a bit late (like a whole month, hehe) but finally got his class photo.

ha ha, class photo seyyy!

so serious, hor? macam harvard graduates liddat. ceh.

i skipped sending him for two days this week, coz i figure, heck it i’m at home, i might as well play with him. he and i, our own playgroup.

meant to bring him to many “enriching” places, such as the library, the beach, the park, bla bla… but erm, the idea of running after a mini tornado while fasting was a bit much for this SAHM tak berguna.

so the SAHM basically… stayed at home, indeed.

ok toodles. gonna go and do my motherly duty of lying down in front of the tv with my child. huahuahuaa!

(… damn, the hi-5 cast are too mesmerisingly attractive, what with their cute aussie accent and irrepressible chirpiness, plus all that enviable cleavage and smooth legs! – yes, even the two men.)

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it’s been a tough two days of fasting. (DUH!)

the thing about fasting during pregnancy is, you burp less. but while your stomach feels lighter, so does your head. and the empty stomach makes you feel like puking too, though there isn’t anything to spew.

ok, that’s my rant for today.

oh, and forget sembui. it seems that foods that i like are a brief fad now. for a while it was mustard. i could have it with anything (well, best with melted cheese on toasted bread) but that had lost its novelty. i think it’s pickles now. not sure what it’ll be next.

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i never bothered with sembui or asam masin (sour plums, etc) when i was pregnant with aniq, but this time round, i was compelled. and now i’m hooked. *gulp*

the damn aftertastes feel like it’s here to stay, especially with sweet foods and drinks. that sourish, acrid coating on the tongue after eating.

i felt a little cramp in the nether region this morning, and wonder if it’s from carrying aniq or the groceries yesterday. that boy, he doesn’t need to be carried, but it simply is much faster to get to our destination if he is.

there are two things toddlers simply refuse to understand the concept of:

a) timeliness
b) cleanliness

so they’ll dawdle and linger at whatever is holding their attention at that moment, nevermind that we’re running late for something and trying to rush him along. like, “what’s all this hurry-up business? stop and smell the roses, or at least this cute cat’s bum, for heaven’s sake!”

anyway, it’s past week 6 and yup, i still haven’t told my mum. whatever. she’ll figure it out, er, some day.

i wonder how i’m gonna cope with the fasting month. the crazy hunger pangs, or more like, attacks. the doc already mentioned during the first check up to go ahead and fast if i could, and pay fidyah and hutang puasa later.

let’s see how it goes. am glad i have this week at home to tide me over.

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thanks to the generosity of the home team ;) , we managed to squeeze in a highly subsidised 2D/1N weekend getaway to a resort in senai, johor before the start of the fasting month. it’s the hotel sofitel palm resort to be exact. just 60km away from singapore, it’s an ideal weekend getaway for us. joining us were the neos, with lil naufal and aniq around, the trip was a blast right from tuas all the way to senai!

the resort was swarming with singaporeans on the weekend! we could like see 90% of the carpark filled with singaporeans’ cars! the attraction is definitely the affordable golf course.

we arrived just after noon and since it was a free and easy tour, we were left to our own devices after lunch. although the lunch was a wee bit of a disappointment, at least the rooms were really cosy. claimed to be a 5-stars hotel, we weren’t really complaining. but i guess the best part of the getaway was definitely the night market!

yep, it’s been a while since i went to an authetic “down and dirty” night market. with lots of street hawkers’ food to choose from, i was in a food paradise! did i mention that the price is damn cheap too?? RM1 for a ramly burger! where in singapore can you get this price?

the night market is situated in the heart of senai, near the airport. the market sells everything from fried chicken, raw fish, fruits, dvds to even toys! it was really buzzing with activity. here, the johoreans seem to enjoy doing their marketing at night, wet market style!!

i bought a couple of snacks for dinner, but the wifey wasn’t really too enthusiastic about consuming food from street vendors where the hygiene is suspect. what do i care? i just swallow them all, hehe… sedap!! even aniq seems to enjoy the keropok lekor and fishballs.

the second day was spent lazing in the swimming pool in the morning. we left just after 3pm and reached home by 5pm. fuss-free. how’s that for a short getaway?

for more pictures of our fuss-free non-complaining, hot but chilling good time trip, check out my flickr here! 

ps: and we discovered yet another of aniq’s ‘hidden talents’ – table tennis! (unfortunately, the wifey selected the compact or low-quality video mode, doh.)

