Motherhood....

I've heard some people say that motherhood is a journey, rather than a destination. Such wisdom - I totally agree, having just embarked on this journey. And my journey has been more of a transformation process...

Firstly, during pregnancy, my body slowly but surely grew into that of a whale-like proportions. Anyone who's ever been pregnant will attest to the fact that once your belly starts growing, you start to feel like a beached whale. Well, what did you expect with the extra 12-15kgs? And that is just the healthy weight gain that is recommended for a normal pregnancy. What about those who end up putting on more than than the recommended weight gain? You end up needing help getting out of bed, getting up from sitting on the floor (for whatever reason, you have decided to plonk your big whale-sized arse on the floor), having trouble putting on a pair sneakers on your own and even have issues with soaping your feet properly in the shower. Just to make sure you have no problems visualising what I am trying to say:

▲ beached humpback whale

The next stage of my transformation took the form of a lactating cow. In the first month, I was either feeding or pumping milk. That took precedence over washing my face, eating my meals, washing myself and making myself look decent. True story!

Baby was feeding once every 2 hours. And 2 hourly intervals were counted from the start of the feed before. So with baby on the breast for 30-45 mins, that leaves very little time in between feeds to do all those things I said in the paragraph above. At nights, we decided to give her feeds via bottle, since it was faster than feeding direct. And I woke up every 3 hours to express milk instead. During each pumping session, I was basically trying to squeeze every last drop of precious milk out to feed bub. And I mean, literally, squeeze. Coz after being on the pump (think if I remember correctly, it was about 20 minutes each side), I would express by hand just to get those last few drops out that usually escaped the pump. And when you're only getting 1-2oz of milk after 20 minutes on the pump, you start to have a new appreciation for the term "liquid gold".

It definitely wasn't what is depicted in the picture below:

Well, for starters, I didn't have a double pump. Secondly, my pump doesn't do handsfree. Thirdly, I also held a mirror so I could see the milk coming out. So definitely did not have any free hands to hold a liptstick to the face. 

Then came the 2nd month of baby's life. Freedom! Confinement was over and it was time for me to rejoin life outside the house. With a body that was still carrying a lot of pregnancy weight and water, hair that was constantly tied up because I felt sweaty all the time and feet that were still too big to fit any of my pre-pregnancy shoes, I ended up looking like the maid everytime we went out as a family. My husband was dressed nicely. The baby was dressed as cute as button. And I felt like the maid in my ill-fitting, in between sized clothes while I flip flopped around the mall with them. :( 

And so the motherhood transformation journey continues....

You Know You're Breastfeeding When...

1. you indiscrimately grab your breasts.... not in a sexual way, to check which boob has more milk....
2. you search your wardrobe for a top to wear that would allow you whip your boobs in the least time possible...and they aren't for your other half's benefit....
3. you look at a the pacifier not as a saviour but as a rival to your breastfeeding efforts.... 
4. you are "baby-trained", ie you wake up at about feeding time waiting for baby to wake up eventhough you haven't had quite enough sleep yet
5. new parts of your body hurt/tingle, that didn't before, when you touch cold water...
6. you say 'BF' and you don't mean bestfriend...
7. you shriek in the bathroom when your "faucets" turn on...
8. you understand where the expression "crying over spilt milk" comes from and it's not just an expression anymore... 
9. the amount of poop in your baby's diaper gives you a sense achievement - telling you that she had a good feed on the breast earlier....
10. you wonder if there was anyone else who might walk in through the door while you were nursing... don't people knock anymore?!

But it's all worth it....

Sleep Deprivation Is...

When you can't figure out if you used liquid body wash or shampoo on your hair while in the shower.. hurm....

Premium Parking

Did you know that most of CIMB's premium/preferred customers rode motorbikes? Nor did I, but it certainly looks that way from all the motorbikes parked at the TWO spots supposedly reserved for premier customers of the bank. Check out the photo below:

It's taken with my camera phone, so you have to squint a little to see round 'CIMB Preferred Customers Only' sign at the sidewalk, right behind all the bikes. Just in case you were wondering, this is the CIMB Lucky Garden branch.

