random pictures

So, I've been trying to make it a point to take more pictures of me being preggers with the purpose of documenting this journey. We really haven't been doing too good with this latest endeavour. Part of it is cos I feel stupid posing for pictures just for the sake of taking the picture.. and secondly because each week really does pass so quickly.

So anyhow, this past weekend, we took some silly pictures. All the ones of me alone didn't turn out well - all blurry. But here are 2 of us goofing around. This is me at 28 weeks, and my husband at almost 28 years. hah.

time flies...

man, i just realised may is pretty much over. that means selene will be home in less than a month! wow. all fresh from her first year in college. damn.

it also means that we're that much closer to baby girlie's birth. *breathe*
it's all getting a bit surreal at this stage. getting more nervous with each passing week. thank goodness for a hubby who's rather staid and calm cos i'm definitely not!

can't believe we've passed 28 weeks... time really does fly. have some pics of the past weekend. will post them up soon...

lazy sunday morning...

the hubby's out for a morning ride and won't be back till 11-ish, so i have some time to kill at home. usually i'd be bored out of my wits but the past few weeks have found a slightly more pensive and reclusive me. i'm more inclined just to "nua" (lounge/crash) at home instead of heading out. walking around shopping centers is still fun, but the crowds are beginning to get to me since EVERYONE is out shopping due to the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) starting this past friday. even shopping for baby stuff has become too much of a challenge as opposed to a thrill. sigh.

anyhow, just wanted to update (and record it down for when i get sentimental in years to come) that the baby girlie's punches have become more violent and more "pokey". instead of an unidentifiable, rounded body part jabbing my insides, i have pokey parts assualting my tummy frequently. you can actually feel the pokey bumps as they come up against the skin. if you put your hand on my belly, it feels like someone's dragging his/her knuckles across the skin from the inside. feels absolutely odd, and yet somehow very precious! =) sometimes, it's so violent, i involuntarily wince. especially when the pokes occur near my ribcage! ooooww.

i get a feeling it's the baby girlie throwing elbows. like i said, i think she's definitely her father's daughter. hah. kale's been putting his head to my belly in the hopes that he'll get punched/poked in the head but the baby's been pretty civilised.. no blows to the head yet. to his hand, yes.. to his head, no. maybe his head's too big and she doesn't have a concentrated spot to aim for. goodness knows!

but yes, i'm definitely going to miss my little "portable entertainment system" once she's born. heh. i get bored easily, and the baby's always good for some on-site entertainment. too bad it's not on-demand. hah. her movements are like a precious little secret that she and i share... and i am definitely going to miss it. =(

epidural or no epidural?

Ok, ok, so i know it's like really really early to be thinking about these things.. but you know me, the one who loooves to plan and sort things out, right? Kale calls me the queen of lists. sigh.

Anyhow, I was reading one of the numerous pregnancy books I have at home. Now that exams are over, I consider this my "constructive reading" since I never have to look at another law case again. heh. The pregnancy books all state that you're supposed to have a "birthing plan". Hmm. Now, of course, I'm drawn to anything that has the word "plan" in it, right?

So yes, I'm thinking about my birthing plan and what I'd want my labor to be like. (As if I really have a choice, right? Ultimately, the baby girlie has final say in how she gets born.. surely a precursor to her teenage years where she'll try to have the last say in everything.. ) But yeah, there are so many options - pain relief? no pain relief? rooming in? no rooming in? what kind of pain relief??? etc etc...

So, back to the topic of pain relief.. all along I've always said I shall NOT be a hero and I shall opt for an epidural. After all, I've heard all these horror stories about women whose labor was dragged out because they were so tense without any pain relief that they didn't dilate... ending up in an emergency C-section. Egads. Or worse still, the women who decided they wanted epidural when it got too bad and were told they were too far along for it. eeps.

BUT, then I also hear all the horror stories about not being able to feel the contractions and so not knowing when to push, the epidural needle getting dislodged and the pain relief not working, the longer recovery time, the lack of being able to walk around to speed up labor, etc. And the 2 things that are really making me question the epidural? Well, the side-effects of vomiting and nausea. I was reading some forum page with labor stories, and apparently vomiting and nausea is a very common side-effect of epidurals. For those of you who don't know, my BIGGEST phobia has to do with puking - anything and everything to do with it.. the feeling of nausea, being near anyone who's throwing up, the sight, the smell, the actual act. *shudder*. I don't know if I could go through with it. I think I'd almost rather bear the pain than the side-effects.

