I Resolve

As usual, I have my new year resolutions.

*drumrolls*

And here they are, in no particular order:

1. I will try to make my table at work as neat as possible and ensure that there's always a working space so that I don't have to resort to working at other people's tables (which is what I have been doing for the past 5.5 years).

2. I will try to kill on sight all lizards that have been shitting all over my house and living rent-free in my cornices. (Why on earth do we have cornices in the first place??)

3. I will remember to wash my face with facial soap daily so that pimples the size of a 2-carat diamond will not grow on my forehead.

4. I will think of and prepare and iron clothes to wear for work before I sleep every night.

Okay. So, those are my new year reolutions. Let's see if I succeed. (Normally, I don't.)


By the way, I'm such a failure at shopping. I only got 3 little pairs of socks for Huda on Monday's shopping trip. I think I'll drag the husband to Great World City this weekend where there're lots of baby stuff and baby shops and we'll see how successful I am at getting stuff for Huda.

I also want to shop for myself. I am really a lousy shopper. There was even one time when I had to set a target for myself. I told myself that I couldn't go home until I've racked up $300 worth of purchases. Needless to say, I failed. Tsk, tsk tsk...

Shopping Time

It's the day after Christmas and it's the time of the year when there are sales everywhere.

I'm not very much into shopping but I have to go today cos I need to get started on stuff for Huda. We've actually bought the cot a long time ago when there was a cot going for only $99 and it came with a mosquito net. Isn't that a good deal, or what? Other than that, we have not bought anything else.

I honestly do not know what to get. When I went to Kiddy Palace a few weeks back with my mother, we saw a whole range of stuff we never knew existed! So, I made a mental list of all the things I saw and would discuss with the husband the usefulness of such things. Of course, with my memory not cooperating with me much, all I can remember from the list is this little net-like thing that will hold the baby in place when she's having a bath. It's good, I think, because her head will always be way above the surface of the water.

I don't think I need that many clothes because I'm gonna get hand-me-downs from my sister. Babies don't need that many pieces of clothings, do they? I'm actually quite afraid of getting started because I won't know how to stop. I'm afraid of getting a mountain of newborn-size baby clothes from Mothercare which Huda will most probably wear only once or never at all if she happens to quickly outgrow the clothes. And, should I go really crazy and do get started on the buying spree, I'm quite sure that I'll go home with enough dresses for Huda to last her for at least the first 3 to 4 years of her life. I'm quite certain this may just happen because each time I go to Kiddy Palace, I'll linger at a rack where they hang a pretty little comfortable-looking-and-feeling elegant white dress which has these tiny little pink rosettes sewn at the hem. Ouh.. It's so pretty.

So, I'm going shopping. With my sister. Who does not really help me much in the self-control department.

We'll see what I end up bringing home.

Kena Spammed

Huaarrrggghhhhh!!!!

The only person who knows about my blog so far is my husband.

But, look at the comments left 2 postings ago. It's a spam!!! Huaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

And I - whose knowledge of IT and electronics is so limited that switching on the TV can sometimes be problematic all thanks to the husband who has hooked up the TV to all sorts of toys and contraptions ranging from 2 (yes, 2!) DVD players to 2 Playstations (yes, 2!), an X-Box (only 1 - would you believe it??), a cable TV set-top box (about the only thing I appreciate) and lots of speakers whose functions I can never figure out - do not know how to get rid of the spam comment.

*groans*

Post-Script: I just realised that one of the DVD players has left our residence; it's kinda like on permanent loan to another household. Apparently it's because the husband wants to buy another gadget so he needs to free up the space. He was talking about getting an amplifier once when we were at Mustafa Centre. Ummm.. why would anyone need an amplifier? No, husband. That's just a rhetorical question. I really do not need to know the sciences behind an amplifier, much less the reason why anyone would want to have an amplifier.

Hanging Out

I think, there's a very good reason why my tummy is still small.

One of my favouritest chores in the whole wide world is hanging out the newly-washed clothes in the hot sun.

