Here we go again!

I've been so gassy and airy of late, I was sure I had some leftover bacteria from the bout of food poisoning last week.

But I had no appetite all of yesterday, and for me not to be able to eat 2 days in a row must mean something was wrong. During lunch, the smell of food nauseated me and the sight of bloody chicken meat on my hor fun resulted in me pushing my plate away after 5 mouthfuls. The urge to hurl was overwhelming and I left my colleagues halfway through the meal to get some air.

I was convinced I had food poisoning again, my stomach was churning so I took a couple of charcoal pills in the afternoon. But I had a nagging feeling it might be something else, so as I walked home yesterday evening, I asked Nick to buy a test kit for you-know-what (Sorry, been reading too much Harry Potter!).

Again I had no appetite at dinner, despite having not eaten practically the whole day, but I forced myself to eat a little. Immediately after though, I went to pee on a stick and the result was instant. Positive. :-)

I wasn't surprised, I suspected there was another reason for all that air, although I hadn't been so gassy first time around. I told Nick immediately and congratulated him, he was definitely pleased but not entirely convinced and wanted me to test again. So we went out and bought another test kit and there they were...two lines.


I don't know how far along I am, that time of the month has been very irregular of late but I doubt it's a lifetime souvenir from Greece, as Adrienne put it! I suspect it's only 4 or 5 weeks now or even less. I last tested before I left for Jakarta on 30 Jul and it was negative then. Don't know whether it had been too early or I wasn't even preggers then! Or was it a faulty kit?

Anyway, it's early days yet...anything can still happen. Touchwood. Only a handful of people know now, we have yet to tell Mildred. She's going to be elated for sure, hope she doesn't make a fuss!

A for effort

Aww, the boy was so sweet today - he sent flowers out of the blue. However he can't take all the credit, I found out he delegated the task to Swana! Still, it was a pleasant surprise!

I was minding my own business at work today, when a colleague came over and asked if it was my birthday or anniversary. I said 'no', and he said there was a big bunch of flowers waiting for me at the reception. And I asked if he was sure they were for me.

Sure enough, a large table arrangement of gerberas awaited at the reception and a quick check of the card confirmed they were from Nick as a surprise for no reason... the best kind.


However, when I called Swana to tell her about them, she feigned ignorance until I mentioned they were gerberas. That's when she blurted out it was the wrong order and confessed she had ordered something else entirely. Honestly, I was kinda disappointed at the gerberas - they're not exactly a favourite. Still it was the thought the counts.

I think she called Far East Flora to highlight the wrongful delivery and shortly after the deliveryman returned. I said I didn't mind keeping the gerberas but I think they wanted to rectify their mistake.

Somewhere out there was another victim of the mixup, so they took back the arrangement and delivered the correct one in the afternoon. The hydrangea arrangement is much smaller but more me I think...but Swana, next time can I have purple, thornless roses please? With eustomas or alstromerias?

National Day Weekend

My weekend started early, on Thursday to be exact, no thanks to a bout of food poisoning that began that morning. I got ready for work as usual and didn’t pay much attention to the churning in my stomach but it hurt progressively that by towards noon, I was bent over my desk with cramps and fever. Popped by the company doctor and was given 1.5days MC…my weekend had officially started!

On one hand, I was thrilled. On the other, I was too sick to enjoy it, spending the rest of Thursday either in the toilet or bed, buried under the blankets even though I was burning up. The fever broke by evening and I felt considerably better by Friday, which was spent working on my Jakarta post-event report and in the evening, we went to Ikea.

On Saturday morning, I was right as rain and we went to the zoo with Swana, Kevin and Gigi. Don’t think Nat was very impressed with all the animals, she didn’t get excited at any particular exhibits…except some fish and lizards!





Nick was drenched throughout the outing, his t-shirt turned from light blue to a medium blue from his sweat!


I loved the giant tortoises, there was one particular animal that was just massive! And we were treated to some ‘live’ action when a kingfisher we were admiring swooped down to catch a fish, making a big splash right in front of our stroller and getting it all wet with moat-water. Lucky Nat wasn’t sitting in it at the time!





Whilst reading the papers that afternoon, I noticed a couple of errors in the Straits Times. Actually, have been noticing more mistakes of late, but these were such an eyesore. Imagine spelling ‘Bangkok’ wrongly on the front page, and inside I was trying to figure out what ‘sneakiers-mugglers’ were until I realized it should have been ‘sneakier smugglers’.



By the way, Gigi can officially walk unsupported…clever girl, just after 11 months. At night we had dinner with Kevin’s family, it was his dad’s birthday. Ended up at House of Sundanese at Great World. Hadn’t had it in a while, the restaurant was kind of dead but the food exceeded expectations, my favourite bit was the free-flow ondeh-ondeh at the dessert buffet, mmmm….




