagined were her thought bubbles.

So many children within the same compound at the same time, screaming, running and laughing? "Hmmm...."

Touch the mimosa plant and the leaves clam up? *startled* "Are they going to clam my fingers too?!?"

Walk the suspension shaky suspension bridge? "No...! I like my grounds firm and unshakable."

At the playground, feel the sand under your feet? "Ewwww......"

Running around the waterplay so that huge sprouts of water come raining down onto me while other children scream, run and laugh around me? "Doubly scary!"

Okay, this tiny water sprout is more manageable for tiny me.

The Husband and I learned something new on this trip too. We learned that it is high time that we expose our toddler to more greenery and other new things. :P

Oh, it was also on this fateful day that Anya bruised her kneecaps twice in the same day. Once, in the morning during the walk. That evening, we took the In-laws out for dinner at Ga Hock Seafood Restaurant and the poor tod had fallen down again in the dark when The Husband took her on a walk around the vicinity.

Overheard from the toddler

Lately, Anya has started to string words together more. For example, "Bye, Daddy.", "Dessert, nice!". With this new capability, things has gotten more interesting in the house.

Just this afternoon, I left home for my check-ups when Anya was still having her nap. Later in the evening when I got back, The Helper narrated the conversation she had with Anya when she woke up.

Anya, still in her cot: "Mommy... Mommy.."
Helper: "Anya, Mommy go see doctor. Mommy not at home already. Can Auntie 'baobao' (carry)?"
Anya: "No! Mommy..? Mommy..."
Helper: "Anya, Mommy not home. Come, baby, Auntie baobao?"
Anya: "No auntie...! Mommy??"
(Suddenly, thunder overheard in the background.)
Anya, shrieking: "Thundeee!!"
Helper: "Yes Anya, thunder."
Anya: "Auntie, baobao please."

While the above conversation gave us a good round of laughter when The Helper shared it with The Husband and I, what I am going to share next evoked a totally different set of emotions in both of us.

Praise God! Last night, Anya successfully slept back in her cot again. However, given that she fell asleep with The Husband keeping vigilance right outside her room within her sight (as a form for compromise), we were almost certain that she would wake up in the middle of the night looking for us. At 3am, we heard her whining. After a minute or so, whining escalated to soft crying which was the signal for one of us to go over. The Husband went to her room, and kept her company for about 10 minutes or so. He came back again when she drifted back to sleep in her cot. Unfortunately, she woke up again at 5am. We lay in our bed listening as she whimpered on and off for a couple of minutes. Then there was absolute silence for a minute or so.

Just when we thought she has drifted back to sleep on her own. Here's what she said, in her clear but piteous voice, "Mommy.. no more. Daddy, no more..."

The Husband and I looked at each other, jaw dropped. We could almost hear each other's heart sinking. With that, she got to sleep in our bed for the rest of the morning.

I think we need to go seek the Wizard of Oz to replace our hearts with steel.

Trying time

I am all stressed up now. It has mainly to do with Anya's sleep woes. It seem like a wrong move to transit her to bed after all. 

Much as I wish to elaborate here, I am reluctant to do so. As I do not wish to dwell too much on the undesirable behavior of my own child lest I start branding her negatively.

At this point, I am at my wits' end. I have tried various methods I read on books, the internet etc and they are not working. I have also been seeking advice from fellow mommy friends who have successfully transit their children to bed. While methods that work for their children may not work for me, I find that talking to / whatsapp-ing them does help to ease my anxieties, knowing that someone else has somewhat gone through what I am going through.

It is during times like this that I always find myself striking myself in my head because I realised that I have not been turning to God as much as I should be. Today, I lost my head and raised my voice at Anya. Immediately I saw fear in her eyes. I picked her up, and apologised to her, cradling her while she threw her little arms tightly around me. Thank God she did not reject me. I was guilt-stricken. I knew that I had lost my cool when I should not. I was letting my stress and in turn, the devil, get onto me. And the result was hurting my own child. When we said grace at lunch later on, I asked for forgiveness from God and my child. Of course, my little girl probably did not understand the meaning of the prayer though she did seem more subdued than usual for saying grace.

So, humility takes many lessons to be learned. At least, in my case. Oftenly, I obsessed with the methodology of parenting my child and half the times, I let my instincts and logic take over to decide which way should be the best way. I forgot that our child really is a gift bestowed by our Father to me and The Husband and that He is the best person to seek in parenting our child. 

