Vesak Day with the bubbas

Yesterday was a public holiday and the original plan was to head to East Coast KFC for breakfast with Ananya, Riley, Gigi, Raiden, their respective parents and Merianne. However there was an oil spill a few days ago off our coast and the beach was affected so Plan B was Harbourfront.

Nick, Nat and I had breakfast at home and joined the Dopes, Monica, Raiden and Merianne at Coffee Club where they were polishing off their breakfast. The menu looked pretty good and prices reasonable (average of $7.50++ including coffee/tea), I need to go there myself one of these days, will probably end up ordering 3 meals for myself...everything really looked good.

Kaelash, Jeanette, Riley, Kavi and Ananya breakfasted at McDonalds as Coffee Club's service was too slow for the hungry kids and when everyone was done, we headed to the kids play area at Vivo's level 2.

I minded Natasha and the belongings while the kids indulged in kiddie rides and the water spouts. Jeanette who's 3 months pregnant and constantly pukey kept me company.


Merianne took some nice photos of the bubbas, wish she could come along on all our outings! Here's Nat 'driving', and Gigi hitching a ride with Raiden - they make a cute couple! Like Archie and Betty in his old jalopy.




Nat got drenched playing with the water. Actually all the kids did, but they had a blast.





At night, Kaelash and company came over for dinner, along with the Dopes and Ajen and Vim. I passed Vim a whole bunch of maternity clothes. She's due one month after Jeanette.


Jeanette made a lovely tomato and basil soup from homemade chicken stock, roasted tomatoes, canned tomatoes, red peppers, olive oil, chopped basil...it was really very high standard. I made a shepherd's pie and Swana made a baby spinach salad and almond jelly with longans. Ajen brought satay and murtabak.




Actually just before everyone arrived, Gigi had an accident, another one of those situations that makes your heart sink. Kevin was feeding her in our living room and she was watching TV. Somehow as she was taking some steps backwards, she tripped and fell. No one really saw what happened but then Wendy my maid winced as she noticed Gigi's mouth filling with blood.

It was a LOT of blood and Gigi was screaming her head off. She had cut the inside of her upper lip in a few spots, one cut was quite deep but we managed to stem the bleeding eventually and she wasn't in too much discomfort later though her lip was swollen.

The swelling got worse today and Swana and Kevin brought her to KKH as a precaution. Think she bit her lip real hard, one tooth was a teensy bit loose. Stitches were contemplated but in the end the doc gave a gel to help heal the wound. At the same time, they consulted about her constipation, an anesthetic cream was also prescribed. Hope she feels better soon...poor bubba.



BTW, read in the papers yesterday that Martha Stewart had been in town. She was so close to home, having visited the Baba House on Neil Road earlier in the week. That's just outside our house! So near yet so far for Mita Stewart!

Out goes the pumpkin!

Took the girls out for breakfast this morning to West Coast McDonalds. Nick was hoping to let Nat get some fresh air but it started raining as we were finishing our meal. It was pumpkin's first visit to McDonalds and she slept throughout it.


Nat is turning into a little "Mak Nenek". Before leaving the house, she wanted to change her shoes from Nike sandals to Colettee mary janes, bringing the preferred pair of shoes to me and saying, "This one better". And whilst having breakfast, she dropped a piece of pancake on herself and exclaimed, "Oh no, so dirty my clothes!".

Since the weather was a washout, we impromptuly headed to East Coast to join the Gomezs and Jays at Polliwogs.





They had last-minutely decided to meet there. Nat, Riley and Gigi had fun in the indoor playground and thereafter we had lunch at Long Beach, where Kavi and Ananya joined in.

In the evening, we left Natasha with Swana and Kevin, and went to Changi to attend Adrienne's grand-daughter Caitlin's 4th birthday party. It was kind of Mischa and Edward to invite us though Nat was a little small to take part in the games. There was a pinata in the shape of a shoe and I think Nat must have thought it belonged to a giant. When it broke, she was asking me to look, "Mummy, shoe broken!".



Nick literally had ants up his pants when he stood on the grass too long, they were getting lost in his leg hairs! Meantime, Adrienne played some Snakes and Ladders with Nat and showed off her i-Phone applications. Ha, from Technophobe to savvy i-Phone user!

Overall, a good day I must say...