The other thing? Well, I spoke to a couple of women I work with who've had kids, and I've heard about a few others, who have gone through labor without epidural and swear that it's totally bearable. Maybe they were just lucky and had short, easy labors... but still, the fact that their testimony is that it's doable makes me wonder. I'm, well, what you would consider competitive. There's nothing like a little competition to get me going... and if people I know tell me it's doable, then dammit, I sooo feel the urge to take it on as a challenge. Yes, I know, this is a totally retarded chain of thought (as Kale has pointed out numerous times).. but humor me anyhow.

So yeah, now I'm wondering what's best... epi or no epi? Anyone out there with experience... any thoughts? Anyone gone with epi and not had side effects, and anyone gone without and found it ok? Need to increase my sample pool so that I can make an informed, rational decision (yes, that would involve me having to ignore my competitive side..)

Pictures from my grandma's bday

Here are the mucho delayed pics from my grandma's 80th b'day dinner. Of course, I think she's technically 81, but if the b'day lady decides she's 80, who are we to argue with her, right?

Dinner was at Wah Lok at Carlton hotel. We had 2 tables.. get a feeling we're not going to be able to go to restaurants as an extended family for much longer if the family keeps on expanding!!! =)

Elodie engaging in a stare-down with Kale

The whole family (minus Ben who was away on business)

Mama blowing out her candles

Candid shot of the milieu while waiting for the cake to be cut and served

The younger generation(s)

duh...

So I had lunch with my colleagues and were tossing around some chinese names. Their Chinese is much better than mine so was trying to get their opinions on meanings of names, etc.

The conversation soon degenerated into coming up with odd names that have double meanings. Here are a couple...

- Su-lian: Firstly, can easily be turned into ah-lian. Secondly, Su-lian is Russia in Chinese
- Su-jiao: Rubber/latex in Chinese
- Su-jia: Loser!!!
- Su-shi: Need I say more? Raw fish anyone?
- Su-ruan: Fallopian tubes.. eeps.

And there were tons more. I think su-shi takes the cake though! It's a good thing we had the conversation.. some of those didn't even occur to me!!
Especially not the fallopian tube one.. geez!

na-me wa nan de-su-ka?

i'm excited! we're getting closer to a name... both english and chinese! woo hoo! don't know if we're there yet - we need to go through the whole "can both sides pronounce the chinese and the english name" process... but we're definitely getting closer.

of course, at this point, we're going on info that the baby's a girlie so both will be girly names. i'm pretty sure that the docs and the scans are right. but just to reassure myself, i'm going to ask the doc to confirm this again at the next appt.

busy saturday...

Yesterday was an event-filled weekend. They had a official flag-off ceremony for the riders of the actual Project Discovery 5 challenge. To refresh your memory, Kale did an almost-500km ride to Cherating, Malaysia to raise funds for the Touch Diabetes Support centre in Singapore. His ride was a precursor to the actual ride which happens next week. 30+ VJC students and people with diabetes will be riding to Cherating over 4 days for the same cause.

Kale said a "few words" at the flag-off ceremony after the Guest-of-honor and the TDS folks did their thing. They had a couple of participants of the PD5 ride speak as well. Suffice to say, I'm very proud of the man! =)

Julie from TDS giving her speech
Kale giving his "words of encouragement"
The ceremonial flag-off

I went over to the 'rents to go swimming. Finally have a swimsuit that fits (but that looks seriously tak glam) so figured I'd put it to the test while the hubby went to get his bike cleaned (excuse to go hang out at the bike shop with his kakis). Can I just say that I LOVE swimming now? After all the months of everyone telling me I should go swim and me just procrastinating, cos, hey, that's what I do -procrastinate... I finally took the plunge and man, swimming while 6 months pregnant could well be the best thing to happen since sliced bread. The whole weightlessness thing? AMAZING. Damn dude, I should so have started doing this in my 5th month, although I think the effect wouldn't have been quite so astounding and I may not have appreciated it quite as much. I felt totally comfortable and buoyant in the water. Phew. No more weight. Wow. Of course, it's a bummer when you have to eventually haul your huge belly and not-so-huge-but-still-bigger ass out of the water and feel all the weight immediately pile back on as your seriously unglam swimsuit sticks to your belly in an impossibly unflattering way... but hey, good things don't last forever, do they?

