Nat meets Uncle Alvin

Nick's Uncle Alvin came to town from Darwin for a couple of weeks and Nat got to meet him at our house earlier this evening. At first she was scared and shy, but soon warmed up to him after he 'bribed' her with a kookaburra stuffed toy he brought.

After that it was all systems go!



Speaking of the kookaburra, all the time I was looking at it, I was thinking of pulut inti...something about the blue, white and brown combination reminded me of the glutinous rice dessert and I started having a craving. See what I mean?

Yummy Thai

Caught up with Susan and Adri at First Thai yesterday, a Thai cze char place at Purvis Street. Company was great, and food was good and authentic, though the green curry was very spicy. Adri's wedding is set for F1 weekend next year, at least I found out early so I'm not going to buy tickets for next year's night race.

Adri didn't know I was preggers, so she was surprised and we talked about Yus, whom she also didn't know was preggers! Unbeknown to us, Yus was on the operating table undergoing a caesarean as we dined. Got the sms this morning that she delivered, and coincidentally, her daughter Andrea Zara will share the same birthday as Joyce's Cassandre.

Headed to Miss Clarity Cafe for dessert, I had a banana tart, it wasn't fantastic though Susan warm chocolate cake with ice cream was a bargain, think it was just 5 bucks.




I collected some stuff from Joanne's mum earlier on Monday, Joanne had some star clips for Nat, who couldn't stop admiring her reflection in the mirror.


By the way, these are the pathetic faces the babies pulled this morning as I left for work, aawwwwww.

Dim Sum and Dharmika

Brought the family for Jade's ala carte dim sum buffet on Saturday, if I recall, my reservation was made in July or August. They gave us a huge table, I think 15 people could have sat comfortably...we were so far apart from each other, we had to practically shout across.




Food was ok, not as great as I remember but Swana loved the soups, and Nick and Kevin raved about the charsiew.

After lunch, we took a short walk along One Fullerton, where Nat and Gigi enjoyed their first travellator ride and then we posed for some pics at the Merlion.






On Sunday lunch, we went to Potpourri at Waterloo Street where cousin Komathi was celebrating Dharmika's first birthday. She's just a month younger than Gigi and oh so slim compared to her. Nat had a crying fit upon entering the restaurant, scared of all the strangers but she eventually calmed down midway.




In the evening, we had dinner at AMK. Mildred had a hand-me-down swimming costume for Nat, who proceeded to parade around the house in it. Reminds me we need to bring her swimming soon!

Hah? Hmm?

The munchkin is 20 months and the past month she's been saying, 'Hah?' a lot?. Ask her something she doesn't know the answer to or can't hear the question clearly, and she'll go 'Hah?' or 'Hmm?'

She's scared of strange men, saying 'Scared Man' when she sees someone unfamiliar. She's putting more words together to form short sentences like 'Daddy car vroom vroom', 'Bye bye mummy', and 'I don't know'. When she doesn't want something, she'll go 'Done' (Don't want). Open is 'popem', but she says 'thank you' whenever you help her or give her something and 'nice' when she sees something attractive or eats something yummy. She can say 'wow' too when something really interesting happens, but it comes out as 'bow'! And when she or Gigi trips or falls, she'll say 'mabuk', or 'amak' (alamak).




She loves her flashcards, recognising most animals from a set of over 50 cards. She can't say all of them but things like ant, turtle, dog, cat, pig, fox, mouse, bear, skunk (she'll even make a smelly face), goat, rabbit, star pish (fish), cab (crab), prog (frog, bibbit), terterfai (butterfly). From her nature cards she can say sun set, tree, leaf, moon (moom), terterpall (waterfall), shell etc.

She's getting quite independent, learning how to put on and remove her shoes, step down from the balcony without holding the wall and climb into her highchair or stroller herself. But she's lazy to walk on her own sometimes, insisting on being carried when we're outdoors. When Kevin or Nick is carrying Gigi, she'll want to be carried too, and vice-versa for Gigi. Kevin is 'Kekin' and Arlyn is 'Ani'.

She loves to carry my bags, the other day she said 'Gucci'. She has plenty of teeth now, including her molars, it's getting crowded in there. She bites my finger when I try to brush her teeth, but when she does it herself, she just sucks up all the toothpaste and doesn't move the brush at all.



When it's time for bed, she needs her baby doll, 1 care bear and her stuffed dog. She will ask for 'baby' and 'dog' and demand 'pa pum', which is to hum 'Little Drummer Boy'. Mummy's been trying to record her babblings on a tape recorder, they're so cute at this age!

