seeck again

i've been pretty lucky in that i've managed to stave off the bug of late. haven't really been hit for a while. but this time around, the bug assaulted and assault it did, with a vengeance.

so i'm home on MC suffering from a viral infection. the doc says it's a viral thing so for now at least i don't need antibiotics but if it doesn't get better, all bets are off..

dragged myself through the work day yesterday despite feeling pretty darn sick already. sneezed and sniffed most of the day away. wanted soooo badly to not go to work this morning but alas i had 3 mtgs, so twas not to be. finally bailed out after the 2nd one to visit the doc.

doc gave me some really really MILD meds... aka stuff that once you take it, the effects wear off in er, an hour, leaving you defenseless till your next dose at least 5 hours later! and she gave me an MC to go home and rest.

so i finally made it home at about 1plus. sorted some stuff out and crashed. just got woken up by a work call after 2.5 hours of blissful sleep. bleah. oh well. figure it's time to drag myself out of bed an hydrate.

why is it that the times i'm incredibly swamped at work are the times i fall sick? i can't even enjoy being home cos i have stuff to finish by monday. duh. crappy deal... but i guess i can't complain.. at least i got the nap in.

time to hit the books/laptop.. husband will be home soon enough... so better get what i can get done first. this weekend's pretty chock-a-block full with stuff.

2 worded update

- i'm sick
- sore throat
- with sniffles
- hubby also
- durians' fault
- drinking water
- not helping

- princess home
- lotsa shopping
- baby stuff
- michigan gear
- pigging out

- work busy
- me sleepy
- food coma

bike race in Muar

sunday was a looooong day. we got up at 415am (i actually got up at 330am cos i went to the bathroom and couldn't fall back asleep) and got ready to drive up to Muar for a bike race. left the house at 5am, bumped into Lester and Greg at the S'pore checkpoint. 2 hours later and we were pulling into Pagoh. we were REALLY early. note to self: never listen to the hubby when he says you need to leave at XX time for any race. tack on at least another 45 mins and you'll be about right. hah.

so after visiting a gas station to use the bathroom and driving slooooowwwwlllyyyy to the starting point, we were still a good hour and a half early. the singapore contingent finally showed up an hour or so later. the race that was supposed to start at 8:30 didn't get rolling till 9:20am. sigh.

loads of wives/other halves came to the race. was surprised at how many showed up. guess the fact that it was a day event as opposed to a stay-over had something to do with it.

the race was really short. 78km including a 30km rolling start. it was supposed to be 100km. yeah. imagine the guys' surprise when they round the corner thinking they have 25km more to go and see the finish line. yeaaahhhh...

unfortunately a couple of the guys got hurt in a crash - ben and melvin hurt their shoulders and eddie got some road rash. definitely sucks to see ppl you know get hurt. =(
Us before the race. It's a good thing they make those t-shirts roomy!
Whole team pic
Start line...
Coming back to the peloton after taking a leak...
Standard M'sian race scenery

as usual, we stood around for over an hour and a half in the sweltering hot sun waiting for the results and prize giving. as usual, the results were still erroneous despite the waiting time. oh well. the only plus point? we managed to chow down on some durian. Mimi managed to get a van to pull up with durian and they threw up a tent and started opening 'em up. we had no idea who was paying, how many they were opening.. nothing... who cares about all the details when there's durian being opened up in front of you!!!

Hubby, Melvin and Yusoff pigging out

New way to open durians.
All medalled out..

left shortly after, booked it straight home so that we could miss the jam. still got stuck at the tuas checkpoint for a half hour or so. came home, washed up, unloaded and then headed off to church. had dinner at the 'rents and then came home and CRASHED. we crawled into bed at 930pm and i didn't get up till 8am the next morning. for me, that's an absolute record cos i haven't slept through a nite in a loong loong time since i got pregnant.

so yeah, that was our crazy sunday. can't believe it's only wednesday.. this week has been insane and it's not getting any better.... ugh.

getting whooped

sigh, i'm getting whooped. figuratively and literally.

work is kicking my ass, and this baby is kicking my insides. the first is definitely worse than the second. the second is actually rather enjoyable.

i need an attitude readjustment. either that or these pregnancy mood swings they speak of are kicking in. bleah.

separation anxiety is also beginning to set in. why am i not surprised?

Baby update

Ok, so we saw the doc yesterday.... my "diagnosis" of my symptoms as braxton hicks was apparently correct.. so phew, nothing to worry about. Only need to worry if they become regular and don't go away if I sit down.

Baby's gained a bit in 2 weeks.. she's somewhere between 1.9 and 2 kg at the end of 31 weeks. I've also gained a bit in 2 weeks.. am at 56.5kg now.. that's 1.7kg in 2 weeks. eeps. I guess my estimate of 58kg as my final weight is WAAAAY off. Looks like I'm ramping up in the third trimester, dude. Will probably be able to to exceed 60 at the rate I'm going.

