Still the two of us..:)

Yay, we finally took some pix of Jin, me and week 38 baby in tummy.

Will tomorrow make Two become Three?

Meeting up with Olivia again..

It's been over one and a half years since we last saw liv, chloe and stephane..thankfully that through skype, we managed to keep in touch. They were in town last weekend for the great spore sale and we managed to do a meal at Jumbo followed by coffee at Dempsey Dome. Poor Chloe was exhausted as she had spent the whole day with her daddy at sentosa while her mummy contributed to the spore economy ;)

The same weekend, Jin and I attended a free opera event at Botanical Gardens..the setting was great and I had my spicy chicken nuggets to much on while baby got to listen to some opera :)

Still enjoying the time off work ;)

My 2nd week of pre-ML has just flown by. Besides trying to squeeze in an hour of nap time everyday, the highlights of the week :

1)Tues : Happy hours at Morton's

- could not drink the martini's but had the steak sandwiches and yummy jumbo crab dip with cheese bread. Here's Adora and me with our substitute "martini" mocktails :P

2) Wed : Fit class in the morning and Lunch with Neel at saddles club (it was nice as the place was half empty and the quietness with the greenary gave it a serene setting)

3) Thurs : Facial and dinner with Lin, Karen and Li Mei. The girls basically prepared the food..we had yong tau fu, lotus pork soup and it was nice that they insisted I did not have to lift a finger ;)

4) Friday : Lunch with colleagues at Liang Court. We had a feast of ramen and pork tonkatsu. Myra gave baby clothes from Carters and little socks..very cute!

We saw Dr Chin today and she wants us to go in next Tuesday to potentially induce baby. The conversation was quite funny..

Dr Chin : Ok, I think you come in Monday morning and we induce you..your hubby should take the day off, then you both go shopping, walk around, afternoon - take a nap and then evening, come back for a check and if not dilated, we pop another pill in.

Me : Why Monday NOT Tuesday?

Dr Chin : Oh, Tuesday also can..your GD control so good so I am OK..you can negotiate with me.monday or tuesday..but I dont want it to be another week.

Me : Oh tuesday then, cos Jin wants a July baby and Tuesday onwards is July

And it never occured to either Jin or me to ask what happens if baby is not induced..grrr..so after coming out of her clinic, I asked the nurse but they could not answer me, so I sent Jin back in to ask Dr Chin. Seems the reason to induce is so that we can avoid a situation where the baby can be in distress..meanwhile, we were told by Dr Chin to try nipple stimulation to create more Braxton Hicks contractions and that would hopefully bring the baby lower and engaged her by Tuesday..I know what my homework will be the next 4 days!!

4 more days, our baby might be out! with this in mind, our weekend calendar is suddenly filled with more things to do! so far, Jin has listed 6 things..we still need to get me a hairdryer and baby's room a dustbin..thankfully, I have washed her 2 car seat covers (hand washed and nose even bled due to hard work ;) and all her cloth books which Lynda sent back from US. I cant believe how many books she has now! It has filled up one whole box :)

Oh, and tomorrow, we get to interview the babysitter..dum de dum dum

Pre-maternity leave is FUN!

Have been living the tai tai life since the week started..it's actually pretty liberating waking up in the morning knowing that there's nothing urgent to do...and even when I wake up in the middle of the night, I dont feel so stress about not being able to fall back asleep cos I know I can always take an afternoon or mid morning nap during the course of the day :)

On the 1st day of pre-ML, I ran some errands like getting Mitsu in for a much needed wash and collecting baby stuff sent in by Lynda from US. Then I headed to Dome at Dempsey Hill for a afternoon latte..the apple crumble in the cakes display called out to me but I resisted and just enjoyed my latte with the rest of the non-working crowd at Dome..it dawned to me that there are a LOT of people who do not work :P

Mom came to spend 2 days with me and we did more tai tai things like long breakfast and watching KungFu Panda at 11am during the day..she also helped to decorate baby's room wall..here's the result of our afternoon masterpiece ;)..we were nice enough to let Jin paste one dragonfly so that he can say he was part of the team ;)

Jin and I also spent some time getting the rest of baby's cot ready...we could not resist putting up the crib bumper :D

Last weekend was pretty relaxing as well..Jin has been having some home made noodle craving so we went market shopping on Saturday and bought all the noodle ingredients. The end result was a yummy concoction of mushrooms, pork ribs, chicken, prawns with yellow noodles in a very tasteful broth.

My new found preggie friend, Adora got us some cupcakes from east coast so we went on sunday night to pick it up from her. Her hubby got her a new camera for her bday and he wanted to experiment it with pictures of our two preggie bumps. Here are some cute shots of our tummies at week 36 with out little baby girls in there!

Last working day till.....

Yesterday marked my last work day till after my maternity leave! It felt really weird clearing up my desk - I put everything away! Checked out how neat my desk looks :)..and I put a note on my monitor : Try not to make a mess! My hormones must be playing up cos I actually felt a twinge of regret taking my pre- maternity leave 2-3 weeks before baby is actually due. hehe, does that mean I secretly enjoy work and long hours? :p

Oh, groupM was so sweet to give me a bouquet of gerberas. Such happy cheerful flowers! Here's baby and me at 36 plus weeks!

