Sergeant Nat

Opened a new set of pajamas for Nat on Tuesday, and she looked so cute in them, I couldn't resist taking a picture. With the camouflage print, she looks like a little army recruit, and when she subsequently put on Nick's cap backwards, I was reminded of a little hip-hop rapper!


Brought her to Vivo to check out their giant Christmas tree, we can see it from our house but it was much bigger than I thought.



I spent yesterday checking out potential event venues with my colleague...went to National Museum, where we stumbled into a Minister giving a speech at a book launch, and tried the set lunch at Novus. Though portions were small, it was still pretty good value for money at $35++ for a 3-course set considering the fine-dining experience and excellent service.



When I got back to the office, I discovered me and another colleague were wearing the same DD dress, ha ha.


Today I checked out a couple more venues and bumped into some SES connections. At the Arts House, I met Tony the photographer who takes all the exhibition photos for SES, he was documenting an IBM event. A while later at Naumi Hotel, the person I had an appointment with asked me if I was from SES. I had not met her before so I was wondering how she knew...turned out she was one of Adrienne's ex-interns and recognised me from a pix AP had shown her before...such a small world!

Anyway, Naumi has a lovely roof-top deck with great view of the skyline. Hmm, minimum spend is $4K, would be lovely for a small ROM.


Had chicken rice for lunch, the shop claimed to be famous but it was pretty empty while I was there. The chicken was so-so.


I miss my Far East chicken rice stall that moved out a couple of years ago. Where is Sunny the Man Utd fan who serves yummy boneless chicken rice with the fragrant soup, and garnishes with cucumbers AND tomatoes, and pours a lovely sauce over the chicken? Will I ever eat it again?

Nat's first Sentosa visit

We made an impromptu visit to Sentosa today, the original plan was to head to Botanics. But the weather was sunny and the beach seemed like a good idea for some fresh air.

Parked at Palawan Beach and walked to the bird enclosure thinking we might be able to catch an animal show, but those only started from noon onwards. So we walked over to the beach area where Nick tried to encourage Nat to dip her feet in the water feature, to no avail. He didn't fare any better on the beach where our daughter didn't relish the idea of getting sand in her shoes or her feet wet!




A familiar voice called out to us at one point, lo and behold it was Daphne, Nick's friend from church and Melbourne housemate. She was there with her son Jonah and waiting for colleagues to join. After seeing Jonah splash about, Nat was slightly more open to touching the fountains.



We cooled off with some cold cheng teng at the food court and then decided to take the monorail around the island. But there are only 2 stations so it wasn't much of a ride...Nat was even scared of being on the train.



Got down at the Merlion and walked back to the Beach Station. Nat was also scared of the giant Merlion and the loud waterfalls at its base, and it took a while before she warmed up to touching the running water from the mosaic water feature.





Before leaving, we spotted some wild mushrooms growing. The immediate thought that came to my mind was that there were fairies on Sentosa...too much Enid Blyton as a kid!

Sembawang date

Ma volunteered to babysit yesterday evening since Kevin and Swana were going out for dinner and she was lazy to cook, so she suggested me and Nick eat out too.

I was clearing work till 7plus and initially had plans to dress up and head out for a nice Italian dinner. But when I got home, I was too lazy and tired to change and Nick upfront said 'No pasta', so there went my plans for lasagna. I feel like Garfield sometimes, craving for lasagna.

When I suggested going to eat Indian rojak in Sembawang instead, he was more than agreeable since it meant he could wear shorts. It took us 45 mins to arrive at our destination, a Muslim coffeeshop at Jalan Lengkok Sembawang which we went a couple of times when we were living in AMK and found the rojak to be decent i.e. crispy and not too oily and the sauce was nice and sweet. I was worried the rojak stall might have disappeared but I think it was the same one.



In addition to rojak, we shared mutton soup and satay but I ate majority of the food. Been hungry these past few days, earlier this afternoon, I ate non-stop to the point that I skipped dinner since I was still full from stuffing my face.

Nya-nya and the twins kindly brought me prawn noodles from Old Airport Road hawker center (power soup!), and then I had one ondeh-ondeh, 3/4 a packet of fish crackers, a bowl of chendol ice cream, a stick of chocolate, and 3 mini Snickers.