And I'm very particular about that. I want the clothes to be hung a certain way. For example, on days when I wash the coloured clothes, I'll make sure that all the red clothes are on one pole, all the blacks on another et cetera et cetera et cetera. The anal-retentive person that I am will also make sure that on each pole, only the same-coloured and type of clothes pegs are used. My husband used to find this so amusing and he would purposely annoy me by changing some of the pegs after I'd hung the clothes out. (Yes, I know pstchologists/psychiatrists - can never figure out which is which - would love to use me as their subject.) Anyway, what's the point of me writing this down? Oh, I remember, the joys of hanging the laundry out. (Let me digress a bit further - my memory's failing me big time of late.)

Aaaaanyway, coming back to the main topic - I enjoy hanging out the laundry - just realised that I may be a control-freak and that's why I enjoy hanging the clothes just so. Digress digress digress. That's all I do.

Aaaaaaaanyway, really really coming back to the main point - now what was it? Argh! Forget it. I'm not even gonna try going back to it. I can't remember why I'm talking about this in the first place.

Hydro Power

I have a little test I do daily to see if I'm hydrated enough or not.

I'll start touching my lips and feel if they are chapped and dry. If I can actually pull out the scaly bits, that means, I have not had enough to drink. There are days when I could pull out huge sections of dry scaly bits measuring up to 0.8cm in diameter. That's not very good, is it?

But, could it possibly be a problem unrelated to dehydration?

I picked this up from the Net:

"Nutritional deficiencies—such as those of B-complex vitamins and iron—can play a part in scaling of the lips. So make sure you're okay on that front with a multivitamin supplement," says Dr. Novick.

I was already complaining about the possibility that I may be iron-deficient. Could this chapped lips problem be due to an iron deficiency?

Oh well, the solution is to eat my vitamin supplements and drink gallons of water daily.

Return of the First Trimester

The light-headedness was soon replaced by a pounding headache accompanied by non-stop vomiting. (The poor husband had to clear up the mess.)

Slept at 8.30pm last night and when I woke up, the headache had left the left side of my head but was still ruling over the right side.

*sigh*

This is Week 21, Day 4 of my pregnancy. I am waaaaaay past my first trimester. Isn't it time for the throwing up and headache to end?

Fly Me to the Moon

Yesterday, I felt so light-headed. Literally. I couldn't keep my balance and had to hold on ot the walls for support. At first, I thought it was because I was spending way too much time playing Runescape on the computer. So, a good night's sleep should cure it, yes?

No. It didn't. Woke up in the morning feeling very much the same. I even vomited out the glass of water that I had the moment I got out of bed. Vomiting is a strange thing, I find. I had half a glass of water. The first spurt of vomit was about half a glass of water. I didn't really measure the amount but it should be about there. Then came the second and third waves. Where did all this water come from? How can I be well-hydrated like this? Chet.

Anyway, coming back to this light-headedness. I went back to bed after seeing the husband off to work. And I remembered what I read in the pregnancy books. I'll be producing 50% more blood by the end of my pregnancy. With all the blood needed, I absolutely must take my vitamin supplements. But, I find those things really vile. The iron tablets are huge and somehow when I used to take them, they always came out in my vomit. Little pinkish stuff. Euw. Still, that's no excuse. I must start taking them again. Euw euw euw!

So, with the prevailing condition, it seems like I have to give up the picnic with Ai Li, Yingchia and gang today. Bummer. It would have been quite fun. Haven't had a picnic for the longest time! I absolutely miss cycling - although I'm not sure if I can cycle what with being pregnant and all. Is it okay for preggers to cycle? Well, I don't look pregnant and there's barely any tummy to speak of.

I met some friends last Saturday and they had no clue I'm pregnant. Elyana thought my due date was a long way off and she was quite surprised to find that I was already 5 months along. Amelia couldn't believe it either when I saw her sometime last week. Ah, well, it will have to show soon. Huda, you better start growing! (Well, the mother has to start eating well first, right?)