It is with a grateful heart that I end off this post. Because I have prayed when I am most desperate and despite the fact that I had not been seeking Him till now, I think He has spoken. Go north, He said. Peculiar answer. I checked using my iPhone's compass function and found that the north of Anya's room is where the cot is. Now, I pray that my faith will not falter, but will instead strengthen.

I am not sure how long more this trying time will last. I just pray that His strength and wisdom will carry us through.  

You are one of God's most wonderful gift to us.

Bath-time!

The Furkid was due for her weekly bath. Given that it is a public holiday and The Husband was at home, we brought both toddler and dog for a walk to the playground before washing the dog.

While walking back home, we were verbally prepping both dog and toddler about their impending baths. Back in the flat, The Husband asked, "Who should I bathe first?".

I replied. "Anya. So that she can go for her nap after that. Then you can take your time with Muff."

And so, we gave Anya her fruit juice then announced, "Anya, it's pompom time! (meaning bath time, in our kiddish dialect language)".

After a few prompts, Anya finished up her juice, passed the cup to The Helper then headed to the entrance of our bedroom's attached bathroom, waiting for one of us to undress her. Strange enough, The Furkid followed her to the bathroom.

Well, you might have guessed what's on The Furkid's mind. You are probably right. Yes, she thought it was her bath-time. Despite repeated dissuasion and coaxing from us that her bath will come after Anya's, The Furkid was at Anya's heels as The Husband led her into the shower cubicle.

With that, bath-time for both kiddos became the highlight event of the day in our little flat. :)

At 34 weeks

My 34-weeks old decorated belly

From a day-to-day basis, I find my energy level zipping to and fro extreme ends. 

For the first half of yesterday, I went about my daily affairs around the house with my eyelids drooping. I had gladly let the television take over my baby-sitting duties until the mommy guilt suddenly snapped me out of it. I had to brace myself, switch off the television, then ushered Anya back into her room where we spent the rest of the afternoon building blocks, reading books and playing pretend cooking. If Anya had known better, she would tell that Mommy was really a zombie with forced enthusiasm and cheerfulness. By 3-ish in the afternoon, I felt like I have exhausted every ounce of energy in my body and had to ask The Helper to take over while I exited into my bedroom. At 9pm, I was yawning excessively. Yet, when I lay down in bed, I do not necessarily nod off. 

Today, I wake up feeling motivated and all hyped to finish up some tasks. I made extra effort with our breakfasts (eggs sandwich for me and cinnamon breadsticks for Anya). After breakfast, we built blocks together, read books, talked (she identified her stickers while I affirmed her enthusiastically), sang and danced with Barney on TV. Then I cut her nails and bathed her. After she went down for her nap, I made a shopping list that I planned to accomplish later when she goes over to The In-laws, did up some paperworks that I have left piling on my desk and made some phonecalls. 

I'm blaming this phenomenon on those raging hormones. 

Discipline

Anya is creeping towards the phase of boundaries-testing. This is something that has been forewarned by experienced Daddies and Mommies we know, and also by parenting books.

Despite all the insightful prep work that The Husband and I were given, we are still finding our ways around amidst thick fog. Here are the top 3 scenarios that we find having to deal with on a day-to-day basis and are currently still learning to manage:

1. Anya smacking or kicking us. The kicking part usually happens when she is on the bed while we are sitting beside her. At this point, we tried restraining her impending attacks / telling her 'no', explaining to her that it hurts, leaving the room. The results that we reap varies from escalating meltdowns, her attacking herself by pulling hair or smacking her face, cry until forcefully threw up, or (this one really tests our patience - I often find myself praying when this happens) laughing and thinking it is funny. 
2. Anya wanting something (e.g. juice) and throwing a fit after not getting what she wants. Okay, this is more manageable. Often, we get by using distraction method or explaining to her why she is not getting it. She usually reacts to the latter by fussing a bit but gets over it quickly. 
3. Since she started sleeping on the bed at night, she has somehow regressed to having one of us in the room with her till she falls asleep. Then, she wakes up in the middle of the night and climbs onto our bed instead. As you can see, there are two parts to this issue. Regarding the first part, we will give in to her for now. The priority is to get her to sleep in her bed instead of crying till she throws up (very trying for us, having to clean up the place, ourselves and her till 2am in the morning). Then, we'll slowly move out of her room as she falls asleep. Prayerfully. Now the second part is the trickier one. We do not wish to compromise her safety by closing all the doors at night such that she has no access to us should she be unwell. Yet, she keeps coming to us, night after night. So, we are gonna get our hands onto another set of baby monitors (ours is spoilt). Then hopefully, we can close the doors and see what happens from there. Of course, this is only the logistical aspect. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, chances are she will cry and plead to come over. Well, we are still praying for a solution. Any suggestions?