So yeah, then it was off to a farewell for a colleague - Wei Kiat aka the ah beng who doesn't drink. I worked really closely with him when I first joined my company. Can't believe he's finally making the big move. Good for him. The farewell was thrown by his colleagues in his current division and it was a chance to catch up with some of my old colleagues who have long left the company.

Kale came along for the bbq and it's funny cos while my friends/colleagues could sooo easily speak proper english, it's hilarious when they all switch to serious singlish for the night. "Eh, towkay, you want sotong or not?", "Come lah, drink lah, wah lau, don't like that lah... only a sip what..." We had a good time, had a couple of laughs.

Trying to get the Ah Beng to drink... *see the alkie bottle on the LHS of the page*

Close-up of the hubby sweating it out at a bbq in humid S'pore. heh.

The hubby just stepped in the door from his first mountain bike ride in a looong while. Due to some "unforseen circumstances", all the road races in SG have been postponed till August at the earliest, which just so coincidentally happens to be when baby girlie is supposed to arrive in this world.. so poor hubby won't be in any form to race. Ok, he could probably still race and finish, but he won't be in any good form to WIN, and c'mon, we all know it's about the winning, right? All those people who say it isn't are all just LYING. bwahahah.. no lah, just kidding.. but I'm sure there's some truth in there somewhere. So yeah, he and a few others dusted off their mountain bikes this morning and hit the trail. Time to go catch up and see how that went.

Too funny!!!

This cute little pic is sure to make you laugh.. this is my cousin's daughter, Elodie... =)

Click here

shopping list...

Ok, in a post related to the previous one, here's the shopping checklist as it stands now (including gifts/hand-me-downs/purchases by grandparents and aunt-to-be). This is more for my edification than yours, the reader's, cos I figure you probably couldn't care less what we have left to buy. It's just an easy way for me to access my list from anywhere so I can figure out what we still need. heh.

On the other hand, we're always looking for advice from people who've been there and done that, so if you have any suggestions on where and what brand to buy any of the following (or if you think we won't need them at all), we're all ears.

Furniture/Gear
- Crib (done)
- Crib mattress (done)
- Chest of drawers for baby gear
- Playpen (done)
- Safety gates x 2
- Head support pillow thing for pram
- Crib bedding
- Playpen mattress
- Sleep positioner (done)
- Mobile (done)
- Car seat (done)
- Stroller (done)

Milk stuff
- Steriliser (x2?)
- Pump (done)
- Bottles (have 3 so far that came with other purchases)
- Teats
- Drying rack?
- Bottle brush
- Detergent
- Bottle warmer?

Clothes-related
- Wrap tops for first couple of weeks till cord drops off
- Booties (have some)
- Mittens (have some)
- Detergent
- Bibs
- Burping cloths/towels
- Towels
- Bodysuits (done)
- Blankets (have 2) - question: what's the difference betw a receiving blanket & a normal one?

Bath
- Bathtub
- Soap
- Towels
- Bathing aid (done)
- Waterproof changing mat for home

Miscellaneous
- Nappy rash cream
- Diapers
- Nursing pads
- Talcum powder
- Baby wipes
- Cotton wool
- Ear/forehead thermometer
- Diaper bag
- Baby nail scissors

Bargain hunter that I am...

So, this past week was a week of squaring away important pre-baby purchases..

Robinsons had this crazy sale on Friday that started at 930am with select items on sale. (Question: who on earth has a sale at 930am on a WORKING day? Do only stay-at-home-moms have a right to good bargains? What about us working folk who aren't lucky enough to have a mom/relative/friend to pop by to get the products?) Bear in mind that this sale followed 2 previous consecutive days of "members only sale" when said items were not on sale. Gee... some marketing strategy... get you in the door 3 days in a row in the hope you'll buy more?