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tsk, 25 years old ONLY?! pfft.

am a temporary SAHM today, and maybe a few more days this week. so far, i’ve been right on schedule, as planned.

woke up, bathed the bub, sent him to playgroup, shopped for groceries, cooked his porridge (YES! I DID! MIRACLE O’ MIRACLES!), fetched him from playgroup, served his lunch (HE ATE MY PORRIDGE! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!), had his nap, did some ironing (and stopped at barely five pieces coz now i was hungry, but couldn’t bring myself to eat my own porridge, hurhur), made myself a grilled cheeseburger, made the bed, decided to ditch the ironing for a while, and errr, blogged.

ok, he’s up now, and we’re off to the &*%$ maid agency to sort things out. sigh.

maybe i should sign up as one myself.

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the first thing people would say is: “i hope you have a girl!”

and well, to tell you the truth, as i was telling izad the other day, i actually wouldn’t mind another boy, if he turns out just like aniq. to me, and this is the bias of a mother speaking of course, he’s just the kind of boy i’d always wanted, and thankfully got.

so THIS is the magic of The First Child, i said to izad, a first child himself. now i know why they’re always the most precious, even though all mothers in the world would deny, the most ‘special’ of all, by the mere virtue of being number one out of the womb.

of course, as all mothers would also know, all children who come out of their wombs WILL be different, and each will be ‘special’ in their own ways.

and i know this number two would most likely, from sheer observation and anecdotal evidence, be quite different, possibly even the polar opposite of number one. just like my brother and i are.

again, i stress that i don’t mind at all if the next one’s a boy. simply because:

a) there are so many hand-me-downs that would save us a bundle of money;
b) there’s already prior experience in handling one gender, not so much unknown territory to tread on;
c) there’ll be less pressure to churn out a “beauty” coz let’s face it, with boys it’s more about character than looks;
d) they could wrestle and mangle with each other for all i care.

so yeah, my expectations are set – low, lol!

now don’t tell me “i hope you have a girl.”

just say “i hope you have a whole and healthy child.”

amen.

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the highlights of the day were an adorable giant baby boy with a cool cast of twins as sisters, and a lovable giant “aunty robot” (as aniq now knows her as) with a cool cast on her leg.

but the little one had his own agenda, of course.

ring around the rosies!

take peekture!

the ladies too had their own agenda.

food!

well, since the donut craze is in the air, rin brought us to a donut shop at whitesands WHICH HAD NO QUEUE and we bought something like two dozens of the stuff. it was alright, tasted pretty good for non-queueing donuts, heh. my favourite had to be the one with the apple thingy on top – chilled.

Yummy Donuts?

and the little ones couldn’t help but dip their grubby hands in the sweet treats too.

Yucky Fingers!

been some time since the girls met up, cheered me up for a few hours at least.

or perhaps it was all that donut sugar that made me temporarily high. :)

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five weeks?! feels more like five months.

BURPPPP.

sigh.

the belly is protruding so much, so early on, it’s really scary.

and as you can tell from my rather disturbing absence, i have lost my funk, especially where blogging is concerned. the dam of gas accumulated in my bloated stomach makes me freaking groggy and sluggish, and i just wish i could dig a hole in my duvet and lie in there for nine months.

ok, i’m being over-dramatic.

i still haven’t told my mum. she hasnt been sleeping at nights, and has been cranky herself of late, so i thought i’d spare her the news for now.

the maid went back for good on weds, her contract of two years being up. well, it’s not due till two more weeks, but she desperately wanted to go home, so what can we do. the new one is, well, younger, and i think she’s overwhelmed by everything. really, you don’t expect to come here and sit around doing nothing except walk the dog, do you?! sigh.

i’m still wishing i could just quit and stay home. maybe open up a playgroup. or something.

but right now…

i just wanna lie down and do absolutely NOTHING.

BURRPPPPPP~

sigh.

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my (yes, the mummy’s) favourite room at home.

i’m thinking of moving his bed to this room, but then remembered we can’t coz it’s too big to squeeze through the door, unless we dismantle the whole bloody thing.

maybe we should get him a new big-boy kinda bed that would go with this room. like in a shape of a car or a train or something.

but would it be distracting to sleep here with all his toys surrounding him, beckoning him out of bed? will he be compelled to climb out of bed and play in the middle of the night?

i think i would! (if i weren’t so scared of the dark, ha ha.)

