Finally ..

I dragged out all the baby clothes I had .. and looked through them .. I chucked out a fair bit .. things that were either worn or stained or just stuff that i didn't want my newborn to wear .. and guess what ??!!

I have a reason to run out to the stores and buy NEW stuff .. I have quite little of the 0-3 months clothes .. hmmmmmmm .. I am going to hit Mothercare and Marks and Spencers next week when hubby goes back to work .. ah, yes, did I happen to mention that Uncle is on leave this whole week? ... Of course, he wanted to "surprise" me last minute and didn't tell me till Sunday evening .. when he sprang the news on me AFTER I told him I was meeting my friend Michelle for lunch on Tuesday ... I was happily chatting on and on about what we were planning to eat and do .. when he says, "So, we're all going, huh?" .. I was like .. "What the hell are you talking about .. it's a weekday what .. you'll be at work ... " .. only to see the gleeful look on his face that he was going to SPOIL my plans of an afternoon of shopping and lunching with my girlfriend .. the evil evil man !!!

Of course, I had to cancel on my friend and postpone out lunch date till the week after .. when he's back at work again .. told her that hubby was threatening to join us on our lunch date AND drag my girls along ...

sigh

My friend says it's weird .. other women would CELEBRATE their hubby being home the whole week . while I'm complaining that the man has messed up my social calender ... hahahaha. Thankfully, I've been tired and my stomach feels ultra heavy so that meant I had only made that ONE lunch date with my friend and no one else.

He has been quite useful so far this week .. he's been sending Lauren and Claudia to school .. and we had our kitchen basin replaced cos it cracked .. and he was around to monitor the contractors ... (I hate contractors btw .. blood sucking fiends they are .. ) .. so not too bad, the man has no been a nuisance so far .. lol. Plus I have been finding it harder to get in and out of the driver's seat .. so it's a nice change that he's sending the girls to school ..

My maid also swears that my tummy is bigger this time around .. bugger .. I think she's rite .. lol.

Anyway, it's already Friday .. !! Hurrah !!

A view that I miss dearly ... *sob*

Claudia in our backyard on the base ... I got her that swing set .. it was awesome .. it could seat 6 kids at one go and had a slide at the other end (u can't see it in this pic) .. Claudia loved the snow !!



What I saw looking out my kitchen window .. I NEVER got tired of the view ..

Looking forward ...

Hubby and I were chatting last night. We are really happy that this will be our fourth and last baby ... not that we are sick and tired of having kids .. ok, maybe TIRED .. lol .. but looking forward, when I celebrate my 40th birthday .. baby number 4 (yes, we still haven't decided on a name for her) will be FIVE years old .. ALRIGHT!! Emily will be 7, Lauren will be 9.5 and Claudia will be almost 15 .. !!


This is partly why we're not keen to have any more kids later on. At 40, I'd like to be able to sit back and relax and not have to run after a toddler .. I don't think I can do it, quite frankly. IF we accidentally conceive, then well, we'll be thrilled of course .. but right now, I'm already planning to ask my gynae about birth control options.

Hubby suggested abstinence jokingly ... I snorted. lol :)

An epiphany

I had an epiphany yesterday. I was standing in Mothercare at Centrepoint staring at the racks of lovely lovely kiddy clothing when it came to me.

I think I'm only having kids cos I like to buy kiddy clothing etc.

Really.

lol.

I discussed it with my friend who laughed and said that after this baby, I should concentrate on buying clothes and stuff for myself instead. I told her that that idea wasn't as attractive as buying kiddy clothing and toys and other assorted baby/kiddy paraphernalia. Even more so, GIRL STUFF. All that pink and red and yellow ... ahhhh it's intoxicating !!

I have been traipsing in and out of the toy departments of malls for YEARS now. And I'm still not bored with it. I have been buying baby/toddler and now tween clothing for YEARS too and I still find it a pleasant experience. hmmmmmmm.

Makes me wonder. Once my youngest is in her tweens .. will I go into some kind of withdrawal stage cos then I have NO ONE to buy these things for?

