Illness Strikes

Down with sorethroat, cough and flu and more worried about my lil one than anything else !

Reading up on the internet on the effects of these illnesses to my fetus and the results are horrifying ! So, better stop reading else will be overcome with fear more that faith !

All I can do is pray that my lil one will be ok. After all with God EVERYTHING is possible.

Used to be before I had this baby that even though I was sick, I always pushed my body and mind to the limit. Didn't take Medical Leave all that often. In fact my boss in my current workplace had to order me to go home instead of me begging to take off. And it was only my first day at work!

Maybe it was our upbringing that caused us to be like that ! Remember daddy drumming into our ears "if you do not think you are sick, you will not be sick!" In other words, don't act sick !!! No pampering excessively!

But now I am surprised at myself. When did responsibility to my lil one superceed responsibility to work ! Not saying that I stop being responsible at work, but I don't put my work first anymore. Nor anything else (except God) for that matter.

Perhaps this is what becoming a mother is really like...and being a child of God. You see yourself only as an interceeder, the channel through which God will use to touch your child. In providing strength and love and wisdom to my lil one, I draw from God. And sacrifice is a word that is actually very simple...in fact it is not a sacrifice at all, it is just about giving.

I hope this kind of simple feelings will never be overwhelmed by naughtiness or talking back at a later stage! :)

But for now, dear Lord, in between my coughs and sneezes, please take care of my lil one!

My New House

Went to see my new house (still work in progress) last weekend. Pretty impressive coz the walls are all plastered now. So, hubby stopped the car and went in to have a look! (Guess it was safe enough to walk in now!) but since I was pregnant I had to stay in the car and peer left and right!

It looked rather short I have to say. I could see the backyard wall from the car !!!

The staircase is spiral to save space - so my little storeroom under the stairs must be really tiny! And hubby says the door to the storeroom is midget high! No way his tall frame will even go through it then! Sigh.....thinking all the cleaning and digging for stuff has to be done by me then!

But upstairs should be rather large we think.... hubby didn't go up to check it out! Next time round when we bring the camera, he says he will go up coz my peering is only eye level !!! And I am dying to have a feel (through hubby) of my master bedroom. See if my dream of a walk-in wardrobe is still possible!

We only have 2 bedrooms upstairs with a family room...compared to downstairs comprising the living room, dining, kitchen, wet kitchen, one bedroom and one bathroom. Looks like there is nothing much I can do with the place. We will most probably be living Ikea style...the compact part of Ikea's style at least!

But it will be some 2 years before we get to work on the house....money draining out again! But thankfully then we will have baby's expenses more or less accounted for.

All in God's timing, things work out perfectly !

"Mun Cheong Fan"

Went back to my hometown Ipoh last weekend. Mummy and daddy were so excited....coz NOW we can go to Tuck Kee and try the famous "Mun Cheong Fan". Mummy in her last wedding dinner(which was in KL) found out that some KL-ites actually go to Ipoh specially to eat this rice dish!

So, granting her wish, hubby, sis and I made our eating expedition back home.

Service was really bad that day....only could eat after 30-45 minutes!!! I guess coz they had to cook the rice and it took that long to cook! (Must be growing a special strain of rice and catchng a special chicken in as well!)

Oh yeah....the whole Mun Cheong package came with one whole chicken and some condiments as well.

So...here it is


This is the rice. (Duh!)

When the waiter first took it out and opened the lid, we all looked inside expecting some "miracle" of a dish. But all we saw was white rice. So, daddy asked him to mix it up.

He looked at us like we were talking nonsense. And then we realised why. THERE WAS NOTHING UNDERNEATH all that white rice but MORE white rice!

But truth be told....the rice was really nice on its own (or maybe I was just hungry!). It was nicely cooked with hint of ginger, garlic and sesame oil (I think). Quite worth the wait....

We had to wait another 10 minutes (actually I think it was longer than that...but shall not spoil their name any further....mummy says it is usually not that bad!) for the chicken.


It's actually "kampung" chicken ...steamed ! Nothing else needs to be said.

Apologies for the messiness.....we had vultures at our table!



And finally the condiments...... the tomatoes, cucumber and a ginger sauce.

The ginger sauce you have to ask for it actually. (Mummy is an expert in all the sauces they provide there!)

So...was it worth the trip and the wait ?

All I can say is....at least I have tried it !

Baby Turns

Yet another milestone...or so I thought!

Baby has turned. I was so happy when the gynae told me coz I have been askiing my lil one to turn since my last gynae visit.

But gynae said it so much as a matter of fact. He even said I would be in trouble if the baby has not turned by now!

So, euphoria was a little marred down.

Guess it's not really an extraordinary event! Nor was lil one being a good kid and turning due to my request (constant nagging actually) !

It's just an expected, matter-of-fact event.

Sigh....sometimes gynaes can take all the fun out of milestones (I shall still consider it one)!

No longer baby movements

Went to the bathroom, was about to lock the door when I looked down and couldn't see my entire feet!

I have always been dreading this day...THE DAY when my feet would disappear under me! And it is here alas!

But thankfully....I realised later that I couldn't see my feet coz I had to manouveur my body a bit to get the bathroom door closed. So, when I stand straight, I actually STILL CAN see my entire feet! THANK GOD!

Anyway....my lil one is not so lil anymore. Since the last week of my 7th month and now in the 1st week of my 8th month, I feel he is making LARGE WAVES inside of me. They are not funny and amazing anymore. They are more life ouch and ooohhh!

Only a few weeks back, this incident happened.
I was in snoozy land when suddenly I jumped out of bed coz I thought my sister was tapping me to wake up to go to work! When I was up, I looked around and the door was still closed. Only then did I realise that the 'taps' were actually internal and not external. My lil one was stretching just a little bit, I presume.
So, I happily went back to snoozy land to catch a few more hundred winks before my alarm clock rang.

However, now, tidal waves and count-down boxing moves from within do not allow me to get back to snoozy-land so quickly....if I get to at all!

My kid is not even born yet and I am feeling tired already! *yawn*....*yawn* What's next?

My Sister's Keeper

IRONY at its best is so well depicted in this book.

That death at the end of the day (or book) makes all the years (chapters) of heartaches, yelling, hurt and sadness seem so ridiculous.

The basic plot is about Anna who was conceived by in vitro fertilization so that she would be a genetic match for her older sister Kate, who was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia when she was 2 years old. When Anna was born, her cord blood was donated to her sister, but when the leukemia returned she then had to donate blood and bone marrow. When Kate's kidneys fail Anna is expected to donate a kidney to save her sister, but she hires a lawyer to be medically emancipated from her parents and gain the right to make the decision for herself. Her lawyer, Campbell Alexander, works for her pro bono.

The ending of the book is a page turner coz we want to know how the case turns out. But there are more surprises in store which are more important than the verdict of the case. If you want to know the ending, please go to My Sister's Keeper at Wikipedia.

There were 2 things that was mentioned in the book which caught my attention though. (I am para-phrasing)
1) In the face of adversity, the human strength is like a bamboo. You do not know how much weight it can take until it is fully tested.
2) We can never outgrow our children as fast as they can outgrow us.

Think about it.....