Baby's also turned so her head's down. Hoping she decides to stay there. I was upside down too till about 2 weeks before my due date and then decided that was too boring and wanted to spice things up and turned right side up.. causing my mom a c-section. Turns out she'd rather have had a c-section anyway so I guess it all ended well. I'm hoping to go natural.. so I'm hoping baby girlie stays head down.

The ultrasounds shows that all her limbs are on my right side which explains the very vigorous movements I feel all concentrated in one spot. Kale's a little in awe of the jab-kick combos that the little one is capable of. She's definitely getting more coordinated and agile.. heh. Kinda entertaining.

Guess that's all for now.. bed time. Work has been insane and I have a few emails that I REALLY need to get out. Overdue. Sigh. But for now... zzzz time.

It's blardy hot!!!

My goodness gracious.. it's ridiculously hot today..

I'm claiming my polling day day off to run some errands. Hit the ICA this morning to add my married name to my IC and passport. Was faster than I had expected.. was out of there by 10+ despite not getting there till 930am. Guess the whole going on a weekday during office hours thing really does help.

Took the mrt to my parents, waited for my mom to settle some stuff.. started wilting in the heat already while sitting in their living room. We then headed out to Tiong Bahru market for lunch. Bloody hot, I tell you. I was withering. My hives were threatening to break through. Could NOT wait to get back in to the a/c in our house. I'm so not cut out for SG weather, I tell you. May be this whole pregnancy thing too... heard your internal thermostat can go a little awry with pregnancy.

Anyhow, I've been indoors with the a/c full blast for a good ten minutes and I'm still sweating my arse off. For those of you who think pregnancy is all rosy and glorious, I'd just like to share that the bottom of my sweaty belly is sticking to the top of my thighs even as I sit here in my nightgown. ugh. Nothing like a little sweaty adhesion to glam up your day. =(

I wanted to go shopping seeing as how I have half a day off left... but I'm erring on the side of prudence. Last Thursday and Friday my belly started tightening and I had a dull crampy feeling in my lower belly... thought I'd monitor it and see if it went away before having to alert my gynae... I really don't like crying wolf especially if it ruins my credibility once something serious happens.

Well, it went away on Saturday, and seeing as how it wasn't in regular intervals even on Thurs and Fri, I'm assuming they were harmless Braxton-Hicks contractions... which are pretty common in this stage of pregnancy. But yesterday evening and this morning, they're back. If I walk a BIT too much, my lower abdomen starts tightening up. Not fun. It goes away when I sit down, but I'm guessing it's probably a good idea to not go shopping in case they come back with a vengeance. Instead, I'm thinking of resting my pregnant arse on the couch and catching up on some zzzs. I'll check with the doc tomorrow when I go for my regular check-up, but since the baby's moving fine (read: throwing elbows/knees/fists/toes all over the place) and all that, I'm not overly concerned that it's anything but Braxton Hicks. But still, the paranoid me can't help but be a leetle worried.

I'm mostly worried that this baby is going to decide that she wants out early. I wouldn't be surprised at all if she does. If she's anything like her mother, she'll get bored and figure she might as well find out what's waiting on the other side. I'm just hoping that she'll put off her grand arrival till the hubby comes back from his business trip. I do NOT want to be dealing with labour when the hubby's not here. There's no one even close to being a substitute for him through a process/event like that.
And worse? Well, my gynae's not going to be around during that period either. sigh... so yes, baby, read my lips (or hear my voice reverbrate off my inner organs)... stay in there till August at least!!!! When exactly in August you decide to show up, I'm not fussy... just hold off till then.

I'm still trying to figure out if I wanna go with the hubby to his bike race in Muar this weekend. I forsee that being hot and uncomfortable too. Good news is it's close to SG so it's a 1 day thing - ie we don't have to stay over...we just drive over early in the morning. Bad news is, it's likely to be hot with no decent bathrooms. ugh. Will check with the doc to see what she says about traveling at this point. The journey is not likely to be a long one, so I'm not too worried about that.. I'm just worried about the heat and the discomfort. hmm.

Ok lah, I'm going to go and plonk myself down on the couch and catch an afternoon nap. Might as well make the most of my day off.

loooong overdue pictures

So, 2 weekends ago, our friend from Stanford, Ray and his girlfriend Angela dropped by Singapore on the way to India for a wedding. We ate and ate and shopped and shopped..and have a couple of pictures to show for it.


Choc Fondue w Cheryl
Lau Pa Sat
Lau Pa Sat 2
The totally awesome pressies that Ray and Angela made for us. How creative are these?
The hubby's attempt to make me laugh.. =)

Everyone's been far too nice and buying stuff for the yet-to-be-born short one. Ray and Angela with the cute personalised rompers... San-san with the Old Navy purchases (very cute by the way) and my parents with their shopping stash from Spain, some of which are definitely more extravagant than anything I'd purchase. I need to take pics of the other stuff, but haven't gotten around to it yet. surprise surprise....

