Bits n pieces

I am officially on leave from today till February next year, which means I can officially be "bochup" about work.

But my boss seems to not get it in his head yet that I'm on leave already and he is still sending me emails. He's an old man, maybe he needs loads of reminding or maybe he refuses to accept the fact that I won't be around for 4-plus months lol. 

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The countdown went from months to weeks and now it's reduced to days. Part excited, part jittery! 

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The ideas, comments and opinions are coming in already. To bring up your child, you should do this and that, you can't do this and that, you need to feed your child this and that, you must train your child on this and that, you must do it this way, you have to, etc....

Keeping fingers crossed that I have the patience to deal with all of these going forward. 

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Am wondering. Now that my appetite has expanded, will I be able to get it back to usual pre-pregnancy levels after I deliver? 

Hmmm...

It's interesting to note how some folks consciously or sub-consciously self-invite themselves to your functions. Functions which you have not even started planning for.

Before I had my wedding dinner, I heard these: 

"Must remember to invite me to your wedding ok!"

Or

"When are you holding your dinner? I want to be there."

And now, even before Little Baby is born: 

"I'm sure you'll be having a manyue celebration right? 记得要请我ok"

Or

"You're having the one-month old celebration right? You can return the stuff (which I lent you earlier) to me then."

Hmmm...lol. 

Big Smile of the Day - Part II

We saw Dr Tan earlier this afternoon and Little Baby is now 2.7-2.8kg. And she's still growing rapidly. Jiayou and grow well little one!

Tell Mummy what you wish to eat too so that Daddy can go get it for us. :D :D :D

Big Smile of the Day - Part I

Tada! A lovely pot of sweet basil. With big, fat and fragrant leaves lol.

Thank you Ally!! :))) I love the colour of the pot too! Yay! 

New perspectives

Oh lookie, I found me a new mini desk. :D

小猪猪

Cute ter-kia from 大中国. Given to me by a colleague last Thursday and gobbled up by Saturday. :) 

Voila...36 weeks

Let's see now...pregnancy changes your body in ways you didn't know quite possible lol.

1. The aircon is on right now. I'm still sweating like a pig and feeling like I'm in an oven. Yep, I know, I'm hot. 

2. I'm getting skin discolourations in several places, some of which I shan't mention here. Even the backs of my thighs have brown patches running down them now. Uglification. Is there such a word?

3. Little bumps, some colourless, some brown, seem to enjoy popping up all over my chest and belly. Most have been long term occupiers since several months back. A few new tenants seem to prefer setting up camp on my cheekbones instead. And I can't evict them at all, stop short of carving them out with a blade or something.

4. Sitting demurely is quite out of the question now. I can't even keep my knees together for more than 5mins. Oh, to hell with it, if I'm in a dress and my knickers are saying hi to the world, so be it. 

5. The last time I felt the coppery taste of blood running down my throat was when I was still in primary school. I felt it twice again in the last couple of weeks. The doc said it's common with expectant ladies. Afterall, we're carrying an extra 30-40% more blood volume than usual. 

6. I've always had a healthy appetite. But. I never knew I could eat so much. 

7. Breathlessness in these last few weeks is a definite bane. At times, the huffing and puffing I go through almost convinces me that I've morphed into an old woman. 

8. I'm pretty amazed at the elasticity of the human skin. Enough said. 

9. I seem to be taking copious amounts of water in a day, like averaging 2L or maybe more a day or so, and I still feel thirsty sometimes. 

10. And the list goes on...nausea, tiredness, on and off constipation...

Less than 3 weeks to go. 

Ganbatte Michelle! 

Slap in the face?

The irony of it. I made a big boo boo in my own paper. So maybe I don't have the right anymore to chastise people when they don't do typo n grammar checks for their papers.

SIGH. Bleah

O.M.G.

Woke this morning thinking:

OMG. 3.5weeks left to D-Day. 

职业病?

I have been editing and proof-reading alot of reports and papers since last week. It irks me immeasurably that people don't bother to check for consistency, typos, grammatical errors and other mistakes in their documents. These are to be submitted to the Board leh and you churn out such stuff with glaring errors? Sigh. 