On Wednesday night after watching 'This is It', we drove in vain to Katong in search of supper, I was looking for Katong laksa. It was a dead town at 11 plus, ended up taking away bee-hoon goreng ikan bilis from the East Coast hawker center. But I seem to be in an Indian-Muslim food phase, had prata for breakfast this morning!

Am making up for lost time, after not enjoying food in the first trimester!

Little Miss Chatterboxes at 21 and 14 months

Nat is a regular Little Miss Chatterbox at 21 months, and Gigi can say quite a number of words.

This past month, we had to contend with Nat's hospitalisation but I'm happy to say she's back to normal and recovered well. She lost about half a kg, but is starting to put it on back.

Recently, she's started counting 1, 2, 3, 4 and can say ABCD. However when we sing the alphabet halfway and stop at certain letters, she knows which ones to fill in the blank. The same goes with nursery rhymes, we'll sing halfway and she'll complete the last word for each line. And she can finish practically any rhyme in the 4-book set she has of over 20 songs.

She's also a little parrot, she'll repeat practically everything we say now although some of it makes no sense! 'Christmas tree' sounds like 'key key key', and sometimes it takes a while to decipher what she means. She says bye to everything too, like when I pointed out a cockroach on the ground, she went 'Bye bye cockroach' and blew it a flying kiss. Point to any other insects and she'll say, "Bite Nat-nat'.

She's started to assert herself more when she doesn't want to eat something or do something, saying, 'No, don't want'. But she knows 'please' is the magic word and will say thank you most of the time when handed something. We made allowances for food and drink with more flavour when she was sick but she refused most of them, probably because she wasn't in the mood to try anything new. However of late, she's discovered grape Yakult and since it's good bacteria I let her drink half of mine when I have one.

This week she made her first deposit on the toilet bowl, when she said she wanted to 'poo-poo'. She didn't like sitting on the potty, and prefers sitting directly on the toilet bowl. And right after Arlyn washed her bum, she said "Thank you!". So cute!

She's getting really attached to Nick, whenever he's around she would say 'Daddy feed', or 'Daddy pat-pat'. She's on a first name basis with me though, there was one day she banged on my door calling for 'Mita', Mita' whilst I was changing.

Mummy has been teaching her who stays where. Ask her who stays at Sengkang and she'll answer 'Uncle Ben, Aunty Dy'. She knows Mama Ivy stays at Ang Mo Kio, and Aunty Nana at Membina and Nat-Nat at 106 Spottiswoode.

Most nights she'll kiss my tummy cos' she knows baby is in there. She's still scared of strangers and crowds but she's inconsistent in the sense that she'll wave and say 'hi' to people in the lift or make funny faces at the pew behind us in church but bring her to a wedding dinner or party and she'll wail.

She picks out my outfits for work sometimes, when I throw open my cupboard and ask her what I should wear. She enjoys the girly things, like putting on my sunglasses, carrying my bags and wearing my shoes, and when I wear a necklace she'll go, "Niiiiiice" and want to try it on, but she also loves to throw paper planes and kick a ball around with her daddy.



She's a budding photographer, always rotating a phone to pretend to take a picture and she'll hold the phone or camera to her eye and say, "Smile!" Her curls are unruly but I have no heart to cut them off, though I have trimmed a little as she has a new habit of sucking on her hair.



She's getting quite independent, putting some clothes on by herself and putting on and removing her shoes.

Gigi's vocabulary has expanded to include 'mabuk', 'daddy' and a few other words. At 14 months, there is still no sign of teeth, though you can see the outline of the bottom two through the gums but they have yet to erupt. Even Ananya has teeth already!

She can be quite independent putting herself to sleep at night by just laying on the pillow and drifting off while listening to adult conversation. We didn't see much of her this month because we kept the babies apart to minimise the spread of the stomach flu, but she still got it anyway. She somehow likes to empty Nat's toy basket and put it over her head and walk around the room. I am reminded of a mushroom when she does this!

The 3 Preggies

Met Jane, Germaine and Rena for lunch at Thai Express today.

Germaine was surrounded by pregnant women...yup Rena's got a bun in the oven too! She's 12 weeks and due next May. But poor thing's having a hard time, puking practically every evening.

