Sunday, August 27, 2006

30 weeks

How your baby's growing: Your baby's a bit more than 15 1/2 inches long
now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds. A pint and a half of amniotic fluid
surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and fills out
your uterus. Her eyes open and close, she's able to distinguish between light
and dark, and she can even follow a light source back and forth. Once she's
born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open
them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have a visual acuity of only
20/400 — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face.
("Normal" vision in adults is 20/20.)


I can feel baby move a lot during the course of the day (and sometimes in the night too). However, whenever anyone else tries to feel for her movements, she keeps still (what a tease she's turning out to be).

Hubby and I are getting more excited as the pregnancy is near it's final lap. I however, am feeling less agile and I get tired easier too. I now have

  • Swollen nose
  • Swollen feet
  • Stretch marks (arrgh!!)
  • Back aches
  • Pelvic joint aches (especially when I walk)

My visit to the Ob-Gyn will now be once every 2 weeks. We just went for one yesterday and this is what we saw...

Friday, August 18, 2006

When it rains, it pours!

When we thought the whole car fiasco was over.....

our ole faithful (highly doubting that term now actually) decides to present us with a 'clutch' issue. We've to send it in to the workshop again on Saturday.


I think our car has fallen in love with the mechanic

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Double Trouble

1p.m.

It all started during lunch. Hubby and I met up for lunch as usual and we went to the usual area. I had an appointment lined up at about 2p.m. with my CEO and so we hurried through lunch so that I can get back in time.

It was a REALLY HOT afternoon, and the prospect of getting back into the aircond environment of the car was inviting. Quickly hubby flicked the key into ignition...


Kkkkrnnnkk! ..... said the car..... and the alarm went off.

Oh no... Hubby tried again...

KKKRRRRnnnkk! .... exclaimed the car again... and again the alarm went off.

These were somewhat indicative that the battery was exhausted. Thankfully there were a few car spare parts shop and a mechanic shop around. So we decided to just get a battery. 20 minutes later, a young chap helped us install the new battery.

Time check, 1.50p.m... Hurrah... I can make it back to office in time.

Hubby tried to start the engine again....

KKKRRRRNnkkkkkk .... EEEEEEEeeeee! complained the car!

What? How could it do this to us now!?!

The young mechanic chap checked and it was our air cond bearing that was jammed. The workaround for us to get out of the predicament would be to remove the belt, so that the car can start, but we won't have the aircond.

Time check, 2p.m... OK! We'll take that workaround.

Made it back to office by 2.15p.m. .... CEO was occupied and so I wasn't late after all.

8p.m.


We decided to drop by our neighbourhood mechanic on the way back to check out the damage on the aircond (a very very nice chap indeed). He initially forewarned hubby that the aircond would give way in the near future.... and true enough it did. He asked us to leave the car for a day tomorrow and he'll get it done.

The plan was to get my Father In Law's car, and use it for the next day while our car was in the workshop. So we went to my in law's for dinner, and I drove my FIL's car back.

Upon reaching the workshop, I heard a hissing noise. A quick glance at the temperature gauge.... 'H' . Oh this was SO NOT GOOD!

I told hubby and he told the mechanic, and they checked under the hood. The fan was not working! Oh well, they had a good laugh (at the coincidence) and thought, no biggie, we'll just change the fan and that's that.

1 hour later, fan fixed, let's check it out....... hang on! What's that? Water dripping from one of the hose. Check check....

Water pump leaking.... this car will not be going anywhere tonight!

Lesser of two evils

So it ended up, leaving my FIL's car for repair, we drove off with our aircondless car. We'll do the swap the next day when my FIL's car is repaired.

What a day!

Sunday, August 13, 2006

28 weeks

How your baby's growing: By this week, your baby weighs a little over 2 pounds
and measures about 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can
open her eyes — which now sport lashes — and she'll turn her head toward a
continuous, bright light from the outside. Her fat layers are beginning to form,
too, as she gets ready for life outside the womb.



As we're reaching the homestretch of the pregnancy, we're beginning to gear up on the preparation. Thus far we've gotten:

  1. A beginner feeding bottle set
  2. 1 set of clothings for baby ( to bring her home in.... Hubby decided to go gender neutral colors -- even though doc has shown us again that he's pretty sure that it's a girl. So we bought a FULL set in yellow with duck motif :P )
  3. Sanitary stuff for me to be packed into my labour bag.
  4. Bedding for baby's cot... (Yes, I got Winnie the Pooh!!)
  5. Some toys for baby ... (hehehe.. we just couldn't resist it)

There'll be other stuff to get but we're trying to pace ourselves.

In the mean time, baby has been actively kicking and moving. Sometimes I feel she's using my bladder as a punching bag, making me visit the WC more often.

We're feeling excited... anxious... oh the plethora of emotions .... but yet... we still have yet to think of a name :P

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Huff and Puff

We've always walked by the Beard Papa stall at Mid Valley without giving it a second look. I fell out with blogging and blogs for quite some time and I didn't know anything about the craze it caused.

It was until one fine day when my sister mentioned that the cream puffs there were absolutely YUMZ and I bought half a dozen to try. It was love at first bite! Hubby loved them too...

Then Hubby started looking at the puffs and said "Darling, this looks simple. Why don't you try to make some yourself?"

*shock*

*silence*

Me? Make that? After you've tasted one of the world's best cream puff?

*more silence*

"OK, I'll try" I replied... Oh I was so going to regret this....

Anyhow, I scoured the net to look for a recipe for the choux puff and the cream. Unfortunately I was tied up with work and had to fly off to the land of constant haze (aka Jakarta) for work. I finally managed to gather up the mood and inspiration to take on the challenge 2 weeks after (which was a good thing coz I think by then, the absolutely delish taste of Beard Papa's puffs would have been somewhat vague)

One fine Saturday, I decided to spend some time in my much neglected kitchen. I jot down the ingredients I needed and popped over to the nearby hypermarket to get them (Hubby was fast asleep coz he too just came back from a business trip).

The choux puff recipe was fairly easy to follow. After scooping out the batter onto the trays and popping those babies into the oven, I started on the filling. Instead of custard cream, I cheated and made whipped cream with vanilla essence instead. The whipped cream was then placed into the fridge as I patiently waited for the puffs to be done.

After cooling the puffs, I made a make shift piping bag, and piped in the whipped cream. The puffs I made were bite size and looked really cute.

Now.... the moment of truth....

I took a plate of those cute cream puffs to hubby...... he looked at them and said "Aiks, why so small one?"

*dup dup dup.... went my heart....*

He took one and popped it into his mouth....

"Well?" I asked "Very nice", answered a very smart husband who knows how to praise the cook if he wants to have more home cooked meals :P

Was it really nice? .... here .... judge for yourself... help yourself to some cream puffs and tea..