Race update

The official results are out.. Kale did awesome. He came in 6th in his age group AND if I read the results correctly, with the 2nd fastest bike split in his age group after the winner. And this is after he claims his first bike lap was slow. hmm..

Way to go, babe! =)

ok, part 2

Here are the rest of the pictures and some take-aways from the race.
Starting off all smiles!
The end of the *massive* first wave
Kale coming round on the first run lap
Raymond running through
Jeanette flying past
Look of pain after the 10km run
Andrea running by
Coming through after the first bike lap
Game face on..
Raymond's thumb

Starting on the last 5km run...
My grandma and maid hanging out
Coming in for the finish
The aftermath
Proof I was there! =)

So some take-aways from the race:

- my grandma is pretty darn fit. not only did she walk from the east coast hawker centre to the race location AND back, she stood up for most of the 2 hour race. AND she and the maid recce'd the site the night before on their bikes just so she'd be able to find it the next day! hah.
- our kids are going to be pretty stressed out lil tykes! i have vowed that they will be exposed to the whole works before they hit 7 just so that they don't have to learn anything as an adult for the first time - so that includes skiing, skating, blading, biking, swimming, races, ballet (if they're girls or so-inclined boys), some musical instrument of their liking... yup. they can then decide what they want to pursue, but doggone it, they will at least know how to do all that so they don't end up like me! hah.
- our kids better have kale's sporting affinity and ability cos erm, if they have mine, erm... yeah.. think that's all i need to say.
- lastly, the hubby never fails to amaze me. even after embarking on my training regime (i.e. run like ONCE in the past 3 months then go sign up for a race), he still manages to come out near the top of the pack. DAMN.

first race of 2006

So today was the first race of the year - the Singapore Duathlon 2006. The one that Kale was the poster boy for. hah. 10km run -36km ride-5km run. Probably not quite enough riding and probably too much running for the boy's liking. heh.

Anyhow, the weather today was awesome! No one could have asked for better race weather. Overcast with only a teensy bit of rain after he finished and with a nice breeze blowing all morning. Phew. Made it a whole lot more comfortable for racers and spectators alike.

This year I had a lot more people to watch for - Kale, Raymond, Vincent, Tiny (aka David), Jeanette and Hans & Andrea who were doing the relay. Made it that bit more fun as I didn't just end up waiting 10 mins for Kale to come around each time.

So the race went well. I thought Kale did better than last year, but he will attest that he felt like sh*t and the cycling for him was much slower. I'm trying hard to refrain from going "i told you so" since it was his lack of running training that's causing him all this agony, but eh... I think I've let it slip once or twice today already! heh.

Seriously though, I thought he totally kicked ass.. he came in pretty near the front of the pack from the run, easily within the first 30 or so out of a wave of probably 300 runners. He was 16th or 17th (i lost count) after the 1st bike leg and then was 10th coming in after the bike. He lost a couple of spots on the last 5km run, but I think he finished something like 16th overall (not counting relay teams). Kinda hard to tell where he is in his age category since there were 2 age groups in his wave. My grandma and my dad came down to lend their support... my grandma refused to even sit down in case she missed Kale cycling by! Now that's dedication!

Anyhow, here are some pics from today...
Raymond and Kale in the transition area pre-race
Andrea and I before the race
"Before" shot - all smiles
Kids coming in... aren't they adorable?
Start of the race...

More pics later.. we're late for church!

UPDATE: ok, i'm officially sick again. which means that i won't be uploading the rest of the pics tonite. tomorrow maybe. this damn viral infection is kicking my ass and the docs are reluctant to give me the necessary antibiotics cos all the antibiotics that have been proven to be safe for pregnancy are those in the family of drugs i'm allergic to. yay me! so instead, i get the same old drugs and a day off to rest. usually i'd be thankful for the day to rest, but right now, i'm so tired of being sick that i just want them to give me something stronger to get me better once and for all. grr.

so NOT practical

ok, so these maternity pants i blogged about? they are THE best things in the world. i absolutely LOVE them! i wouldn't have believed anyone who told me that they would make a difference to how i felt at the end of a long day. but OMG, they are awesome! i don't have that nasty waistband line around my belly when i get home in the evening. and they give me so many more clothing options for work seeing as how i only have 3 dresses that can accomodate my ever-so-gradually increasing girth. and the irony is? before i was pregnant, i couldn't really buy pants (i'm blessed with a lack of hips but over-generous thighs that don't fit into the stick-skinny pants they sell in Asia) and now, i adore these pants cos they actually make me look good. who would've thunk.