Anyhow, I digress, some of the sale items advertised in the papers were actually pretty good and the timing is right since the baby's due in August. So my mom graciously agreed to go and pick up the purchases since I was stuck at work (imagine that!). We managed to pick up a stroller (see picture below) and a crib. The stroller is by Aprica, the "mercedes" of strollers/prams. Normally, Kale and I wouldn't even look at their stuff - their prams start at like $700 or something ridiculous and work their way up to over a grand. But the sale was sooo good (less than half price!) that we decided to ditch our previous plan on buying another Jap brand - Combi, and buy this one instead.

Aprica Nelccobed stroller (picture source: Aprisin website)

We picked the stroller up from my parents' place last night and Kale took it out of the box for a test "drive" last night. It's pretty sweet. It's got the whole one-hand-open, one-hand-close mechanism so all it takes is a slide and push of a button and a flick of the wrist and the pram opens or closes. Kale refers to it as "stroller kungfu". Pretty neat. Too bad the manual is entirely in Japanese cos I'm sure there are more cool features that we haven't quite figured out yet.

I'm pretty psyched cos that means 2 big-ticket items off our list for less than we were expecting to have to pay. I'm such a bargain hunter, I tell you. What drives my shopping habit isn't so much that I can buy nice, pretty things or nice, branded things. Instead, my shopping "ethos", if you will, is that I can get the nice, pretty thing cheaper than someone else. So when someone else goes "oh that's a nice blouse/pram/skirt/shoes/*insert product category here*", i can reply.. "oh this? oh it was really cheap, i got a good deal..." So auntie, right? I'm definitely turning into an Ah-soh. No pun intended.

The funny thing is I've always been that way, even in college - which explains my fascination with online shopping and the "clearance" section, my love of Marshall's and TJ Maxx and ANY outlet mall. I want a Coach wallet (cos my current wallet is dying and the Coach stuff is just nice and classic), but damn if I'm going to get it at full price from the Coach store in Raffles City.. I'm going to try and see if either my sis can get it or the hubby can get it or if somehow, somewhere I can get to a Coach outlet in the US. hah. Yes, me, the bargain hunter. Again, like I said, very "auntie" lor.

So yeah, 2 big ticket items out of the way... now to clear more stuff off the list. Realised we only have say, 10-11 more free weekends to go (if not less) till baby gets here. And there's still so much to buy! eeps.

Waddya know?? GASP!!

So, I was logging into my Yahoo! email account when something on the login page caught my eye. I, shallow as I am, have "entertainment" as one of the "information update" thingamajigs that show up on my Yahoo! homepage.

And the very first line of the entertainment section?

"O.C's Mischa Barton's character killed off in show finale"

WHAT??? They're killing Coop? How could they? She's, like, TOTALLY, part of the core group of the show. *throw in the annoying American teenager accent* Kale thinks she's annoying, and honestly, I prefer Summer to her.. but still, man, how could they kill her off?

Admittedly, I've only watched the first season and several episodes of the 2nd season on DVD so I have no idea what happens through the 2nd half of the 2nd season nor the 3rd season (yes, Singapore is that far behind..) but yeah, I can't believe that she dies in Ryan's arms after their high school graduation. Gee whiz.

Ok lah, back to real life. Going to pick up the car soon... got to get up early tomorrow morning for an event. poop.

so many things to update about...

every day at work i think of things that i'd like to blog about.. something funny that happened, something that pissed me off, something the hubby said.. but by the time i get home, i'm completely zonked and don't have the energy to blog. this week has been insane at work cos the other half of my team is on course, leaving me to hold the fort. and as he said while i was away on study leave: "the fort's collapsed!"

but yes, just wanted to blog about something before i forget... one random night last week, i asked the hubby if he felt left out because i get to feel the baby move all the time and he only gets a chance to feel it at night when we're lounging in front of the tv or lying in bed. his reply? not really, and he doesn't know how he'd sleep with all that activity going on inside at night. so yeah, i stopped feeling so guilty about him not being able to feel it.. who'd have thought that his thoughts were so different from mine?

anyhow, it's time to watch "supernanny"... i love the show, it's awesome! heh.

peektures...