CIMB was thoughtful - they reserved TWO spots! but alas, two spots are obviously not sufficient, not even for ONE car. 

Wonder what's the demographics of the preferred customers at other CIMB branches? 

Dong Dong Chiang!!!

Snake (1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001)

Positives: Intuitive, wise, perceptive and compassionate. Snakes prefer the finer things in life.

Negatives: Lazy and extravagant. These people may have a problem of depending on others.

Chinese Astrology Horoscope for the Snake in 2010: 
Snakes may not find 2010, the year of the Tiger, especially easy. The quick and often hectic pace may be unsettling for many Snakes. The best advice is to avoid resisting change at all costs, as the more Snakes resist, the harder their struggles will be! Snakes are usually more comfortable in a Yin year and 2010 is a Yang one. However, Snakes have the ability to control or master Metal, so although the overall forecast is an uncomfortable year, it does not bring challenges that Snakes cannot handle masterfully.

I got the above from here. It's not great, but hopefully it'll just be a better year than the last. So let's wait and see. Feel like getting loads and loads of 'dong dong chiang' decor for the house - a trip to Petaling Street beckons. This year the first day of Chinese New Year also falls on the same day as Valentine's Day. So there goes my plans for something special to mark the 10 years the husband and I would have been together (not married, just since we started dating till now). 10 years = 1 decade = wah, damn long time!

Anyways, my logo for the coming festivities:

As 2009 Comes To A Close...

Can't help but reflect on the year that it was...

The year 2009 closes having jotted down the saddest event in my life. Before the saddest event happened, there were the happiest moments of anticipation. Not sure how I've gotten to where I am now, following that time, but will put it down to lotsa support from the husband, family and friends. I can't say I've totally gotten over it, I guess one never ever completely "gets over" something like that... and there are still things I struggle to do because it brings back tidal waves of emotions. Nonetheless, I have, at least, been able to become a more functional human being in my daily life, ie, being able to wake up, get dressed, go to work, enjoy company from friends, have decent conversation, etc.

So here's hoping that such things will never repeat itself in my life ever again and with such hopes, I look to the year 2010 with much trepidation.

In the later part of this year, husband and I also had the grand opportunity to travel to parts of Europe, including the slightly harder to access, Eastern Europe. Our travel itinerary included our base in Amsterdam, where my cousin lived (free accomodation - yay), London, where husband's cousins lived, then Berlin and Prague before looping back to Amsterdam.

▲ Husband sitting at window of Wei's apartment, overlooking the 

Lijnbaansgracht in Amsterdam 

We really enjoyed Amsterdam, the canals were pretty, the people were English speaking and the place was easy to navigate. Maybe it also helped that we had a super host :) - thanks Wei! I also especially enjoyed the one day roadtrip we took - driving a rented car to Broke-in-Waterland, Zaanse Shans and Rotterdam. And Gav got a first hand experience at driving on the other side of the road in a manual car!

▲ Windmill at Zaanse Shans, very pretty. We went into a paint grinding 

windmill, where they make paint in powder form, using the wind power 

for the grinding process

Berlin was a sobering city and yet we had the most fun city tour on a Segway! Our tour guide was a Bangladeshi dude who had lived and worked in London in the IT department of one of the biggest investment banks before taking a hasta-la-vista package to go live his dreams of playing in a band in Berlin and being a Segway tour guide!

▲ On our Segways on the front lawns of the Reischtag, Gav - stop grabbing my boob... ggrrr

oh ya, one thing we didn't manage to do was to climb up into the glass dome above the Reischtag!

Prague? It felt like we were on the set of a Vampire movie in Transylvania... hehe.. with all the castles, gothic structures and cobblestone roads. It was pretty and quite surreal, really. But the people aren't the friendliest nor the most helpful.

  

▲ the outside and inside of the church (forgot the name) at the Prague Castle

Fast forward to December in the last week or so.... it has been a crazy flurry of non-stop eating! omg.... it's like Chinese New Year where everyday is a celebration... and so we have been eating and drinking our way from Christmas till New Year's!