It will be interesting to see how the above three get resolved (surely they will be resolved!) in time to come. May I also add a little testimony of God coming to my aide during one of those trying moments where Anya was kicking and smacking me, and laughing it off when I tried to stop her. I knew that I was close to snapping when I started praying in my heart. Immediately, I was overwhelmed with love for my child, and the anger melted away gradually, replaced by renewed patience. Wisdom - we may still lack in managing our child at this point (in fact, it is a moving target, isn't it?), but we are certainly assured and reminded at times like this that there is no need to fret for He is with us.

Alter ego of The Furkid

Our furkid is the perfect lapdog. 

She is affectionate, sweet-tempered, endearing and adores us madly. Friends who come over are always surprised by how quiet our dog is. She hardly barks, growls only once in a blue moon when she hears unfamiliar sounds that startles her and never snarl at anyone before. She is hardy which makes us more at ease to know that her body can handle rough play with Anya. 

She welcomes anyone who walks through our door, and never fail to greet them with a toy in her mouth, her tail wagging so hard, it looks really as if she is shaking her butt. Whenever we come home, she always greets us with much enthusiasm and fanfare, following us around the house, shaking her bombom for at least the next good ten minutes.

 She is forever yearning for a pat on the head, or a tummy rub. And more than anything (with the exception of food, of course), she loves to climb onto our lap and sleep there when we are sitting on the couch watching TV or reading the papers.

As you can see, she really loves to be around humans. Even The Helper has grown to like her very much, because she is so affectionate, and so ugly-adorable (I know the last part is subjective). My mom thinks that she is just plain ugly, period. Yes, I was saying, after 3 months with us, The Helper has grown to adore The Furkid much too and we know the feelings are both ways, cos afterall, our dog is such an affectionate dog! Plus the fact that it is The Helper who feeds her breakfast most of the time these days which is a doubly bonus points for anyone who wanna garner adoration from our dog. 

So. Last night, The Husband, Anya and I came home past The Helper's bedtime to find her still awake (usually happens once a week when we attend cell group meeting). Imagine my surprise when I asked her why, she told me, "Oh Mdm, you know, every time you not home and I go to sleep first, Muffin  always comes to my bed and go 'grrrr..... grrrrrrr....!' at me." 

Gasp! Our furkid has a fierce angsty side that we never know exists! I wonder why she does that?

Update: Sleeptraining on little girl's bed

After four days training, we seems to have made progress!

Actually, up till before Tuesday, it was clearly a regressive situation for us.

At first, there was the typical tinkling with stuff around the room instead of sleep once we left the room. Then it evolved to pleading for me to stay with her while she sleeps. And then, it became pleading for me to sleep with her, on the same bed.

Not looking good. I should say.

However, I was not about to give up. My gut feel tells me that despite all the regression she is going through, we will somehow succeed. So, on Monday, I even proposed to The Husband that we let her sleep on the bed at night as well. This came as a surprise for him as we agreed earlier on that we would not do so until she could sleep well in her bed during daytime before making the switch for nighttime as well. But we went ahead to try out anyway.

Well, she did fall asleep that night on the bed, albeit after almost an hour of clowning around the room and having The Husband sitting at the foot of her bed eventually. Just when we thought we could call it a night. Apparently she had a case of indigestion from the earlier dinner - something that she experienced occasionally. Ten minutes after The Husband left her room, she got up and proceeded to throw up all over the bed, herself, and then onto me when I went to get her.

So yeah, eventually, she ended up in the cot because it was already 1am by the time I cleaned her and myself up while The Husband sanitised the floor with Detto, set up the air purifier in her room, then stripped all the soiled bedding and put them in pails of detergent to soak. Too tired, all three of us.

Interestingly though, on Tuesday, things started to look up. At nap time, there was probably sleep debt from the night before that urgently needed to be paid off. There was no exploration around the room this time. She was clearly in the mood to sleep. She did not, however, sleep on the bed. Instead, she slept on the cot mattress that I had placed on the floor besides the bed which I had intended it to cushion her should she fall off the bed.