but yeah, so i go from a really practical purchase to 2 so not practical ones. i went out during lunch today with a mission. a mission to buy a pair of shorts with an elasticated waistband. reason being? well, kale's participating in the duathlon this weekend and ever-so-"hiao" (read: vain), want to look stylish and yet be comfy. so yeah, i go out on the hunt. result? no shorts, but instead 2 short flared skirts with elasticated waistbands. yeeahhh. hmm.

so now i'm going to go to this race in a pair of daggy sleep shorts i have at home cos i can't justify spending more money after buying those 2 skirts (altho in my defence they were REALLY cheap). sometimes i really make myself wonder. sigh.

anyhow, pregnant update - morning sickness is more or less over, but i get motion sick a lot easier. appetite comes and goes, altho kale swears it's back with a vengeance. i'm back to my fighting weight, my tummy is gradually sticking out. feel a couple of aches and pangs in my belly where it's stretching out. read it's cos the ligaments are stretching. hmm. these pills are still clogging up the system so my new resolution is to eat more fiber. i wake up really easily, am up at least once a night if not more to use the bathroom (which is kinda annoying cos it takes me a while to get back to sleep).

the biggest thing tho? well, my body's finally telling me to slow down. i'm used to taking the stairs and walking up the escalators at the mrt station every day. a couple of days ago, i booked it up the steps as i usually do and there were these shooting pains in my belly. i stood up a little too quickly in class yesterday, and same thing happened. so yeah, i'm trying really hard to remember to slow down. it's really not in my nature to not jump/dash/gallop/run around. i'm super hyper that way. but yeah, i guess pregnancy brings changes. gotta try to get used to it.

waiting for my parents to pick us up. my mom is leaving for UK tonite to meet up with selene. we need to pass her a cd that i was supposed to have burned last nite but forgot cos of work. i suck. sigh. i'm eternally grateful that i have a technologically savvy husband cos if i was left to my own devices, so much of the stuff at home would not work. ugh.

ok lah, long enough entry. back to lounging on the couch and attempting to read my cases for tomorrow's class. ugh.

phew

This week was absolutely insane! Since I'm so pooped, this entry is going to be in point form, just cos I know I haven't updated in a while, and I feel I should put it down before I forget...

- Saturday: class, then headed over to meet Kale after his endurance test. Pretty cool set-up they had going there. Don't remember what we did the rest of the afternoon, all I remember is meeting my parents for dinner.
- Sunday: met my aunt and parents for lunch. Finally caved in and bought my *first* pair of maternity pants. Kale calls them my "thanksgiving pants" because they're waaaay expandable. Felt kinda silly walking into a maternity store seeing as how my belly is not *that* big really. I just didn't see the point of buying a pair of elasticated "auntie" pants from Metro to save $20 when I'd get much more mileage out of a pair of proper maternity pants that I can hopefully wear for the next few months. Even managed to get a discount! Woo hoo! Also bought Elodie's b'day present.
- Monday: Took afternoon MC. What I thought was a lowly cold turned out to be the beginnings of a viral infection. Thankfully the rest helped.
- Tuesday: Manic day at work, class after work. Was waaaay late for class. Was really pooped and feeling all sick by the time I got home. Crashed into bed.
- Wednesday: Got up really early to make it to Asian Aerospace at 7:30am. *Yawn*. Was on duty there for the day. Managed to meet up with the hubby to walk around and my dad popped by to say hi in the late afternoon. Met the hubby and mom for dinner since dad was tied up with official dinners and mom's leaving this fri for London.
- Today: Had a tour of a refinery on Pulau Bukom for work this morning. Took a ferry out there and back.. not exactly the best idea when you're still a little queasy due to residual morning sickness. Eugh. Came back, mad, crazy afternoon at work, class in the evening. Came back to do more work that needs to be done by tomorrow morning. GRoan. So pooped now. Shower, and then bed.

Over and out.

much belated piccies

here are some pics from last sunday - chap gor meh dinner at liang kee.
Last lo-hei for the year
Elodie, ever ready to have her pic taken
grandma, natalie, elodie

doh!

so i went ahead and caved in.. i purchased a new phone, and contrary to my usual dislike for change, i went ahead and bought the motorola V3 in hot pink. reason? well, it's hot pink and it comes with a cool matching leather phone "purse". need i say more?

no, seriously, i've been eyeing the V3 since they came out with the black one and it was obscenely priced. the prices kept on coming down and then they came out with the pink one. it's really slim and will fit into my bags so much easier. BUT it also means i have to learn a whole new interface. i've had nokia phones for as long as i can remember and so this is a much deal than you'd think.

but in the end, vanity/aesthetic appeal won out over practicality and so i'm now the proud new owner of a V3. the price was good, and this way kale gets to have a camera phone to take pictures of all those errant drivers out there. we even bought a new cover for my old phone so that it looks more "manly".