OH DEAR. I shall not think about that now then. I can only hope that by then, I'll have grandkids !!!! ahhhh yes, there is HOPE after all!!

murderous thoughts ...

hubby has been having this AWFUL cough for awhile now. It's so awful that a few nites ago, he chose to sleep outside in the hall instead of with us on the bed - for one thing, he felt that the air con was making it worse and he didn't want us to be bothered by his incessant coughing through the night ..

I say "us" cos Lauren and Emily sleep with us .. yes, I am a believer of sleep sharing .. I love having my little ones with me .. that and Lauren REFUSES to sleep with her big sis in the next room claiming that she loves me so she must sleep with me .. lol. Hubby and I are fine with it cos we figure there'll come a time when they won't want to sleep with us anyway. So every morning I wake up being squashed by 2 little bodies who try to sleep as close to me as possible .. lol !!

Anyway, so after that one nite where he slept in the hall, his coughing seemed to improve, so the next time I insisted that he sleep on the bed ... cos I know it's uncomfortable to sleep the whole nite on the sofa ...

BAD IDEA.

Uncle was hacking the whole nite despite my best efforts to prevent it .. I rubbed Vicks on his chest and back .. gave him his medicine regularly that whole day (he was on mc) .. and massaged his arms and legs with a herbal oil to "warm" his body up ...

He was coughing and coughing .. and everytime he did, I was jolted awake .. I was so annoyed. lol. Even in my groggy state, I contemplated smothering the man with my pillow to put him and more importantly, me, out of OUR misery. hahahahahaha.

The next morning, I woke up to a headache and promptly threw up cos I felt tired and giddy ... and the first words out of my mouth were "you're sleeping in the hall tonight, I dun care!"

see, the love??

I also went down to Guardian Pharmacy and bought the strongest cough suppresant they had and antibacterial lozenges. Hubby was appalled cos he thinks Strepsiles and Breacol are good enough. I snorted and told him that the cheaper the medication, the lousier they were.

I know I am right.

bits and pieces ..

still have a lot of stuff to do before baby comes .. Just got a Mothercare bath dresser.. u know, those things you can change baby's diaper on and underneath the change mat there's a bathtub .. very pretty design too :) - there are 2 storage shelves below and it's on castors .. so you can push it around anywhere .. I went to have a look at one at Kiddy Palace .. ugh, it was too ugly for words .. decided that the Mothercare one was much nicer .. :)

I don't know how come I didn't get one for Emily when she was born ... anyway, I decided that it would be much easier to change and bathe baby in those things ... plus everything u need can be stored in the storage shelves below .. so handy !! Gosh, nowadays they have a whole array of stuff for babies !!

Vivo on a Saturday

Hubby had a wedding lunch to attend on Rasa Sentosa so he dropped us off at Vivocity for a bit of window shopping. I had NO interest to attend some wedding lunch of some colleague of his on a Saturday afternoon when I could go walk around and look at stuff .. besides, the invite stated, "lunch will be served at 2" .. what the hell? Who has lunch at 2pm?

So there we were with another friend whose hubby was attending the same wedding lunch walking around ... and then having some coffee and light snacks at Serenity Cafe .. everywhere else was CROWDED .. I actually prefer the Pacific Coffee Company .. but all the seats were taken .. bummer.

I took the opportunity to bring my ginormous Quinny Buzz along .. Vivo is so huge and spacious it's ok to push it around ... I wouldn't take the Buzz to a smaller mall .. and it's ideal for crowded places too .. people tend to steer clear of your stroller for fear of the BIG ASS wheels running over their feet ... hahahaha ..

Since we were there for a mere 2 hours or so and half of which was spent at Serenity .. I actually came home EMPTY HANDED !!! I didn't get to buy a SINGLE thing ... hahahah. I tried, believe me .. walked into Gap, Mothercare and Pumpkin Patch .. but it was too short a time to really get the girls to try on anything ... OH WELL .. there's always next time.

Gynae appt ... 33 weeks ..