I am writing this at 6am..last 3 nights, it seems that I have lost the ability to have a good night rest..my whole upper body aches and it's terribly hard to even try move in bed with a big tummy in the way. My friend said to me that what I am going through it normal and I should just be happy I have had a smooth blessed pregnancy todate :)..I actually could not agree more la ;)

I did experience some pregnancy symptoms : swollen hobbit feet (see below!) and have to go through GD test - pix of me belly and measuring baby's heart rate during a routined weekly CTG test. But thankfully, the morning sickness gave me a miss and my face looks like it still belongs to me :)

Another 2-3 weeks to go..I am going to be busy next week trying to complete all the 'before baby comes things to do list' :P. Here's a rare pix of Jin and me..hmm, that reminds me, got to get someone to help take more pictures of just the TWO of us..before this little bunny in me makes it THREE!

Catching up with friends and checking out new makan places...

With baby fastly approaching, I am once again arranging meet-ups with friends who we have not seen in months..and taking the opportunity to check out some new eating venues.

Invited Ed, Lilaine , baby Lukas and Kok Kee over for lunch yesterday. The last time we saw baby Lukas was when he was not even 1 yet and now he is already past 18 months! He can be such a cute boy when he wants to but as per all babies, they have their tantrum sessions. He cried non-stop in the car and sobbed himself to sleep after 2 smacks from his mom..lol..so funny :D

Angelshare @ Dempsey

Met up with Andrea and the girls last week as it was Andrea's 30th bday and she choose Angelshare after hearing about the good tiramisu they serve. Bday girl arrived more than 40 minutes late so we actually finished our meal by the time she arrived :D. For starters, we shared a calamari and chicken wings..I think we were pretty hungry cos the calamari tasted quite good. The rest of the mains which followed were so-so..nothing to yell about. Mine was the beef tenderloin and I tried Serene's pork loin which tasted better. And the tiramisu, hmm, truly nothing fantastic. Won't be visiting this place again :P

Wood @ Vivo

Mei Leng was in town last week so we decided to meet up at Vivo where I could shop around knowing that the girls WILL be late. We were supposed to meet at 730pm but ended up only meeting at 830pm ;). So my guess was right la..hehehe.

We started with 2 appetisers : mushrooms and satay. Mushroom was a combi of diff kind of mushrooms and I really liked it..but then again, anything with mushroom I sure like right? The satay was burned or over grilled..we commented on this and got a new serving..quite nice service :).

For mains, we had sakura chicken, duck, black cod and hot bowl rice with prawn. I liked the hot bowl rice the most..very tasteful. The rest of the dishes were OK. But service was good and the views were nice overlooking towards sentosa. After din, we headed to B&J and shared a banana split. :D

Chat Masala @ Greenwood

Just Jin and me catching up for Saturday lunch. We were the only patrons ..I think the food's northen indian..very yummy! we had an appetiser starter to share, a fluffy kind of nan, tandoori chicken and a creamy mushroom curry. Unfortunately, I dont remember any of the names of the meal as I am not very well versed with Northen Indian dishes. I do remember we had a ginger lassi and that was truly good. Overall, prices not cheap but will def revisit just for the good yogurt dishes.

Bak Chang festival

Today's the last day of the bak chang festival and I have been craving bak chang the whole week! So right after facial, I drove to Liang Seah Street and bought 2 bak chang - meat and nyonya flavour and added in a mango sago dessert for Jin and a double boiled hashima red date with gingko dessert for me..No idea why my dessert cost me $6.50..definitely over-priced for something from a froggy :p

When I was small, we used to eat bak chang dipped with sugar..I have no idea why seeing bak chang on its own is sweet enough. The meat bak chang we had today was nothing great but it helped satisfy a week old craving :)

GD? what GD?

2 Fridays ago, I went for my gestational diabetes test..had to fast from midnite till 9.30am, and then at the Glen lab, they made me go through 3 urine samples and 3 blood test on top of drinking a very strong glucose drink. This orange fanta tasting drink with tons of fizz was initially gulped down with much enthusiasm as I was soo parched from all the fasting..but halfway through the bottle, the high glucose effect took place and it was a sloow swallow process after that..happy to have finished every single last drop within the 5 minute span I was given (hard not to finish it as the nurse was watching me like a hawk :p )

Right after the test, I was sooo hungry, went straight and had a quick lunch at Dome followed by a banana split with 3 scoops of ice cream at B&Js..I guess that was my last indulgence of this pregnancy as come Monday, was called into gynae's clinic to be told that GD results came back +ve and I was to limit all happy desserts from my diet..sob sob sob..and to add to the pain of the news, I also had to prick my finger after every meal to test and record my blood sugar..SIGH!

Funny though, even after a week of monitoring and sneaking in small bite size sweetness into my diet, my readings have all been below the 'not good' level..jin says I should just have another pure indulgence just to check if the machine is working..hmm, sounds tempting. :D

Mark and Michelle visited over the weekend and we had a pot luck at our place. I supplied curry chicky and mutton from golden pillow along with a huge mango strudel bought from Ritz. Gail came with tuna salad, quiche and pasta . William made a very nice pork belly chinese dish and for dessert, green tea ice cream with red beans and rice balls just like what one would get in a fusion Jap restaurant. Here are the guys hard at work making dessert in the kitchen.

Watching our friend's kids at the party got me thinking again why would any sane, happily married couple wanna have kids..Ethan's at the age where he just has to question and say something back to everything thrown his way..and while they play, they also tend to fight and somehow, take turns to cry. Here are the kids being punished by Jimmy..trust me, they are not a bit remorseful..looks on their faces - pure hollywood stuff ;)

But I guess at the end of the day, their cute little faces trigger off a certain parental cell in our brains and we forget all their naughtiness and remember only their angelicness..here's ethan acting all cute and lovable next his uncle Jin..awwww :)

Next morning, we met up for brunch at Wine Company at evan's road..the ambience nice but food was not great..I think we will just stick to the cheese and wine next time :)