Happy Lunar Birthday

Yesterday was Shawn's Lunar birthday. In Chinese calendar it is 26Oct.

Before my mum left for KL, she went to the market and bought 2 angkukueh, 1 chicken drumstick and even prepared 2 red eggs. Of course the Angkukueh ended in YT's stomach while the chicken drumstick in mine. We did the choosing the "career" thingie.. Sounds silly but anyway, just for the fun of it. YT took his old gameboy, dinosaur calculator, ruler and chicken drumstick and placed in front of Shawn. Shawn took the calculator and drumstick and put next to him. He did not even touch the gameboy and ruler. Kept on playing with the calculator and even screamed at me for taking it away from him!

Auntie Sandra and Uncle Anthony came by during lunch and bought lots of food. He wasn't too warm towards them when they arrived. Shawn had his fill earlier on, sat on his highchair as what you could call a demure child while we busied ourselves with the food. Then he even spent 20minutes of so in his playyard alone in the room while we were all outside chatting! Never been that way before - I AM SO HAPPY! Hahahaa! When they wanted to leave, Shawn started crying. Weird huh? After awhile he was being himself again, chatting away. :P

What a way to spend a birthday evening

Yesterday when I picked him up from school, teacher Jolene was around. Teacher Pris passed him to teacher Jolene then to me. He screamed and cried. I was surprised by his reaction. Instead he wanted teacher Jolene to hold him for awhile more. So after a few minutes while the adults are chatting , he was in her arms, happily looking around. Then when he was passed back to me, no more screams/cries from him. Apparently teacher Jolene just popped by the centre later in the evening. He probably missed her. He is most attached to her among the teachers... hahaa

On my way back home from work, I called Dr Khor and updated her about Shawn's condition. Kidstarz told me that he did cough badly in the afternoon, very congested and phelgmy. Dr Khor suggested to go for an X-ray because Shawn has been coughing for a long while. She wanted to be sure that his lungs are clear. So I quickly settled his dinner rolled oats with beef and packed up his stuff . We left home at about 7pm and went to East Shore. Shawn was curiuosly looking around and chatty when we were consulted by the doctor there. Doctor said there is no wheezing. Even when the doctor forced his mouth open to check his throat, he was okay with it.

X-ray time. He had to lie down on the stretcher with me holding his arms close to his head/ears. He whimpered a little while the radiologist wrap his legs down with a cling wrapped thing so that he doesn't move. Less than 1 minute, it's all done. Brave boy. Then the nurse had to take urine for test. We had to wait for him to pee and that was like 20minutes wait. We went back to the doctor and good news, lungs are clear and urine is clear as well. The doctor made a disclaimer, he mentioned as what he is looking at right now, the lungs are clear BUT he is not an X-ray specialist. So today the X-ray specialist would interpret the X-ray and let us know if there is any issue. Duh... Anyway, the bill from East Shore cost us a bomb. The damage is mainly from the off-office hours consultation and X-ray fees.

We got home at about 9pm plus. Mum cooked dinner and I quickly wiped him down and bathed. While we are having our dinner, Shawn had half a piece of bread. He obviously looked tired. After dinner I nursed him to sleep but it was not easy. He was cranky. He finally slept at 10.45pm or so. I too, kong-ed out at 11pm. Then Shawn woke me up at 2plus, 5plus and finally 7plus this morning. I had to nurse him back to sleep during the 2 earlier wakings and now I am so dead tired today. He was sleeping through for the past week but last night he went back to square one. I reckon it is because of the evening schedule got messed up by us and he did not settle to sleep on his on??? We will see again tonight as I would put him back to the usual routine which we had in the past one week. I hope it works again.

Setting an email account?