Went to see my gynae yesterday ... short appt .. had an ultrasound ... doesn't fail to fascinate me no matter how many times I've been pregnant ... I love seeing my baby on the monitor ... I saw her little feet .. so cute!

Doc claims my baby is still within the average weight ... 2.4 kg at 33 weeks ...

Not that I don't believe her ... but the last time she estimated Emily's weight the day before I gave birth, she said Emily would be about 3.2 to 3.4 kg ...

She was 3.9 kg at birth.

Friends later told me to switch gynaes ... lol.

I know it's just an estimate .. my friend who recently had her boy was also told by her gynae that her baby would be about 3 kg ... he was 3.4 kg at birth ... so I think that doctors are just basically making educated guesses .. based on what they see on the ultrasound monitors.

Why am I so concerned you ask? .. Guess I've read too many magazine articles where the baby was too big for the birth canal and well, needless to say .. it was a very painful experience for the mom.

My doc told me that if I wanted to ensure I won't have a big baby .. to control what I eat from now on ..

HUH. People always assume that just cos I'm BIG ... it must be cos I'm stuffing my face with food ALL THE TIME.

Eh, hallo ...

Right now, my appetite is just right ... I usually can't even finish my meal at the food court .. I haven't gained that much weight ... so I don't get it ... what I am supposed to do? Starve? ... Run 30 mins on the threadmill everyday till I deliver?

I was at a friend's place this morning .. her 6 year old son asked me whether I wanted to jump on his trampoline ... lol .. I politely declined and then he told me that I had a huge tummy ... lol :) Told him that I had a baby in there .. that's why aunty can't jump on his trampoline .. that and I'd probably wreck the thing with my weight ... pregnant or not ... hahaha :)

Obviously I'm getting senile ...

when I said I weighed myself everyday .. I must have conveniently forgotten that the last time I weighed myself WASN'T yesterday .. more like sometime early last week .. and in that time, I visited my 2 aunts for Hari Raya and was fed like there was no tomorrow on cookies and cakes and other food ...

So yes, I have gained weight .. YAY!!! .. I gained about 1.5 kg plus since my last weigh in .. awesome!! My total weight gain is now about 4kg .. at this rate, I am probably going to hit my usual 7-8 kg overall weight gain for pregnancy ...

I was kinda worried that I wasn't gaining weight .. how could that be when my tops seemed to be getting tighter .. it just didn't add up ..

Now I know .. forgetful ol me just FORGOT to weigh herself recently ... hahahahah :)

Pregnancy makes me forgetful it's so annoying .. :p

XXL in Singapore

We were at Vivocity on Sunday having lunch with my friend and her family ... after lunch, we strolled around for a bit .. I wanted to buy a maternity top or 2 to wear with my pants as the current ones I have .. well, they've gotten a bit tight ..

Everyday, I stand on my weighing scale .. my weight is still the same .. I've only gained 2kg from my prepregnancy weight .. BUT .. my tummy is expanding so alas .. there we were at Marton-Bell .. with me frantically rifling thru their racks of clothes TRYING to find something nice ..

The maternity stuff here sucks .. ok, that's not fair .. I just can't shop at the other shops here .. Thyme Maternity etc. The clothes are all way too small for big ol' me. DAMMIT.

Anyway, I managed to find 2 decent looking tops from Marton Bell (I only went there cos I KNEW they had bigger sizes) .. and went to put them on .. they were ok ..

They were labelled "XXL"

SIGH.

All my maternity stuff thus far .. I've bought online from Motherhood.com .. the stuff there is very nice .. and I wear an XL .. well, it is a US website .. AND the stuff is so reasonably priced too !! Here, I find the maternity stuff quite hideous at times and way overpriced. I had no choice but to buy here cos it's already way too late for me to order online at this point. I only have 8 weeks or so to go.

XXL ... sigh.

30 weeks pregnant with Lauren

See, it makes a difference ! .. This was me at 30 weeks pregnant with Lauren in 2004 (sob I was younger too then ... about 31)
I can't wear that top now. My stomach at 30 weeks with Emily and now with my 4th, is way bigger ..
Lauren was only 2.9 kg at birth though .. quite petite I thought .. lol

Emily was 3.9 kg and well, I don't know about his last baby ... praying she'll be less than 3.9kg .. hubby says my stomach is huge and he doesn't think I'll last another 8 weeks ... lol.