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so we did it. queued up for one whole hour just to try out the much-raved donuts at donut factory. i frankly found it rather insane to queue up for hours just to buy donuts. like i got nothing better to do. but curiosity got the better of me. just seeing the queue made me crazy, feels like the whole world got a secret and i’m not in the loop!!

apparently the queue wasn’t that long. i was like in the second tier of the queue so its ok as usually there will be another queue behind the second queue. there’s like 14 different types of donuts available costing $1.20-$1.30. its cheaper buying by the dozen (who wouldn’t, after queuing so long, its best if you buy at least a dozen) for $12.50.

the donuts are too pretty to be eaten. but fortunately they taste great. rather soft, doesn’t really taste like your normal dunkin donuts, but the filings are rather sweet. my personal favourite is the double chocolate, with dark chocolate filing, oozing out when you sink your teeth into it, simply sinful!

i bought a dozen of them, and they were wolfed down faster than you can say donut factory by my brothers who joined us for dinner. next time buy two dozens, said the wife.

the verdict? soft and tasty donuts but don’t expect me to queue up for them again. nope not even for you, aniq!!

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a lot of things have been happening lately.

amongst which, the frequent trips to the hospital has resumed.

CAT scans and what-nots. more drugs, more tubes, more senseless mumblings from the patient. (he keeps saying he’s falling, and he wants to go to penang, and other baffling stuff.)

apologies to those we’d promised to contribute to for the orphans’ outings, you know who you are. hope we can redeem ourselves another time. :(

will update with happy things. soon!

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it started with my body, especially the tummy area, which had grown out of proportion suddenly, in what seemed like mere days, jutting out unnaturally especially after a meal. even the areas around the hip and the back had packed on more meat than usual. weird, i thought. and i thought i’d been trying successfully to cut down on lunches lately.

lethargy then set foot, the overwhelming tendency to sleep or languish in bed or on the sofa. but i dismissed it as my then-depressed frame of mind, due to work matters. (i STILL am depressed at the thought.)

then the funny taste in the mouth, especially after having a meal of rice. that familiar metallic/chalky taste.

the burps, in increasing amounts.

and the threats of heartburn. that choked up feeling at the back of the throat, and the what seems to be perpetual hunger, which is rarely sated.

so when we popped by the pharmacy one night, i saw a two-for-one sale for the in-house brand of HPTs – only $4.95! – and grabbed it, making sure i had it hidden from sight from other customers. i don’t know why, but i thought it embarrasing to be seen holding HPTs while pushing a little toddler, barely two of age, as if i was being judged for careless family planning.

not that it wasn’t planned, really. i mean, we’d meant to have another one and all, of course. and some time within this year too. i’d actually ideally wanted to have this happen in november, so that it’ll come out in august next year, the same birth month as the daddy, to complement the first bub who has the same birth month as me.

we thought, with increasing age and our previous track record, we’d give it perhaps a three-month TTC window. ha ha. so much for that.

jackpot!

the first thing i thought was, “wait, didn’t we only just did it… err.. a few days ago or something??”

seriously. it was… puzzling.

so that was a monday night. i’d peed on one of the buy-one-get-one-free sticks, and both lines instantly appeared, very dark. thinking it was a faulty piece (thus the dodgy buy-one-get-one-free lelong), i peed on another one. again i watched as the wet streak made two dark lines.

and then i shouted out to the spouse.

“look! i think something’s wrong!”

he looked, and went “yey!”

it just kept getting weirder and weirder, i tell ya.

i made an appointment for our beloved tried-and-tested gynae for a saturday, and vowed to keep mum (again) this time round. though, i’m not sure how long i can keep up the charade though, coz from the looks of it, and i’m talking about my four-month-preggers belly, it won’t be long before they guess.

****

the day of the appointment came, and everything was, well, blase. it’s funny that we weren’t in awe or in terrible excitement, like we were the first time round when all this happened. i went in, took my weight (45.1kg), they pulled out my records, and we waited.

for two hours, that is, being a saturday. we had an active toddler this time round to make things ‘interesting’ though, so we ran around after him and he amused himself by playing with the bigger kids, as usual.

the check showed that the waterbag is present, and junior is still basically the size of a grain of rice, according to the doc.

“five weeks,” he proclaimed.

“huh?? are you sure??”

i counted back.

“i must have been unconscious when it happened, then!”

(yes, i said that out aloud.)

anyways, i haven’t told my mum yet. even after the checkup. i’m not sure i want to so soon yet, knowing her reaction would be one of concern and worry.

we’ll see.

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