Gigi's 1st Birthday Party

Gigi celebrated her 1st birthday today, almost a week ahead of schedule since the actual day falls on a Friday. Swana and Kevin booked the restaurant Spizzico for 70 people but it was mainly an adult party.





On the menu was prosciutto with melon, rocket salad, assorted pizzas, fried calamari, spaghetti, lasagna, mushroom soup, tiramisu etc. The restaurant was most accommodating and hospitable and I think everyone enjoyed the food.



Jamie and Vel chipped in to decorate the place with lovely pink floral arrangements and whilst setting up, a car and a lorry had an accident right in front of us. I heard the bang but missed the actual collision.



There was some entertainment for the kids in the form of Sweetheart the Clown whose deft fingers churned out balloon sculptures in seconds. Even Gigi appeared to be enthralled by a talking pink bird!





The chocolate cake was courtesy of the restaurant and not long after the cake-cutting, Gigi and Nat conked out on their respective strollers. Headed to Membina after the party where Aunty Mok, Selena and Isabelle joined us. It was nice to see Isabelle interacting with her little cousins, we should make more of an effort to see her.




Gigi has yet to open her presents, waiting for the actual day. But Ann got her the colourful balls and they've transformed her playpen into a ballzone. Problem is, that Gigi and Nat love throwing the balls out resulting in balls all over the living room floor!

Picnic with the Godparents

Since Nick was occupied all weekend with the NATAS fair, Ben and Wendy offered to bring the munchkin out today to the Botanical Gardens, her very first picnic. They made sandwiches, and brought coffee, tea and juice and we parked our butts on the grassy field in front of the Symphony stage.




At one point it threatened to rain, but thankfully the weather held up. Don't think Nat really understood what a picnic was but she had fun soaking the sun, and seeing the fish and squirrels. She munched on cereal and biscuits and after about an hour or so, we packed up and decided to hit Vivo in search of shoes for Wendy.

On the way out, Nat got to pet a dog, I think that's another first for her. She was hesitant but the owner was patient.



At Vivo, we hunted high and low for shoes, and finally I found a store that had a wide selection. Wendy bought a Nike pair in the end, it was actually from the kids section but they had her size...was tempted to get the baby version Nat tried, but no point spending $55 on a shoe she will outgrow in months.


Nat liked to play with the shoes on display though, she started removing them from the shelves and attempted to try them on. Later on, she displayed her tomboy side by pretending to ride a Batman bike. Biker chick in the making?

Easy Peasy

I forgot to mention I met with the SingTel folks last week, wanted to post a picture we took but only just received it from the camera owner. It was the usual suspects - Jeannie, Desmond, Juliana, Hong Wei and Michael.

Juliana was sporting the Prada tote I sold her, it suits her. Hmm, speaking of Prada, Swana is off to Paris in just over a week...I can't wait for her to bring me back some bags!

Anyway, dinner was at the Soup Restaurant. Desmond the Food Nazi had wanted something closer to town so I suggested the outlet at DFS. He questioned my choice but later grudgingly admitted some of the food was good. Hah!



We caught up with each other quite a bit, and ended off with dessert at Canele. I think age is creeping up because dessert was preferred over drinks!

I miss having lunch with Jeannie and Desmond since they are no longer working in Shenton. Jeannie's at Chai Chee Industrial Park now, and Desmond has ventured out on his own, starting a new freight service called EZPZ Express (www.ezpzx.com).


It's similar to services like ComGateway and VPOST, except they deal with bulkier items and ship via sea freight and charge by cubic metre. So no longer am I confined to buying small items like bags or clothes or Bath & Body Works, I could buy beds or sofas from the likes of Crate & Barrel at affordable shipping rates. Plus the US dollar is relatively low now.

Delivery would take a while though since they ship only every 4-6 weeks and the journey is also a few weeks but hey, I'm in no hurry, especially when there's a bargain to be had and significant cost-savings. Desmond mentioned an example whereby a Tempur mattress here is SGD$10K, but only USD$2K in the States, even when you add few hundred dollars for shipping, you still save a tonne!

I've been laying low on the online shopping for a bit now, but perhaps I should start checking out some US furniture sites, we need a bookshelf or display cabinet. Or maybe I can find a barcelona daybed on Ebay? I did see some bargains on Overstock.com...gosh darn it, the possibilities are endless!