This photo was taken at one of my favourite places .. Colorado .. ok, I really like Colorado Springs .. but this was in Canon City .. the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park .. can u see the bridge behind me and the drop below? Awesome isn't it??



We stayed in the AFB there .. Petersen AFB to be exact .. they were having some Family Day the weekend we were there .. and they always have some kind of petting zoo type thing for kiddies .. Claudia loved those ... :) The weather was fantastic btw .. it was spring :)



Ok, I couldn't resist putting this pic up .. it's my beloved Dodge Grand Caraven .. 3.3 litres, huge, and well, a bit underpowered if you ask me since it was quite heavy ... but I loved it to bits .. it was so roomy !! You could just clamber into the 3rd row .. not like the MPVs here where you have to push forward the 2nd row to get into the last row seating.

Arghhhhh !

So we were at United Square yesterday walking around ... hubby decided that he was bored and wanted to take the girls out and so there we were.

When we got home, and we didn't get back late btw .. just a little past 2pm I think, and I opened our front door, I found 2 slips of paper on the floor telling me that the postman had been there to deliver my stuff but too bad I wasn't in so now I have to either arrange for a redelivery date or pick up the stuff myself from the PO.

Blardy hell. I was home all day this last week .. but noooooo, the postman didn't come.

I had been waiting and waiting for my stuff from Gap and Ralph Lauren to arrive and the ONE day we choose to go out ... they try to deliver my packages.

I cursed and swore. Hubby said if I had mentioned it, we would've stayed home to wait for them .. told him that was what I had been doing this last week and they didn't come to deliver it ... no way was I going to sit around on a Saturday waiting for Mr Postman ...

HUH.

Running out of time .. and names ..

ok .. so it's not that we're getting sick and tired of naming girls ... but hubby and I agree on so little names ... it's becoming IMPOSSIBLE to think of even ONE name for our new girl ...

SIGH

Do u know why my Golden Retriever is named "Isabel"? I so desperately wanted Claudia to be named that ... he disagreed ... so when we got a puppy, I insisted it be named "Isabel" .. lol. He agreed cos, well, it's a dog, what does he care what it's named? My Maltese is named "Kimmy" after Kimi Raikonen .. lol ... I thought it was a cutesy name that suited a small toy dog like Kimmy .. hubby was ok with it since to him, it was an F1 driver's name .. and it wasn't too cutesy like "Fifi" or something ...

As we had more kids, it became harder to think up of names that we could agree on.

I have 9 weeks to go and we have NOTHING.

I have this sinking feeling that we'll be at the hospital staring at our newborn's face .. desperately flipping through the pages of the book of baby names trying to come up with a name at the last minute .. or rather, trying to AGREE on a name ...

SIGH

I really like the name "Summer" .. but he doesn't like it at all. He likes the name "Eden" .. I think it's awful.

Celebrating Emily's birthday!

Emily turned 2 on the 28th of Sept ... I decided to forgo the party and just do a simple lunch with another friend whose girl also shares the same birthday (but different year) ... Everytime I throw a party ... it costs me between 1.2 - 1.4 k ... (SIGH) ... eg. Claudia's Jan party and Lauren's party last year each came up to about 1.4k ... how come, you ask? .. Well, there's the catering, the bouncy castle and the magician and the cake ... I love the cakes from The Patissier even though it's so darn expensive .. Claudia's cake cost me $250 .. hubby nearly had a heart attack .. lol!

So for Emily I decided we'd be cheap and have a nice decent lunch at Hog's Breath Cafe, eat cake and bring the birthday girl to Toys R Us to pick out anything she wants ... ok, so it was me that picked out the toys .. total damage for the afternoon was far less than 1.2k let me assure you .. lol !

It was a very enjoyable afternoon with the girls and hubby and our dear friends ... :)