here are some peektures from the weekend...
Vanessa and Hans very engrossed in selecting songs on the karaoke system
Marcus and Nicholas, Raymond's kids making their own version of a Mac's happy meal during dinner at CPK on Saturday
Beware - the 4th powerpuff girl!! (goofing around in toys 'r' us)
My belly and I at 26 weeks..

pppppheew...

last nite was a late nite. yes, we're getting old. i know, i know. and this weekend has just been a busy busy weekend.

we had a lunch engagement yest at my colleague cheh hsien's place where we watched 3/4 of memoirs of a geisha and hung out with my colleagues for a bit. had to head off after that to go run some errands. went shopping (as in my previous post) and then ran off to go pick up food for vanessa's shindig. dawn had said to be by at vanessa's at six-plus, so we figured we were about right when we arrived at 615pm. but in true singaporean fashion, no one was there... so vanessa entertained us while waiting for everyone else to show up.

people started rolling in around 715pm or so... we had a mish-mash of east and west: japanese-ish pizza from oishi pizza and potato croquettes, regular pizza from canadian pizza (one of which didn't look so regular and looked rather exotic with a "black-sauce-y looking topping"! hah. we had chicken wings and carrot cake courtesy of carrie-ann, and we contributed CPK salad (yes, how predictable, no?)

unfortunately, i don't have many pictures from last nite. i had the camera, but didn't really whip it out. andrea has one of kale and i and one of her and i on her site, but that's about it as well.

we had a good time watching "monster-in-law" and then we couldn't resisting playing with vanessa's dad's REALLY pro karaoke system. ended up watching the videos instead of singing karaoke, but a good time was still had by all pulling up all these old songs from belinda carlisle, the everly brothers (courtesy of hans), air supply, etc.

we finally rolled ourselves out of there close to midnight. we were POOPED by the time we finally crashed into bed.

will load pictures up tomorrow and an account of today as well... for now tho.. it's bed time.. whoopeee... i love long weekends!

shopping loot

we went shopping yesterday - in other words, i dragged the hubby shopping. he really was a good sport seeing as how it was vesak day and half of singapore had the same idea of hitting the malls since the weather was really quite foul.

managed to get more maternity stuff - a dress, a racerback top and t-shirt, underwear and a maternity swimsuit (so i have no more excuses to not swim) and racked up some $180 in purchases. not bad seeing as how everything but the dress was on sale at mothercare. the swimsuit cost less than my regular ones! just a bit tak-glam lah. sigh.

the purchases in themselves were not bad, but it's just so depressing cos the "budget" options - ie in the cheaper stores are so limited and frumpy compared to the ones that i can get at the 1 store that i adore but cannot bring myself to walk into anymore for fear of spending my next paycheck. sigh.

oh yah, and i still need a pair of white pants (that's what i went out in search of and came back without). hhmm.

yes, a brainless post about shopping. i have more intellectual posts in me somewhere. this was just easier to brainlessly type out. hah.

peechas...

here are some pics from last friday when we went out for dinner, a walk and loads of chocolate!! YUM!!!

Shaky picture of the Merlion...
Sir Cavenagh bridge & the Fullerton (and me at 25 weeks)
CHOCOLATE!!!!!
The chocolate buffet spread...
Me stuffing my face with a HUGE strawberry... pregnancy has its perks! heh

So anyhow, yes, the choc buffet was awesome. Not so sure it was worth the price (don't think one could really eat $30+ dollars worth of chocolate, no matter how good) and it's not something that we'd likely go to again. But it was definitely fun to do just once. Kale figured I wouldn't have gone if I knew how much it was so we didn't find out beforehand. Hah. Like he said though, he's been in Singapore for 4 years, he figures he should at least give it a try...

