ALOHA!! its me on a friday night, just finished a work call that was postponed from 7.30am this morning till 10.30pm today and now my brain is buzzing as it has been the past 3 nights because work calls this late are usually urgent and stressful, this morning when my alarm rang at 7.00am i snoozed and in the 3 minute snooze i dreamt that i was late to the 7.30 call, the horror! anyway life has been pretty good i'm at 35w and 1d and little baby is moving quite alot (less so today .. wonder why, was it the tiramisu?) i really like my gynea dr.quek very relaxed liberal and when checking my belly and meimei he said baby has turned and is in a good position for delivery, i asked about whether the baby would still turn he said it wasn't likely given there wasn't much space in my stomach anymore but even if that happened he could flip her around. i asked whether that was a common practice and he said no because doctors have lost the skill, the ability to deliver breech, to turn the baby, to do any delivery that is slightly more abnormal / complex because what's the benefit of taking on more risk for 0 return? 

that's true for alot of things in life but i'm glad he still does the things he does, he goes for annual medical missions to the himalayas for cervical cancer screening, goes fishing on his off days, visits his daughter in europe and takes wonderful photos oh and he is also a potter who has SO many interests, even javier likes him because he has a nice collection of watches and it takes alot for javier to admit that he likes someone, PLUS he spends so much time with nat and loves kids so much, thanks for the rec hui! 

but anyway, 4 - 5 weeks of work left, my parents sent me to work today enroute to getting their free mooncakes from MBS, my dad was driving at 60 - 70km/h on the expressway which i guess you can sometimes do if you're chatting, but it reminds me of how he's aged. he used to be a really aggressive driver when he was younger, today he almost knocked into a very unfriendly lorry that refused to give way and kept trying to switch lanes at weird times. we also went for dinner with gugu which was nice but i think my goal for the next 5 years is to make sure i spend good quality time with them while they still can walk on their own. my mum retired this year and it is the BEST THING EVER, she loves taking the MRT and exploring weird malls like lentor modern, she really deserves it after working so hard for so long. i feel jealous sometimes but then .. ohwell someone has got to work to buy nat her bananas and expensive berries (i had NO berries growing up as a kid)

ok time to watch some TV and hope nat doesn't vomit tonight! 

gryvrybry @ 11:14 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 5

how sweet it is to be loved by you

greetings everyone! nat can go back to school after a bout of HFMD yay! she's been in the best spirits and it is so fun hanging out with her and listening to her piece things together and make sense of the world through sometimes random, sometimes sensical strings of words and expressions. its fun now because you can kind of reason with her though sometimes i'm the nonsensical one like tonight at bedtime she demanded for a story so i made up one about a dinosaur riding on a brachiosaurus' neck to look for her mother. also, since when was it brachiosaurus? didn't we learn brontosaurus from the land before time?? oh just googled that brachiosaurus were much bigger (almost 4 times heavier) ok now i need to google stygimoloch vs pachycephalosaurus (second one is a real mouthful so i much prefer the former), ok google says that most scientists think that stygimology was just a younger form of the pachycephalaosaurus. also when asking natalie what kind of dinosaur she was 'natasuarus' vs 'natadon' she liked natadon alot more. 

heidy left about 3 weeks ago, things are slowly getting back to normal with less protests from nat around her showers, its interesting how resilient children are last week when i was in manila i felt so sad that heidy had left us but last week nat walked past a photo of heidy carrying her and said 'auntie heidy carry me' then walked on to her kitchen to 'cook', i really wonder how children think its so cute and funny and oh how i love having a baby of my own! ok bed time soon, javier is not well so i need baby both of them, javier obviously being the bigger baby. haha! 

gryvrybry @ 10:56 PM 0 comments

Saturday, July 18

its a good excuse / put our love to use / baby i know what to do / baby i will love you i will love you i will love you 

its been a busy july went to India and then to bangkok next week before philippines at the end of the month, doing the awful national day in lieu holiday desk before going for one last hurray of a holiday in perth then i'll have to hunker down as i'll be too fat to fly till little baby nono is out. heidy is leaving tomorrow which makes me very sad because i will miss her but i think nat will miss her more i remember always being sad when a helper left because usually nick will get the helper that stays and i'll get the new one and usually as a kid i didn't like the new helper because they did everything not the same-ly but christine has been great! i'm always abit conflicted about how much to give heidy or the helpers i kept asking heidy what she wants to eat before she left and she just kept saying anything not sure if its really anything or because they're not used to having much of a voice or choice. sometimes i think if that's what auntie sui felt all her life because she always told me 'anything' until i rattled off a list of options her face will light up when i hit the correct one like 'char kway teow'. but sometimes with javier i get it i usually don't have much of a preference so i'd rather he decide on something he likes so at least one of us will be fully satisfied vs me making a lousy choice and us both being grumpy. haha 

natalie has been the cutest little smellybutt but i'm also writing and thinking of baby #2 more now, your kicks are strong, your home in my belly is bigger thanks to nat stretching it out, you're usually equally active at night and in the day and natalie loves lying on my belly shouting your name. you're coming into a slightly less quiet house because nat is SO LOUD but you'll have so much fun together from the ultrasounds you look abit more like me than your dad and they say that all babies are different so i'm looking forward to how different you will be and how i know i will love you to itsy bitsy smithereens already! 