Kavi joined us for dinner too, after we had finished eating! She had ended up at the wrong mall, heading for Vivo instead of Great World. We went home first since Nat was really cranky, but at 12.30 am, Swana and Kavi came to pick me up and we got some drive-thru McDonalds and sat in her car chatting.

Sunday was National Day. Did a spot of marketing after mass and dinner was spent at AMK. Was feeling a tad patriotic so I wore red, and made Nat wear red too.

I started reading the last Harry Potter book, am a third through…can’t wait to find out how it all ends.

Yesterday I was feeling really blah. Had KFC breakfast at Harbourfront, and Mildred joined us. Thereafter we checked out Om’s furniture warehouse sale at Tai Seng, nothing much though. Popped by Membina for a bit, Kevin left for India yesterday. Oh, remember Nick was supposed to go NZ? He cancelled after coming down with the flu. I was happy for selfish reasons!

I hardly slept from 2 – 7 am this morning. Nat was restless, tossing and turning in her sleep. Tried rocking her, giving milk, soft toys to hug but nothing calmed her down. In the end, we forcefully applied some teething gel and that bought us 4 hours of peace. Her molars are coming!

Back from Jakarta

Am back from Jakarta and happy to report that I did manage to buy some stuff! Yay!

I had given up hope of buying anything, because the malls there that carry the designer and mass market brands are more expensive than home, so I felt no point buying something for the sake of buying.

Still I would have liked to explore the Grand Indonesia Shopping Town, it’s massive! Not so much the shops, but they had several floors dedicated to F&B and each section had a different décor theme reflecting different parts of the world.

I only passed by while checking out the Kempinski hotel, there was a Harvey Nichols I wanted to go to but in the end I decided to use my free time to explore a local mall called Ambassador in Kuningan.

Yes, Kuningan is the area where the 2 bombs went off a couple of weeks ago, so I was a bit apprehensive about going but I figured it had to be safe now. I had asked my local colleague about where to buy factory outlet stuff in Jakarta, even though I know Bandung is THE place to go and she had recommended Ambassador.

I walked for 2 hours on my own, there were lots of shops selling kids clothes from brands like Cherokee, Jumping Beans and Old Navy. I bought Nat and Gigi some stuff, mostly ranging from SGD$5-8 and I ended up with 2 dresses and 1 top for myself that cost between SGD$15-28.




I could have bought more but I only came with a cabin bag and was mindful of the lack of space. I could have put my purchases into the recyclable bag I brought but wanted to be hands-free at the airport…plus am sure you’ll agree, Nat and Gigi have more than enough clothes!

I was excited when I saw an A&W but there were no coney dogs. Just lots of chicken, so I took away a chicken and mango wrap to eat in the comforts of my room. The Dunkin Donuts also held no appeal since there’s an outlet in Singapore now.

I finished off the evening watching ‘Blonde Ambition’ starring Jessica Simpson and ‘Meet the Spartans’ on cable…the latter is soooooooo stupid and cringeworthy!

18-11

Nat and Gigi are officially 18 and 11 months today, pretty soon Gigi will be 1!

These two can't get enough of each other, Swana calls Gigi Nat's shadow. When they meet, they reach out and touch hands and bow their heads together. So sweet!

Nat is starting to repeat what we say so have to be careful around her now. Her new default answer when asked the colour of anything is now 'geen'. She can say 'mabuk', 'mummy' properly and anything that starts with T or B, and she loves going, 'No no no no no', in response to all the 'nos' we tell her.

She'll also say no to most questions you ask her unless it's to food, that she doesn't refuse! Like the other day, I picked out some outfits and asked, 'Do you want to wear this?' and she went, 'No.' And so I picked another outfit and said, 'How bout this?' and again she went, 'No!'. The I picked a third outfit and said, 'You wear this ok?' and she kept quiet...which means ok!

She likes to deliberately throw things and is constantly tip-toeing to grab at things out of her reach. We've bought a child safety gate to prevent her from going into the kitchen but am sure she'll try climbing over it.

Her hair is getting long and I love her curls, am in no hurry to cut them off though I'm sure she feels hot.

Gigi is still as whiny as ever, and still TOOTHLESS! It's 11 months, I'll be surprised if anything shows before her birthday!

She's super lazy, not interested in learning her body parts or electrical appliances but prefers to zoom around the house. She doesn't sit down long enough for you to read her a story, she just wants to crawl. She can take a few steps without support and is eager to start walking. Now that Kevin is back, she seems to prefer him carrying her over Swana, even I am chopped liver!