Are my expectations high? I don't think so. It's kinda like, how can I take you seriously if you don't even bother with the most basic of report and paper writing? 

More Preparations

Kettles and flasks cleaned and used and ready.

Clothes, nappies and blankets washed and in the midst of drying. 

Unpacking the milk bottles now lol...and trying to make sense of them all. Different sizes and colours and shapes! 

Motivation

I have zero affinity with ironing. Never liked it, especially when my mum forced me to do it when I was a teenager. Spent awhile ironing this morning and was feeling bored and restless till I found a way to motivate myself muahahahha. 

I know I'm not supposed to snack while pregnant but once in a looooooong while is ok lah. Right? :D 

Besides, the last time I ever had Twisties was years ago! 

Preparations and Counting Down

The cot has arrived!

More preps are underway. Unpacking the things we'd bought and putting them away into storage boxes or shelves or drawers. Washing up the new hot flask, using the airpot, testing the warmer, washing the baby's clothes and linen, etc. Clearing up other things we don't need.

Counting down. Suddenly it went from a few months down the road to...ack....4.5 weeks down the road only. 

Improvisation

When you forget to bring your hair clip to work, a plastic paper clip works fine too! Lol. 

Early Morning Conversation

MIL: You're getting more tired is it?
me: Ya. I'm not sleeping well also lah.
MIL: How come?
me: *cites several reasons*
MIL: I see. Ya lah, it also happens when you're more advanced in age when you get pregnant.
me: *nods*


Ack...
This is the first time someone has used this term on me......."more advanced in age"........

*wails*  :(

Losing some zen

Tigers and Monkeys are directly  opposite each other in the Chinese Zodiac. As such, people of these signs apparently don't get along with each other. 

I find it somewhat true, especially in my relationships with Tigers born in 1974. While things are generally ok, sometimes situations get a little testy. I'm fine with older Tigers though, maybe with age comes more tolerance as well and they are more toned down compared to their younger counterparts. 

Just had a testy conversation with a teammate. Well, at least I found it testy, my hackles were slightly raised, tone of voice was different from normal though I still kept a restrained, neutral face. 

Lun. Maybe it's just me who's been a little impatient and quick to fly off the handle this week. Maybe I should manage myself (and my surge of hormones) more. 

Laugh of the Day

My in-house legal counsel just realized that I'm pregnant. Lol and he has seen me on several occasions in the last few months, at least 5-6 times, if not more. It took him so long to realize and he called himself a dimwit hahaa.

Les Moutons

Found these pics online and I think they're hilariously cute.

Breathe in, breathe out

Bad Monday so far.

Bad jam in the morning. 1h15mins on the bus made me quite queasy. 

Then HR told me "too bad, public holidays during your maternity leave won't be compensated for." There's at least 3 days of PH during my ML. That's half a week!!

And then the bloody Yong tau fu stall got my lunch order very wrong. Redid my order and but then found out that they shortchanged me 2 items. NB. 

Breathe in, breathe out. 

Granny

Came by to see granny and found her in such an odd sleeping position. Well, whatever makes her comfy. :)

The nurses just applied moisturizing lotion all over her. I appreciate that as it helps keep her skin hydrated and not so dry. When her skin gets too dry, it gets itchy and she scratches herself, more often than not with too much strength and then her skin breaks and sometimes festers into small sores, which bring her even more discomfort. 

She has not called my name since the start of this year. In fact, she's not called nor recognized any of us since then as well. Breaks my heart. I think Dad feels upset about it as well but tries not to show it too much.

When I started to show a few months back, I told her that I'm pregnant with her great-grandchild and got her to feel my belly. I hoped she understood it then. She could still catch our gazes at that point in time. Now when I'm bigger, she doesn't even want to look at us at all and usually just sleeps. Even when having her lunch, her eyes are mostly closed. 

Right now, she's just staring into space and not responding when I try to speak to her. She just nods but she doesn't really register anything. 

And lately, according to the nurses, she's taken to biting things. She just chewed her pillowcase. It's really a second childhood of sorts, she's like a teething baby now. 

Sigh. When LB is old enough to be brought out, I'll bring her to see her great-grandmother first. And we'll definitely need to take a picture with my Dad as well, 4 generations in one pic. Yes, that has to be done.