Sucks to be me

I miss food. I miss being able to eat anything I want. This sucks. No offence to Baby Nike (It's Greek and we just did it!), but this second pregnancy is so not what I envisioned at all. I expected it to be a breeze like how it was for Nat but this 1st trimester is proving to be a pain.

Ok, I'm whining when it hasn't been all that bad, but some of the symptoms are completely different leaving me to speculate that perhaps it's a boy. Although there are people have experience different symptoms with each pregnancy and end up with same sex children.

Nike symptoms in the first trimester
- Evening nausea (puked once so far, but that was before I knew how to control the evening sickness)
- Penchant for sour stuff (dried plums and Assam Laksa maggi mee to combat nausea)
- Penchant for unhealthy food (been eating burgers, hot dogs, carrot cake, kway chap)
- No aversion to fish/seafood (can eat fillet-o-fish and sotong balls)
- Perpetually hungry (gotta eat every 2 hours) but...
- Food holds no appeal, deciding what to eat for lunch and dinner is a chore and dependent on how I feel at the moment. But sometimes I obsess about a particular dish...yesterday was laksa
- Constantly cold (never leave home without a cardigan, can't even stand the fan at home)
- Airy (Silent burps several times a day)
- Overall blahness (feeling tired, lazy to dress up and apply make up)

In comparison, in the 1st trimester with Nat I had no nausea, I was also always hungry but could eat almost anything except seafood (chicken rice was my best friend) and I was energetic. I can't wait for the first trimester to pass!

Happy Birthday Swana-poo!

Yesterday was Swana's birthday and when I got home, we had some visitors in the form of Aunty Gowrie, Kavi and Ananya. Haven't seen Ananya in ages, she's grown some but is still a tiny thing!


There was a gorgeous bunch of flowers that Kevin had sent to Swana from The Wishing Tree...ok I chose them, but they turned out much bigger than expected. Among all the local florists, Wishing Tree has the nicest arrangments although they are a bit pricey.




Kavi and Co didn't stay long, so after they left, Swana, Nick and I went to Zion Road hawker centre to buy food, Nick's prawn mee took forever! We had a simple dinner of kway chap, rojak and prawn mee and later on, Swana cut the cake I bought from Swiss Bake. It was sinful as hell, but really good. Love those hazelnut crunch cakes!






Happy birthday again Swana-poo!

No need Marche!

The in-laws came over for dinner yesterday since Mildred and Ben both don't subscribe to the Sports package on Starhub and there was an F1 race I didn't want to miss. In exchange, I prepared dinner of rosti and sausages, which didn't cost much. Just goes to show how cheap the cost of food is and how restaurants are milking us for all their worth.




I think Marche charges something like $10 or $11 bucks for a sausage and some rosti, my individual meal worked out to less than $4 bucks per head, with 2 sausages. Ok, I had a good deal on the sausages because Cold Storage was clearing some brockwursts, 50% off. Plus another packet was underweighed and mis-labelled, costing $3.80 instead of the usual $10...I just had sharp eyes! But even at full price the meal would still be under $5.

Spent the weekend looking at cars, not that we are changing anytime soon, but Nick was bored and wanted to check out MPVs. Had impromptu breakfast at Serangoon Gardens on Saturday morning with Mildred, Nat entertained us by wearing my sunglasses.



I had wanted to watch 'The Proposal' but plans got thwarted when Nick came down with food poisoning. Are food safety standards slipping or have we just been unlucky the last couple of weeks? This time the suspected culprit was roast chicken from Carrefour. He was the only one who ate it but didn't get very far because he said it had a funny smell. Well one bite was all it took.

The 7th month started recently and I tend to get quite paranoid during this time. Already seen 3 accidents and when the TV and house lights went off on Friday evening at 11plus pm, I panicked a moment before realising it was a power failure. But not just our house, the whole block was pitch black. It was over an hour before the technicians rectified it but I pity whoever was stuck in the lifts, it could very easily have been us had I managed to get movie tickets that evening!