Then last night (Tuesday night) and this afternoon, she slept on the bed. She did not get off the bed at all. Just lay down there after we left the room, and gradually soothed herself to sleep! It happened! Just like that! For nighttime, we would open her room door after we are certain that she is sound asleep so that we can hear her better should any mishap arises. Of course, there is a possibility of her waking up in the middle of the night and come looking for us. And sure she did - at 6am in the morning. Not too bad, we think. And after she came over, she drift straighted back to sleep again.

We are so proud of our little girl! :) 

Here are some snapshots that I took off our surveillance camera. Thought that I will post them here so Anya gets to see for herself how Daddy & Mommy spied on her during sleep-times.

Not sleepy?

At last!

Expanding vocabs

Her vocab has expanded by leaps and bounds since the last time I wrote about it. Of course, like some other toddlers, her pronunciation for some words require some getting used to. It does not help that I am a forgetful mother. So there are times when she says something, and I simply look at her blankly because I cannot remember what it meant.

Here's some 40 odd words that I can recall offhand that she says (Obviously, these are also the words that I do not not remember what it meant when she says it):

Daddy / Mommy / Ah gong - paternal granddad / Ah ma - paternal grandma / Porpor - maternal grandma / Gonggong - maternal granddad / Muffin (ar-fin) / Anya / *Mini bun's name* / Baby / Gorgor - big brother / Gugu- paternal aunt  / Jiejie - big sister / Auntie / Byebye / Bus / Car / Ball / Eeyore / "Booboo" - injury or pain / Thanks (annns) / No / Yes / Eyes / Nose / Mouth / Hair / Ears / Toes / Fingers (gers) / "Poopoo" - to pass motion / Pee / "Pompom" - to bathe / shower / Milk / Juice / Cheese / Bread / Bed / Cot / Socks / Diapers (dappers) / Dummy - pacifier / Go / Bubbles / Eggs / Cat / Amen

At this point, those that she articulates well are mainly still one-worded. Occasionally, she can string two words together, e.g. "Mommy, byebye." or "Juice, thanks.". Unfortunately, that "I lwuff you" remained a one-time incident. Instead, these days, the only 3-syllables thing that she says is... ...

...
... ...
... ... ...
 ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ...
... "Pororo!"

(-___-")

Recipe: Oven-Baked Salmon

The Husband is a fan of salmon. At Ikea's cafe, our default order is two sets of salmon steak plus a pair of fried chicken wings to share.  At Sushi Tei, we always order sashimi salad and request to change all the sashimi to salmon. Another must order in Sushi Tei is the salmon skin. Then over at Ichiban Sushi, our must-order is the grilled salmon head. Now, I'm about to divulge one of our best kept secret: The salmon head at Ichiban is a steal! At $10 (from what I recall though we haven't been there for a year now because the nearest outlet to us always has a snaking queue that parents with young kids like us avoid like plague), you get a humongous half salmon head with ample meat and it goes really well with rice! Never mind that you have to wait 20 minutes for it to be grilled to perfection!

Come to think of it, whenever we enter a Japanese eatery, there is a 95% likelihood that you will find some sort of salmon dish on our table. Anyway, you get the point: The Husband loves salmon. So, being the loving wifey that I am (or so I say), I have been on the lookout for a salmon recipe that is not too complicated for a amateur cook like me. Over the couple of years, I tried out a few and after rounds of modification, I think I have gotten something that goes well with our tastebuds. Hope you'll like it too! :)

(Serves 3)
Ingredients
3 salmon steaks (around 200gms each)
half Australian Tahiti lime, juice only
3 teaspoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of yellow mustard
1 tablespoon of grated ginger
Dash of salt
Dash of cayenne pepper powder (optional for a spicy kick)
1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
3 teaspoons of minced garlic


(Actually, I did not measure accurately the amount of seasonings as above. For most of the seasonings like pepper and rosemary are sprinkled directly from the bottle. So the above amount is really just a guideline of the relative proportions. And of course, if you favour one seasoning over another (e.g. pepper over ginger, feel free to wallop more pepper!)



Directions

1. With the exception of the minced garlic, sprinkle and smear the rest of the seasonings evenly on both sides of the 3 salmon steaks. For the grated ginger, I usually squeeze out the juice and drip it evenly over the salmon before smearing the ginger pulp on the surface. Leave the marinate to stand in the fridge for an hour. 
2. Add another two teaspoon of olive oil into heated pan / wok. Add minced garlic when oil is heated.  At medium heat, stir garlic till garlic turns slightly browned and you can smell the fragrance. Turn off heat and leave garlic aside.
3. Preheat oven at 175 degrees Celsius. Brush a layer of olive oil on a baking tray's surface. Place salmon steaks with skin facing up on the baking tray. Sprinkle minced garlic on top. 
4. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork. 