There was Christmas-cum-moving-in breakfast, then Christmas lunch, then Christmas lok-lok dinner, then Wedding lunch, then followed by a no occassion dinner, then farewell Steamboat dinner, then Sang Ha Meen dinner...

Tonite there'll be NYE buffet dinner and drinks, and then a NY's day lok lok party for the cousins with bonus entertainment from a live band tomorrow! What a way to start the new year!

▲ Cheers! Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Seng!

Addiction

From dictionary.com:

–noun

the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

From wikipedia:

The term "addiction" is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence, such as: drug addiction (e.g. alcoholism, nicotine addiction), problem gambling, crime, money, work addiction, compulsive overeating, computer addiction, video game addiction, pornography addiction, television addiction, etc.
In medical terminology, an addiction is a chronic neurobiologic disorder that has genetic, psychosocial, and environmental dimensions and is characterized by one of the following: the continued use of a substance despite its detrimental effects...

ya... i think i am addicted to Grey's Anatomy.... it definitely is habit forming, despite knowing that it's not good for me... cause it keeps me awake at night.. i can't sleep after a tear jerking episode... as a result, i send weird emails my husband explaining my emotional state at 2am in the morning....

SPOILER ALERT!!

after the first 2 episodes of the new season 6, i told myself, i think i shall not watch Grey's for awhile... maybe until i have better controls of my emotions (dunno when?)... gosh, the start of season 6 was so emotionally wrenching, George dies a horrible but heroic death.... good thing Izzy survives her cancer (for now)....

oh ya - the other bits that kept me glued to Grey's was also attempts at trying to spot the extra pregnancy weight on Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) and Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh). I think they were pregnant or was Mer still pregnant during filming? is it my imagination or are the cameras just concentrating on headshots of Mer? and they do look like they are rounder at the face and the hips... I haven't checked gossip news on the internet to confirm - anyone? 

so anyhow, I managed to not watch it for a few days, but it got the better of me yesterday night. I had told myself earlier that I was only going to watch House instead of Grey's for now, but I think I am just addicted to seeing all my favourite doctors in action. I told my husband, "aiyo, i'm so curious...." as I turned it on... and as promising as Ep. 3 started off, with the chirpy soundtrack and all, it ended with a paed-cum-plastic surgery case where they had to reattach the arm of a newborn baby born at 32 weeks..... 

:*(

screenshot from George's funeral scene

New and First

(just found this post still sitting in draft... so in an attempt to revive my blog... here it is... and hopefully to more to come... *fingers crossed*)

Learnt a new fact today - that I only have enough haemoglobin for myself, not enough to be a donor.

haemoglobin: (pronounced 'hair-more-glow-bin') the red blood cells, ones that carry oxygen around in your body...

I have a haemoglobin reading of 12.6 which is just borderline anemic.

And did my first organised run since December 2007 over the weekend - the Adidas King of the Road run. Signed up for the 11km run, but it ended up being 12km (according to my Polar watch and footpod). It was a pretty good run, considering I have felt worse during other 10km runs where am struggling to finish and feeling the pain at each step. Neverthelesss, during this run, I got a stitch on the right side of my tummy quite early on, and it wouldn't go away for a long time, despite my efforts to try and take in each deep breath. So I skipped both the drink stations, not wanting to make it any worse, because after many km's I was starting to get affected by it. But at the 2nd drink station, my sister ran up to me with a cup of 100+ which i took a mouthful of. Thanks sis!

Anyways, after that 2nd drink station, which was about 7.7km, and not even noticing that the stitch had disappeared, I got into my groove. Each step just felt really good, like I could keep going forever...I kept checking my pace and surprisingly, I hadn't slowed down that much and was even faster than what i usually run during my training runs. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that i didn't lose steam if I was going too fast. And then when the stadium loomed into sight, it was a relief, but I still had to pace myself to make sure I could make it to the finishing line.

It was a looong finish... ie the last leg of the run that takes the runners through the tunnel to get into the stadium grounds were so looong, and dark... ! but finally... I MADE IT!

The run was dedicated to Kirby.