My belly and I

Everyone (and their mother) has kindly given me advice to make the most of my 2nd trimester to get stuff done - because the first trimester you feel like crap and it's too early to do anything and cos you're too heavy by the 3rd trimester. I, being the stubborn one, bah-humbugged all that. I didn't even start showing till halfway thru my 2nd tri, I figured I couldn't be THAT heavy in my 3rd tri, now could I? Besides, I didn't want to be one of those pregnant women who couldn't lift a finger in the month leading up to their due date.

But, helloooooooo???? Yeah, see, all those people... what they have, that I don't? EXPERIENCE! Grr..

So I'm sitting here biting my words. There's so much left to do, and so little that I actually feel comfortable doing. The hubby was grunting and groaning as he was getting blistered putting shelves up yesterday. And I? Well, aside from holding the shelves up so that he could put them up... er, I folded laundry, did dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Yeah. I feel inadequate. And then there's teh crib to assemble today.. I forsee me standing by "supervising"... poop.

So yes, I guess that's one of the lessons of life I need to learn. Don't underestimate the power of a miracle of life like pregnancy. It can totally whip your butt and throw you a total curveball. Yeah. I am NOT omnipotent... and no different from all the women that came before me.. no matter what I'd like to think.

Sigh, I'm no longer "Miss competitive"... say hi to the pregnant mama.. who realises she needs to listen to advice once in a while =p

murphy's law

yup, it's the weekend.. FINALLY!
and like all good weekends... the 2 days a week i can sleep in are the 2 days i'm up early. i got up before 8 this morning.. no thanks to an sms from kale's friend. grr.

so anyhow.. consolation is i can always take a nap in the afternoon... zzz..

off to brekky w the rents while the hubby goes for a ride...

ciao!

warning *whiny post*

my goodness gracious, it's been busy. and the worst part is i've been busy and i don't even know what's been eating up my time.

i think my time management is going down the drain. i get home (and the past couple of days it's been later than usual), we make dinner and then crash on the couch and watch whatever lame-o tv show is on... and before we know it, it's 10:30pm and time for a shower and bed.

despite the fact that we see each other every night, we can barely muster the energy to have proper conversations with each other. i'm pooped ALL THE TIME. i've become THAT whiney, tired pregnant woman i swore i'd never become. everything just aches/hurts/pinches. getting off the couch is a pain in the ass (literally), turning in bed is equally a challenge and i'll be over the moon if i can actually sleep through a nite for a change! sigh.

so yeah, we have 2 months more to go... far too many errands to run, and i feel like an 80-year-old woman. then again, my 80-year-old grandma probably has more energy than i do at this point. bleah. i can't touch my toes, showering is becoming an acrobatic feat cos have i mentioned that i'm really inflexible to start off with?? soaping my extremities has never been more of a challenge... grr.

my only consolation right now is that i have *yet* to waddle. i'm fighting that like the plague. the one day you see me waddling is the one day you'll know that i've given up the fight and just cannot be bothered to be civilised no more. yup.

but yes, i'm just glad that at least the baby girlie's doing fine. i can put up with all the aches and pains as long as the girlie is doing well.. at least the discomfort's for a purpose. the count-down has begun to D-day... thank goodness!

what a week!!

this past week has been absolutely insane. which explains the lack of posts on the blog.

i've been home late practically every evening.. if it wasn't working late (which has happened quite a couple of times lately), it's something else like antenatal class (which by the way is really boring still).

and the worst thing? work this week has been stressful.. =( big clouds hanging over me. *double groan*.. thankfully some seem to have passed.. but i'm still on edge. hopefully next week brings some respite, although i doubt it.

anyhow, this is a little belated, but it was the princess's birthday yesterday.. so...

Happy Birthday Selene!!!

thankfully the card that i sent her reached her in time cos i tried calling her yesterday and wasn't able to reach her. bleah.. the beauty of time differences.

it's going to be a busy weekend, one of our friends from grad school is flying into town today with his gf, so we're going to take them around town. i haven't seen him since january 02, so this should be good fun! can't wait!

on top of that, we just realised that with all of his races, business trips, etc, we only have about 4-5 weekends to put the shelves up, assemble the crib, stain the remaining chest of drawers, etc etc... ie too many things to do and too little time. i know it'll all get done.. cos things always find a way of working themselves out. but it's just funny given that i've been making lists for what seems like FOREVER and it's always seemed too early to do these things..and now we find ourselves strapped for time. hmm.

oh yah, one last note, the doc said the chance of baby girlie wanting out when the hubby's away is pretty small.. and besides, she's not going to be here either.. she's going to be on holiday that same week. i don't know if i should be relieved about that, or concerned. hah.

quick update on the baby girlie

Went to see the doc yesterday. Everything's going well. Baby's doing fine, altho she's right side up right now (of sorts). She's actually more diagonal with her head in my upper right quadrant and her butt in my lower left quadrant. Her legs are somewhere tucked away in there, kinda trucker-like. Like mother, like daughter, I say. hah.