Before going into the oven.

Ready to be served!

P.S. If you enjoy organising your own BBQ party, this recipe will do will over the grill too! Just be sure to turn both sides for crispy grilled perfection.

Sleeping in little girl's bed

 There is an added urgency to transit Anya from the cot to the little girl's bed. We had initially bought the bed thinking that we will train her to sleep in it before Mini Bun arrives. However, we changed our minds after reading from a few sources that the toddler may be stressed out by the transition if she is not ready, especially so if a younger sibling is coming along for the toddler may feel like she is being pushed out of her safety haven (cot). We reckon that we can wait since Mini Bun will be sleeping in a playpen in our room (for ease of breastfeeding) for the first few months after she arrived.

Therefore, she remains in her cot though we made an effort to pave the way by doing the following for the past couple of months:

1. we let her drink her milk on the bed as a form of 'warming up' to it.
2. we tell her that the cot is for babies while the bed is for little girl. At the same time, we start identifying her as a little girl instead of a baby.
3. occasionally, when we are out on the way home and she fell asleep in the car, we put her on the bed when we got back.
4. every now and then, we ask her at naptime if she wants to sleep in her cot or on her bed. Once or twice, she actually chose bed and successfully slept in it.

 All was good. We maintain our stance that we'll not hurry the transition. Well, until push turned to shove. The 'shove' came yesterday in a form of a little accident.

As always, all was nice and peaceful in the flat after she went down for her nap at around noontime. Twenty minutes later, the Helper and I were making lunch in the kitchen when I thought I heard her cry. Twice, in fact, very soft muffled ones. But The Helper said that it was our upstairs neighbours. Deciphering Anya's cries has always been a confusing thing for us, given that our next door neighbour has two little girls while our directly upstairs neighbour has four children ranging from toddler stage to 7 years old. At the third cry, louder this time, we were certain it was her.

Puzzled as to why she woke up so quickly, I went to check on her. I found her sprawled in her cot, face down on her fours. Errmm.. on her threes to be exact as her right leg was trapped in between the railings of the cot. She must have been caught there for some time and tried to wriggle herself out on her own for a while but had made things worse as her kneecap was jutted out of the cot while her thigh was wedged tightly in between two rails.

For a few seconds, I worked on helping to release her but to no avail while her cries continued to escalate. I was halfway yelling for The Helper to fetch some olive oil to help lubricate her thigh when we finally managed to release her. By then, there was a huge nasty patch of red on her thigh with an apparent blue-black bruise the size of 2 ten-cents coins forming in the center of the red patch (I later spotted another blue-black bruise on her inner thigh as well). The poor tod was crying piteously and refused to let me rub the bruise.

Given all that trauma and that she hardly slept, she was visibly tired after her lunch. So, I told her that I was going to put her down for another nap. I tried putting her in her cot but she kept pointing at the spot that caught her leg and yelling, "No! Booboo!". Therefore, I gave her an option (refer to aforementioned Point 4). Unsurprisingly, she chose bed and promptly slept there for an hour.

When nighttime came, The Husband and I decided that we were not ready to let her sleep in the bed through the night. We prefer to ensure that she can sleep and get on and off the bed on her own during naptimes before extending it to bedtimes. So after prayers and goodnight kisses, into the cot she went. And boy did she resist! She cried, she screamed, she refused to lie down at all. To cut the story short, it took The Husband 30 minutes to soothe her off to lala-land which involved him lying down next to her on the hard wooden floor and giving her repeated words of assurance.

Today, sleep-training on the bed officially kick starts. At noon time, with the exception of her being placed in her bed instead of cot, we went through pretty much the same routine of saying goodbyes, drinking water etc. I took it as a good sign when she happily waved goodbye to me before I closed the door. Unfortunately, 30 minutes later, she was banging on the door. I went in to check on her only to realise that she pooped. Okay, that is a legitimate reason for not sleeping. After washing her and changing her diaper, she was all perked up with all sleepiness  out of the windows. So I decided to try putting her down again after her lunch.

Second attempt - failed again. This time round, she was already banging the door less than 10 minutes after I left her. My biggest fear of sleep-training her on the bed has come true - she abusing her newfound freedom and mobility. I went into her room, closed the door behind me and tried staying with her while coaxing her to stay in bed. Nope, sleep was not on her agenda. She preferred to play, to dance, to read, whatever that she can do except to sleep while within the confinement of her room.