21-week old

Little Huda in the womb is almost 21-week old. The sonographer and another doctor say that she's a tad bit too small but my own gynae says it's okay because I am small. Still, I will try my mighty best to eat and eat and eat to make sure that she's all okay. Especially because my mother has been telling me how it's not easy taking care of an infant that's too small. My colleague told me to drink Anmum. She drank that when she had to have her baby induced earlier than the EDD and her baby's weight shot up significantly.

Talking about small infants - I don't quite have the confidence to carry little things that have just seen the world. I feel that they are just way too fragile and butter-fingers me may just drop them. Silly thoughts, I know. After all, have you ever heard of anybody dropping babies accidentally?

The pregnancy journey has been most interesting. The first trimester was challenging, with the stomach's inability to keep food in and the subsequent projectile vomiting. So bad that I had to be hospitalised for dehydration. Well, you would be dehydrated too if you couldn't even keep a gulp of water in. Besides the vomiting, there were other unsavoury feelings too such as bloatedness, stomach discomfort and the terrible taste of saliva. It was still the same saliva that I had been producing all my life, but, all these pregnancy hormones just left my tastebuds out of whack. And there was also the frequent fatigue. Oh, it was torture going anywhere! I just went to work and came back - in a taxi all the time.

The vomiting subsided somewhat in the 15th week, just in time for Hari Raya. But it didn't go away completely, of course. It lurked beneath the surface and projected itself at the most inappropriate of times.

Now, the symptoms are slowly going away. The bump is beginning to show (finally!) - no one believes that I'm 5-month pregnant when I have nothing to show for it. The husband noticed that I'm rubbing my tummy a lot these days. Sometimes, it's because I feel a slight discomfort and rubbing it helps. But most of the times, I really don't know why I'm rubbing my tummy especially in public places. It can look really weird, I'm sure, especially because you have to peer real hard to spot the bump and I think I look like I've just enjoyed a hearty meal and rubbing my tummy to prove the point.

I'm also talking a lot to little Huda nowadays. It's really not that difficult talking to the baby in the womb when you've been talking to yourself all your life. I'm not kidding. I talk to myself. When I was younger, I would talk to myself in the lift (provided I was all alone lah). Then my family moved and it was not convenient taking the lift. So, I would talk to myself on the way to the MRT station. Of course, I made sure that there was no one around. Once, I was talking to myself and there was a cyclist approaching me from behind. He was a stealth biker, I tell you. And as soon as he overtook me, he almost fell off his bike when he realised that normal-looking me was talking to myself!

Anyway, it's much easier talking to Huda now that I know her gender. That's because we've already shortlisted a few names for girls and I, without consulting the husband, settled on Huda. Heh. I like the name leh. If Huda had been a boy, it would be slightly trickier cos we don't exactly have names for boys. Having a name gives her an identity. She's not just some random baby girl. She's Huda, our baby girl. So, when you talk to her and you go, "Huda..." instead of 'Baby girl...", she knows (I hope) that we're talking to her and not some other babies passing by.

I try to speak to her in Malay because I intend to be the Malay-speaking parent and my husband, the English-speaking parent. I don't know how long this resolve will last but if all else fails, I'll just have to beg my parents to speak to Huda in Malay and not be influenced by their angmoh-wannabe children who speak either English or Singlish all the time. Or, I will play P Ramlee movies all the time at home. And only switch on the TV to RTM channels, not Suria cos Suria's Malay sounds too anglicised. And IKIM radio station. Okay, you get the drift.

You see, the husband and I feel that as long as we live in Singapore, our child/ren will not have any trouble picking up English. The problem is their Mother Tongue language. I get pretty icky when I see parents proudly proclaiming that their children cannot speak Malay. So, as much as possible, we want the child/ren to have an early exposure to their own Mother Tongue. And this is also why we won't be Mummy and Daddy or Mama and Papa. But we are gonna be good 'ol Mak and Abah/Ayah. (The husband has not decided what he wants to be called. If he's still indecisive by April, he'll be called Abaya.)

And now, the washing machine is done and I'm gonna hang the laundry out to dry. I just hope it won't rain. Do you think it will rain today, Huda?