Finally got a weigh-in too.. the baby's estimated to be around 1.5kg right now...

Good news is that the appts are going to be every 2 weeks from now on.. yeay! Get to see the baby that much more often...

it figures - bad day/ bad date...

it's 6th june 2006. yup, not a good date at all.

it was a bad day for me... you know, one of those days that you just wish would end because you've had about enough and NOTHING seems to be going right? i remember julie telling me in college that i was having a day that just needed to end. i can picture the day like it was yesterday. me sitting on the floor in her dorm room after i had knocked something over in her room - and she just basically told me i had to go to bed cos the day had to end for me.

so yeah, back to today. i screwed up at work. a small mistake that has the potential to have BIG consequences - all because of one lousy additional indentation. thankfully i think some other things have fallen into place so the consequences won't be SOOO big (hopefully), but i'm not at ease cos i know it's my fault if the shit hits the fan. grr. i'm too scared to even look at my email come tomorrow morning. sigh. i realise that i may not be cut out for this job scope - i'm not the detailed sort. since i was but a child, my teachers have always said i'm careless and while i do things quickly, i'm never one to really check through my work. how true. and it's all coming back to bite me in the a**.

the thing is i know i'm hard on myself, but having said that, i'm just pissed that just when my confidence was beginning to pick up, this had to happen to take me down a couple of notches again. crap. oh well. such is life.

my parents come back tomorrow from spain. going to get them from the airport after work. wonder what tales they have from spain.

oh yah, and the hubby's likely to have to go for a work trip to the US in july. hopefully everything goes according to plan and the baby doesn't decide she wants out early while he's there. *cross fingers*

TGIF..

Man, I'm so glad it's Friday. Phew. I really really need a rest (yes, this is despite being off from work yesterday). Today was one of the roughest fridays I've had in a while. grr.

Anyhow, finally made it down to the Motherhood fair. Quite disappointing. Smaller than I expected and filled with promoters thrusting flyers in your face. The worst part was the line of promoters pushing magazines the minute you step into the hall. Grr. Anyhow, was a good thing that I had something in mind when I decided to go down otherwise it really would have been a wasted trip. It's kinda hard to browse when the sales people are so pushy.

Got 2 nursing bras from Moms in Mind while I was there. Since they're an online store, figured I'd head down to their booth while they were there so that I could try the stuff on for size. They have a showroom but it's only open during the week during office hours so this was my only chance to try the stuff on. My colleague told me about them, and honestly, their stuff is really quite decently priced.

Believe it or not, both my parents and my in-laws are currently in Spain. They're not meeting up or anything, it was definitely not planned that both parties would be there at the same time which makes it all the more amusing. My in-laws are attending a wedding in Seville and my parents are taking a whirlwind bus tour with some of their friends to celebrate their anniversaries. My mom called back yesterday and it sounds like a good time is being had by all. Honestly, we were a little cynical about a bunch of 50-somethings going on a bus tour seeing as how none of them have gone on a bus tour since the early 1990s. Hah.

Think that's all for now... time to take a shower and crash into bed.. sleeepeeee.....

bleah

i was off work today. due to a lack of good sleep, my resistance is down again and i'm just feeling really sluggish. instead of risking coming down with a viral infection, i decided to do the smart thing and rest. problem is, as usual, the minute i don't have to get up for work, i'm up early. bleah. and then it takes me forever to fall asleep for a nap later.

and the one day i'm home in the afternoon is the one day there's a chinese wake in the void deck of our block. usually all the wakes are held at the multi-purpose hall in the middle of the housing estate so we're spared from the noise of the music/drums/chanting. but since there was another wake in the hall this past week, they had to locate the other one in the void deck.

so despite us closing all possible windows (except for the one in the toilet which the cats use), the noise is still pretty loud. i mean, i don't really mind so much cos i understand that it's a cultural thing, and that it's inevitable and we all just have to be tolerant. i'm just wondering how much longer the music's going to go on. it started in the afternoon and it's already past 9pm and it's still going. hmm...

was just commenting to the hubby that we're lucky we live in a newer hdb block, so that we actually have a multi-purpose hall in the estate. in the older estates, i'm sure chinese wakes and malay weddings are a common occurence in the void deck, which i'm sure can get pretty loud.

ok, time for a shower. loong day ahead tomorrow.. complete with meetings i don't want to go for. yours truly is also supposed to give a course tomorrow morning on IP to some colleagues. eeps. can you say additional stress?