It's Vesak Day today - yeah, day off! Hubby's out for a ride so I'm bumming at home catching up on blog reading and internet shopping. Going off to 2 housewarmings today.. should be fun! Upload more pics later then...

quick update

it's lunch hour so here's a quick update on the past couple of days:

- back at work this week. thank goodness it's a 4 day work-week
- first antenatal class this past tuesday. borrriiinnggg... on diet and nutrition. a little late to rectify some of my unhealthy eating habits, i say! but we did confirm some interesting nuggets of info - that plaster of paris is used as the coagulating agent for tao-huay. euw. thank goodness one of my classmates had warned me about that so i haven't eaten it since i found out i was preggers. and that birds nest really does have calcium in it. next week's class should hopefully be more interesting with exercise as the main topic..
- had a check-up yesterday afternoon. baby's still bigger than average, a week plus ahead in terms of size actually. but seeing as how they're using averages for asian babies, doc says it could just be our gene combination since hubby's caucasian. well, that and she may consider doing a test for gestational diabetes next time around just to make sure that i'm doing ok. she was amused to know that kale and i have been "testing" my sugar level at home unofficially just to be sure anyhow.. and so far, so good...
- she also said that i'd probably not want to (nor be able to, i gather) deliver a 10lb baby anyhow! (kale was 10lbs at birth.. phew). i totally agree with her on this one!
- baby's really really active. very distracting when i'm at work! hah. kale has no problem feeling the movements now. they're pretty much discernable by eye too cos the movements are pretty strong.
- baby name choosing is still going on. slowly but surely getting there.
- sooo glad exams are over and classes are over. phew. nothing like being a total tv and magazine junkie all over again. finally finished reading my pregnancy books over the weekend since i had the time.

yup, that's pretty much it. nothing much else going on here. will try to upload pics from last weekend soon. will have more pics from this coming weekend - have loads of house-warming type events to go to this weekend...

back to work...

so we're back to work. me after 2 weeks of being in-and-out of the office on study leave, and kale after a week off riding in the scorching thai sun and bumming at home with the wife.

this work thing is rough dude. i'm swamped, but nothing new there! need to get motivated... *ohmmmm*

so glad it's a short week this week. go Vesak Day! =)
that and we just got confirmation that we get an additional day off for polling day which can be claimed anytime within the next 6 mths. woo hoo!

on the baby front... the girlie is getting bigger by the day and so is my bell-ay. i've gotten comments ranging from the "you're heavily pregnant", "your hair makes you look pregnant (what the..???)", "you really look pregnant now" to the other extreme "are you pregnant/expecting?" to which i always answer - "no, i just had too much for lunch..." duh. well that and the whole "six months ah? cannot be lah, so small..."

yeah... tune it out, woman, tune it out... *ohmmm*

good news is, i can finally justify buying more clothes.. running out of options!

lazy day off....

so the hubby and i both took off work today to recuperate. him from his 4 gruelling days of riding in thailand, and me from studying for my exams. it was ggggrrrreat! we basically did nothing all day. with the exception of venturing out for meals that is.

headed off to suntec to look at picket and rail and check out the price of a chest of drawers and grabbing a quick lunch. and then came back home and lazed around till dinner.

hubby gave me a treat - both to celebrate my exams being over and to make up for the week away.. so we went out for a nice dinner. meaning i actually made an attempt to dress up (as much as possible in my current pregnant state) and he put on pants for a change.

headed out to the esplanade for a quick dinner (tapas, which didn't turn out as good as we had hoped...) and then over to the fullerton hotel for a chocolate buffet (which was awesome, but cost more than dinner!)

have some pictures but too sleepy to put those up... do that tomorrow. hopefully after the plumber gets here to fix the darn water heater in the morning.

i honestly think we have gremlins in this house. after the water heater saga last night, we found the master bedroom bathroom flooded. finally figured it came from the toilet cistern when the hubby flushed the toilet. something funky was going on with the water pressure last night!! luckily it was CLEAN water in the bathroom... so all it took was a quick mop-up, but it was still not fun. sigh. owning your own place can have its downers sometimes... was just glad the hubby was home to help out with it cos i sure as heck wouldn't want to have to deal with it on my own.. bleah.

surprises - the good and the bad

the hubby msged at about 3 today to say that he managed to get an earlier flight back so i rushed off to the airport to go get him after my haircut. had dinner at the airport before heading home...
that was the good surprise.

walked in the door of our apartment - bad surprise. the water heater pressure relief valve was spewing water... and since it's late, there's no way it's going to get fixed tonight so it's a cold shower for both of us tonight. bleah. try and get someone to come fix it tomorrow. thank goodness we're on leave tomorrow. but somehow, being on leave to get the water heater fixed simply wasn't what i had in mind.