 

gryvrybry @ 11:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, July 9

i just adore-dore-dore you everyday more 

wherever we are so up in the sky

& deep in the ocean through valleys and hills

away we go 

NATALIE worm is TWO!! i just got back from a 3N 2D work trip to india

and slept a grand total of 3h40m (>80% of the flight!) back but just did my performance review

put nat to bed by singing her a made up song with the lyrics .. 

you are strong and kind, and you'll aways be mine my natalie worm 

being Nat's mum has been such a joy, my favorite thing to do is to look at photos of her

and listen to silly things she says i guess terrible twos are a thing but she's also now able to 

reason and when i say something that just clicks in her head its nice to see her comprehending 

and then perhaps not throwing that potato she was about to throw at me haha

now that meimei is otw i've been looking at financial planning and gemini has been a gem!

i used to not think anything of term life insurance because what are the odds of me dying but

now with things becoming so expensive .. and having dependants? WHAT?? 

anyway i better go buy my dishwashing liquid on shopee then go to bed after drying my hair

bring bring bring the bicycle! 

gryvrybry @ 9:45 PM 0 comments

Friday, May 15

i love my mummy yes i do 

here's a kiss and a hug for you

thank you mummy for all you do

being nat's mum has been such fun, i can't believe this little human is mine

she's getting so chatty its really fun to see her linking sentences together uhh ..

spider in shower .. so high in .. springleaf momo eat! what's also nice is old friends

like collgy in the photo above (WE MADE IT?) so i guess we'll be friends for life

i'm packing to go to canada for 15 nights very excited because it will be the first time

nat is in such a long flight, hopefully she sleeps if not its ok javier and i will take turns 

only thing there is no bassinet or should i just put her in anyway, HM 

either way, work has been very stressful and my tummy has suddenly gotten very big

WHAT IS HAPPENING? 

 

gryvrybry @ 6:04 PM 0 comments

Saturday, March 21

we're safe and in one piece back form Japan! 10 days with nat has been super fun but also very tiring but i wouldn't have it any other way! 

recovering from a flu and cough that she passed to all of us but i'm glad to be home one week ago we had a 2h drive from club med to chitose airport followed by a delayed flight and a grumpy sweaty nat before we arrived in tokyo where she REFUSED to sit down and have dinner but instead wanted to hang out by the poster of a closed egg waffle store, wonder what goes on in that little head of hers hahahah! 

there has been alot of talk about encouraging singaporeans to have kids i personally wrote in on the motherhood tax relief which is a BIG reduction compared to what working mums used to get the government replied to say that blabla they want to make things fairer i.e. mums that earn more should pay more and they will give one off incentives like a 10k baby bonus but i guess one off incentives like cdc vouchers is nothing compared to a perpetual rebate which is what the government is afraid of (i.e. moving from unlimited pensions to defined CPF) but i'm not sure what will help i would personally love to have more kids but things are getting pretty stressful and costly even at the pre-school stage, maybe if they forced ALL singaporeans to send their kids to local pre-schools then things would get better? 

i think what they did with the GEP program was a step in the right direction in leveling the playing field between super kiasu resource rich parents and regular families, they even published that teachers teaching these higher level GEP-like programs WOULD NOT be part of the regular teaching staff of the schools fully anticipating what kiasu singaporean parents would do. nonetheless there will be loopholes which reminds me i need to find a berries for nat. BRB! 

gryvrybry @ 3:28 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 17

the wheels on the bus go round and round round and round round and round ok stayed up abit later than expected printing photos making my printer that i bought worth while time to go to sleep nat has been SUCH A JOY what was i doing before i had her? probably sleeping through the night and drinking wine but still WHAT A JOY! 

gryvrybry @ 11:42 PM 0 comments

Saturday, January 17

& the green grass grows all around all around

& the green grass grows all around 

 

ALOHAMORA and a very happy Saturday! this was my second full week at work and also my birthday i am THIRTY SEVEN WHAT?? its been a lovely week i also wanted to document what i learnt during my MTA last year - to slow down and do things in the now vs waiting and preparing for what's next. I remember victor once asking me 'how do you do it buddy' and i told him well i just plan everything in advance and make it happen, increasingly planning nothing is quite fun too because it is always SO FUN to hang out with nat whether we're in a fancy theme park or just lying sploot on her playmat. 

also the other day i was hungry but it was 8.05am in the CBD and none of my pals are in that early and i really missed my ma, i used to buy an assortment of buns and drinks for her and her office but now i have no more reason to visit because she is not there. on the bright side having my mum retired means we can easily activate grandma pick up i.e. when nat had a massive watery poop on wednesday and had to be sent home haha

i have a few trips this year, going to delhi next week for a day but india always means its two red eye flights zzzz, then to bangalore in early feb followed by bangkok from 9 - 10, back to singapore on the 11 then to bangkok again for jon and aom's engagement then to hong kong at the end of february. 2026 let's gogogo! 

gryvrybry @ 3:05 PM 0 comments