It's so funny that 3 of 4 in our group are pregnant at the same time, and Germaine wanted to know what water we were drinking so she could avoid it! She'll be off for an extended holiday at the end of the month and will probably miss all the births while she gallivants round Europe and South America.

With Jane due early next month, I don't think we'll be able to get a picture of the 3 knocked up women again, so here you go...

Girl most likely

Went for a 4-month scan yesterday, Nike is about 10 cm from head to rump. For the first time this pregnancy, Nick made it to the appointment. Everything seems to be progressing well, Dr Siow tried to determine the sex and we both concluded girl. In fact I pointed it out first and Dr Siow said my eyes were sharp.

I must admit I was a wee bit disappointed, no offence to Nike, but a boy would have been nice because I was curious how a son might look, but a girl is a blessing too. I hope she and Nat become as close as me and Swana, plus I get to save a tonne on clothes!

Was sorting Nat's cupboard earlier today, putting away all the small clothes and bringing out from storage all the clothes meant for 2 year olds. Can't wait for her to wear all the Zara and Gap dresses I stocked up on! Plus we have a couple of matching outfits!




Nick is down with stomach flu, most likely caught it from Nat. Mildred came over in the morning but Nick missed her visit because he was passed out resting. She came to make porridge and apple juice for Nat after witnessing her puke the day before. Erm, the reason Nat puked was in my opinion because Mildred was feeding her too fast and forcing a spoonful of rice in when Nat wasn't ready...leading her to cough, then choke, then puke.

Anyway, before departing she left instructions to 'force feed' Nat to drink the porridge water to make her realise it wasn't so bad so that she would drink more to ease her diarrhea.

Of course I disagreed with that, saying that I would offer it to Nat but if she didn't want to drink I wouldn't force her. The last thing I want is to traumatize Nat by shoving a spoon down her throat against her will which would only put her off trying new things, especially now when she's still recovering and resistant to new flavours.

As long as Nat was consuming liquids to replenish what she lost, it didn't matter to me what she drank. Plus her diarrhea needed time to subside, it won't go away overnight. I know everyone was worried and meant well and Mildred gets especially kancheong, but sometimes I wish she would just leave us to exercise our own judgment and trust that we're not as incompetent as we look.

I appreciate the effort she took to come over and make everything for Nat, but she was putting additional stress on herself by running around worrying about all her sick family members. Amah is in hospital, then Nick has stomach flu and Nat was hospitalized. Plus she's prone to falling sick, I won't be surprised if she succumbs to the contagious stomach flu. Mummy, Gigi, Nick and Swana all got it, most likely from Nat. I'm surprisingly ok, strangely enough.

Munchkin goes home

Nat was well enough to be discharged from hospital on Tuesday evening. Actually I think the doctors weren't entirely sure they should let her go as she wasn't consuming enough solids and liquids on her own but we convinced them we will get her to eat at home.

She woke up bright and early on Tuesday morning, her sleep-deprived parents managed to catch some shut-eye overnight, but not enough.

We played her some music from my phone to cheer her up and behind the privacy of our curtains, Nick danced with her to 'Don't Worry Baby' and I told him that will be their 'song' and he has to dance it with her at her wedding!




Kevin's bro Gavin happened to be in town and paid a visit during lunch. The counters below had gotten really strict on visitors and for some reason, Mildred could not register when she came over during lunch too despite Arlyn surrendering her pass, probably because Gavin beat her to it. Instead of calling me to come down and vacate my spot, she left without a word.

Swana was on leave and kept me company most of the day while Nick went to work for a bit and home to freshen up. I was officially working from hospital, thank goodness they had wireless connection.


Nat slept on and off, and pooped 3 or 4 times in an hour while we were waiting to be discharged but that was expected. The moment the drip came off in the afternoon, she wouldn't sit still in her cot. Actually in the morning already, she was up and about, walking around her space, oblivious to the IV hooked up to her.

I'm so relieved she's better, she can't afford to lose anymore weight. There was a cute reunion that evening when Gigi came over. They hadn't seen each other for 4 days and were thrilled to be reunited. However, am not sure if Nat passed Gigi any germs because last night it was her turn to puke twice and Swana too. Hmm...