But both babies can't get enough of Mummy and when Ma is carrying Gigi, Nat will whine and ask for Mama. Likewise when Ma is holding Nat, Gigi will fuss a little too! They both want to be carried by her all the time!

But they are precious and just too cute nowadays...geram!

Birthday 2009

Here I am in Jakarta, all alone on my birthday, in my room at the Intercontinental. It's a nice room I must say, there's a big-ass TV and the bathroom's huge. Am not sure whether the hotel realised it was my birthday or my boss requested for a few things but when I got back to the room this afternoon I had flowers, a fruit basket and a blackforest birthday cake sent to the room...I could get used to this, heh heh!




Arrived early this morning and shared a cab with a colleague from the airport to town. The flight was uneventful, except I had a very whiny and talkative Chinese girl with an American accent sitting next to me, thank goodness she fell asleep halfway!

Jakarta itself is a tad dusty I find, but today I did site inspections at 3 hotels to consider them for future use. What strikes me is that their grand ballrooms are really GRAND! Massive chandeliers, really really high ceilings, and capacities of up to 3000!



Managed to walk one mall called Pacific Place but nothing appealed...prices at home are cheaper I think. Just got back from dinner with 3 colleagues, we had satay and soto ayam next door at a small shopping plaza. I got excited when I saw a sign that said 'Up to 70% off Zara, Pull and Bear and Massimo Dutti' on Level 2 but it turned out to be dinky sale and not very cheap either.

Had an overdose of crab last night, poor Nickypoo has forked out a small fortune for my birthday meals at The Verve and the takeaway crab from Uncle Leong, $200 each place! Think of all the pressies I could have gotten with that money, instead I've requested a new Liverpool jersey although I feel guilty for even asking that because I can't remember if I actually got him a present this year!




The immediate family were over for a simple dinner of cze char dishes from Sin Hoi Sai and 4 crabs from Uncle Leong. Ben and Wendy gave me 3 pairs of Vincci slippers...bliss! I was just lamenting to my colleagues last Friday that I missed Vincci and shopping in JB and voila - 3 new pairs of shoes! I also have a new Coach wristlet...thanks Swana!

Tomorrow I have a customer event I need to oversee and then hopefully I can get a spot of shopping done in the evening. Gonna watch some TV and read a little. Thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes, thank goodness I can now claim my mobile bills...so many outgoing SMSes today!

Hanging with the cousins

We've all been so caught up with our lives that the cousins have not been hanging out of late. All that was rectified this past week when we made it a point to meet a few of them.

Wednesday 29 Jul was Riley's 2nd birthday so on Tuesday night after dinner, me, Swana and Nick popped by Punggol to visit her and drop off her birthday pressie. She was engrossed in her spanking new Play Doh set courtesy of Jeanette and Kaelash but Nat and Gigi did get in some play time. Riley got jealous and didn't want to share her toys or parents much but Nat and Gigi were oblivious to it.




On Wednesday, I finished work late and just as I was leaving work, Swana said she was at Timbre 1 with Kavi and Premmie, so I headed there instead. Had a drink, and saw Premila's new svelte self. She's been working out and losing weight...which reminds me I need to lose 3 more kgs.



John was there too and Merianne who was in the neighbourhood popped by for a bit. Chatted a little with Edward and Danny, and Rai from EIC also came by to say 'hi' to Merianne. He asked after Nick, and just at that moment, Nick happened to call so I let Rai answer. However, Rai was slightly buzzed so he answered in a falsetto which made Nick wonder if he had dialled the right number and he promptly hung up on Rai. Ha ha!

Yesterday, me, Nick, Kevin, Swana and the munchkins had dinner at The Verve as an early birthday celebration. The place was pretty much unchanged from the old Turquoise Room. Some dishes were nice, like the calamari but the pasta was so-so. I actually didn't like the homemade pasta they used...give me Barrilla anyday! I had a crabmeat linguine, they were generous with the crabmeat but I prefer the creamy tomato sauce at Valentino's or the olive oil version at Whitebait & Kale. Their alcoholic gelatos were nice though.




After dinner, me and Nick went to watch 'The Hangover'...it was pretty funny but not too slapstick. Go forth and watch!

There was more feasting this morning as we met Ajen, Vim and Judy for brunch at Casa Verde at Botanical Gardens. It's a casual cafe by Les Amis but I think the breakfasts are not too bad, $12 or $13 for a set of eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrown, salad and juice. The waffles were yum too.




After brunch we walked around a bit, but it was too hot. Nick recently made a new pair of glasses...the white sides stick out like a sore thumb!