Third attempt - after her five o'clock milk feed (This is usually her second naptime). Before her milkfeed, I shifted one of our surveillance cameras into her room that I can monitor her from my laptop. After her milk, she was visibly tired although she refused to stay in bed. I let her play for ten minutes or so before announcing that she has to go down for her nap. While she happily say her goodbyes when I tucked her in bed, I knew that she was not about to sleep as she was already sitting up even before I left the room.

For the next fifteen minutes, I sat in front of my laptop, my attention rapt as I spied my little girl cavorting in her room. She pranced around, dancing to a tune in her head, she picked out story books, she cradled Eeyore and placed him in her doll's pram, pushing him around the room. At one point, she was even 'looking right back at me' as she studied the new intruder (the surveillance camera) in her room.

Gradually, her movements slowed down as she started rubbing her eyes more and more. Eventually, she picked up the dummy and hanky that she left on the floor earlier and sat on the floor against the door, stoned. You may wonder, why didn't she climbed back onto bed? Now, my guess is that the self-created pile of toys cum bedding that now lie on the bed has something to do with it. Instead, there she was on the floor, nodding off as she tried to sit up while I watched her from the camera, willing her to go back to the bed as my heart sank lower and lower. Then, I remembered that I really do not have telepathic powers and walked over to outside her room, calling for her to go sleep on her bed.

Upon hearing my voice, she started crying. Feeling sorry, I went in, carried her onto her bed and lay down beside her and held her until she finally dozed off.

Gee, not a good start, I must admit. Am not so sure how this sleep-training will turn out. If she continues to be resistant  in the next few days, we may just stop for now and let her go back to the cot. The last thing that we want is for her to have a bad anchor on the bed. Well, prayerfully it will turn out well.

32 weeks check

This week marks 32 weeks of pregnancy.

At the routine check at my gynae's office yesterday, he tsked. "Don't say I never warn you. Baby is getting too big.. Please ah.. watch your diet already..".

This is a stark contrast from the first pregnancy. At 32 weeks, Mini Bun is estimated to be 1.8 - 2.0 kg while I have gloriously piled on more than 10kg.

Oops!

GUSTO 18-month check

Allergy test

Body fat measurement. Every time she touches her daddy, they had to redo the test again.

Anya was due for her 18-month check with GUSTO yesterday. In the past, the team will always send one or two of their staff to our place for home visits. However, from 18 months onwards, we will have to go down to KKH.

For the first time, The Husband, being our chauffeur, was with us for the assessment. There was the usual questionnaires for me pertaining to Anya as well as growth checks where they take Anya's measurements in terms of height, weight, body fat etc. The best part for the 18-month check is that they also throw in an allergy prick test.

For parents out there who wish to do so for your kiddos but are apprehensive because of the possible trauma / pain that your kiddo has to endure, no worries about it! I was hesitant when I saw them preparing the kit but they assured me that it is painless. And true enough, the lady merely 'drew' on Anya's arm lightly with the needle. What Anya felt was probably more like a tickle than even a scratch. Oh, and you get to know the results fifteen minutes later.

They tested the common allergens which includes dustmites, eggs, milk, and I forgot the other two. :P Anyway, the good news is the results came out all negative. At least now I get some form of assurance that she is likely to outgrow those pesky eczema some day.

New kid on the block!

Nope, I am not due yet. It is The Sis-in-law! We welcomed The Niece on the 30th September who arrived at a whopping size of 3.5kg at 3-ish in the afternoon. Well, 3.5kg may be average for some babies these days, but she is considered sizable to us given that The Sis-in-law is quite petite!

That evening, we all trooped down to say hello to the new girl. With both sets of grandparents as well as uncles & aunties arriving one after another, the single-bedded ward was sardine-packed quickly. But hey, no one was complaining given the happy occasion!

The Husband and I took the opportunity to 'rehearse' with Anya on the arrival of a new baby too! Well, after watching countless documentaries on pregnant women in labour and how new parents manage their newborns in the first 24 hours, she was seemingly at ease with the environment. Excited at the sight of the baby in the little crib, she kept pointing at her and shrieked "Baby!!". Under watchful eyes, she got to pat her new cousin and give a welcome peck on the cheek too.

Heh! We think she passed the rehearsal with flying colours. :)

Big brother meets little sister

SIL looking good after 9 hours of labour. :)

"Baby!" she shrieks. Then points to my belly and says "Awiah" (Mini Bun's name)

Ipad - the magical instrument that is used to quieten down rowdy kids