Recently, one of my friends told me that she had the idea of setting up an email account for her daughter. Reason being there are certain things that can't be blogged and shared in public. Therefore she had wanted to send email to her daugther and would disclose the existence of the email account to her when her daughter turns 21. The next day, she told me that yahoo account date of birth does not support year of birth 2007. I laughed til I flipped. Anyway, I thought that was a sweet idea and was seriously thinking of doing that. :P

Dear Baby....

Having read a subscribed mail @ wk34 from http://www.whattoexpect.com/, I thought it would be nice to have this blogged/penned down, before I run out of memory regarding this 1st time pregnancy that I am going through. Where do I start though...

10Nov07

Dear baby Shawn,

We found out about you on 13Apr07. After which we confirmed with Dr Mary Yang on 16Apr07. That's where the whole journey started. Your 1st fetal kick was on on 15July07 wk15 and you got really friskier and your kicks grew really much stronger as days pass. Now I can see my stomach moves from one side to other. Sometimes you would stick some corner of your limb out that I have to push gently back. :) As for today, you seemed a little quiet today during the daytime. But you did have quite a fair bit of activity in me later after the sun has set. Quite unlike you as you had always been playing bongo during weekdays in me when I am at work even during the daytime, for months. Speaking of which you have 40days left in the womb before you make your 1st wail in this world.

So, why the name Shawn? Well, because your dearest mom likes the name Shawn and your dad did not object and thought it sounded good too. As for the Chinese name, after much research and readings dones by your grandma, she has suggested Yu Xuan as the Chinese name. We thought that sounded nice and meaningful. That would be your name :)

Coming back to this letter, there are some things that I want to let you know what was the 40wks like for me so far... It would be a good idea to blog this down and you could read this when you grow up :)

1. I had grown from a 54kg with visible waistline to 66.5kg (to date) without a visible waistline, with a big belly with stretch marks and an exceptionally huge butt
2. Once, i saw my toes swell up like little sausages and I could not feel my ankles. That was shocking...
3. Apart from having pelvic pain and pain round ligament area (which I learned my lesson what to do and what not to do!), I am thankful for not going through morning sickness which some mommies went through.
4. I have never drank so much water daily (up to 2.5l daily, I believe) and feel like a leaking tank every 45minutes as I needed to go to the loo more often as the weeks pass by.
5. I had skipped alcohol/coffee/tea for months since Mar07 (but I did a few ice lemon tea, less than 5cups so far. Oh, and I did have beer battered fish and chips just ONCE)
6. I had passed sashimi/sushi/medium rare steaks since Apr07 (except ONCE, fish roe on California maki - that was probably the rawest thing I have ever eaten)
7. I don't remember when was the last time I had sunny sideups and ham for breakies, or having Oreo for tea breaks. But I did eat one packet of Maggi mee, one packet of mee goreng and some Calbee potato chips so far... well, it's not that sinful :P
8. As for fast food, I had KFC and McDonalds for probably 3-4times each, and never had Burger King since I found out about you.
9. I had learned to drink milk every day and eat healthy multigrain bread (with slabs of peanut butter and blackberry jam)
10. I had this one week weird craving for roti prata around wk12 (Malaysia roti canai would have been heaven if I could find this in Singapore)
11. I missed Penang hawker food so much...
12. I stopped taking MRT/bus from work back to home since wk32
13. I never knew it could be so difficult to recover from flu and cough when the dosage of medication that I am given is as good as for babies
14. Aiko, our cocker spaniel whom you would meet when you get out to this world, has never had her bath at home since Mar07

When we 1st found out you are a boy, I started shopping. I had shopped so much that you'd have enough clothes to wear up to 12months. And piles of clothes started to pile in from your aunties too! We had bought a pretty crib/toddler bed, rocking bed, changing table/drawer from Ikea and PrePerego sturdy stroller for your use. We didn't stock up much toys as yet. That, your dad would take charge.

Every night we would tell you that dad & I pray everyday that you would be happy, healthy and handsome baby! Looking forward to see you come mid Dec, and to be with you.

Tonnes of Love & Kisses,

Mommie dearest