i know my sis is going to be jealous... just cos it's pink. i'm sure, however, that she can find much cooler phone covers in the US for whichever nokia phone she happens to be using...

you can check out the new phone here . i just noticed they have a new motorola V3c in light pink. ack. i'm trying to console myself that i haven't seen it in the stores and it'll take a while before that one comes down in price... sigh. maybe selene can get that one when it comes out.

ok, back to figuring out how this damn thing works. arrgh. my pregnant mind isn't quite as efficient anymore either so you can imagine the torture. i'm just panicking thinking of monday when i actually have to use this phone under pressure. eeps.

wow

despite the fact that my belly looks a little bloated, i don't really think someone can easily tell, just by looking at me, that i'm pregnant. and yet, this morning on my way to work on the train, a nice young man actually got up and offered his seat to me! wow. i was stunned and tried to tell him i didn't really need it (altho i really was quite happy to sit down) but he insisted so i sat down. i sat there with this weird grin on my face. it's all a little too surreal for me. haha.

so yeah, that was my big defining moment for the day. that and the 3 hour lecture i just had on a friday evening that totally sucked. the lecturer speaks as slow as i can speak fast. yeah. he covered 10 slides in an hour and a half. geez. and i get up in slightly over 10 hours and begin all over again with another 3 hour class. shoot me.

then again, kale's getting up tomorrow morning and riding for about 5 hours on a stationary bike while doctors stick all kinds of monitors on him and watch him. i dunno who has it worse. hah.

Supplement THIS!!!

My doc gave me these new antenatal supplements this month.. supposed to be some multi-vitamin with iron and all that other good stuff. I have 1 word to describe them - EUGH! Not only are they huge and hard to swallow, but when you do finally get them down, because of all the Fe in them (that's iron for all of you who don't remember your periodic table... or aren't dorks like me) they taste like blood. So basically every time I burp, I get this gross aftertaste in my mouth that resembles rust or blood or something else gross. Eugh. And at the risk of sharing too much, they also cause constipation. Eugh x 2.

In addition to these, I also have calcium pills (Ca) and fish oil capsules which I'm continuing from the last trimester. So that's a whole bunch of stuff to swallow before I walk out the door in the morning. And since I only wake up 10-15 mins before I head out the door (10 mins if I know what I'm going to wear and 15 mins if I don't), this whole pill-popping exercise adds some serious time to my routine in the morning. I have my morning routine down to a science and now I need to figure out how to add some food in cos the pills are causing me to feel really sick in the morning. So far, all I can squeeze into my routine is a Yakult on the way out the door. I finish it before I get to the train station and it sustains me till I can get proper breakfast at the office. I'm so not ready to wake up earlier just to give myself more time. Sleep is far more valuable to me than food right now... seriously sleep deprived what with hives and needing to pee and all that jazz. I've turned into Ms Ultra Light Sleeper. If I wasn't a light sleeper before, I definitely am now!

Anyhow, on another note, I really should take a picture of my belly as a keepsake. Keep on forgetting. As the hubby likes to say - I have a belly (ala Fat Bastard in Austin Powers). It's finally beginning to ease out a little! Phew.

But I'm having a serious case of paranoia. (which is not surprising since it's me). My colleague at work is also preggers. She's a week behind me so we're pretty much even right now. This is her second child and man, I saw her at work today and she's definitely showing.. she's pretty darn huge for 12 weeks! Boy, did I feel inadequate. Now I kinda have an inkling of what pe**s envy must feel like. hah. My only consolation - it's her 2nd child and 2nd time moms are supposed to show earlier. hmm.

I'm just hoping this stowaway is growing fine. I'm sure he/she is... but man, I wish I had more physical evidence that everything's growing... As Lisa said "let it grow, let it grow, let it grow..." (sung to the tune of "let it snow... let it snow..")

OK lah, time for bed and sleep... good night y'all.

v-day

it's valentine's day today. went out for a meeting earlier and spied all these delivery people wrestling with bouquets that they were delivering. heh heh. everything is ridiculously overpriced. on my way home yesterday, there was this old aunty standing outside the mrt station entrance with 2 plastic pails with individually wrapped roses inside... trying to sell them for $3 a stalk. price ok ok lah... but if the aunty (who doesn't even have a proper storefront) is selling them for $3, you can only imagine the cost of flowers from a proper store. eeks.

the hubby was all relieved cos i had class tonight which meant that he was off the hook for v-day. by the time i get back at 9:30pm, i'm completely zonked and it takes all my energy to shower and then crash into bed. BUT alas, i received an email yesterday saying that class is postponed to friday. ACK. i hate how they unilaterally decide to burn my friday. grrr. i'd rather give up v-day than my friday. ugh. i've half a mind to skip class on friday just to protest!