Gigi is still uninterested in learning, preferring to wander around the house or hide in corners, and even under the table. She can understand instructions to put toys away or pass you a book but she just loves playing with the switches despite being warned so many times and having her hand smacked. She'll climb on chairs and lick dust off lamps. She can point to her eyes and nose, and clap her hands and run and goes 'wooo' when you ask her what sound the police car makes. Still no teeth and she's heavier than Nat I think these days.

1 trimester down, 2 to go

The first trimester is officially over, I am 13 weeks now.

Unfortunately, my appetite hasn't returned to normal - by normal I mean being able to eat my regular favourite foods. Am still consuming unhealthy burgers, char kway teow, char tow kway, lasagnas and when I feel blah, it's plain noodle soups without any meat. The other day I had a kiam chye soup and it was heavenly, all that sourness. Am still burpy, and eating way too much instant food, somehow I prefer Campbell soup and Maggi mee over home cooked food!

Had a scan earlier today, two scans in fact. First the routine one with the doctor where Nike waved at us, saying 'Hi Mommy!', followed by a detailed scan to check for down syndrome features.




Nike has grown to about 6 cm and everything seems to be in order. Couldn't tell the sex yet, but my doctor suspects a boy...he thought he saw the faint beginnings of a pee-pee. But then while doing the other ultrasound, the professor there said don't get my hopes up because the genitals are still forming, and even if something is sticking out now, it could retract and form the female bits.

Anyway, for my age, the chances of down syndrome were 1 in 500+ births, but after the scan, my odds improved considerably to 1 in 2200+ because the baby had a clear nose bridge and the neck thickness was within the normal range, phew!

I've put on about 1 kg so far, clothes are starting to get snug around the middle but am not big enough to bring out my maternity wardrobe just yet. Nick is in Sydney at the moment, he's missed all the doctor appointments to date. Next appointment is end of the month, hope Nike flashes us then!

My F1 Weekend

Formula One came to town last week and I had 3-day walkabout tickets.

On Friday, the practice session day, I met Jane for a Japanese curry rice lunch and slice of pie from Fruit Paradise, the expensive pie place I mentioned before. The food was okay, a tad on the oily side, and the pie was so-so, could have been a little sweeter but not fantastic lah.



In the evening I met Nicole to chaperon her first F1 experience. I gobbled 2 burgers in the space of an hour while we watched the first practice session from Turn 8.




Next we made our way to the Padang and caught bits of a concert by Ozomatli, a Latin band...they had catchy songs and I couldn't help bopping. But we had to tear ourselves away when Nick arrived in time for practice session 2.




After passing him his ticket, we parked ourselves at Anderson Bridge but noticed people on the rooftop of St Julien and discovered that for the small price of buying some drinks, we could have an aerial view of the session as the cars turn into Esplanade Drive, so we stayed there the rest of the evening. Went back to the Padang as the programme stated there was a Katy Perry concert, but she was a no-show.

We skipped Saturday's qualifying session so we could attend Nick's cousin Jason's wedding at Novotel Clarke Quay. Nat was terrified by the crowd for some reason, or one of his uncles spooked her and she kept wailing and refusing to enter the ballroom. It took some persuasion but eventually she settled down, after the couple had made their entrance.



Nat had two second-cousins there who are a couple of months older than her but so much bigger in terms of size. Naturally Mildred couldn't help comparing and questioning why her grand-daughter was so small.


On Sunday, I attended the wedding lunch of my ex-classmate Gabriel at Raffles Town Club. He was so sweet, he wrote a poem for his bride. Chatted with Rocky and Cindy who were at the same table. Don't know when someone will get down to organising a reunion!



In the evening, it was time to make our way to the Marina Bay street circuit. Nick wasn't keen on going so I gave his ticket to mummy instead. Met Nicole at Raffles Place and we plonked ourselves on the steps outside the Esplanade. We could see the cars clearly, but were far from the barrier and the road was wide. They went by so fast because it was the end of a long straight, thank goodness Lewis' yellow helmet is easy to spot.


After a while, we walked towards Raffles Avenue. Trampled on some plants to get to the barricade but got a close up of the cars as they accelerated after navigating Turn 14. Towards the last few laps, we just watched the big screen opposite the Esplanade Waterfront grandstand and cheered when Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line as winner.




Nick came to pick us up after the race and we cut across the Padang to get to our pick-up point. The Backstreet Boys were on the Padang stage and we caught a glimpse of them. Would have liked to stay but Nick was already waiting...can't wait for next year's festivities, though I think I might just watch from the comfort of home!