Nat's vocab

The munchkin is saying new words everyday, but she can't for the life of her pronounce 'L' or 'R' words. She tries to repeat some words we say and it's just so darned cute...I should start videoing these moments. This is the extent of what she can say:

Very clearly:
Star
Dog
Bike
Book
Cards
Purple
Turtle
Bear
Duck
Eye
Baby
Up
Beat

Not so clear:
Geen (Green)
Bay-bee (Heavy)
Maam (Lamb)
Mimi (Mummy)
Main (Rain)
Pit (Tip)
Hup (Hop)
Maymen (Amen)
Teh-kee (Thank you)
Pan (Fan)
Ter-ter vai (Butterfly)

She tries to sing along some of the nursery rhymes now, especially the last word of each line and she loves action songs like 'Skimimerink' and 'I'm a Little Teapot'. And she's made attempts at longer sentences i.e. 'I tand (I stand)', 'Momo tan (No more sun)'. For words that she can't pronounce, she'll just say 'Der-der'.

She can recognise lots of things, practically all the pictures in an ABC book but she'll clam up when there's too many people around. But she's so geram!

Gigi has mastered 'Ma-mum', she goes to anyone who has food!

A blip on the screen

Went to KK last evening for an appointment with my hunky gynae. Ok, he's not exactly hunky but he's handsome, kind of. Anyway, Swana was with me because Nick had a meeting.

Chatted with the doc for a bit, before he conducted an ultrasound and there it was, a blob on the screen with a tiny flicker in the middle - heartbeat of my next offspring, who shall henceforth be called The Blob. I know Nick's going to protest at that, so expect a nickname change.


I didn't feel any emotion at all, just took it in my stride. I think there's less excitement second time round, maybe because it wasn't so much a surprise as Nat, who was definitely not planned. I wouldn't say this one is planned either, but more of a case of 'if it happens, it happens'. And apparently it happened in Greece!

Am 6 weeks along now, next check-up in 2 weeks and due date calculated as Apr 10, which is Nick's birthday! Will I get my wish for an Aries, Tiger son?

The nausea has eased somewhat after I resorted to smaller, frequent meals. Stocked up on a whole bunch of biscuits and nuts, am hungry every 2 hours as per last time. Wonder what it is about the hormones that make you so hungry! I better watch what I eat though, don't want to struggle to lose the weight like last time. Not that I made much effort to lose it in the first place, but still!

Lunch at House

Had my birthday lunch on Saturday at House with JGR, I was the first one to arrive but Rena and Gabriel soon came along. Whilst waiting for the other two (Jane had gone to PS Cafe!), we tried to figure out Gabriel's Transformer...those things are hard!



We ordered a chicken curry skinny pizza, and shared a risotto and 7-layer pancake as well as 'used' Gabriel to order 2 kids meals - fish and chips and vegetarian lasagna - their portions were still adult-sized!



Jane had just come from the gynae who told her to slow down her weight-gain. She actually finished a Swensen's Earthquake with 8 scoops of ice-cream by herself not long ago, ha ha! And she was nicely enjoying the food at House, finishing up the leftovers. Heh heh!




Germaine was kind enough to drop me off at UE Square after lunch, where Swana was waiting at Spizzico, paying the deposit for Gigi's birthday party. Service there is excellent I must say, they were fawning over her, offering a complimentary cheesecake and the chef gave her a vegetarian lasagna to bring home. Plus she and Kevin had a free food tasting session last week, which was what persuaded them to hold the event there in the first place.

It's changed a lot since the last time I went there - which was about 9 years ago! Had a significant dinner there with Nickypoo on 1 Dec 2000, followed by a walk along the river, finally ending up at Fullerton where he tried to hold my hand and the rest is history...

During bedtime on Saturday, Ma insisted on making Nat wear a nightie instead of her usual mismatched romper and pants for sleeping. My cheeky daughter fiddled with the sleeves and behaved most un-ladylike by climbing and swinging from her cot railing, watched by her loyal sidekick Gigi.






Nick worked all of Sunday and I realised it's hard to entertain Nat for a whole day! There's only so many toys you can play with and songs you can sing, she's still not allowed to watch TV. Gigi wasn't around to distract her and we didn't go out anywhere till evening but we survived. I need to research more activities to do when we're stuck at home alone!

Went to Nick's cousin Hannah's place in the evening. She was celebrating her baby's 1st month, he's called Zachary. Nat was fascinated with the newborn but clung to us like a koala the whole evening, she needs to get used to crowds.




The EPL season started this weekend and Liverpool lost their opening game to Spurs - not good!