anyhow, so now we get to spend tonite together. so what are our plans? well, for starters, there's plenty of trashy tv on Star World tonight! woo hoo! i'm all set for a night plonked out on the couch vegging out to brainless tv like charmed and reruns of the O.C. heh heh. i'm buying dinner home - trying to decide which brand of fast food i want to spoil myself with. hah. the joys of living across the street from a KFC, Micky Dees, Burger King, Long John Silvers.. choices choices! and maybe just to set the mood for a "special" occasion, we'll light some tealights around the house (and hope the cats don't run them over).

i'm excited. i'm excited to have junk food and trash tv with my hubby. heh. i'm excited to be able to sit and do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and have it be ok. woo hoo! so that's what we're going to do. and thankfully my husband has agreed to humor my trash tv plan for the night. the small things count. i don't know of any other guy who would willingly sit through an episode of the O.C. twice... even if it's for the wife's sake! haha.

Worldwide premiere - Stowaway

So, you may want to read this post... may be just a leetle interesting =)

There's been a reason for me feeling so under the weather over the past couple of weeks... the same reason why I've been feeling so tired, and yup, the same reason for why I haven't been on my bike or out for a run, etc...

That reason is about 7.2cm long right now, has 2 arms, 2 ears, 2 legs, 8 fingers, 2 thumbs, one heck of a hyper heart, and from what we can see, a functioning liver, bladder, brain, stomach, kidneys, etc...

So since we've FINALLY moved into the 2nd trimester this week, we can FINALLY make this public. It's been killing me to have to keep this a secret... it didn't bother Kale at all, obviously since he's Mr "i can work for SD6 and keep a lead a double life". I've had to tell a couple of close friends just to keep my sanity... so that I had an outlet. We told my extended family over CNY, Kale's family over X'mas so at least people linked by blood have been clued in.

So yeah, the big news is that this year is going to be a big one. =) There'll be a new Buonerba on the block, and this one will be making his/her debut in Singapore. And from the looks of it, this is going to be one hyper kiddo. We had a detailed scan today and the kiddo was bouncing all over the place... even the doctor commented that the baby was moving a whole bunch. We got to see the baby's heart beating during our last scan but we got to hear it today during the scan... at 160 beats/min, that heart is one busy little thing. Following the scan, my lovely husband proceeds to tell me that the sound from the scan resembles the sonar on a submarine when they're trying to decide if it's a fish or a prop. Yeahhhh...... righhhtt... Wait, he just clarified it's not just the sound that resembles the sonar but even the display resembles what you see in a sonar room... geez...he's going to take a camera in there next time around just to prove his point.

So anyhow, for those who want the gory details, we found out in mid-Dec and the beebster is due in August. I'm still not showing (not even close) and I'm betting it'll be another month or so before I do. Will give a more detailed blow-by-blow account sometime soon when I'm not quite so pooped.. but I'd thought I'd get it out there.

Here are some of the first "pictures" of the stowaway... apologise for the poor quality but er, we don't have a scanner so I had to take photos of the pictures...

At 5 weeks - just a blob
At 9 weeks - beginning to resemble a baby
At 13 weeks - all features are in

We had one of the stowaway waving at us but it turned out rather x-files-ish once I took the photo of the picture so I bailed on posting it. I can show it in person to whoever wants to see it though! =)

recharge

i'm savouring my last class-less saturday till late april. ugh. and by class-less i don't mean "crass", i mean "no IP law class" lah!

kale's out on some ride (again) but at least he didn't go to m'sia today! phew. i'm taking today nice and slow.. relaxing morning before more visiting mayhem starts this evening. we even get to throw in a video interview at 2pm for kale's upcoming charity ride. hmm. i look like crap now so i guess that means i need to at least put my hair up so it's not looking like a bird's-nest on film! grr.

we're going to eat more tonite, so i'm assuming we'll have more pics for you soon... dinner with uncle richard and the rest of kale's kakis, and then a late dinner at uncle chit chung's annual CNY shindig at his house. now THAT is fancy entertaining. hah.

time to go eat some brekky. but in the meantime, enjoy some pics from the 3rd day of CNY. finally put them up.

More cards... my grandma joined in this time...

Dinner at Ah Orh - the younger generation took the "adults" out for dinner

My husband is famous!

Haha... my hubby is famous!
I have been meaning to put this picture up for the longest time but never got around to it..



Or if that doesn't seem exciting enough... try this link on for size..
Singapore Duathlon 2006