but there's always a silver lining.. at least the hubby was home to climb up and turn the water heater pipe off.. the pregnant me was sooo not going to climb up on that precarious stool. =)

almost there....

can't believe this time tomorrow my exams will be over and the hubby will be home! sweet!! can't wait.

wasn't really productive today. think i hit a wall with this study thing. so we'll see how i fare tomorrow. *breathe*

anyhow, going for a much-needed haircut tomorrow after my exam... yeay!

heading off to dreamland... where i will attempt to not dream about eli lilly- the drug company. (that's what i dreamt about yesterday cos i went to sleep thinking about what the take-away from the case was. yes, that's how sad i am.)

g'nite folks!

can you say "ball"?

i wonder if i can get Elodie (my cousin's 14 mth old daughter) to say "ball" if i point at my tummy? apparently her vocab is mostly made up of 2 words right now - ball and star. =) she likes to point to things and say in an inquiring tone of voice "ball??"

so yeah, my parents made it back from a golfing trip to surabaya last nite. am happy to announce that no volcanoes erupted during their trip (as earlier threatened) so that's good. my mom said that after not seeing me for only 3 days, my belly seems to have expanded considerably. usually, i'd think she's just exaggerating, but honestly, i'm feeling uncomfortable enough to think she's right and that it really has expanded over the past couple of days.

auntie reggie saw me at the airport and said that my stomach resembled a ball. and boy, does it. it's really ROUND. occasionally it's asymmetrical but usually, it's spherical and IN YOUR FACE.

so yeah, my tummy is getting bigger, and our little acrobat is punching and kicking away in there.

oh yah, thought i'd note this down for posterity. on thursday (or Friday nite, i forget which), the baby, whose head, up to that point had been on my left decided to do some serious tumbling. was lying in bed and realised that the usual horizontal-ish lump had become a vertical-ish lump and there was an immense pressure near my sternum. kale was rather amused. the baby had turned herself 90 degrees and we think she was upside down. she had rejigged herself by the morning and was back to being horizontal, but now i have no idea whether her head is on my left or on my right. no reference point. so when i feel bumps and pokes, i have no idea if she's kicking or punching. whatever it is, it's good entertainment and a good distraction when i'm bored studying. haha.

time flies when you're cramming for exams

man, i'm sooo happy it's monday evening. means in 3 days, and 3 nites, the hubby'll be home. but who's counting, right? hah.

i was doing a-ok today... busy running errands, dropping my grandma off, getting the cats all squared away, going down to school to study, etc. but it all came to a screeching halt when i got back to my parents' place in the evening. i don't know what straw broke this camel's back but i suddenly couldn't help feeling REALLY stressed and overwhelmed and lonely and lost it when the hubby called to check in from thailand. just hearing his voice made me miss him.

these are the days that i'm thankful that kale's not in the navy. granted, i never would have met him had he still been in.. and granted, i know it's his dream job and i'd never begrudge him that if he could have it.. but... after spending some time with josh this past week, and after having to deal with kale going off to thailand for this race, i've once again come to the conclusion that i'd be a total wreck if my husband had to go off for months on end on cruise. the not knowing when he'd be back or where he is would totally drive me crazy. for that reason, i really do admire my bro-in-law's wife cos goodness knows i couldn't do it.

josh tried to tell me that i could do it if i had to. he's probably right. i did do the long-distance thing for the better part of a year while kale was still in the US, and while it sucked big time, we made it through. it's just not something i'd like to repeat, is all.

there's something to be said for having someone to come home to... someone to just hold you cos sometimes all you need at the end of a long day is a hug. someone to tell you that everything'll be alright and to know that when he says it, it's probably true. and he can help figure things out when all i want to do is stick my head in the sand.

ok lah, enough rambling. time to go to bed. another day of studying tomorrow. did pretty good in terms of goals today. completed remedies and // imports and more or less cleared US patents too. i just didn't retain as much as i had hoped so i'm going to have to go through all the stuff again on wed, just to make sure it stays in!

rest of US patents before i hit anti-competition and biotech tomorrow...i am woman, hear me roar!

g'nite y'all.. bed beckons.