My poor baby

Sigh, the munchkin hurt herself today, albeit not as serious as initially feared. I was with Natasha in my room when I heard Natalie crying and my heart sank. You come to recognise the kind of cry that means something's not right.

When I entered her room, Wendy was carrying her and blood was spilling from her mouth. On the outside I was calm but on the inside I was imagining all sorts of injuries. Wendy said she (Wendy) was retrieving something from under the bed and Nat was bouncing around when she (Nat) hit her mouth on her bed railing.

I brought Nat to the balcony to get a better look at her mouth, the tissue used to clean her mouth was peppered with blood. Found the source as her gums, luckily it was just her gums and not her eyes or broken teeth etc.


I put ice and eventually the bleeding stopped. The munchkin was alright in no time and even eager to inspect her blood-filled tissue. Sigh. In a way am glad the boy is away in Tokyo, he would no doubt be super anxious had he been around, to the extent of rushing from work etc.

It's raining babies

Rena gave birth on Tuesday 11 May to Joshua Ang, weighing 2.495kg and me and Jane went to visit her at Gleneagles over lunch on Wednesday. He's tiny compared to Natasha, who's just under 6 weeks older.



Adrian showed us Gabriel's newborn photo and the two brothers look alike, except Gabriel had more hair. Rena was already up and about, me and Jane were incredulous at her lack of pain or discomfort! The two of us went to Tanglin Mall after for lunch at Chili's.

It's raining babies this year I tell you, it's now up to 30 people I know having or had babies this year!

**Updated 11 May 2010:

Jan - Deavi (10th), JJ (22nd), Mischa (23rd), Felicia (27th), Daragh (28th)
Feb - Wilson, Samir (21st), Esther (2nd), Geraldine
Mar - Shalini
Apr - Me, Aaron M, Judy (28th)
May - Jamie, Rena (11th), Josephine (10th), Joyce
June - Vansy
July - Ming Feng, Alicia, Michael, Diane
August - Shannon, Hui Choo, Claire H.
September - Erlina, Jeannie
October - Gee
November -
December - Jeanette, Vim

Brought Nat for her 'gym' class on Tuesday, she was much more interested in participating and only clung on to me for the first 15 mins before she wanted in on the action. I also insisted she walk and climb the stairs on her own while getting to and fro the place and she co-operated. Phew!

Mother's Day 2010

Today was Mother's Day and we brought Pumpkin to church for the first time. Left her at Membina after that and brought Nat to Raffles City for lunch. Tried MOF, a Japanese cafe where she hardly ate and nearly fell and hit her head on a sharp step while I was shopping and Nick was minding her.

Capitaland were giving out carnations and Nat received one to give to me and she whispered 'Happy Mother's Day'...awww.

For dinner, Mildred and Ma came over and we tapau-ed cze char from AMK and Kevin contributed crabs from Ghim Moh. Mmmm, crabs....it had been a while!

Welcome to the world Natasha!

We threw Natasha a "Welcome to the world" party today at the Han's outlet near Nick's office. Originally we had planned to do a 1 month party last weekend but Nick and his colleagues had a NATAS fair to attend hence the slight delay.

We had considered booking the cafe at Lion City hotel which serves a Peranakan buffet but found the area too dodgy, and the other alternative was a casual restaurant in Sin Ming but Nick didn't like the attitude of the owner. Just when we had decided to hold the party at home, Nick tried asking the Han's and the menu was very reasonable ($15 nett), so we went with it.

I used pictures from Natasha's newborn shoot to design 3 invites but Nick and Swana didn't approve of any of them because they felt the baby was too exposed! They are paranoid! I liked the 3rd one...




This was the final approved invite:


We were anticipating about 60 pax including kids and even though there were a number of no-shows, the area we booked was full and the food ran out towards the end. Ordered balloons through Aunty Joyce and she helped to print Natasha's name on them and even provided animal walkers for the kids in attendance.




I ordered cupcakes from the same place as Nat's welcome party but was a little disappointed this time as the colour scheme I had requested was not really adhered to, plus some of the Nutella-filling cupcakes were missing the filling.



I didn't get a chance to take much photos, had to mingle and was in a daze most of the time! Before you know it, the party's over.





Some of the cousins adjourned to Membina but I was stuck at home. Met up with them later though at Kavi's house. We brought our own McDonald's dinner but Kavi had ordered a huge pizza from Picotin Express, it was 21 inches wide!

127 dresses!

So now that I've shed the pregnancy weight, I could finally sort my wardrobe and get rid of clothes that don't fit or that I don't want anymore. It's taken a few days and this time I was really ruthless, I doubt that we would ever have another DD Day Out sale hence there are a lot of clothes I've set aside for giving away to friends or to charity. Any US sizes 4-6 out there?

I managed to consolidate my skirts and pants onto 1 rod instead of 2. And when I finally tackled the dresses, I wasn't surprised at how many I had amassed...there were 119 hanging and another 8 folded. That's not including those I had set aside for ironing, alterations, giving away and maternity!


I thought that by clearing the wardrobe I could make space for a few new dresses but there's just no space on the rod and I would feel really guilty about adding on. Also, practically all the dresses are printed, only 5 or so are solid colour! I'm a sucker for prints!

Monkey see, monkey do

The munchkin is now 27 months and still very much a daddy's girl. She still refuses to walk anywhere or sit in her stroller so we have to lug her around, no thanks to Daddy who gives in to the habit. She's almost 11kg now!



Most nights Nick puts her to bed but ends up falling asleep before her. She's getting more assertive, telling me 'Don't pat pat' when I try to make her sleep, she prefers to pat herself and will gently smack her own bum.

She's sassy, she knows she's supposed to say 'excuse me' when she wants us to move away or step aside, but she'll cheekily command 'move!'. But she's also getting naughty - attempting to hit, pinch or scratch us whenever we take away a toy or book or say 'no' to something. She'll fling her arm in retaliation, like those cat statues in Thailand that wave one paw.

She's got a bad habit now of shoving her finger in her nose, looking for boogers. She derives satisfaction from removing them!

Whenever she spots a new toy or book, she questions, "Who bought this?" and then thanks the person. E.g. a conversation might go like this:

Nat: Who bought this? (points to a toy)
Me: Daddy.
Nat: Who bought this? (points to another toy)
Me: Mummy
Nat: Thank you mummy.
Nat: (points to first toy) Daddy bought this for Nat-nat, thank you daddy!

She's curious about everything, every little sound out the window, she will want to look out and see the source. Little Miss Kaypoh I say! But she's been very good with Natasha, no jealousy at all - at least for now. She loves lying down beside the baby, helping hold the milk bottle or returning used bottles to the kitchen. She helps me throw diapers in the bin too. The only concern is that she constantly kisses Natasha and always presses down too hard on her.





Gigi and her have started having conversations, it's too cute the baby talk that comes out of their mouths. It's also becoming a case of 'monkey see, monkey do' - whatever one is playing with at the moment, the other one will want it too. I hope we don't have to buy duplicates of everything!



While she's a rascal at home and with people she's familiar with, she's a pussycat outside. Still takes her a while to warm up to new people.

Today was the first of her 8 sessions at JWT Kids Gym which we enrolled her in to play and expend some energy. As soon as class started, she clung on to me like a koala, refusing to let go or participate in any of the activities. Her back faced the group most of the time and at one point she burst out crying. For a good 45 mins, she refused to let go, sometimes even choking me from the strength of her grip and I had to carry her for the most part. Only for the last 15 mins did she come out of her shell to sit on a rocking motorcycle and play with some toys during the free play session. Hopefully she warms up by the next lesson!



She loves to sing, she can sing almost any popular nursery rhyme you ask of her. The words aren't always clear but she knows the words and will pretend to sing them from a songbook.

Gigi at 20 months loves to sing too, she can sing the alphabet up to M and also bits of 'Twinkle, twinkle' and 'Happy birthday'. She can count to 5 and identify or say the names or most major animals and make their sounds.


Her sentences are quite advanced for her age, around 3-5 words per sentence i.e. "Mummy, go playground please", "Where is it?", "I go Nat Nat's house", "Daddy go work", "I want blind mice" (dvd). She loves 'Shasha baby' and is a lot more gentle than Nat!



She finally calls me 'Aunty Mita' instead of just 'Bita' and Nick has become 'Uncle Nick' too.

Mummy and Swana are not allowed to leave her sight, although she doesn't mind Grandpa looking after her. Her constipation hasn't improved, she's still afraid of pooping, screaming her head off each time she has to go. The problem is that she hates most fruits. She likes drinking Yakult and eating apom though. She and Nat walk around the house with their handbags, too cute!